174 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SHARP. 



This letter produced another from the so- 

 ciety, dated February 2d 1697-8, wherein they 

 excuse themselves for not informing him before 

 of their rules, &c., and send him a copy of all 

 their orders and votes, &c., which immediately 

 drew a second letter from him to Mr. Caryl, in 

 the words following. 



** Good Sir, 



"On Friday last I received a letter from the 

 gentlemen of your society, with a copy of their 

 rules and orders. I desire you to return my 

 thanks to them for the civility and respect they 

 are pleased to express to me in their letter, and 

 to assure them that I would be glad to serve all 

 of them, and every one of them in particular, (if 

 I knew them,) in any way that I can. 



*' I have read over their orders, and that I 

 might be the better able to make a judgment of 

 them, I have compared them with the orders of 

 the London societies as they were given by Mr. 

 Woodward, (whose book I had not seen when I 

 wrote my last letter,) and likewise with the 

 orders framed by Doctor Horneck, and agreed to 

 by the first societies of this kind in London, and 

 by which they have in a great measure ever 

 since been ofoverned. 



" Upon this comparison I cannot but observe a 

 great difference between the societies in London 



