MEMOIR OP RAY. 
21 
the nature and beneficial tendency of his early dis- 
courses, we are enabled to judge from some ex- 
amples that have been preserved, and especially 
from his valuable Treatise on the Wisdom of God 
in Creation, and Physico-theological Discourses 
concerning the Chaos, Deluge, and Dissolution of 
the World, which in their original form were theo- 
logical exercises, or common-places, as they were 
termed, delivered in the college. 
The turbulent and unsettled state of the country 
previous to the restoration, caused Mr Ray to defer 
his design of taking orders, but the tranquillity re- 
sulting from that event seemed to hold out the pro- 
mise of better times. He was ordained both deacon 
and priest, by Dr Sanderson, bishop of Lincoln, in 
the Barbican Chapel, London, on the 23d Decem- 
ber, 1660. He continued to be a fellow of Trinity 
College till the passing of the famous Bartholomew 
Act in 1662, for enforcing uniformity, by which so 
many conscientious divines were deprived of their 
livings. Had this enactment merely required an 
attestation against the Solemn League and Cove- 
nant, there is no reason to suppose that Ray would 
have refused to comply; for he by no means ap- 
proved of that oath, and on every occasion showed 
the warmest attachment to the doctrines and dis- 
cipline of the Church of England. But a declara- 
tion was likewise required, that those who had taken 
the oath did not lie under obligation to keep it, a 
requisition which was so repugnant to Ray’s prin- 
