1660, the further dignity of Archdeacon of S. Albans, and Treasurer of the Chapter of S. Paul's. In the following year, he took the degree of Doctor in Divinity; in April, 1662, became a Prebendary of S. Paul's; and in August of the same year, succeeded Dr. Laney, who had been advanced to the See of Peterborough, as Master of Pembroke Hall in Cambridge. He was, at the same time, Chaplain to Archbishop Sheldon; and in February, 1663, he was inducted to the Rectory of Barley, in Hertfordshire. Dr. Frank died in 1664, and was buried near the north door of the old Cathedral of S. Paul's. The inscription, though defaced by the great fire of the following year, and since entirely obliterated, has been preserved in the records of his College, and is as follows: a ΤΟ THE MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD, GILBERT, LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, HIS GRACE, PRIMATE OF ALL ENGLAND, AND METROPOLITAN, ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL, &c. MAY IT PLEASE YOUR GRACE, THOUGH by that infinite distance I am in to your Grace, I ought to make all the apologies in the world for this attempt; yet when I reflect upon your own admired candour in receiving the most inferior addresses, and my own duty in making this, I need not, I hope, use a compliment to excuse that, which I neither could nor ought not but to have done. For the Author of these Sermons had that relation to your Grace, and yourself that favour for him, that no other name is so fit or so worthy to prefix to any thing of his as your Grace's. And besides, I may very reasonably suppose, that there may be something in the following papers, that may not be unfit to be offered to such a personage. I humbly therefore pray, that either the one or the other, may excuse the forwardness of this dedication. As to my own very great obligations to your Grace, I will not be so conceited as to mention them; for when I have told so public, I need not add any private reasons; and besides, it may be looked upon by the world, as a design to gain a reputation to myself, by talking of favours from a person of such eminence. Yet I beg that I may have leave to say, that I reckon it my greatest honour, in having the advantage of presenting this offering, which ought to be made to your Grace, by Your Grace's Meanest and most Dutiful Servant, THOMAS POMFRET. TO THE READER. THOUGH I do not call, I suppose thee judicious, and shall therefore give to thee, and to myself, the ease of saying little. For I am sensible enough, that the Author of these following Sermons will be, to all that read them, so much his own advocate, that they will not want any orator in the preface. And to those that read them not, he said nothing, nor shall I. Passing then by, on purpose, those artifices of procuring a fair reception to the book, by the ordinary pageantry of commendations, I think it will be enough to assure thee, that as the Author left the copies fairly writ by his own hand, so they come as truly his to thine. For this reverend person doing me the honour of leaving me his executor, by that I had the possession and care of all his papers; and amongst them, these I found to be so worthy of the public, that I concluded it a trespass against the common interest to keep them in my own hands. But that too which made me the more confident of their value, was the earnestness of many, and to that the approbation of as great a person as the Church has any, for their impression. And accordingly I did forthwith, upon the Doctor's death, commit the copies to a stationer, who very disingenuously for some years delayed, and at last utterly refused (for what ends I know not) the printing them.. But retrieving them |