During the contest an unlucky occurrence hurt his cause exceedingly. One of our adversaries having heard him preach a sermon that was much admired, thought he had somewhere read the sermon before, or at least a part of it. On search he found that part quoted at length, in one of the British Reviews, from a discourse of Dr. Foster' s.This detection gave many of our party disgust, who accordingly abandoned his cause, and occasion' d our more speedy discomfiture in the synod. I stuck by him, however, as I rather approv' d his giving us good sermons compos' d by others, than bad ones of his own manufacture, tho' the latter was the practice of our common teachers. He afterward acknowledg' d to me that none of those he preach' d were his own; adding, that his memory was such as enabled him to retain and repeat any sermon after one reading only. On our defeat, he left us in search elsewhere of better fortune, and I quitted the congregation, never joining it after, tho' I continu' d many years my subscription for the support of its ministers.