was removed from the Bishoprick of Bangor to that of Hereford; and from Hereford to Salisbury; and from Salisbury to Winchester. He alfo, with others of his Brethren, raises an Eftate out of the Revenues of the Church, for his own Family; and with the rest of his Brethren, leaves his Diocese almost every Year, to approve himself a political Bishop in the House of Lords; all in direct Contradiction to the Laws of Christianity. To fay nothing of his fecond Marriage when he was old, to a young. Woman, and his Exercife of his epifcopal Function after fuch a fecond Marriage, in a like Contradiction to the Laws of Christianity. All which notorious Practices, together with the Publication of a moft injudicious and unlearned Treatife about the Lord's Supper; befides his many political Writings, quite unbecoming a Chriftian Bishop, feems" to me fully to have made out my original Prediction, that he has taken most effectual Care to keep Primitive Christianity out of thefe Kingdoms.

N. B. It may not be wholly improper, upon this Occafion, to fay fomewhat of Bishop Hoadley's grand Antagonist, Dr. Snape; who once dined with me at Archbishop Sharp's, with feveral others of the Clergy, about the Time that I was first entring on my Enquiries about Athanafianism; and the Difcourse falling on the Boldness of my Attempt, Dr. Snape, as I was going away, faid to me very seriously," Mr. Whifton, you are going upon a great "Defign, I pray God direct you in what you are going about."

66

Which is not very unlike to

what Dr. Gooch, now Bifhop of Ely, wrote to

me upon his Perufal of fome of my Papers in MS. at Cambridge.

I Heartily thank

pers. I wish that every Man who means honeftly, and acts fairly, may meet with, however he fails to give Satisfaction.

Your bumble Servant,

T. GOOCH.

As for Bishop Hoadley's Brother, Dr. John Hoadley, first Bishop of Fern, then Archbishop of Dub lin, and laftly of Armagh; what I fay of him in my Life of Dr. Clarke, Page 29, 30. is this; I cannot fay the fame of him that I do of his Brother, [viz. That he was for receiving the Conftitutions, as much better than what was already in the Church,] but this I say, that he then and ever fince has fhewn a great Averfion to their Admiffion; and indeed to the Admiffion of any old proper Christian Rules of Difcipline at all: And he has always esteemed me as one defirous of bringing Perfecution into the Church, by my Endeavours for the Restoration of that Difcipline: And no great Wonder, for I have long perceived that he and not a few others of his Stamp, and Degree of Ignorance and Folly, are not indeed quite unwilling to admit the New Teftament, if it will bear an Inter

pretation

Ac

pretation fitted to their loofe Way of thinking and acting; but if otherwife, they are ready to fay, We will not have this Man to reign over us. Cordingly, when Mr. Arthur Onflow once acknowledged to me, that he had a Hand in recommending him to an Irish Bishoprick, I told him, with the utmost Warmth and Freedom, "That I should "come in a Witness against him at the Great 66 Day, for his Recommendation of fo unfit and "unworthy a Perfon." And to make one fo grofsly ignorant, Archbishop of Armagh, the Seat of the most learned, perhaps, of all the Archbishops that ever were, I mean Primate Usher, was still more abfurd and intolerable.

N. B. How little Occafion there is for writing or reading modern Books of Controversy in Divinity, in order to a Man's Satisfaction, every one may easily perceive, if he will but believe what I affure him to be Fact, that above two Years ago, befides my former Perufals, I did myself read over all the Christian Writers of the two firft Centuries, in their original Languages, abating the known Books of the New Testament, twice in the Space of five Months; and made not a few Obfervations upon them, which I have now by me. I also can affure him, upon thofe, and my former Perufals, there is hardly any Difference of Opinion in all thofe Writers of two Centuries. How eafy therefore is it to know, and to practice, true Primitive Chritianity; had Men but a fincere Defire to know and to practice it: Otherwife, Non perfuade bis etiamfi perfua

N

feris. But as to the Multitude of Books now in the World, I have long thought, that if ninety-nine out of a hundred of them were burnt, and destroyed, true found Learning, and true found Religion would be in far better State than they at prefent are. And now I have had Occafion to mention my great Friend, Mr. Waffe, one more learned than any Bifhop in England fince Bishop Lloyd; and of whom Dr. Bentley's Saying is well known, that "When "he fhould be himself dead, he would be the most "learned Man in England." I must be allow'd to enlarge upon his Concern in my Affairs, Studies, and Writings. Now it happened, that when I was first noted for an Heretick, about 1708, Mr. Waffe was put up to preach at an Archidiaconal Vifitation; where he preached fo heartily against me, or rather againk my Doctrine, that the Clergy came to defire him to print his Sermon: But this he refused to do; becaufe, as he truly alleg'd, he had not examined the Matter throughly enough for fuch Publication. About the fame Time, and while I was very bufy in difcovering that the larger Epiftles of St. Ignatius were his genuine Epiftles, but not the fmaller; which at that Time Mr. Waffe embraced; he happened to go a Courfe of Experiments, under Mr. Cotes and myself at Cambridge: When he all along ftrenuoufly, and like a Critick, endeavoured to fupport the smaller Epistles against me: Nor did he change his Mind in that Matter, 'till the Evidence produced before our Society for promoting Primitive Chriftianity, fome Years afterward, or A. D. 1717, was laid before him at Ain

boe

hoe; when he intirely gave up the smaller, and admitted the larger Epiftles as genuine. Nor did the fame Mr. Waffe fully let go his Hold of Athanafianism, as he told me himself, 'till he faw my Demonstration, that Tertullian's Sort of Athanafian Explication of the Trinity, in his Book against Proxeas, was acknowledged by himself to have been taken, not from any Apoftolical Tradition, but from the Montanist Enthufiafm: Which at the fame Time fatisfied Sir Peter King alfo. Nay indeed, Mr. Waffe was foon fo far fatisfied in the Truth of the Eufebian Doctrine, that when Dr. Lupton and I had long ago a Difpute at Ainboe, the Doctor looked on Mr. Waffe as almoft as great an Heretick as myself. Nay, he was at laft fo throughly fatiffied, that he not only had a great while omitted the Athanafian Creed himself, and endeavoured to perfuade his neighbouring Clergy to omit it alfo; but, in my hearing, he publickly omitted in his Church at Ainboe, both the third and fourth Petitions of the Litany; that to the Holy Ghoft, and that to the Trinity, as knowing them to be intirely unjuftifiable, and unexampled in Primitive Chriftianity; as I had done the very fame at Cambridge at firft, to the great Surprize and Disorder of the whole Univerfity. He also, after he was thus fully fatisfied himfelf, offered, as he told me, to have debated those Matters with the late Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Potter, then Regius Profeffor of Divinity at Oxford, and the other learned Men there; but they refufed. Yet how any learned Chriftians can go on in the Athanafian Doctrines and Practices, with a good