made a bishop, (for he was a much better man before,) abundantly verified my prediction. In the first place, he took the bishoprick of Bangor, and the 800l. a year, which was intended to maintain a refident bishop in that diocese, and this for fix intire years together, without ever seeing that diocefe in his life, to the great fcandal of religion. He then became a great writer of controverfy, one of the most pernicious things to true Christianity in the world, as well as difagreeable to the peaceable temper of a good Chriftian. And, indeed, this Bangorian Controverfy feemed, for a great while, to engross the attention of the publick: altho' when a great friend of mine, of ability, and at other time of inclination, to employ his time better, had once acknowledged to the very learned Mr. Waffe, who was his friend alfo, that he was reading the Bangorian Controversy, he was juftly called no other than a reptile for his pains. After this, bishop Hoadley 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, raifes an eftate out of the revenues of the church, for his own family; and with the rest of his brethren, 'till lately, left 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 such a second 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 moft effectual care.

to keep primitive Chriftianity out of these 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 firft entring on my enquiries about Athanafianifm; and the difcourfe 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." Which is not very unlike to what Dr. Gooch, now bishop of Ely, wrote to me upon his perusal of fome of my papers in MS. at Cambridge.

..

I

SIR,

Heartily thank you for the perufal of your papers. I wish that every man who means honeftly, and acts fairly, may meet with, however he fails to give, fatisfaction.

Your bumble Servant,

T. GOOCH.

As for bishop Hoadley's brother, Dr. John Hoadley, firft bishop of Fern, then archbishop of Dublin, 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 fay, that he then and ever fince has fhewn a great averfion to their admiffion; and indeed to the admiffion of any old proper Chriftian rules of difcipline at all: and he has

always

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 ftamp, and degree of ignorance and folly, are not indeed quite unwilling to admit the New Testament, if it will bear an interpretation 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. Accordingly, 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 witnefs aganft him at the great day, "for his recommendation of fo unfit and unwor

thy a perfon." And to make one fo grossly ignorant, archbishop of Armagh, the feat of the moft learned, perhaps, of all the archbishops that ever were, I mean primate Usher, was ftill more abfurd and intolerable.

N. B. How little occafion there is for writing or reading modern books of controverfy in divinity, in order to a man's fatisfaction, every one may eafily 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 first 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 those, 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 Christianity; had men but a fincere defire to know and to pracO 2 tice

tice it otherwife, Non perfuadebis etiamfi perfuaferis. 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 deftroyed, true found learning, and true found religion would be in far better ftate than they at prefent are. And now I have had occafion to mention my great friend, Mr. Waffe, one more learned than any bishop in England fince bishop Lloyd; and of whom Dr. Bentley's faying 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, ftudies, and writings. Now it happened, that when I was first noted for an Heretick, about 1708, Mr. Wasse was put up to preach at an archidiaconal vifitation, where he preached fo heartily against me, or rather against my doctrine, that the clergy came to defire him to print his fermon: but this he refufed to do; because, as he truly alledg'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 smaller; which, at that time, Mr. Waffe embraced; he happened to go through a course of experiments, under Mr. Cotes and myfelf at Cambridge: When he all along ftrenuously, and like a critick, endeavoured to fupport the fmaller epiftles against me: Nor did he change his mind in that matter, 'till the evidence produced before our Society for promoting Primitive Christianity, fome years afterward, or A. D. 1717, was laid before him at Ainboe; when he intirely gave up the fmaller, and admitted the larger epiftles as genuine. Nor did the fame Mr. Wale fully let go his hold of Athanafianifm, as he told me himself, 'till he faw my demonstration, that Tertullian's fort of Athanafian

explication of the Trinity, in his book againft Proxeas, was acknowledged by himfelf to have been taken, not from any apoftolical tradition, but from the montanist Enthusiasm: which, at the same 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 almost 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 Gheft, and that to the Trinity, as knowing them to be intirely unjuftifiable, and unexampled in primitive Christianity; as I had done the very fame at Cambridge at firft, to the great furprize and diforder 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 refused. Yet how any learned chriftians can go on in the Athanafian doctrines and practices, with a good confcience, while they have now, for above thirty-eight years together, refused all offers for examination, either of the Eufebian doctrines, or of the genuineness of St. Ignatius's larger epiftles, or of the apoftolical conftitutions themfelves; whence thofe epiftles are, in great part, taken; to which they have been fo honeftly and frequently invited, I cannot poffibly understand.

After thefe perfons of great note, I fhall fay fomewhat of another fincere friend of mine, tho' not fo well known in the world; at whofe house