at Yelvertoft, Northamptonshire, I wrote my Addrefs to the Princes and States of Europe; to be hereafter mentioned: I mean my old chamber-fellow at Clare-ball, Mr. John Lawrence, who first brought me acquainted with his good father, with whom I lived very agreeably for a month together, at Mr. Brown's beadhoufe in Stamford, Lincolnshire; where I got acquainted with that great mathematician Mr. Gilbert, clerk; and gained fome light from him in the firft elements of aftronomy, at the end of the year 1687, and the beginning of 1688; and where I became acquainted also with that truly great and good man, Dr. Cumberland, afterward bishop of Peterborough. This Mr. Lawrence foon became very inquifitive about Dr. Clarke's and my discoveries as to the primitive faith, and to my discoveries about the apoftolical conftitutions. And, befides thofe extracts of his letters which have been by me produced upon other occafions, he it was who wrote to Dr. Clarke that objurgatory, but friendly letter, about his feeming to have recanted, upon the violence of the convocation against him. And he it was who published that letter and the papers of Dr. Clarke in an Apology for him, and with his own approbation.

And now I have spoken fo much of bishop and archbishop Hoadly, of Mr. Waffe, and Mr. Lawrence, I muft fay fomewhat of bishop Gibson; one of quite another character than the fore-mentioned bifhop and archbishop: one that I think married but once; and changed his diocefe but once, viz. from Lincoln to London; one who has written. feveral devotional and practical manuals, with good reputation: one who performed divine offices in a fober, and grave, and folemn way, becoming a chriftian bishop: one of fuch great generofity, that he freely gave the 2500l. left him by Dr. Crow, once his chaplain, to Dr. Crow's own relations:

and

and one, who, in the reign of king George I. preached against that grofs court-foolery of Mafquerades, and procured an address to the king from leveral of his brethren the bifhops, to put them down; tho' without effect: which, in my opinion, was an action both very bold, and very meritorious. This bishop has also published feveral fober paftoral letters to his diocefe, against infidelity. Yet all this is done in fuch a way of grofs ignorance of primitive chriftianity, as if he had never heard of any other standard but modern popish canons, and parliamentary laws, and political injunctions of princes; like the infamous doctrine of Mr. Hobbes of Mamelsbury. 'Tis now about 20 years ago that I wrote to this bishop of London, to call the prefbyters, deacons, and principal of the laity of his diocefs together, in way of primitive christian difcipline; and to fummon withal before them Mr. Henley the orator; whofe vile hiftory I knew fo well, that I offered to come and tell it to the church, according to our Saviour's rule, Matt. xviii. 17. in order to his vindication of himfelf, or conviction, and exclufion from the christian society; provided all were done without any temporal penalties whatfoever: of which true ecclefiaftical difcipline knows nothing. The anfwer returned me from the bishop, by Dr. Nathaniel Marfbal, was this, "that fince no canon [now in force] enabled him fo to proceed, he could do no

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thing." Since which time Mr. Henley has gone on, for above twenty years more, and ftill goes on without controul every week, as an ecclefiaftical mountebank, to abuse religion; to the publick fcandal of this church and nation. Nay, when that excellent chriftian and confeffor, Mr. Thomas Emlyn, was moft unjustly and irregularly refufed the communion at Islington, by one of the weakest and foolisheft of our modern enthufiafts, Mr. Stoneboufe

O 4

Stoneboufe, then rector of that place; and Mr. Emlyn had written a fober christian letter to the bishop of London, to defire his interpofition for his re-admiffion to that holy ordinance, which Mr. Stonehoufe ufed not till then to fcruple giving him; he returned fuch an answer, which I have seen, as refer'd the juftnefs of his refufal to fome civilians or canonifts only; without any thing in it like a christian bishop. I have faid not unfrequently, that this bishop seemed to think the church of England, as it just then happend to be, established by modern laws and canons, came down from heaven, with the athanafian creed in its hand. Accordingly I believe my late lord of London, with his brother and friend bishop Smallbroke, took the moft effectual care of all other bishops, that the Eufebians or primitive christians should be publickly cursed thirteen times every year, in their two dioceses; by the reading the monstrous Athanafian creed by their clergy. Whether they can believe it or not; I call it a monstrous Creed, in the words of the very learned Dr. Kufter, who to me, many years ago called the doctrine therein contain'd, monftrum Trinitatis. He faid alfo, in my hearing, upon his perufal of the third volume of my Primitive Christianity Reviv'd, what fhall we fay to Mr. Whiston about the conftitutions? what fhall we fay to him? as being utterly at a lofs how to anfwer the evidence I had there produced for them. However, there was a time, before queen Caroline died, when this bishop of London feemed not fo obftinate in these matters. I once waited upon him, it was probably about the year 1735, and probably for his fubfcription to my Jofephus: he treated me very kindly; and I afked him, fince he was a great canonift, whether the canons of the apoftles [at leaft the first fifty] were not part of our own canon law in England at this day? and if fo, why

they

they did not ftand at the beginning of his codex; as they ufually do even in the popifh collections themselves; his anfwer was, that he thought they were abrogated by the 25th of Henry VIII. An anfwer to me fufficiently ftrange and furprizing; who not only acknowledged no power in any parliament to abrogate our Saviour's own laws, by his apoftles; but afterward found, upon farther enquiry, that these canons were not yet abrogated by that or any other law in this nation; but continue to be still part of its ecclefiaftical lawś: but only fo very good ones, as in our wicked, filly, Selfish Age, as Dr. Newton juftly ftiles it, against pluralities, Preface, page 18, are' every where given up for impracticable. However, when I farther infifted with his lordship for the examination of the intire apoftolical conftitutions, and complained that the labours and studies, and books of our divines at prefent, were fo remote from the primitive ages, that till they laid all the moderns afide for a good while, and read none but the first two or three centuries, they were incapable of judging well about that matter: He faid, that might be a good way. And if once our bishops would lay aside those their prefent unwarrantable impofitions, which can no way be supported by the primitive records, and fall to the perufal of the most primitive ages in earnest, both the clergy and laity would certainly follow their examples; and that most important matter might foon be determined, to the greatest fatisfaction of all good chriftians: who, for want of fuch a standard, do rove about uncertainly from one hypothefis, party, or pretender to another; nay fometimes become fcepticks or infidels as to our common chriftianity itself. Moreover, this bishop of London did not only patronize that horrible curfe upon the Eufebians or chriftians,

the

the Athanafian creed, but long fupported an annual lecture, I mean that founded by the lady Moyer, against the Eufebians or chriftians, under the falfe name of Arians: and this even fince the publication of my pamphlet concerning Athanafian Forgeries, and its Appendix, or Appeal to xxx Primitive Councils against the Athanafian Herefy; which, I venture to fay it openly, have rendred all vindications of it, in the way of learning, abfolutely impoffible. One thing farther I have to obferve in the conduct of this bifhop, during the many years he was the grand recommender to ecclefiaftical preferments at court, viz. That he took vaft care to keep out fuch as were fufpected not to be Athanafians, till at length Dr. Rundle was recommended by the lord chancellor Talbot, whom I well knew to be no Athanafian, but once a zealous promoter of primitive christianity, upon the foot of the apoftolical constitutions, till the ufual corrupter of clergymen, the profpect of preferment, diverted him another way: I fay the bishop's over-grown zeal against his promotion, and the over-earneft folicitations for the eafy recovery of tithes to the clergy from the quakers, at length overset him at court, and procured his exclufion from any fuch high pretenfions. And this, which is to me very remarkable, in the celebrated Aftronomical Year 1736; as I have obferved in the fecond edition of my Effay on the Revelation, page 320,

324. For which ftoppage to his career, of bringing on a Codex Perfecution, which I was at that time aware of, he ought fincerely to have thanked Divine Providence; left at the great day he fhould have been found, not among the orthodox promoters of truth, but the heretical perfecutors of the christian religion.

And now I am upon the character of our archbishops and bishops, particularly the late bishop of

London,