N. B. I was at Christ's Church in this year, 1746, as ufual, on Midfummer-Day, when near 5000 poor Charity Children appeared in their new Cloaths, and had a very good Sermon preached before them, and their Stewards, and a pretty numerous congregation, by Dr. Lavington. I mention this becaufe fuch a fight is to me a far more agreeable one, than what all the Court and City can furnish elsewhere; as giving me a kind of profpect and hopes of the real Restitution one Day of the Primitive Catechumens and Illuminates, with their Chriftian Inftructions, Baptism, and the Eucharift, all fucceeding one another: Which may they quickly be reftored among us, and in all Chriftendom!

N. B. When I was at Penfeburft, Dr. Hammond's old Living, during my first day's ftay at Tunbridge Wells, on Saturday August 23d, 1746 (Which Living of near 400l. a year had been offered me by the Earl of Leicester, with whom I had not the least acquaintance, above 5 years before, but was by me refufed; as the Reader may find in my Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury thereupon, printed in my Three Tracts, Page 1--12) I was very kindly received by my Succeffor, for fo I call him, Mr. Williams; and was very glad to find that the Flock which fhould have been committed to my Care, could my Confcience have complied with the qualifications our unhappy Laws have made neceffary, (which what they are, the Reader may fee before, Page 72-75) were under the Care of Mr. Williams, a worthy perfon and very good Paftor, as he is univerfally allowed to be. I went thither twice, and was the fecond time fhewed by Mr. Perry, the prefent poffeffor of the Sidney eftate there, a fingular paffage, taken out of a printed original letter, written about A. D.

A. D. 1642, which directly imports that the great Mr. Chillingworth, how fagacious and honeft foever, at last defended Socinianifm, and was therein utterly and immediately confuted by that excellent perfon, the Lord Falkland. See papers of State belonging to the Sidney family, Vol. II. Page 669. (I mean this only in cafe the Writer of the Letter well underftood the difference between Arianifm and Socinianifm, which are often confounded one with another.) So that this Mr. Chillingworth had a ftrange diffidence and mutability of temper; which had made him when firft a Proteftant to turn Papist; and when a Papist to turn Proteftant again; then to favour Arianifm, as it is called, and on that account, in part by refufing to fign the 39 Articles, to lofe fome expected preferment; then to fign the 39 Articles, and accept of preferment, and after all to defend Socinianifm itself. Which is such a round of contrarieties, as is hard to be parallel'd in any other learned man whomfoever. To be fure he at firft wanted my darling motto, Confider well and act Steadily; nor had he afterward the Apoftolical Conftitutions and Canons for his immoveable guide and ftandard, as I have now had near 40 years, which would have prevented all this uncertainty of conduct; and without which the feveral parties in Christendom have long been, and are ftill likely to be,, in polemical Controverfies, polemical endless Controverfies, one with another. Nor will thofe polemical Controverfies ever cease, I venture to affirm it, till thofe Apoftolical Confiitutions and Canons are admitted as the ftanding rule of Chriftianity.

Memorandum, That on Auguft the 24th this Year 1746, being Lord's Day, and St. Bartholomew's Day, I breakfafted at Mr. Bay's, a diffenting Minifter at Tunbridge Wells, and a fucceffor, tho1

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not immediate to Mr. Humphrey Ditton, and like him a very good Mathematician alfo: I told him, that I had just then come to a refolution, to go out always from the public worship of the Church of England, whenever the reader of Common Prayer read the Athanafian Creed; which I efteemed a public curfing the Christians: As I expected it might be read at the Chapel that very day, it being one of the thirteen days in the year, when the Rubrick appoints it to be read. Accordingly I told him, that I fully refolved to go out of the Chapel that very day, if the Minifter of the Place began to read it. He told me, that Mr. Dowding the Minifter, who was then a perfect ftranger to me, had omitted it on a ChristmasDay, and fo he imagined he did not ufe to read it. This proved to be true, fo I had no opportunity afforded me then, to fhew my deteftation of that monftrous Creed: Yet have I fince put in practice that refolution, and did fo the first time at Lincolns-Inn Chapel, on St. Simon and St. Jude's Day, October 28th, 1746, when Mr. Rawlins began to read it, and I then went out and came in again when it was over, as I always refolved to do afterwards. Accordingly on St. Andrew's Day, November 30th, the fame year, when Mr. Harrison began to read it, at St. George's Church, QueenSquare, I then went out, and came in again when it was over: However, before I went to Tunbridge Wells Chapel, that very morning I received by the London Poft, from a perfon perfectly unknown to me, a very remarkable and important letter; which will be fet down in due place hereafter. Now before I declare my direct opinion in this important matter, which was defired by the writer, I fhall endeavour to vindicate myself, at leaft in part, from this fad imputation of Hypocrify, as to my former practice; tho' perhaps it will not be fufficient

fufficient to vindicate me in the whole, because I might have more fully declared my abhorrence of the Athanafian doctrines and curfes, by going out of the Church while they were read, than by barely omitting to repeat that creed, with which I contented myself feveral years at firft; or by fitting down also, while it was read, as I have now done for many years. However, that no honeft man may blame me more than I deserve, I fhall repeat here what I formerly faid, when Mr, Henley charged me with joining in Idolatrous Worfhip, or even of bowing down in the House of Rimmon, by my frequenting the public fervice of the Church of England. Upon which occafion my words were thefe in the paper to him relating, page 29, 30. Where I "openly declare that how unjuftifiable foever I have long thought fome "instances of worship in the Athanafian Churches, "and particularly in the Church of England, "with which I ufually join in public worship "and the Eucharift; I mean during the great dif"trefs I am at prefent in, between joining in a "Church not yet free from the Athanafian herefy "in public Worship, or of omitting almost all "public Worship at all; yet did I never think "that undue Worship of the Son and Holy Spirit, as equal to God the Father, which the "modern Athanafians have long ventured upon, without, I verily think, nay against the entire "Old and New Teftament, and without, nay, against all the other ancient records of Chriftianity; to be, ftrictly speaking, in the language of Scripture, the crime of Idolatry. It is "neither the worship of falfe Gods, nor of Demons, "nor of their Images or Idols; as was that of the "Syrian Idol Rimmon, which was Idolatry against "the firft Commandment. Nor is it the worship "of the true God by an Image or Idol; as was that

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of the golden Calves by Aaron and Jeroboam, "which was Idolatry against the second Command"ment. Nor indeed is the worship of Angels, "tho' nearer to Scripture Idolatry than that be"fore us, called by St. Paul Idolatry. Colof. ii. "18. So that had I joined with the Church in "this Athanafian Worship; how criminal foever "I had been on other accounts in fo doing; yet' "had I not, in my own judgment been guilty "of that moft heinous crime of Scripture Idolatry. "But that I ever join in that Athanafian Worfhip "in any degree; or fo much as appear to join in "it, when I join in other parts of the public

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Worship, is notoriously falfe. Every body "that takes notice of my conftant behaviour in "the public fervice, may easily perceive, that I "never join in any of thofe parts of the Nicene

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Creed, of the Litany, or of the Doxologies, or "of any Prayers or Worship whatsoever, that 66 are of that kind, And that whenever I am "prefent when the Athanafian Creed, that Shame "and Reproach of the public Worship of the Church "of England is there repeated, I do always fit "down, to fhew the whole Congregation my dif

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agreeing thereto; fo that if our Orator be re"folved to represent the Church of England, as in "this refpect Idolatrous, and the places of her

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public Worship as Houses of Rimmon, he ought "to reprefent me as one that abfolutely refufe to "bow down in the House of Rimmon, upon any "occafion of Idolatry whatfoever. And I farther declare, that I fhall not think it lawful for me any longer to frequent that public Worship, than I am not only permitted to join "in the reft of it, without joining with the Athanafian Parts, but permitted to make this open "declaration that I do not, and dare not join in "in thofe parts for any confideration,"

'

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But