Note 154 — Chapter XIII · CONVOCATION—1701, ETC.

Three years previous to this, Thomas Firmin, a famous citizen of London, had died; a man held in high esteem for his charities of all sorts, private and public. Firmin, in early life, sat under the ministry of John Goodwin, but was afterwards converted to Socinianism by John Biddle, already mentioned in this history. Firmin was a man of great wealth, and promoted the printing of books against the Trinity, and distributed them freely over the nation, to all who would accept of them. The result was, the greatest mysteries in religion became the common topic of discourse, and were treated as the contrivances of priests to bring the world into blind submission to their authority. This raised a great outcry against Socinianism; and, as Tillotson and some of the bishops had lived in great friendship with Mr Firmin, (because of his charitable temper, which they thought it became them to encourage,) books like “Essays on the Balance of Power,” began to be put in circulation—(See Burnet’s History of His Own Time. 1st Edit., vol. ii. p. 212.)