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476 CLAYTON. purpose of seeing and describing the objects proposed by the bishop, was greatly disappointed, and convinced that the characters were not made by the IsraelitesOther travellers, who have been at the same place since, have not been more successful. The bishop's next publication was in 1755; and con- sisted merely of some letters which had passed between his lordship, when Bishop of Cork, and Mr. William Penn, on the subject of baptism. In which he contended, that the true christian baptism is to continue to the end of the world; whereas the baptism of the Holy Ghost ceased with the working of miracles. The zeal with which his lordship had entered into the Arian controversy, by fathering a work not his own, did not cease to influence his mind; and he attempted to fur- ther the propagation of the same tenets in his legislative capacity, by a speech in the house of lords, at Dublin, 2nd of February, 1756, when he moved that the Nicene and Athanasian creeds should for the fature be omitted in the Liturgy of the church of Ireland. The speech he delivered on that occasion was taken down in short-hand; and, being publisbed, went through several editions. This s avowed and declared an attack on the articles of the church, made his lordship be viewed in a very unfavour- able light by his brethren, and this feeling towards him was aggravated still more by his posterior conduct. In 1757 he published the third part of his " Vindication of the Histories of the Old and New Testament," in which he wandered so far into heterodoxy, that it was considered by the governors of the church as highly improper that such conduct should be allowed in one whose situation required him to appear in ler defence. Accordingly orders were sent by his Majesty to the Duke of Bedford, then lord- lieutenant, to take the proper steps towards a legal prose- cution. A day was appointed for a general meeting of the Irish prelates at the primate; to which Bishop Clay- ton was summoned, that he might receive fron them the notification of their intentions. A censure was certain;