Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/121

Rh  judge to be otherwise duly qualified as aforesaid and particularly shall permit the free and uninterrupted use of the said Place of Worship to the said Revd. Mr George Whitefield whenever he shall happen to be in this city and desire to preach therein.

A meeting of the Trustees was held the following day to remove the alarm which some of Mr. Gilbert Tennent's friends raised, fearing that they might be forbidden the use of the New Building for his ministrations.

It being represented to the Trustees that previous to the conveyance of the New Building to them, Expectations were given to the Revd. Mr. Gilbert Tennent and his congregation that they should be permitted without interruption to continue the exercise of Divine Service on the Lord's Day in that part of the New Building that shall be set off for public worship until they shall be provided with an House of their own for that purpose which they are now about to erect with all convenient expedition. The Trustees esteeming the said Mr Tennent to be duly qualified according to the deed of Trust, and considering that the said Congregation is at present without a Meeting House, do concede and grant to him and them the free and uninterrupted use of the said Place of Worship on the Lord's Day and other stated times of Meeting, free of Rent (excepting only when the Revd. Mr. Whitefield shall be present and desire to use the same) from this time until their intended New Meeting House shall be fit to accommodate them, provided the same be ready to receive them within three years now next ensuing. [And under directions], a copy of the same was accordingly made and signed by the President by order of the Trustees and delivered to Mr. Samuel Hazard for Mr Tennent.

This was the congregation of the Second Presbyterian Church who were then building their large edifice on the North West corner of Arch and Third Streets, which however was not completed for their use until May, 1752.

The "certain articles of religion, a copy whereof is hereto annexed," above referred to, could be justly named the White-field Confession of Faith, and are duly recorded at length in Deed Book Letter A, No. 5, page 168, the only instance known of the Recorder of Deeds finding room in his volumes for the entry of a creed. The final sentence alone need be quoted here, as epitomizing its chief articles:

We do also give our assent and consent to the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th and 17th articles of the Church of England as explained by the Calvinists in their Litteral and grammaticalGrammatical [sic] sence without any equivocation