showed the influence of Samuel Clarke's Scripture Doctrine, the work which had triggered the Exeter Controversy, and which Hallett's students, most notably Stogdon, had encountered and read secretly several years earlier. Like Clarke, Foster hinted at the non-essentiality of the doctrine of the Trinity; he argued that the fundamentals of the Christian faith should operate in a marriage between reasonable interpretation of natural and revealed religion. He also came to denounce infant baptism after reading John Gale's antipaedobaptist tracts; he believed it not to be sanctioned by scripture doctrine, and offered himself up to be re-baptized as an adult believer in London, perhaps by Gale himself. From 1724 Foster took over from Gale as co-minister with Joseph Burroughs at the General Baptist chapel in Paul's Alley, Barbican, London. By this point his Socinian leanings were well known; he and Burroughs were the only London ministers to invite the disgraced and formerly imprisoned Arian heretic Thomas Emlyn to preach. From 1728 Foster supplemented his ministry with the newly established Sunday evening lecture at the Old Jewry. By 1744 he succeeded Jeremiah Hunt as pastor of the Independent congregation at Pinner's Hall. Emlyn was not the only radical with which he had known sympathies. The rebellious Earl of Kilmarnock declared himself a presbyterian, and was given the sacrament whilst he was imprisoned in the Tower of London by Foster, who also attended his execution. Foster published an Account of Kilmarnock's behaviour in 1746, after which he was viciously attacked for Jacobitism, a claim which was far from the truth. Under the pressure of the sustained criticisms, his health began to fail. Support for Foster Despite criticism from many orthodox Calvinists, Foster was becoming a celebrated preacher and academic, winning increasing recognition from many moderates within Protestant and Roman Catholic dissent, as well as from within the radical Deist wing of the Church of England. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity (DD) from the Marischal College in Aberdeen in December 1748 and was on several occasions offered livings in the conformist Church of Ireland by Bishop Thomas Rundle. Alexander Pope wrote in one of his Satires: Let modest Foster, if he will, excel Ten Metropolitans in preaching well. He also attracted freethinkers and London wits to his Old Jewry meetings and was respected - though disliked - by the orthodox Congregationalist Philip Doddridge of Northampton. In the last part of