stood in close relation) their dislike to dogmatic intolerance. A warm admirer of Colet and Erasmus, his teaching was directed towards the development of a liberal Christian spirit rather than to ‘opinions and extra-essentials.’ But, while averse from a too rigid interpretation of doctrine, he was distinguished by his care and exactness in his literary labours, and his edition of the works of the ‘incomparable’ Joseph Mede [q. v.] the father, in some respects, of the Cambridge movement was referred to by Tillotson as ‘a monument likely to stand so long as learning and religion shall continue in the world’ (pref. to the Miscellanies, 1704 edit.) His like labours on his edition (London, 1660) of the ‘Select Discourses’ of John Smith (1618−1652) [q. v.] of Queens' preserved them from the oblivion into which, notwithstanding their high merit, they would otherwise have fallen. His translation of the ‘De Imitatione’ of Thomas à Kempis, published under the title of ‘The Christian's Pattern,’ first appeared in 1654, and went through numerous editions. Of that of 1654 no copy is known to exist. The edition of 1677 was the basis of John Wesley's edition, although he appears to have adopted it in ignorance of the fact that he was building on the labours of Worthington (Bibliography, pp. 15−17).
A ‘Bibliography of Works written or edited’ by Worthington, compiled by Chancellor R. C. Christie, was published by the Chetham Society (new ser. vol. xiii.) in 1885, in which the following are enumerated as his own writings: 1. ‘Ὑποτύπωσις ὑγιεινῶν τῶν λόγων. A Form of Sound Words: Or a Scripture Catechism; shewing what a Christian is to believe and practise in order to Salvation,’ London, 1673, 1674, 1676, 1681, &c., 8vo, 1723, 12mo. 2. ‘The Great Duty of Self-Resignation to the Divine Will,’ London, 1675, 8vo. This also went through numerous editions and was translated into German. 3. ‘The Doctrines of the Resurrection and the Reward to come, considered as the grand Motives to an Holy Life,’ London, 1690, 8vo. 4. ‘Charitas Evangelica: a Discourse of Christian Love,’ London, 1691, 8vo (published by his son). 5. ‘Forms of Prayer for a Family,’ London, 1693, 1721, 12mo. This was also translated into German. 6. ‘Miscellanies . . . also a Collection of Epistles; with the Author's Character by Archbishop Tillotson,’ London, 1704, 8vo. 7. ‘Select Discourses . . . with the Author's Character,’ London, 1725, 8vo. The edition of 1826, ‘to which is added a Scripture Catechism,’ contains 1, 2, 3, and 4.
[Diary and Correspondence, edited by James Crossley and R. C. Christie for the Chetham Society, 2 vols.; Autobiography of Simon Patrick; MSS. Baker, vols. vi. xviii. and xxviii.; Brydges's Restituta, vol. i.; Robinson's Memorials of Hackney, ii. 70; Nichols's Leicestershire, iii. 73; Tulloch's Rational Theology in England, ii. 426−33.]
WORTHINGTON, THOMAS (1549–1622?), president of Douay College, born in
1549 at Blainscough or Blainsco in the parish of Standish, near Wigan, Lancashire, was son of Richard Worthington, by his wife Dorothy, daughter of Thomas Charnock of Charnock in the same county (Dodd, Church Hist. ii. 391). His father, who was an occasional conformist, though at heart a firm catholic, sent him about 1566 to Brasenose College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A, on 17 Oct. 1570. Afterwards going abroad, for conscience' sake, he was admitted into the English College at Douay on 15 Feb. 1572−3. In 1577 he was made B.D., and the year following he removed with the rest of the college to Rheims. Afterwards he was sent on the mission to England, where he laboured for several years with great success. In 1584 he was seized in his lodgings at Islington, and was immediately committed prisoner to the Tower, and ‘put into the pit.’ He was among the twenty-one Jesuits, seminarists, and other ‘massing priests’ who on 25 Jan. 1584−5 were shipped at the Tower wharf to be conveyed to France and banished the realm for ever by virtue of a commission from the queen (Holinshed, Chronicles, iii. 1379−80; Foley, Records, ii. 132).
Retiring to the English College at Rheims, Worthington remained there till he was appointed by Dr. (afterwards Cardinal) Allen to the post of chaplain in Sir William Stanley's regiment in the Spanish service. He was created D.D. by the university of Trier in 1588. In 1590 he returned to Rheims, and was employed in reading a lesson of moral divinity; but in 1591 he was sent to Brussels, and remitted to the camp to exercise the office of chaplain again.
On the decease of Dr. Barret, president of the English College of Douay, Worthington was on 1 July 1599 appointed to be his successor by Cardinal Caetano, protector of the English nation. This appointment was made chiefly by the influence of Father Robert Parsons [q. v.], to whom Worthington took a secret vow of obedience, and under Worthington's direction new rules were imposed. The most eminent professors and doctors were dismissed; a Jesuit was appointed confessor to the students, and no alumnus was
