Easter day. Myself and son received the blessed Communion, it being his first time, and with that whole week's more extraordinary preparation. I beseech God to make him a sincere and[Pg 88] good Christian, while I endeavor to instill into him the fear and love of God, and discharge the duty of a father.
At the sermon coram Rege, preached by Dr. Sparrow, Bishop of Exeter, to a most crowded auditory; I stayed to see whether, according to custom, the Duke of York received the Communion with the King; but he did not, to the amazement of everybody. This being the second year he had forborne, and put it off, and within a day of the Parliament sitting, who had lately made so severe an Act against the increase of Popery, gave exceeding grief and scandal to the whole nation, that the heir of it, and the son of a martyr for the Protestant religion, should apostatize. What the consequence of this will be, God only knows, and wise men dread.