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e [The names of Blount and Asgill are filled up in the MS. additions. The same names are found associated by other contemporary writers. For instance, by Swift, "Who would ever have suspected Asgill for a wit, or Toland for a philosopher."-(1708.) Works, vol. ii. p. 474. "Tindal, Toland, Coward, Collins, Clendon, and all the tribe of free-thinkers."-(1711.) ib. vol. iii. p. 85. "Toland, Asgill, Monmouth, Collins, Tindal, and others of the fraternity."—(1713.) ib., vol. iv. p.

415.

Charles Blount, "who set himself at the head of the deists, and after whom they now copy," (Leslie, Short and Easy Method, Pref. &c.; Theol. Works, p. 7, and note to p. 24, 1721,) was born in 1654. His most notorious work was "The Life of Apollonius Tyaneus, 1680," which was soon after suppressed, because of its blasphemous character. He committed suicide in 1693. After his death C. Gildon published his remains under the name of "The Oracles of Reason," with a preface defending suicide. The "Oracles of Reason, or Miscellaneous Works of Charles Blount, Esq.," is the first work noticed in "The Axe laid to the Root of Christianity." After giving extracts from the work, and from Gildon's preface, it proceeds, (p. 2,) "The writer of these words hath since publicly begged God's and all good men's pardon for them," (Gildon was converted by reading Leslie's Plain and Easy Method, and published "The Deist's Manual," in answer to the errors he had before held); "and therefore I mention them, not with a design of reproaching him, but the age only in which he was allowed and encouraged thus to write." Blount is again mentioned by Hickes in the Prefatory Discourse, p. 250. "Thus if they were alive might Hobbes and Blount and many other sons of Belial brag."]

f [In the MS. notes this is filled up T[indal], which seems to be an error, as Tindal is evidently pointed at throughout the letter as the author of the Rights. Toland was a notorious infidel writer. He is mentioned with Blount and Socinus by Johnson, Pref. Epist. to the Unbloody Sacrifice, p. 26, 1714, and as Tindal's friend and helper by Leslie, Vindication, Works, vol. i. p.

124, 1721. He was a man of most uncommon abilities, and perhaps the most learned of all the infidel writers." He was born in Ireland, in 1670, and was "bred in the Roman Catholic faith; ... but as he was a boy of forward parts, he early shook off the superstition of his ancestors, and even before he was sixteen years of age had grown into a warm zeal against popery," and joined the dissenters. In 1696 he published a work entitled " Christianity not Mysterious," which excited general indignation. On this he was offended at the dissenters, and declared himself a Latitudinarian. In 1699 he published his Amyntor, a covert attack on the Canon of Scripture, and other deistical books and pamphlets. And in 1717 one called "Pantheisticon sive formula celebrandæ sodalitatis Socraticæ," an atheistical parody on a Liturgy. He died in 1722. He was an intimate friend of Tindal's. See "The Axe laid to the Root of Christianity," p. 3.]

[John Asgill, a lawyer of some eminence. Thus noticed in "The Axe laid to the Root of Christianity," p. 3: "Mr. Asgill in the year 1700 printed a book and put his name to it, with a plain design of ridiculing all revealed religion, and the belief of a future state: as may appear from the title, which is, 'An Argument proving that according to the Covenant of Eternal Life, revealed in Scripture, man may be translated from hence into that eternal life without passing through death, &c.' Some blasphemous extracts follow; then, "the key of his whole book is p. 95, where he plainly and briefly thus declares his faith, 'If I die like other men, I declare myself to die of no religion.""

Rehearsal, No. 203, April 26, 1707: "Countryman. I am quite at a loss. I must have some of your help now, master, to let me see into the bottom of his design.

"Rehearsal. It was this, countryman. That if he could bring as seemingly clear and evident Scriptures for this hypothesis of his as there are for the articles of our creed, and then every body finding that they die notwithstanding, it would soon follow that men would disbelieve every word of the Scriptures, and reckon them all a

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cheat."-See also No. 204, 216, 217, 219, 220.

Being afterwards elected a member of the Irish House of Commons, he was immediately expelled and the book ordered to be burnt. After having sat in the English House as member for Bramber from 1705 to 1707, he was in the latter year expelled the House for maintaining the doctrines of that book, which was voted a blasphemous libel. His pecuniary difficulties led to his being committed to the Fleet. After his expulsion from the House "he retired first to the Mint, and then became a prisoner in the King's Bench, thence he removed to the Fleet, and continued in the rules of one or other of these prisons thirty years." He died in 1738, aged upwards of 80.Biogr. Dict.]

h[The Rev. William Stephens, rector of Sutton in Surrey, is repeatedly noticed in the Rehearsal. Thus (No. 94, April 10, 1706.) "He was noted as the furiosest of the party. He justified the murder of K. Charles the First, in a sermon before the House of Commons, and printed it without the desire or leave of the House." Jan. 30, 1693-4, he had preached and afterwards published a sermon before the Lord Mayor, &c. in which he said, pp. 3, 4, "The loss of a good king gives just cause of lamentation. ... But had they lived under a king, who by an open example and encouragement of debauchery, should have drawn the people from their covenant with the Lord, &c. ... it would be hard to persuade men to call such a king the breath of their nostrils." Jan. 30, 1699-700, he preached before the House of Commons the sermon alluded to above. On this there came out "Reflexions upon Mr. Stephens' Sermon preached before the House of Commons Jan. 30, 1699-700, by a Gentleman who took the said sermon in short hand. London, printed for the use of the Calves' Head Club, in order to their conversion," no date. (The Calves' Head Club was a name commonly given to this party. See the Rehearsal, No. 5, Sept. 2, 1704. For an account of this club, supposed to meet every 30th of Jan., see Life of Defoe, vol. ii. pp. 108 -117. London, 1830.) P. 3. "Of all men living Mr. Stephens, considering his own circumstances, had the greatest reason in the world to have worn out his

days in the greatest obscurity; and it not only accuses his own discretion, but the common prudence of all his advisers, to revive the memory of his former (and almost buried) crimes," &c. The sermon was soon printed, and reprinted with the Growth of Deism, and other infidel tracts, London, 1709. After this his party seems to have been ashamed of him. So the Rehearsal, No. 94, 1706. See also Nos. 98 and 99. On his publishing an anonymous letter reflecting on Harley and the duke of Marlborough, entitled "a Letter to the Author of the Memorial of the Church of England," (said to have been written by another person,) in 1706, he was convicted, fined 100 marks, and sentenced to stand twice in the pillory: the last was remitted, but not till he had seen it prepared for him. Boyer's Queen Anne, p. 386.]

[The Rehearsal, so frequently referred to by Hickes, was a paper "in dialogue on the affairs of the times," published at first weekly, and afterwards twice a week, by Mr. Leslie. It was printed on a folio half sheet and sold for a penny. Its design will be

best understood by his own account of it in the Preface to the first volume. (The Observator and Review were weekly penny papers: they were written respectively by John Tutchin, and the well known Daniel Defoe.)

"Whoever has perused the following papers, will by this time be satisfied, that the author undertook not this task to make diversion for the town, nor would let himself down to kick and cuff with Tutchin, Defoe, and the rest of the scandalous club (as they were not ashamed to call themselves,) &c.

The case was this. He saw great pains taken to poison the people of this nation with most pernicious principles, both as to Church and State, and even religion itself, not only as reformed among us with respect to popery, but as to all religion in general, and all revelation of God to man, that is, the Holy Scriptures, and all built upon them. The axe was laid to the root of Christianity; and deism (which they call natural religion) set up in its place. And how monstrously this has prevailed amongst us of late years I am sorry I need not inform the reader, for it has not been made a secret, nor can escape the ob

53

servation of any who read our pamphlets and papers, or indeed who keeps any conversation. Their books and pamphlets have been solidly and seriously answered. But their papers have been neglected, that is, their weekly penny papers, which go through the nation like newspapers, and have done much more mischief than the others. For the greatest part of the people do not read books. Most of them cannot read at all. But they will gather together about one that can read, and listen to an Observator or Review (as I have seen them in the streets), where all the principles of rebellion are instilled into them, and they are taught the doctrine of priestcraft, to banter religion and the Holy Scriptures; and are told most villainous lies and stories of the clergy, which they suck in greedily and are prejudiced beyond expression. . .

The remedy for this was but one of two, either to put a stop to these pernicious papers, or to answer them. The first was not in my power, and the second was very disagreeable to me, because the answer must be in the same method as these papers, to come out weekly, and to be read by the people....... And to procure them to listen to such an antidote, the design must not appear at first, for people so prejudiced would not bear it. Therefore it was necessary, that at first setting out, those papers should bear an humorous title, and begin with that pleasantry and fooling with which they were so much taken in the other papers.

....

For this reason I borrowed the title of that most humorous and ingenious of our plays, called the Rehearsal....

I think myself abundantly rewarded for the pains I have taken by the success (far more than I expected) which they have had in recovering not a few from those errors into which they have been led."

And in the Postscript to the first volume, "And I began it with that diffidence, and so unwillingly, that I thought not to continue it, only would try my hand a little; I could not forbear to throw one bucket into the fire which I saw devouring Church and State..

And when I several times grew

weary and would have rested myself, those of better judgment, and who I knew wished well to religion, the Church, and the nation, would allow me no respite, and said I could not serve these better."

The first paper entitled "The ObserVATOR on the libel called Cassandra, from Wednesday, August the 2nd, to Saturday, August the 5th, 1704," was without any name of its own, but appearing from the large letters in which the word Observator is printed to be a number of that paper. It was continued every Saturday, as The Rehearsal, till April 10, 1706, when it was sent out each Wednesday and Saturday, till March 26, 1709, when the work was suppressed by the government; Burnet calls them "seditious libels, and wonders the government connived at them."-Own Times, vol. ii. p. 538. fol.

The Nos. up to No. 250, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 1707, were collected in one vol. and published with a Preface, Index, and Postscript added, and this title, "A View of the Times, their principles and practices, in the first volume of the Rehearsal, by Philalethes. London,

1708." Three half-yearly volumes followed, each with a Preface and Index. The whole were reprinted with "Cassandra," in 6 vols. 12mo. in 1750, under the same title.]

k"The Axe laid to the Root of Christianity, or a specimen of the profaneness and blasphemy that abounds in some late writings," so often referred to by Hickes, is a tract of eight pages. small quarto. Printed for John Morphew in 1706, and sold for twopence. It is in the form of a letter dated Nov. 21, 1706, and consists of passages extracted from recently published works, and was sent out in that cheap form to. awaken public attention to the blasphemy which was in circulation; the authorship of it is attributed to Atterbury. 'Infidelity used heretofore to skulk and hide its head... it now walks open and barefaced... We owe the rise of this infection to the times of the Great Rebellion, when the hypocritical and false pretences of many men to religion drove many others into a contrary extreme. That storm blew over, and a long calm succeeded: the ease and luxury of which time carried us yet

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LETTER

TO AUTHOR

OF RIGHTS.

55

m [Hickes was born in 1642. The school of Latitudinarian divines soon after arose at Cambridge. The originators of it were Whichcote, Cudworth, Wilkins, and More. Of these Whichcote seems to have been most influential; he was fellow of King's college and an esteemed tutor, many of his pupils, as Wallis, John Smith, Worthington, and Cradock, becoming distinguished men. On being ordained by Williams, bishop of Lincoln, in 1636, he began an afternoon lecture at Trinity church. In 1643 he went to a living and married, but soon after accepted the provostship of King's from the parliament, and resumed his afternoon lecture, with the view of preserving and propagating a spirit of sober piety and rational religion" in the University; the effect of his preaching appeared among the divines who rose after the Restoration, of whom most of those who had been educated at Cambridge, among them Tillotson, were formed at least, if not actually brought up by him. To quote Bishop Burnet's words, "He was much for liberty of conscience, and being disgusted with the dry systematical way of those times, he studied to raise those who conversed with him to a nobler set of thoughts. In order to this he set young students much on reading the ancient philosophers, chiefly Plato, Tully, and Plotinus; and on considering the Christian religion as a doctrine sent from God both to elevate and sweeten human nature..... Cudworth carried this out with a great strength of genius and a vast compass of learning. Wilkins was of Oxford, but removed to Cambridge.. where . he joined with those who studied to propagate better thoughts, to take men off from being in parties, or from narrow notions, from superstitious conceits, and a fierceness about opinions."

"This set of men studied to assert and examine the principles of religion and morality on clear grounds, and in a philosophical method. In this More, who was an open-hearted and sincere Christian philosopher, led the way. Worthington was a man of eminent piety and great humility, and practised a most sublime way of self-denial and devotion. All these, and those who

were formed under them, studied to examine farther into the nature of things than had been done formerly. They declared against superstition on the one hand, and enthusiasm on the other..... They continued to keep up a good correspondence with those who differed from them in opinion, and allowed a great freedom both in philosophy and in divinity, from whence they were called men of latitude, or 'Latitudinarians.' They read Episcopius much." [See Bull's Judicium Eccl. Cath., Works, vol. vi.] "And the making out the reasons of things being a main part of their studies, their enemies called them Socinians. They were all very zealous against popery, and so, they becoming soon very considerable, the papists set themselves to decry them as atheists, deists, or at best Socinians."-Burnet's Own Times, vol. i. pp. 186, seqq.

Bp. Burnet, as is well known, took a very favourable view of this school of divines. On the other hand, Hickes and his friends uniformly maintained, that the heretical and sceptical spirit which was now prevailing, was the legitimate and necessary issue of the latitude of opinion allowed by them; and that it had been evidenced to be so in the known unsound views of some of its leading teachers on most important doctrines. And it must be added, that the deists themselves professed only to carry out the principles of the Platonizing divines. For instance, a Selection of Whichcote's Sermons was published with a preface, by Lord Shaftesbury in 1698. Tindal, Toland, and Collins, speak in the most favourable terms of the clergy of this school, and profess to maintain, in common with them, an opposition to all human authority in matters of faith. Tillotson's Sermons are commended by Sir Robert Howard, in the preface to the "History of Religion," because of the (alleged) absence of doctrine; and Collins, in his Discourse of Freethinking, (1713,) p. 135, speaks of that archbishop as the person "whom all English free-thinkers acknowledge as their head." For further evidence that the deists at this time sheltered themselves under the profession of Latitudinarianism, see note p, p. 72.]

TO AUTHOR