Catalogue Entry: OTHE00032

^[1] W. Whiston, Primitive Christianity reviv'd (5 volumes, 1711-12), I: Appendix: An Account of the Convocations Proceedings with Relation to Mr Whiston', 3.

^[2] A. Ross, Pansebeia: Or a view of all Religions in the World (6th edition, 1696), 'Dedication to the Worshipful Robert Abdy'.

^[3] B. Spinoza, A Treatise Partly Theological and Partly Political (1689), 156.

^[4] C. Blount, The Oracles of Reason (1693), 123-4, and following.

^[5] In the manuscript collection of the British Library, there is an early eighteenth-century text titled 'The Famous Book De tribus Impostoribus', an edition 'faithfully Englished -- with a preface, annotations and additions'. See BL, Stowe 47. There is also a late eighteenth-century French manuscript and a Latin version 'De Tribus Impostoribus', dated 1709. See BL Sloane 2039 and Add. 12064. The only other known English manuscript is in the Bamberger Collection at the Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati: it is a variant of the Stowe item in a different hand.

^[6] See I.O. Wade, The Clandestine Organisation and Diffusion of Philosophic Ideas in France from 1700 to 1750 (Princeton, 1938), chapter 5. Importantly on the authorship of the Traité see S. Berti, 'The first edition of the Traité des trois imposteurs, and its debt to Spinoza's Ethics', in M. Hunter and D. Wootton (eds.) Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment (Oxford, forthcoming). For a thorough examination of the Traité, see S. Berti, Trattato dei Tre Impostori. (La Vita e lo Spirito di Spinoza) (Turin, in press). Many thanks to the author for allowing me to see a copy of this text which will be translated into English and published by Van Gorcum, Assen.

^[7] See N. Machiavelli, The Discourses (Harmondsworth, 1978), and The Prince for a political account of Moses and the Italian Church: for the English background, see F. Raab, The English Face of Machiavelli (1964).

^[8] Stowe 47, folios 27v, 30r.

^[9] This is even more intriguing than it might at first appear: importantly, as Popkin and others have shown, there was an orthodox worry about the existence of such a work in the 1650s and 1660s. Indeed, Richard Smith's 'Observations on the Report of a Blasphemous Treatise by some affirmed to have been of late years published in print of Three Grand Impostors', written and circulated prior to 1671, bears some striking resemblances to the introductory dissertation that traditionally accompanied the French treatise. See R. H. Popkin, 'Spinoza and the Conversion of the Jews', in C. de Deugd (ed.), Spinoza's Political and Theological Thought (Amsterdam, 1984); J.A.I. Champion, 'Legislators, Impostors and the Politic Origins of Religion', in S. Berti, F. Charles-Daubert and R.H. Popkin (eds.), Contexts of Imposture (Leiden, 1991). Professor Popkin and I intend to publish the Smith Mss. (BL Sloane 388 and Sloane 1024) in the near future.

^[10] See M. C. Jacob, The Radical Enlightenment (1981), passim, but see in particular 216-20.

^[11] See Wade, Clandestine Organisation, 124-41; the research of S. Berti and F. Charles Daubert will bring the location of manuscripts in Europe up to date

^[12] See G. R. Cragg, The Church and the Age of Reason (1965); this commonplace is also the premise of much work undertaken upon studies in the origins of the Enlightenment, such as P. Gay's magisterial but flawed The Enlightenment: An Interpretation (2 volumes, 1967-), see especially vol. I: The Rise of Modern Paganism, 149, 313, 319-28, 338-9, 343. E.g. 'In Great Britain the Anglican Church had been deprived of most of its power after the Restoration, even over its own affairs'; see also R. Zaller, 'The Continuity of British Radicalism in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries', Eighteenth-Century Life 6 (1980-1); J. H. Pruett, The Parish Clergy under the Later Stuarts (Illinois, 1978), 2. For a more sensitive study see R. Porter and M. Teich (eds.), The Enlightenment in National Context (Cambridge, 1981).

^[13] See, for example, G. A. Holmes, British Politics in the Age of Queen Anne (1967); J. Miller, Popery and Politics 1660-1688, (Cambridge, 1973); W. Speck, Tory and Whig: The Struggle in the Constituencies 1701-1715 (1978); G. V. Bennett, The Tory Crisis in Church and State. The Career of Francis Atterbury (Oxford, 1975). The most recent contribution to a re-emphasis upon the importance of religious affairs is J. C. D. Clark's English Society 1688-1832 (Cambridge, 1985), which, although laudable in its willingness to take religious polemic seriously, has certain dubious methodological pronouncements which mar the value of the work.

^[14] It would entail a footnote of epic proportions to document the bibliographical state of scholarship on the political thought of the period: a selection of the notable works includes J. G. A. Pocock's The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law (Cambridge, 1957); Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton, 1975); Pocock, The Political Works of James Harrington (Cambridge, 1977); J. Dunn, The Political Thought of John Locke (Cambridge, 1968); J. P. Kenyon, Revolution Principles: The Politics of Party 1689-1720 (Cambridge, 1977); R. Tuck, Natural Rights Theories (Cambridge, 1979); of the few recent works that have dealt with the religious complexion of ideological debate, the most notable are M. C. Jacob, The Newtonians and the English Revolution 1689-1720 (Harvester, 1976), and The Radical Enlightenment (1981); J. R. Jacob, Henry Stubbe, Radical Protestantism and the Early Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1983); M. A. Goldie, 'John Locke and Anglican Royalism', Political Studies 31 (1983). For a more general discussion see J. Obelkevich, L. Roper, R. Samuel (eds.), Disciplines of Faith: Studies in Religion, Politics and Patriarchy (History Workshop: 1987).

^[15] Please note, throughout this book 1 use the C. B. Macpherson (Penguin) edition of Leviathan.

^[16] For example, H. J. Laski, Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham (1920) and C. B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (Oxford, 1962). See also H. T. Dickinson, Liberty and Property (1977). For a general assault upon this position see M. P. Thompson, 'The reception of Locke's Two Treatises of Government 1690-1705', Political Studies 24 (1976), and Clark, English Society 1688-1832, 42-64. See also J. Dunn, 'The Politics of Locke in England and America in the Eighteenth Century' in J. W. Yolton (ed.), John Locke: Problems and Perspectives (Cambridge, 1969), plus the anticlerical dimensions discussed in R. A. Ashcraft and M. M. Goldsmith, 'Locke, Revolution Principles, and the Formation of Whig ideology', HJ 26 (1983).

^[17] F. Atterbury, 'On the Martyrdom of King Charles' in Sermons and Discourses on Several Subjects and Occasions (9th edition, 1774), IV, 15. For a general contemporary account, see G. Burnet, History of My Own Times (1724), I, 91-218. There is some debate over the theological tenor of the Church's restoration. R. S. Bosher, The Making of the Restoration Settlement (1951) argues in favour of Laudian victory, while I.M. Green, The Re-Establishment of the Church of England (Oxford, 1978) suggests a more moderate settlement. See also R. A. Beddard 'The Restoration Church' in J. R. Jones (ed.), The Restored Monarchy (1979), 155-76. The most recent account is J. Spurr, The Restoration Church of England 1646-1689 (Yale, forthcoming) that argues for the robustness and continuity of Anglicanism. Spurr's emphasis is upon the survival of sacerdotal conceptions over the commonly accepted latitudinarian moralism. Many thanks to Dr Spurr for allowing me to read his typescript. See also J. Spurr, 'Latitudinarianism and the Restoration Church' HJ 31 (1988); Spurr, '"Rational Religion" in Restoration England', JHI 49 (1988); and Spurr, 'The Church of England, Comprehension and the Toleration Act of 1689', English Historical Review 104 (1989) and 'Schism and the Restoration Church', JEH 41 (1990).

^[18] See D. Witcombe, Charles II and the Cavalier House of Commons (Manchester, 1966) and D. Lacey, Dissent and Parliamentary Politics in England 1661-1689 (New Jersey, 1969). See G. Burnet, History of My Own Times, I, 93, where Burnet reported Charles II's opinion that 'he thought government was a much safer and easier thing where authority was believed infallible, and the faith and submission of the people was implicite'

^[19] On the exclusion crisis see J. R. Jones, The First Whigs: The Politics of the Exclusion Crisis 1678-83 (Durham, 1961); J. P. Kenyon, The Popish Plot (1972); F. S. Reynolds, The Attempted Whig Revolution 1678-81 (Illinois Studies 21, 1937); O.W. Furley, 'The Whig Exclusionists: Pamphlet Literature in the Exclusion Campaign 1679-81', CHJ 13 (1957); B. Behrens, 'The Whig Theory of the Constitution in the Reign of Charles II', CHJ 8 (1941); see in particular Henry Care's The Weekly Pacquet of advice, Or the History of popery (1678-83).

^[20] For a useful introductory survey, see B. Reay, 'Popular Religion' in B. Reay (ed.), Popular Culture in Seventeenth Century England (1985). For a late manifestation of popular religious enthusiasm, see the case of the French Prophets. Thomas Emes was led by spiritual fervour to proclaim his own resurrection just before his death on 22 December 1707. Emes' prophecy of his regeneration on 25 May 1708 convinced Sir Richard Bulkeley along with many thousands of others. On the expected date over 20,000 people assembled at Bunhill Fields: the government was so intimidated that troops were sent to quell the threat of insurrection. See H. Schwartz, The French Prophets (1980), especially 79-124; R. Porter, 'The Rage of Party: A Glorious Revolution in English Psychiatry?' Medical History 27 (1983). For a general discussion of religious belief see M. Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (1959).

^[21] See P. Laslett, The World We Have Lost (1979), especially chapter 3: 'The Village Community', 55-84, 184-6.

^[22] For a general discussion, see K. V. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1978), especially 179-182; on the extent of the Church's moral supervision of its parishioners, see K. Wrightson and D. Levine, Poverty and Piety in an English Village: Terling 1525-1700 (New York, 1979) and K. Wrightson, English Society 1580-1680 (1982), especially chapter 7: 'Learning and Godliness', 183-222.

^[23] J. H. Pruett, The Parish Clergy, 155; see also the Republican Thomas Gordon's recognition of the useful propagandist role of the clergy; he wrote: 'It is my opinion, that a parochial clergy are of infinite use, where they take pains by their example and instructions to mend the hearts of the people, where they teach them to love God, and their neighbour, and virtue, and their country, and to hate no man' (The Works of Tacitus, III, 221). For a contrary appraisal, see James Hamilton to John Locke on 8 February 1694 in The Correspondence of John Locke, ed. E. de Beer, volume V, 11. He wrote: 'But thoe I am my self of the Church of England, I am loathe to have my Children tutor'd by any of the Clergy, for most of them, have still a hankering after jure divino and passive obedience principles, and are over tenacious as to indifferent ceremonys, and very fond of the nicetyes in religion, which are matters I would have none of my Children trouble theyr heads about.'

^[24] The history of these coffee-house meetings and clubs is obscure and little studied: much of the subversive reputation may be due to the paranoia of the clergy rather than evidence of a solid nature. The most serious discussions can be found in the works of both M. C. Jacob and J. R. Jacob. For an account of an early Whig club, see the Green Ribbon Club, Pepys' Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge, Ms. Misc. 7 f. 484 and J. R. Jones 'The Green Ribbon Club' in Durham University Journal (1956); of the 'College', see Jacob, The Radical Enlightenment (1981), 117-18, and S. Daniel, John Toland (McGill, 1984), 147, 213. See also M. A. Goldie, 'The Roots of True Whiggism 1688-1694', HPT 1 (1980). See, on the provincial influence of the Calveshead Club, T. Hearne, Remarks and Collections I, 179-80 and 11, 90; E. T. Thompson (ed.), Letters of Humphrey Prideaux to John Ellis 1674-1722 (Camden Society, 1875), 162. Hearne (Remarks, II, 90) also makes reference to the existence of two anticlerical London clubs, 'The Blasphemy Club and the Devil's Lighthouse', which were founded with the purpose 'to run down all religion and carry on all manner of debauchery'.

^[25] For a general account of Toland's life and contacts, R. Sullivan, John Toland and the Deist Controversy (Harvard, 1982) and Jacob, Radical are the most comprehensive. See Wade, Clandestine Organisation, 15, 80, 37, 237-8, for the distribution in France of some of Toland's works such as Nazarenus (1718), Pantheisticon (1720) and The Primitive Constitution of the Christian Church (1726).

^[26] For evidence of the close intellectual relationship between Molesworth and Toland, see the latter's copy of M. Martin's A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland (1716) BL C.45.c.1, which contains marginal notes and commentaries by both men, for example 78, 83, 239.

^[27] See J. Miel, 'Ideas or Epistemes: Hazard versus Foucault' in Yale French Studies 49 (1973), 236-8.

^[28] T. P. Blount, Essays on Several Subjects (1691), 12, 52.

^[29] The premise that Freethought or Enlightenment rested upon a rational conception of God (or the non-existence of God) is central to the recent arguments of Kors and Wootton. See note 40 below.

^[30] See P. Harrison, 'Religion' and the Religions in the English Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1990), passim.

^[31] R. L. Emerson, 'Latitudinarianism and the English Deists' in J. A. Leo Lemay (ed.), Deism, Masonry, and the Enlightenment. Essays honoring Alfred Owen Aldridge (Newark, 1987), 28, 31.

^[32] C. Blount, The Last Saying and Dying Legacy of Mr Thomas Hobbs of Malmesbury (1680).

^[33] For an interesting discussion of the idea of social power see M. Braddick, 'State Formation and Social Change in Early Modern England: A Problem Stated and Approaches Suggested', Social History (1991).

^[34] See J. G. A. Pocock, 'Time, Institutions, and Action: An Essay on Traditions and Their Understanding' in Politics, Language, and Time (1972), and 'English Historical Thought in the Age of Harrington and Locke', Topoi 2 (1983); A. Richardson, History Sacred and Profane (1964); for an excellent treatment of later historiography based on Pocockean premises, see J. Burrow, A Liberal Descent (Cambridge, 1983).

^[35] See most recently P. Avis, Foundations of Modern Historical Thought from Machiavelli to Vico (1986), Introduction, 1-29.

^[36] Hazard's work was translated into English in 1953: there have been numerous editions since.

^[37] Hazard, The European Mind, Preface, 1.

^[38] Hazard, The European Mind, 46-7, 85, 145-6, 159, 498-9.

^[39] The first case is presented most cogently by Gay, The Enlightenment; the second perhaps by D. Berman, A History of Atheism (1988). Both strands of interpretation share a common Whiggism redolent of the late Victorian secularist writings of Robertson or Bury. See, for example, J. M. Robertson, A History of Freethought. Ancient and Modern to the Period of the French Revolution, 2 volumes (1936). For an account of nineteenth-century Freethought, see E. Royle, Radicals, Secularists and Republicans. Popular Freethought in Britain 1866-1915 (Manchester, 1980). The most recent consideration will be Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment, eds. M. Hunter, and D. Wootton (Oxford, forthcoming). Many thanks to Michael Hunter for allowing me to read typescripts of the contents.

^[40] See M. Buckley, At the Origins of Modern Atheism (New Haven, 1987); and A. Kors, A History of French Atheism in 2 volumes, vol. 1 (Yale, 1989) and 'The Preamble of Atheism in Early-Modern France' in A. C. Kors and P. J. Korshin (eds.), Anticipations of the Enlightenment in England, France, and Germany (Philadelphia, 1987). For some eminently sensible comments upon the historiography of this problem, see S. Gilley, 'Christianity and the Enlightenment', History of European Ideas (1981). See also J. E. Force, 'The Origins of Modern Atheism', JHI 50 (1989).

^[41] The first suggestive remarks upon the English Enlightenment were made by F. Venturi in his essay, 'The European Enlightenment' in Italy and the Enlightenment (1972), see 5-9. This essay was originally published in Italian in 1960. Venturi's researches were followed up in his Utopia and Reform in the Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1971). The first extended piece on the idea of an English Enlightenment was J. G. A. Pocock, 'Post-Puritan England and the Problem of the Enlightenment' in P. Zagorin (ed.), Culture and Politics (California, 1980). More recently see R. Porter and M. Teich (eds.), The Enlightenment in National Context (Cambridge, 1981), article by Porter; J. A. Gascoigne, Cambridge and the Age of the Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1989), esp. 1-21; J. G. A. Pocock, 'Clergy and Commerce: The Conservative Enlightenment in England' in Eta dei Lumi. Studia Storici sul settecento Europeo in onore di Franco Venturi (Naples, 1985).

^[42] See Pocock, 'Post-Puritan England', 91; see also R. Porter, 'The Enlightenment in England', 6: 'The simple fact is that Enlightenment goals -- like criticism, sensibility, or the faith in progress -- throve in England within piety. There was no need to overthrow religion itself because there was no Pope, no Inquisition, no Jesuits, no monopolistic priesthood with a stranglehold on children through education and on families through confession.'

^[43] See Gascoigne, Cambridge and the Age of the Enlightenment, 21; for this author it was left to the Cambridge clergy in particular to 'absorb the Enlightenment into the stream of English life rather than leave it to become a potentially subversive and even revolutionary movement'.

^[44] See, for example, the remarks of N. Hampson,, 'The Enlightenment in France' in Porter and Teich, (eds.), The Enlightenment, 47; 'The religious thought of the Enlightenment in France was … influenced, if not conditioned, by the practicalities of power … [So] the deism of the philosophes took on an anticlerical, and in some cases an anti-christian edge that was unnecessary in England or the Netherlands and unpolitic elsewhere.' To me it seems rather contradictory to argue (1) that in France the clergy were so strong they had to be the focus of attack, and then (2) that the clergy in England were so weak that they dictated and absorbed the Enlightenment.

^[45] It is interesting to speculate upon the issue of deist versus churchman after the 1720s, particularly in view of J. C. D. Clark's insistence that the Church of England remained a vigorous and undiluted confession (that is resolutely sacerdotal rather than latitudinarian) until the 1800s. Perhaps the question should not be whether the radicals were assimilated in this period but whether they were defeated.

^[46] See M. C. Jacob, The Radical Enlightenment (1981); also restated in 'Hazard Revisited' in M. C. Jacob and P. Mack (eds.), Politics and Culture in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1987). It is interesting to note, however, that Pocock (the originator of the clerical Enlightenment) is keen to explore the investigations of Jacob's work: she is constantly cited with approval in his main discussions of the issue.

^[47] Jacob, Radical Enlightenment 22, 25, 72-3, 83, 84, 142-5; and Newtonians 51-2, 74, 141, 143-4. Jacob's account of the latitudinarian triumph of 1689 is highly contentious: the scholarship of G. V. Bennett, G. Holmes, M. A. Goldie, and most recently J. Spurr, clearly argues against such a clear-cut victory.

^[48] The most recent assertion of the decline of religion is C. J. Sommerville, 'The Destruction of Religious Culture in Pre-industrial England', Journal of Religious History (1988). Arguing for both an institutional and individual secularization, Sommerville insists (at 77) that religion was divorced 'from all areas of social and cultural life', and that Englishmen had 'abandon[ed] the security of ecclesiastical establishment in favour of an appeal to popular opinion.' Sommerville's general point about the change from a broad religious culture to one where religious belief was considered as private belief is an interesting one: whether this transition can be identified in the early eighteenth century is another matter.

^[49] Clark, English Society has most recently proposed the dominance of what he terms the 'confessional state' throughout the eighteenth century. His emphasis upon the importance of the religious context is in general terms commendable: his reading of the radical attack upon the role of the priest is misconceived. See below, 18-20. It is significant that the rebuttals of Clark's arguments have avoided engaging in any profound sense with his religious hermeneutic. See, for example, J. Innes, 'Jonathan Clark, Social History and England's Ancien Regime', PP 115 (1987). Clark's reply, 'On Hitting the Buffers: The Historiography of England's Ancien Regime. A response', PP 117 (1987), again re-asserts the persistence of the confessional state, and clarifies (at 205) his treatment of radicalism in commenting: 'We are riot measuring a correlation between "heterodoxy" and "political radicalism"; we are exploring the ramifications of the first when not conceptualized by the second.'

^[50] See M. G. Finlayson, Historians, Puritanism, and the English Revolution: The Religious Factor in English Politics before and after the Interregnum (Toronto, 1983).

^[51] On the religious dimensions of the 1640s see J. S. Morrill, 'The Religious Context of the English Civil War', TRHS (1984) and 'The attack on the Church of England in the Long Parliament' in D. Beales and G. Best (eds.), History, Society and the Churches (Cambridge, 1985); works on the religious experiences of the Interregnum are legion -- the best place to start is C. Hill, The World Turned Upside Down (1975), and B. Reay and J. F. L. McGregor (eds.), Radical Religion in the English Revolution (Oxford, 1984). On the Restoration, see T. Harris. P. Seaward and M. A. Goldie (eds.), The Politics of Religion in Restoration England (Blackwell, 1990).

^[52] See J. Scott, 'England's Troubles: Exhuming the Popish Plot' in Harris, Seaward and Goldie (eds.), Politics of Religion at 110, and 'Radicalism and Restoration: The Shape of the Stuart Experience', HJ 31 (1988) at 458-60. The case for a thriving and coherent Church of England has been put most elegantly and convincingly by J. Spurr: apart from his series of articles, see The Restoration Church of England 1646-1689 (Yale, forthcoming). Many thanks to the author for allowing me to read his typescript prior to publication.

^[53] W. Stephens, An Account of the Growth of Deism in England (1696), 6. Another text that insisted upon the continuity of the High Church policies of the 1630s and 1680s was William Denton's Some Remarks Recommended unto Ecclesiasticks (1690). See below, chapter 3, 95-6.

^[54] Stephens, An Account, 7.

^[55] Stephens, An Account, 25.

^[56] Clark, English Society, 136-7, and passim. Clark, however, is mistaken to attack the marxisant historians for failing to examine religion and theology seriously: the work of Hill is evidence enough of a devout interest in religious matters. See also E. P. Thompson (another favourite target of Clark's venom), 'The Peculiarities of the English' in Poverty of Theory (1978) at 80, which pre-empts many of Clark's strictures against economic reductionism: 'The religious conflicts of the English Revolution were not "economic aspirations" diluted with illusions but conflicts about Church authority and doctrine.' The issue of the interpretation of religion is an enormous problem. For a general discussion of the method adopted in this book see R. A. Nisbet, The Sociological Tradition (1967), 221-3; J. Thrower, Marxist-Leninist 'Scientific Atheism' and the Study of Religion and Atheism in the USSR (Berlin, 1983), xvii-xviii, passim; and The Alternative Tradition: Religion and the Rejection of Religion in the Ancient World (The Hague, 1980), 7-10,15-35; Q. Hoare and G. Nowell (eds.), Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (1971), 326-43; J. V. Fermia, Gramsci's Political Thought (Oxford, 1981); G. A. Williams, 'The Concept of "egemonia" in the Thought of Antonio Gramsci', JHI 21 (1960); J. Larrain, The Concept of Ideology (1979); P. Berger, The Social Reality of Religion (1968); K. Nielsen, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (1982). The most recent discussion with particular relevance to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century thought is J. S. Preus, Explaining Religion: Criticism and Theory from Bodin to Freud (Yale, 1987), which identifies the naturalistic, rather than reductionist, explanation of religion. Contrary to Clark's position in English Society (see below) Preus argues (at page xix) that 'religion and the study of religion enjoy no privileged status. Despite the claim that religion is sui generis (whatever meaning one attaches to that notion), it seems self-serving rather than rationally persuasive to argue that religion can therefore be understood only from within a religious perspective.'

^[57] Clark, English Society, 277-348; for a discussion of the relationship between politics and religion for an earlier period, see J. F. McGregor and B. Reay (eds.), Radical Religion in the English Revolution (Oxford, 1984). For valuable general discussions see M. Godelier, Perspectives in Marxist Anthropology (Cambridge, 1977), 'Fetishism, Religion, and Marx's General Theories concerning Ideology', 169-86; K. Marx and F. Engels, On Religion (Moscow, 1976), in particular Engels' essays on 'Bruno Bauer and Early Christianity' and on the origins of Christianity. Note also E. P. Thompson, 'The Peculiarities of the English' in Poverty of Theory (1978).

^[58] In devaluing Republican theology as unimportant heterodoxy, Clark has fallen into the same snare he so capably identified in others: radical religious belief remains unexplored. Admittedly, Clark would insist that the opinions of infidels like Toland and Blount should not be called religious, but it is the claim of this book that such expressions were religious, not in the sense of appealing to a Christian God, but to a more universal and naturalistic transcendent principle. Both the reductionist interpretative strategies and Clark's revisionism are incapable of comprehending the spiritual dimension of Republicanism, which, I argue, can be ultimately identified in the espousal of civil religion in the thought of such central characters as Harrington, Toland and Moyle. Clark insists that 'the historian is under no obligation to explain religion in terms of something else'. The interpretation of religion, despite this methodological naivete, is a difficult problem. We are forced (by the claims of religion itself) either to accept religion in its own terms as true, or (if we cannot accept the truth of this or that religion) then in terms of something else. Clark is unashamedly committed to the first strategy: for him all other paths smack of reductionist materialism. But if we are to take religion seriously we must approach all religion with similar gravity and be committed to a position of severe relativism (which Clark evidently is not), or else fall into the circular argument of insisting that one religion is right because all others are wrong.

^[59] As one recent commentator has written: 'If the early modern period is to be seen as harbouring the beginnings of modern historiography, the explanation lies not in early modern historiographers trying to write like nineteenth- and twentieth-century ones but in their failure to sustain the convention of received modes of historical argumentation.' C. Cordren, 'From Premise to Conclusion on Professional History and the Incubus of Rhetorical Historiography', Parergon: Bulletin of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Festschrift for Professor Sir Geoffrey Elton 6 (1988), 10-11. See P. Millard (ed.) Roger North: The General Preface and Life of Dr John North (University of Toronto, 1984), 76.

^[60] M.A. Goldie, 'John Locke and Anglican Royalism', Political Studies 31 (1983), passim.

^[61] The literature on the history of religious thought from the Reformation to the eighteenth century is manifold; the best survey is W. Cargill Thompson, 'The Two Regiments', (unpublished PhD, Cambridge, 1960).

^[62] The lineage with the radical traditions of both the Levellers and Winstanley are evident, particularly in the shared themes of the divinity of 'reason' and the socially corrosive role of the priesthood: see J. C. Davis, 'The Levellers and Christianity' in B. Manning (ed.), Politics, Religion, and the English Civil War (1973); B. Manning, 'The Levellers and Religion' in J.F. McGregor, B. Reay (eds.), Radical Religion in the English Revolution (Oxford, 1984); the seminal discussion of continuities is C. Hill, 'From Lollards to Levellers' in M. Cornforth (ed.), Rebels and their Causes (1978). See also C. Robbins, The Eighteenth Century Commonwealthsmen (Cambridge, Mass., 1959); C. Hill, Some Intellectual Consequences of the English Revolution (1980), 8-9, 27, 44, 87; M. C. Jacob, Radical Enlightenment 65-86, 201-2, 262; M. C. Jacob and J. R. Jacob (eds.), The Origins of Anglo-American Radicalism, (1984); J. G. A. Pocock (ed.), Three British Revolutions: 1641, 1688, 1776 (Princeton, 1981); R. Zaller, 'The Continuity of British Radicalism in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries', Eighteenth Century Life 6 (1981); J. F. Maclear, 'Popular Anticlericalism in the Puritan Revolution', JHI 17 (1956).