er's "true blew"
Presbyterians. It would be hard to live down the associations of those
facetious lines which made the Augustan divines, like their unwelcome
forebear Hudibras, members

Of that stubborn Crew
Of Errant Saints, whom all men grant
To be the true Church Militant.

Those dignified Anglican exteriors were further punctured by Collins's
irreverent attack upon their cry of religious uniformity, a cry which was
"ridiculous, romantick, and impossible to succeed." He saw himself, in
short, as an emancipated Butler or even Cervantes; and like his famous
predecessors he too would laugh quite out of countenance the fool and the
hypocrite, the pretender and the enthusiast, the knave and the persecuter,
all those who would create a god in their own sour and puny image.

III

By 1727 several of the orthodox felt that they could take no more of
Collins's laughter, his sneering invectives against the clergy, or his
designs to make religion "a Matter purely personal; and the Knowledge of
it to be obtain'd by personal Consideration, _independently of any Guides,
Teachers, or Authority_." In the forefront of this group was John Rogers,
whose hostility to the deist was articulate and compulsive. At least it
drove him into a position seemingly at odds with the spirit if not the law
of English toleration. He urged, for example, that those like Collins be
prosecuted in a civil court for a persuasion "which is manifestly
subversive of all Order and Polity, and can no more consist with civil,
than with religious, Society."[25]

Thereupon followed charge and countercharge. New gladiators, as different
from each other as the nonconformist divine Samuel Chandler and the deist
Thomas Chubb, entered the arena on behalf of Collins. For all the dogmatic
volubility of Rogers, orthodoxy appeared beleaguered. The moderate clergy,
who witnessed this exchange, became alarmed; they feared that in the melee
the very heart of English toleration would be threatened by the
contenders, all of whom spoke as its champion. Representative of such
moderation was Nathanael Marshall, who wished if not to end the debate,
then at least to contain its ardor. As canon of Windsor, he supported the
condition of a state religion protected by the magistrate but he worried
over the extent of the latter's prerogative and power. Certainly he was
more liberal than Rogers in his willingness to entertain professions of
religious divers