int among all people of
discernment, and nothing remained but to set it up as a principal
subject of mirth and ridicule, for its having so long interrupted the
pleasures of the world.'[184] Archbishop Wake's testimony is equally
explicit,[185] so is Bishop Warburton's, so is Dean Swift's. Voltaire
declared that there was only just enough religion left in England to
distinguish Tories who had little from Whigs who had less.

In the face of such testimony it seems a bold thing to assert that there
was a vast amount of noise and bluster which caused a temporary panic,
but little else, and that after all Hurd's view of the matter was nearer
the truth. 'The truth of the case,' he writes, 'is no more than this. A
few fashionable men make a noise in the world; and this clamour being
echoed on all sides from the shallow circles of their admirers, misleads
the unwary into an opinion that the irreligious spirit is universal and
uncontrollable.' A strong proof of the absence of any real sympathy with
the Deists is afforded by the violent outcry which was raised against
them on all sides. This outcry was not confined to any one class or
party either in the political or religious world. We may not be
surprised to find Warburton mildly suggesting that 'he would hunt down
that pestilent herd of libertine scribblers with which the island is
overrun, as good King Edgar did his wolves,'[186] or Berkeley, that 'if
ever man deserved to be denied the common benefits of bread and water,
it was the author of a Discourse of Freethinking,'[187] and that 'he
should omit no endeavour to render the persons (of Freethinkers) as
despicable and their practice as odious in the eye of the world as they
deserve.'[188] But we find almost as truculent notions in writings where
we might least expect them. It was, for example, a favourite accusation
of the Tories against the Whigs that they favoured the Deists. 'We'
(Tories), writes Swift, 'accuse them [the Whigs] of the public
encouragement and patronage to Tindal, Toland, and other atheistical
writers.'[189] And yet we find the gentle Addison, Whig as he was,
suggesting in the most popular of periodicals, corporal punishment as a
suitable one for the Freethinker;[190] Steele, a Whig and the most
merciful of men, advocating in yet stronger terms a similar mode of
treatment;[191] Fielding, a Whig and not a particularly straitlaced man,
equally violent.[192]

This strong feeling against the Deists is all th