arters loudly expressed suspicions of being Deists in
disguise. Tillotson was by strong conviction an advocate of freethought.
'He is a Freethinker,' said all who were afraid of liberty. 'Therefore
no doubt he is undermining Revelation, he is fighting the battle of the
Deists.' 'Yes,' echoed the Deists, glad to persuade themselves that they
had the sanction of his authority. 'He is a Freethinker; if not one of
us, at all events he is closely allied with us.' Yet, on the whole, his
fame and influence probably gained by it. Many who were inclined to
Deistical opinions were induced to read Tillotson, and to feel the force
of his arguments, who would never have opened a page of such a writer as
Leslie. Many, again, who dreaded the Deists, but were disturbed by their
arguments, were wisely anxious to see what was advanced against them by
the distinguished prelate who had been said to agree with them in some
of their leading principles. Meanwhile liberty of thought, independently
of 'Freethinking,' in the obnoxious sense of the word, attracted a
growing amount of attention. The wide interest felt in the ponderous
Bangorian controversy, as it dragged on its tedious course, is in itself
ample evidence of the desire to see some satisfactory adjustment of the
respective bounds of authority and reason. No doubt Tillotson did more
than any one else, Locke only excepted, to create this interest. It was
an immense contribution to the general progress of intelligent thought
on religious subjects, to do as much as was effected by these two
writers in removing abstract ideas from the domain of theological and
philosophical speculation, and transferring them, not perhaps without
some loss of preciseness and definition, to the popular language of
ordinary life. The eighteenth century erred much in trusting too
implicitly to the powers of 'common sense.' Yet this direct appeal to
the average understanding was in many ways productive of benefit. It
induced people to realise to themselves, more than they had done, what
it was they believed, and to form intelligible conceptions of
theological tenets, instead of vaguely accepting upon trust what they
had learnt from their religious teachers. Even while it depressed for
the time the ideal of spiritual attainment, the defect was temporary,
but the work real. 'By clearing away,' says Dorner, 'much dead matter,
it prepared the way for a reconstruction of theology from the very
depths of the heart's