nd
commanding us to renounce and abhor them, which one would have expected,
and which Christ did to all other wickedness, the doctor's scheme is,
that God, in compliance with them, and to indulge men in these same wild
and wicked fancies, did send Christ, took His life, and instituted the
whole economy of the Christian religion.'[255] The construction put upon
the Archbishop's words is curious but deplorable. It is not merely that
it exemplifies, though not in nearly so great a degree as other passages
which might be quoted, the polemical virulence which was then
exceedingly common, and which warped the reasoning powers of such men of
talent and repute as Leslie. The encouragement which attacks made in
this spirit gave to the Deism and infidelity against which they were
directed, was a far more permanent evil. Much may be conceded to the
alarm not unnaturally felt at a time when independent thought was
beginning to busy itself in the investigation of doctrines which had
been generally exempt from it, and when all kinds of new difficulties
were being started on all sides. But the many who felt difficulties, and
honestly sought to find a solution of them, were constantly driven into
open hostility by the unconciliatory treatment they met with. Their most
moderate departures from the strictest path of presumed orthodox
exposition were clamorously resented; their interpretations of Christian
doctrine, however religiously conceived, and however worthy of being at
least fairly weighed, were placed summarily under a ban; and those
Church dignitaries in whom they recognised some sort of sympathy were
branded as 'Sons of Belial.' There can be no doubt that at the end of
the seventeenth, and in the earlier part of the eighteenth centuries,
many men, who under kindlier conditions would have been earnest and
active Churchmen, were unconsciously forced, by the intolerance which
surrounded them, into the ranks of the Deists or the Unitarians.

In the general charge preferred against Tillotson of dangerous and
heretical opinion there was yet another item which attracted far more
general attention than the rest. 'This new doctrine,' says Leslie, 'of
making hell precarious doth totally overthrow the doctrine of the
satisfaction of Christ.'[256] Of this particular inference, which would
legitimately follow only upon a very restricted view of the meaning of
atonement, there is no need of speaking. But the opinion itself, as
stated in Till