[170] An Explanation and Defence of the Principles of Protestant Dissent, by the Rev. Dr. W. Hamilton Drummond, 1842, pp. 5–6. 47; Skeats, Hist. of the Free Churches of England, ed. Miall, pp. 238–39; Wallace, Anti-Trinitarian Biography, iii, art. 360. [↑]
[171] Cp. Drummond, as cited, pp. 29–30; History, Opinions, etc., of the English Presbyterians, 1834, p. 29. [↑]
[172] W. R. Scott, Francis Hutcheson, p. 31. [↑]
[173] Above, p. 154, note. [↑]
[174] Scott, pp. 28–29, 35–36. The suggestion is not quite convincing. Synge, after becoming Archbishop of Tuam, continued to publish his propagandist tracts, among them An Essay towards making the Knowledge of Religion Easy to the Meanest Capacity (6th ed. 1734), which is quite orthodox, and which argues (p. 3) that the doctrine of the Trinity is to be believed, and not pried into, “because it is above our understanding to comprehend.” All the while there was being sold also his early treatise, “A Gentleman’s Religion: in Three Parts ... with an Appendix, wherein it is proved that nothing contrary to our Reason can possibly be the object of our belief, but that it is no just exception against some of the doctrines of Christianity that they are above our reason.” [↑]
[176] All that is told of this prelate by Lecky (Hist. of Ireland in the 18th Cent. 1892. i, 207) is that at Killala he patronized horse-races. He was industrious on more episcopal lines. He wrote an Introduction to the History of the Jews; a Vindication of Biblical Chronology; two treatises on prophecy; an anti-Athanasian Essay on Spirit (1751), which aroused much controversy; A Vindication of the Histories of the Old and New Testament, in answer to Bolingbroke (2 vols. 1752–1754; 2nd ed. 1757; rep. with the Essay on Spirit, Dublin, 1759), which led to his being prosecuted; and other works. The offence given by the Vindication lay in his denunciation of the Athanasian creed, and of the bigotry of those who supported it. See pt. iii, letters i and ii. The Essay on Spirit is no less heterodox. In other respects, however, Clayton is ultra-orthodox. [↑]
[177] Dr. G. W. Alberti, Briefe betreffende den Zustand der Religion in Gross-Brittannien, Hannover, 1752, p. 440. [↑]