Percy suggests very doubtfully that this may mean Thomas Woolston, who was born in 1669, educated at Sidney College, Cambridge, published, in 1705,
The Old Apology for the Truth against the Jews and Gentiles Revived
, and afterwards was imprisoned and fined for levity in discussing sacred subjects. The text points to a medical theory of intermarriage. There was a Thomas Winston, of Clare Hall, Cambridge, who travelled over the continent, took degrees at Basle and Padua, returned to take his M.D. at Cambridge, and settled in London in 1607.
William Whiston, born 1667, educated at Tamworth School and Clare Hall, Cambridge, became a Fellow in 1693, and then Chaplain to Bishop Moore. In 1696 he published his
New Theory of the Earth,
which divided attention with Burnet's
Sacred Theory of the Earth
already mentioned. In 1700 Whiston was invited to Cambridge, to act as deputy to Sir Isaac Newton, whom he succeeded in 1703 as Lucasian Professor. For holding some unorthodox opinions as to the doctrines of the early Christians, he was, in 1710, deprived of his Professorship, and banished from the University. He was a pious and learned man, who, although he was denied the Sacrament, did not suffer himself to be driven out of the Church of England till 1747. At last he established a small congregation in his own house in accordance with his own notion of primitive Christianity. He lived till 1752.