Note 65 — Chapter XVI · BRITISH FREETHOUGHT IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Woolston, who put his name to his books, after being arrested in May, 1728, and released on bail, was prosecuted in 1729 on the charge of blasphemy, in that he had derided the gospel miracles and represented Jesus alternately as an impostor, a sorcerer, and a magician. His friendly counsel ingeniously argued that Woolston had aimed at safeguarding Christianity by returning to the allegorical method of the early Fathers; and that he had shown his reverence for Jesus and religion by many specific expressions; but the jury took a simpler view, and, without leaving the court, found Woolston guilty. He was sentenced to pay a fine of £100, to suffer a year’s imprisonment, and either to find surety for his future good conduct or pay or give sureties for £2,000.65 He is commonly said to have paid the penalty of imprisonment for the rest of his life (d. 1733), being unable to pay the fine of £100; but Voltaire positively asserts that “nothing is more false” than the statement that he died in prison; adding: “Several of my friends have seen him in his house: he died there, at liberty.”66 The solution of the conflict seems to be that he lived in his own house “in the rules of” the King’s Bench Prison—that is, in the precincts, and under technical supervision.67 In any case, he was sentenced; and the punishment was the measure of the anger felt at the continuous advance of deistic opinions, or at least against hostile criticism of the Scriptures.