Note 78 — Chapter XVI · BRITISH FREETHOUGHT IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Presbyterianism having thus come pretty much into line with Anglicanism on the old question of predestination, while still holding fast by Scriptural standards as against the deists, the old stress of Anglican dislike had slackened, despite the rise of the new heretical element. Unitarian arguments were now forthcoming from quarters not associated with dissent, as in the case of Thomas Chubb’s first treatise, The Supremacy of the Father Asserted (1715), courteously dedicated “To the Reverend the Clergy, and in particular to the Right Reverend Gilbert Lord Bishop of Sarum, our vigilant and laborious Diocesan.” Chubb (1679–1747) had been trained to glove-making, and, as his opponents took care to record, acted also as a tallow-chandler;78 and the good literary quality of his work made some sensation in an England which had not learned to think respectfully of Bunyan. Chubb’s impulse to write had come from the perusal of Whiston’s Primitive Christianity Revived, in 1711, and that single-minded Arian published his book for him.