Thereupon followed charge and countercharge. New gladiators, as different from each other as the nonconformist divine Samuel Chandler and the deist Thomas Chubb, entered the arena on behalf of Collins. For all the dogmatic volubility of Rogers, orthodoxy appeared beleaguered. The moderate clergy, who witnessed this exchange, became alarmed; they feared that in the melee the very heart of English toleration would be threatened by the contenders, all of whom spoke as its champion. Representative of such moderation was Nathanael Marshall, who wished if not to end the debate, then at least to contain its ardor. As canon of Windsor, he supported the condition of a state religion protected by the magistrate but he worried over the extent of the latter’s prerogative and power. Certainly he was more liberal than Rogers in his willingness to entertain professions of religious diversity. Yet he straitjacketed his liberalism when he denied responsible men the right to attack

   laws, both civil and canonical, with “ludicrous Insult” or “with Buffoonery and Banter, Ridicule or Sarcastick Irony.”

     [26]

   Once again Collins met the challenge. In

    A Discourse concerning Ridicule and Irony

   he devoted himself to undermining the moral, the intellectual, and practical foundations of that one restraint which Marshall would impose upon the conduct of any religious quarrel. He had little difficulty in achieving his objective. His adversary’s stand was visibly vulnerable and for several reasons. It was too conscious of the tug-of-war between the deist and Rogers, too arbitrary in its choice of prohibition. It was, in truth, strained by a choice between offending the establishment and yet rejecting clerical extremism.

     [27]

   Moreover, Collins had this time an invisible partner, a superior thinker against whom he could test his own ideas and from whom he could borrow others. For the

    Discourse concerning Ridicule and Irony

   is largely a particularization, a crude but powerful reworking of Shaftesbury’s

    Sensus Communis: An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour

   .

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