prophecies in the Old Testament were literally fulfilled in the figure and mission of Jesus. Within two years and in a new work, he substituted Edward Chandler, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, for the mathematician. It need not have been the Bishop; any one of thirty-four others could have qualified for the role of opponent, among them people like Clarke, and Sykes, and Sherwood, and even the ubiquitous Whiston. Collins rejected them, however, to debate in the

    Scheme

   with Bishop Chandler, the author of

    A Defence of Christianity from the Prophecies of the old Testament

   ,

   with one who was, in short, the least controversial and yet the most orthodox of his many assailants.

   Early in 1727 the Anglican establishment came to the abrupt realization that the subject of the continuing debate—the reliability of the argument from prophecy—was inconclusive, that it could lead only to pedantic wrangling and hair-splitting with each side vainly clutching victory. Certainly the devotion of many clergymen to biblical criticism was secondary to their interest in orthodoxy as a functional adjunct of government, both civil and canonical. It was against this interest, as it was enunciated in Rogers’s

    Eight Sermons concerning the Necessity of Revelation

   (1727) and particularly in its vindictive preface, that Collins chose to fight.

     [7]

   The debate had now taken a happy turn for him. As he saw it, the central issue devolved upon man’s natural right to religious liberty. At least he made this the theme of his

    Letter to Dr. Rogers

   . In writing to Des Maizeaux about the success of this work, he obviously enjoyed his own profane irony:

    I have had particular compliments made me by the B

     P

    of Salisbury, and by D

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