¹ This essay began as an address to a conference entitled “Ordering the World in the Eighteenth Century” held by the British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies in September 2002; for comments I am grateful to the audience, and to David Bergeron, Richard Eversole, Richard Hardin, and John Walsh.

² It is taken as axiomatic in this article that “the Enlightenment” is a polemical term devised in the nineteenth century to place interpretations on what had happened in the eighteenth: the term did not therefore correspond to any clearly-demarcated eighteenth-century phenomena, and could be made to mean whatever its nineteenth- and twentieth-century users wished. Its use here attends to, without endorsing, the meanings conventionally ascribed to the term in recent discourse.

³ Porter, Roy, Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World (London, 2000), p. 13 Google Scholar. This essay is intended as a tribute to my late colleague, and an attempt to honor his memory by continuing our debate.

⁴ “mainstream [religious] observance became divested of supernatural and spiritual elements…. The new hopefulness was often predicated upon claims to lay bare the springs of human nature…”; Hume thought he could show by observation “the constant and universal principles of human nature”; “Prayers and pieties continued, but in the ubiquitous worldly atmosphere devout habits of trusting to Providence were challenged by a new eagerness to practice self-help and take charge where possible”; “The sick no longer needed to abandon themselves to their fate: knowledge and skill would save lives”; “The programmatic shift from Christian Providentialism to more secular, scientific world views…”: Porter, , Enlightenment, pp. 128, 161, 177, 206, 211, 229 Google Scholar.

⁵ Baker, Keith Michael and Reill, Peter Harms, eds., What's Left of Enlightenment? A Postmodern Question (Stanford, 2001)Google Scholar. For other sorts of qualifications to the use of the term, see for example Black, Jeremy, Eighteenth-Century Europe (2nd ed.; London, 1999), pp. 246-62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶ “the problem lay in ensuring that private fulfilment did not subvert public orderliness”: Porter, , Enlightenment, p. 18 Google Scholar.

⁷ Porter's argument that “Probabilistic thinking to some extent replaced Providence” (ibid., p. 149 and elsewhere) is evidenced only by reference to modern work on mathematical probability; Porter did not balance it against evidence on Providence. Although historians of mathematics still incline to a “triumphalist” view, for a more nuanced account see, for example, Shapiro, Barbara J., Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-Century England (Princeton, 1983)Google Scholar. Shapiro argues that the empirical and the probable rose together in seventeenth-century England, so strengthening the claims of Providence.

⁸ Campion, Ab[raham], A Sermon concerning National Providence (Oxford, 1694), p. 2 Google Scholar.

⁹ Case, John, The Angelical Guide (London, 1697)Google Scholar, sig. B4v (italics and Roman reversed).

¹⁰ For a similar and widespread willingness to read social and political meanings into natural phenomena, see Thomas, Keith, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971 Google Scholar; Harmondsworth, 1973), treating such ideas as “primitive survivals” (pp. 105, 125); Wilson, Dudley, Signs and Portents: Monstrous Births from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment (London, 1993)Google Scholar; Daston, Lorraine and Park, Katharine, Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150-1750 (New York, 1998)Google Scholar; Walsham, Alexandra, Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1999)Google Scholar; Jankovic, Vladimir, Reading the Skies: A Cultural History of English Weather (Chicago, 2001)Google Scholar and idem, “The Politics of Sky Battles in Early Hanoverian Britain,” Journal of British Studies 41 (2002): 429-59; Burns, William E., An Age of Wonders: Prodigies, politics and providence in England 1657–1727 (Manchester, 2002)Google Scholar. It will be argued here that although this “culture of wonders” declined in the early eighteenth century, providential discourse as a whole did not, and is not to be understood (cf. Thomas, , Religion, p. 129 Google Scholar) as a survival, inconsistent with other intellectual disciplines.

¹¹ “The heavens when they be pleased may turn the wheel/Of Fortune round, when we that are dejected/May be again raised to our former height” (Act 1, scene 2).

¹² Cumberland, Richard, The Wheel of Fortune: A Comedy. Performed at the Theatre-Royal, Drury-Lane (London, 1795), p. 79 Google Scholar.

¹³ The Entertainment perform 'd at the Theatre-Royal in Dorset-Garden, at Drawing the Lottery call'd the Wheel of Fortune: Being the Speeches addrest to the Spectators, as Prologues and Epilogues (London, 1698), pp. 1–2 Google Scholar. This contrasts with Porter's argument that “The staging of public lotteries-their philosophy of luck seemingly at odds with Providentialism—symbolizes this more secular bent” associated with the management of risk; “the taming of chance” was “the denial or distancing of the transcendental”: Enlightenment, pp. 208-09.

¹⁴ Prologue Design'd for the new last Farce, call'd, The Fool's Expectation: Or, The Wheel of Fortune (London, 1698)Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Defoe, Daniel, The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner (London, 1719 Google Scholar; Harmondsworth, 1985), pp. 38, 80, 121, 125. For much of the twentieth century, this novel was conventionally explained via the themes of realism, adventure narrative or political economy. For a recognition of its providential preoccupations see Starr, G. A., Defoe & Spiritual Autobiography (Princeton, 1965)Google Scholar and Hunter, J. Paul, The Reluctant Pilgrim: Defoe's Emblematic Method and Quest for Form in Robinson Crusoe (Baltimore, 1966)Google Scholar. Starr, G. A., Defoe & Casuistry (Princeton, 1971 Google Scholar) explores another theological aspect.

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³⁹ Ibid., pp. 338-39.

⁴⁰ Cohen, “Isaac Newton's Principia,” points out that Newton's views on God became publicly apparent only with the Queries published in the second (Latin) edition of the Opticks (1706) and the General Scholium written in 1712-13 for the second edition of the Principia (1713), but that they were present from Newton's earliest drafts.

⁴¹ Quoted Hoskin, , “Newton, Providence,” p. 77 Google Scholar.

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⁴³ Quoted in Harrison, Peter, “Newtonian Science, Miracles, and the Laws of Nature,” Journal of the History of Ideas 56 (1995): 537 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, an article which documents similar later arguments in William Whiston and Samuel Clarke.

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⁵⁶ Arbuthnot added: “all the Politicks in the World, are nothing else but a kind of Analysis of the Quantity of Probability in casual Events, and a good Politician signifies no more, but one who is dexterous at such Calculations”: [Huygens, Christiaan], Of the Laws of Chance, or, a Method of Calculation of the Hazards of Game (London, 1692), Preface, n.pGoogle Scholar.

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⁶⁵ Laws of nature had formerly been chiefly a philosophical construct, understood no longer as immanent principles in nature but by analogy with the commands of an omnipotent Deity. See Oakley, Francis, “Christian Theology and the Newtonian Science: the Rise of the Concept of the Laws of Nature,” Church History 30 (1960): 433-57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Milton, John R., “The origin and development of the concept of the ‘laws of nature’,” European Journal of Sociology 22 (1981): 173-95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harrison, , “Newtonian Science, Miracles, and the Laws of Nature” (1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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⁶⁸ Major works in the debate included [Blount, Charles], Miracles no Violation of the Laws of Nature (London, 1683)Google Scholar; Locke, John, “A Discourse of Miracles,” in Posthumous Works (London, 1706)Google Scholar; Collins, Anthony, A Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion (London, 1724)Google Scholar; Chandler, Samuel, A Vindication of the Christian Religion (London, 1725)Google Scholar; Warburton, William, A Critical and Philosophical Enquiry into the Causes of Prodigies and Miracles, as Related by Historians (London, 1727)Google Scholar; Woolston, Thomas, Six Discourses on the Miracles of our Saviour (London, 1727 1728)Google Scholar; Pearce, Zachary, The Miracles of Jesus Vindicated (London, 1729)Google Scholar; Sherlock, Thomas, The Tryal of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus (London, 1729)Google Scholar; Middleton, Conyers, A Letter from Rome, shewing an exact conformity between Popery and Paganism (London, 1729)Google Scholar; Conybeare, John, A Defence of Revealed Religion (London, 1732)Google Scholar; Butler, Joseph, The Analogy of Religion (London, 1736)Google Scholar; Fleming, Caleb, An Answer to Mr. Thomas Chubb's Book, entitled, The True Gospel of Jesus Christ (London, 1738)Google Scholar; idem, Remarks on Mr. Thos. Chubb's short Dissertation on Providence (London, 1738); Chubb, Thomas, A Discourse on Miracles (London, 1741)Google Scholar; Sykes, Arthur Ashley, A Brief Discourse Concerning the Credibility of Miracles and Revelation (London, 1742)Google Scholar; Lemoine, Abraham, A Treatise on Miracles (London, 1747)Google Scholar; Middleton, Conyers, A Free Enquiry into the Miraculous Powers, which are Supposed to have Subsisted in the Christian Church from the Earliest Ages (1749)Google Scholar; Dodwell, William, A Free Answer to Dr. Middleton's Free Inquiry (London, 1749)Google Scholar; [Wesley, John], A Letter to the Reverend Dr. Conyers Middleton (London, 1749)Google Scholar. Hume was also eclipsed by the controversy that followed Middleton's, Conyers An Examination of the Lord Bishop of London's Discourses concerning the Use and Intent of Prophecy (London, 1750)Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ Early responses to Hume on miracles were few in number by comparison with the contributions to the debate on Providence: [Hume, David], Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding (London, 1748), section 10Google Scholar, “Of Miracles”; Adams, William, An Essay on Mr. Hume's Essay on Miracles (London, 1752)Google Scholar; Leland, John, A View of the Principal Deistical Writers, 3 vols. (London, 1754-1756)Google Scholar; Hume, David, Four Dissertations. I. The Natural History of Religion… (London, 1757)Google Scholar; [Hurd, Richard], Remarks on Mr. D. Hume's Essay on the Natural History of Religion: addressed to the Rev. Dr. Warburton (London, 1757)Google Scholar; [S. T., ], Remarks on the Natural History of Religion by Mr. Hume (London, 1758)Google Scholar; Campbell, George, A Dissertation on Miracles; containing an examination of the principles advanced by D. Hume, Esq. In an Essay on Miracles (London, 1762)Google Scholar; Price, Richard, Four Dissertations (London, 1767)Google Scholar. There was little more before the publication of Hume's, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion in 1779 Google Scholar.

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⁷¹ Charleton, Walter, The Darkness of Atheism dispelled by the Light of Nature: a physico-theological Treatise (London, 1652)Google Scholar, cited Oakley, , “Christian Theology,” pp. 444-45Google Scholar.

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⁷³ Campbell, Ted A., “John Wesley and Conyers Middleton on Divine Intervention in History,” Church History 55 (1986): 39–49 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wootton, David, “Hume's ‘Of Miracles’: Probability and Irreligion,” in Stewart, M. A., ed., Studies in the Philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment (Oxford, 1990), pp. 191–229 Google Scholar.

⁷⁴ Bethel, Slingsby, The Providences of God, observed through several ages, towards this nation, in introducing the true religion (London, 1691), p. 40 Google Scholar; Campion, , Sermon concerning National Providence, p. 12 Google Scholar.

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⁹⁶ For which see especially Gunter, W. Stephen, The Limits of “Love Divine”: John Wesley's Response to Antinomianism and Enthusiasm (Nashville, 1989)Google Scholar; McGonigle, Herbert Boyd, Sufficient Saving Grace: John Wesley's Evangelical Arminianism (Carlisle, 2001)Google Scholar.

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⁹⁹ Wesley, John, Predestination Calmly Considered (London, 1752)Google Scholar; Gill, John, The Doctrine of Predestination Stated, And set in the Scripture-Light; In Opposition to Mr. Wesley's Predestination calmly Consider'd (London, 1752)Google Scholar; A New Essay on Divine Providence….Being a very proper Supplement to the late Dr. Sherlock's Treatise on the same Subject (London [1752])Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁰ Parker, William, The Scripture Doctrine of Predestination stated and explained (Oxford, 1759)Google Scholar.

¹⁰¹ Gunter, , Limits of “Love Divine,” pp. 277-79Google Scholar, provides a chronology of the controversy of 1769-77, including 57 published items.

¹⁰² Girolamo Zanchi (1516–90), a Calvinist theologian.

¹⁰³ [Toplady, Augustus, trans.], The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination…asserted….Translated in great measure from the Latin of J. Zanchius (London, 1769)Google Scholar; idem, The Church of England Vindicated from the Charge of Arminianism (London, 1769); idem, A Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley: Relative to his pretended Abridgement of Zanchius on Predestination (London, 1770); idem, More Work for Mr. John Wesley: or. A Vindication of the Decrees and Providence of God from the Defamations of a late printed Paper, entitled, “The Consequence Proved” (London, 1772); idem, Historic Proof of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England (London, 1774).

¹⁰⁴ [Wesley, John], The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination Stated and Asserted. By the Reverend Mr. A— T— (London, 1770)Google Scholar; idem, The Consequence Proved (London, 1771); [Walter Sellon], The Church of England Vindicated from the Charge of Absolute Predestination, As it is Stated and Asserted by the Translator of Jerome Zanchius, in his Letter to the Rev. Dr. Nowell (London, 1771); Wesley, John, The Scripture Doctrine concerning Predestination and Election, and Reprobation. Extracted from a late Author (London, 1776)Google Scholar.

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¹¹⁵ Campion, , A Sermon concerning National Providence, p. 12 Google Scholar.

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¹⁴⁴ Phillipson, Nicholas, “Providence and progress: an introduction to the historical thought of William Robertson,” in Brown, Stewart J., ed., William Robertson and the Expansion of Empire (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 68–69 Google Scholar.

¹⁴⁵ “The tragic mind set of Stoicism and the otherworldly fixations of Christianity yielded to a faith in man's temporal capacity to remould himself…a shift from God-fearingness to a selfhood more psychologically oriented”: Porter, , Enlightenment, pp. 20, 22 Google Scholar.

¹⁴⁶ For recent theological reflection on these issues see Johnson, Elizabeth A., “Does God Play Dice? Divine Providence and Chance,” Theological Studies 57 (1996): 3–18 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴⁷ Butterfield, Herbert, The Whig Interpretation of History (London, 1931 Google Scholar; Harmondsworth, 1973), pp. 23-24, 36-37, 54, 56.

¹⁴⁸ Clark, J. C. D., Our Shadowed Present: modernism, postmodernism and history (London, 2003)Google Scholar.

¹⁴⁹ Cashdollar, Charles D., “The Social Implications of the Doctrine of Divine Providence,” Harvard Theological Review 71 (1978): 265-84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, The Transformation of Theology, 1830-1890: Positivism and Protestant Thought in Britain and America (Princeton, 1989), pp. 346-63 (p. 380 for Benjamin Jowett's Comtean conclusion that “we thankfully look upon the world as a scene of law and order”).