1. The longest study which has come to my attention, Barlow, R. B., “Anti-Subscription and the Revival of Dissenting Activity,” in Citizenship and Conscience A Study in the Theory and Practice of Religious Toleration in England during the Eighteenth Century (Philadelphia, 1962), pp. 132–170,CrossRefGoogle Scholar discusses the Subscription Controversy with respect to toleration and makes a detailed study of the various parliamentary occurrences. See also Abbey, C.J. and Overton, J.H., The English Church in the Eighteenth Century, 2 vols. (London, 1878), 1:435–442;Google ScholarColligan, J.H., Eighteenth Century Nonconformity (London, 1915), pp. 116–122;Google ScholarWinstanley, D.A., Unreformed Cambridge, A Study of Certain Aspects of the University in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1935), pp. 301–316;Google ScholarWard, W.R., “Lord North and the University Test,” in Georgian Oxford, University Politics in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1958), pp. 256–268.Google Scholar

2. The Confessional; or, a Full and Free Inquiry into the Right, Utility, Edification, and Success, of Establishing Systematical Confessions of Faith and Doctrine in Protestant Churches (London, 1766).Google Scholar

3. In a letter to Thomas Hollis, 14 Feb. 1768, added as a note by the editor (Blackburne's son Francis) to the autobiographical “Some Account of the Author,” The Works, Theological and Miscellaneous, 2 vols. (Cambridge and London, 1805), vol. 1, p. iv.Google Scholar Most of the other information about Blackburne has been drawn from the “Account.”

4. An early bibliography of the controversy over The Confessional appears in the Gentleman's Magazine 41 (1771):405–407 and 42 (1772):263–265.Google Scholar The two parts are signed successively “A CONFESSIONALIAN” and “A PETITIONER”; they are suspiciously similar (though not identical) to the two sections of [ Disney, John], A Short View of the Controversies occasioned by the Confessional, and the Petition … (London, 1773).Google Scholar The Short View slightly rearranges or enlarges some items, and has additional material covering the period April–December 1772.

5. “Proposals for an Application to Parliament for Relief in the Matter of Subscription to the Liturgy and Thirty-nine Articles of the established Church of England. Humbly submitted to the Consideration of the learned and conscientious Clergy of the said Church,” Works, 7:1–12.

6. Burke's, speeches on the petitions, in fragmentary state, are in his Works, ed. Willis, F.H., 6 vols. (Oxford, 1906), 3:291–331.Google Scholar The fullest account of the parliamentary discussions is in [Cobbett, William], The Parliamentary History of England, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, 36 vols. (1806–1820; reprint ed., New York, 1966),Google Scholar hereafter cited as PH. The discussion of the original petition on 6 Feb. 1772 appears in PH 17:245–297; of the renewed petition on 5 May 1774, PH 17:1325–1327. Some additional details of the latter are given in McLachlan, H., Letters of Theophilus Lindsey, University of Manchester Historical Series 37 (Manchester, 1920), pp. 49–51.Google Scholar

7. After 23 June 1772 Cambridge allowed B.A. candidates to subscribe membership in the Church of England, but retained subscription to the Articles for other graduates; Oxford resisted any change; PH 17:742–758.

8. PH 5:264. Hans Stanley declared his “attachment to religious as well as civil liberty,” PH 17:259. Lord Folkestone thought that the Anglican clergy should be required to subscribe the Articles, but that “all others may without danger…be relieved from … subscription,” PH 17:267; Burke spoke at length to this point, PH 17:280–281; compare Burke, Works, 3:296–298.

9. PH 17:432–446, 759–791.

10. See [Disney, John], An Arranged Catalogue of the several Publications which have appeared, relating to the enlargement of the Toleration of Protestant-Dissenting-Ministers…1772 to 1790, inclusive (London, 1790).Google Scholar One petition to Parliament opposing the Dissenters' Bill is included at length by Cobbett, PH 17:763–764, and five are more summarized as a group, PH 17:786. Some opposition to the bill appeared in flyers: David Muir et al., Reasons against the Dissenting Ministers Application to Parliament (n.p., 1773); Richard Hutchings et al., Reasons Why the Dissenters Bill…should not be Passed into a Law (np., n.d.-dated at beginning, “February the 16th, 1773… London”). Neither of these is included in Disney's Arranged Catalogue, although the Muir pamphlet attracted at least two printed answers.

11. 18.Geo.III.c.60 in The Statutes at Large, 18 vols., vol. 13 (1780), pp. 290–291; PH 19:1137–1145. Because the discriminatory acts had been made before the union of England and Scotland (1708), they had to be repealed separately for the two countries, PH 19:1142. Serious anti-Catholic riots in Scotland made the legislature hesitate and caused the Scottish Catholics to request compensation for their losses in the riots rather than a toleration which might provoke further outrages, PH 20:280–282, 322–327, 622–623.

12. Amherst, J.W., A History of Catholic Emancipation, 2 vols. (London, 1886), 1:65,Google Scholar cited by Barlow, , Citizenship and Conscience, p.203,Google Scholar n. 81.

13. 19 Geo.III.c.44 in Statutes at Large, 13:404–405. PH 20:239–248, 305–322. The declaration of belief in the scriptures was originally an amendment, strenuously opposed by Wilkes and other speakers, PH 20:308–321. It had been proposed at the time of the first Dissenters' Bill and was then opposed by a number of Dissenting writers on the plea that any man-made test, even subscribing to the scriptures, would be an affront to God's authority. See, for example, Case, Charles, Objections against allowing any Human Authority in Matters of Religion … (Chelmsford, n.d. [1772]);Google ScholarFell, John, Genuine Protestantism: or, the unalienable Rights of Conscience Defended: in Opposition to the late and new Mode of Subscription proposed by some Dissenting Ministers… (London, 1773);Google ScholarFell, J., A Fourth Letter to the Rev. Mr. Pickard, on Genuine Protestantism… (London, 1775).Google Scholar

14. These volumes are now deposited in Dr. Daniel Williams Library, London. Established by a legacy of Dr. Williams (1643?-1716), the library is the most important repository of English nonconformity. After several moves, Dr. Williams's library is now located at 14 Gordon Square, London and is still open for consultation by serious students.

15. A Scriptural Comment upon the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, with an Occasional Preface and Appendix (London, 1772).Google Scholar The preface is dated at the end: “Knightsbridge, Jan. 20, 1772,” p. xvi.

16. The Doctrines, 4th ed. (London, n.d.), p.6; it must have sold well: the British Library copy is a fourth edition.

17. The satire, “Intelligence of John Bull,” can be found in the Turner MSS collection, Hintiana 1, at the University of Victory Library, Victoria, B.C., Canada. For biographical details of Turner, who does not appear in the Dictionary of National Biography, see Anecdotes by Baptist Noel Turner (1739–1826), ed. Patricia Köster (New York, 1982), pp. xv–xviii.Google Scholar

18. For bibliographical history, see Arbuthnot, John, The History of John Bull, ed. Bower, Alan W. and Erickson, Robert A. (Oxford, 1976), pp. xxiii–xxxviii.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19. Beattie, Lester M., John Arbuthnot, Mathematician and Satirist (1935; reprint ed., New York, 1967), pp. 174–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20. Hill, Draper, Mr. Gillray the Caricaturist (London, 1965), p. 46.Google Scholar

21. The Works of James Giliray, from the Original Plates, with the Addition of many Subjects not before Collected (1851; reprint ed., Bronx, 1968),Google Scholar plate 44.

22. 31 October, 14 November, 15 December, 24 December. The 24 December letter, quoting Luther and Calvin on the Trinity, but none of the others, appears in Disney, Arranged Catalogue, p. 3. Because of its Unitarianism it could be by Disney himself. I am deeply indebted to Dr. John Sandys-Wunsch, who sought out this letter for me at the Bodleian Library and then traced the earlier ones as well.

23. The illness is described in chapter 8 of the third pamphlet, which becomes chapter 8 of the second part and acquires the (obviously accurate) explanatory footnote in Pope's version, Law is a Bottomless Pit, pt. 2, ch. 8, p. 100 in Miscellanies: The Second Volume (London, 1736),Google Scholar hereafter cited as LBP.

24. “Intelligence of John Bull,” Hintiana 1, f. 37v, Turner MSS, University of Victoria, hereafter cited as Int.

25. Beattie, , Arbuthnot, pp. 57–58;Google ScholarTeerink, Herman, A Bibliography of the Writings of Jonathan Swift, ed. Scouten, A.H. (Philadelphia, 1963),CrossRefGoogle Scholar items 28, 29, 66 on pp. 17, 18, 66. Some copies (Teerink's 28) have two hands instead of the hand and asterisk on those pages.

26. “List of Pamphlets,” Miscellaneous Prose Pieces 1, Turner MSS, University of Victoria.

27. Int. 40.

28. Int. 37v.

29. LBP 2. 1. 68–71. Turner interprets the chapter as evidence of Swift's genuine love for the church.

30. LBP2.1.71.

31. McLachlan, , Letters of Lindsey, p. 44;Google ScholarPH 17:785.

32. Spencer Cecil Carpenter, Eighteenth-century Church and People (London, 1959), p. 199.Google Scholar Whitefield does record, however, that at a farewell sermon, 4 June 1739, “the people were so melted down, and wept so loud, that they almost drowned my voice,” George Whitefield's Journals: A new edition containing fuller material than any hitherto published (London, 1960), p. 285;Google Scholar compare Journals, pp. 413, 420, 485.

33. The Scriblerus club, whose members included Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, John Arbuthnot and John Gay, satirized intellectual and social follies by comparing them to homely or despicable equivalents, thus reducing them in scale and value. For example, Swift compares the wars of religion to quarreling over which end of an egg to break. He implies that the doctrines uniting Christians (like the contents of the egg) are more important than the differences (how to open the shell), and implicitly challenges Christians to rise above sectarian punctilios.

34. When considering such later ramifications as the political, theological, and social influence of the Evangelical movement in the Church of England, Brantley, Richard E., “Johnson's Wesleyan Connection,” Eighteenth-century Studies 10 (Winter 1976–1977),Google Scholar twice uses the word “mainstream” for Methodism–pp. 163, 166. Miss Black, however, also has her admirers: Gordon Cragg sees Blackburne in the Confessional as a spokesman for the “major influence in the middle years of the century … men of liberal outlook,” Reason and Authority in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1964), p. 252;Google Scholar compare Colligan, Arian Movement, p. 117, cited without disagreement by Wilbur, Earl Morse, A History of Unitarianism in Transylvania, England, and America, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1952), 2:275.Google Scholar

35. Int. 39.

36. The Scourge, no. 8 (25 March 1717).

37. Fortescue, J., ed., The Correspondence of King George the Third, from 1760 to December 1783, 6 vols. (1927–1928; reprint ed., London, 1967), 2:335,Google Scholar letter 1048. The king has left no letters against Blackburne's first petition, presented two months earlier during the final illness of the princess dowager (see letters 1012, 1013), nor against any of the subsequent attempts; perhaps he was convinced by North's exposition of political realities in letter 1049.

38. PH 17:440–446.

39. Letter of 23 Oct. 1773, in McLachlan, , Letters of Lindsey, p. 48;Google Scholar [Disney, ], Short View, p. iv,Google Scholarn.

40. Thomas Secker, Memoirs, Secker MSS (Lambeth), f. 94, cited in N. Sykes, From Sheldon to Secker: Aspects of English Church History, 1660–1768 (Cambridge, 1959), pp. 219–220.Google Scholar

41. Int.40.

42. Lindsey, Theophilus, A. Farewell Address to the Parishioners of Catterick (London, 1774).Google Scholar

43. Short, H.L., “Presbyterians under a New Name,” in The English Presbyterians from Elizabethan Puritanism to modern Unitarianism, ed. Bolam, C[harles] G[ordon] et al. (London, 1968), pp. 228–229;Google Scholar Jeremy Goring, “The break-up of the Old Dissent,” in ibid., pp. 195–196.

44. Blackburne, “Some Account of the Author,” Works, 1:lxxviii; Letter written 1783, in McLachlan, , Letters of Lindsey, p. 107;Google Scholar Letter of 11 Sept. 1783, pub. in Nichols, John, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, 9 vols. (London, vol. 3, 1812), 3:23.Google Scholar

45. McLachlan, H., Warrington Academy its History and Influence, Remains Historical and Literary connected with the Palatine Counties of Lancaster and Chester, n.s. 107 (1943; reprint ed., New York, 1968), p. 64.Google Scholar Priestley advanced the offensive idea of total toleration in Essay on First Principles of Government (1768), and is trying in the apology to defend the other instructors of Warrington Academy (where Blackburne's son studied) from the suspicion of agreeing with it.

46. Blackburne, , “Appendix,” Considerations on the present State of the Controversy between the Protestants and Papists of Great Britain and Ireland (London, 1768), p. 198,Google Scholar cited and discussed on 20 Dec. 1768, Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, ed. Curnock, Nehemiah, 8 vols. (1914; reprinted., London, 1960), 5:295–296.Google Scholar

47. 20 May 1786, Journal of Wesley, 7:160–161; McLachlan, , Letters of Lindsey, pp. 99–100;Google ScholarGreen, Richard, Anti-Methodist Publications (1902; reprint ed., New York, 1973), item 554, pp. 144–145.Google Scholar

48. Hintiana 1, f. 27.

49. Words of Eternal Life or the Catechism Explained on a New and Familiar Plan, With Notes (London, [1803]), pp. 8–9, 11.Google Scholar

50. Ibid., p. 46, n. “y”; p. 32, n. “o.”

51. Toplady, A., Historic Proof of the doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England…, 2 vols. (London, 1774), 2:693.Google Scholar The last sentence of the book ends with a solemn warning against “the grossest Dregs of METHODISM,” 2:731.

52. Journals, p. 348; compare pp. 388, 444.

53. Hintiana 1, f. 16; this is an allusion to “A Short Account of God's Dealings with George Whitefield,” part 1 (1740), in Whitefield's Journals, p. 48. Whitefleld, makes further remarks about the insufficiency of human learning in Journals, pp. 210, 312, 371–372.Google Scholar

54. Hintiana 1, f. 14. Turner's alterations of the Greek (plural to singular, capital) probably are caused by quoting from memory.

55. Thanks are due to Special Collections, McPherson Library, University of Victoria, for permitting the present publication, and to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for granting me a Leave Fellowship.

a. A “pipe”. is a cask, more specifically one containing 126 wine gallons (OED).

b. “Wht[i]t[ef[iel]d—B1[a]ckb[u]rn”: B.N. Turner's note.

c. Turner introduced the hyphen as an afterthought, probably to emphasize a pun which he elsewhere develops: Hetero-doxy becomes a linguistic hybrid, hetero-from the Greek other (with possibly a side-glance at hetaera), and doxy from rogues' cant wench. Thus the word includes the idea of two contending wenches, as well as that of heretical doctrines.

d. Apparently, having begun to write vexation, Turner noticed that the word occurred three lines lower, crossed out the three letters written but forgot to replace the cancel. Possibly he was aware that because of rearrangement the juxtaposition does not occur; in any case vexation completes the sentence and is closer to Turner's intention than a substitute.

e. That is, the label “Shake well” often found on medicines, with a side-glance at the idea that wine is for medicinal purposes only.

f. As in Arbuthnot's pamphlets, Mrs. Bull represents the Parliament, here returning from the summer recess.

g. Willoughby Bertie, 4th Earl of Abingdon.

h. An imitation of Arbuthnot's quarrel scenes: LBP 1.8.26, 1.12.34–35, 2.2[73]. “Tap-lash” means dregs of liquor; Puddle Dock was a place on the Thames at Blackfriars where the dirt cleaned from London streets was transferred to barges for removal.

i. Intemperance.

j. Theophilus Lindsey's Unitarian Chapel in Essex Street, opened April 1774.

k. With rushing pen.