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⁴ Stephen, , English Thought, i. 406:Google Scholar ‘The starting point of the Cambridge school may be illustrated by Bishop Law's “Considerations on the Theory of Religion”, which was published in 1745, and reached a seventh edition in 1784.’ See also Clark, j.C.D., English Society 1688–1832, Cambridge 1985, 311–13.Google Scholar

⁵ See Mahieu, D.L.Le, The Mind of William Paley, Lincoln, Nebraska 1976, 22;Google ScholarGraham, Cole, ‘A note on Paley and his school – was Sir Leslie Stephen mistaken?’ Tyndale Bulletin 38 (1087), 1–6.Google Scholar

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⁸ No complete list of the membership of the Hyson Club exists. Gilbert, Wakefield, Memoirs of the Life of G. W., B.A., Written by Himself, London 1792, 126–32, and Edmund Paley (ed.) The Works of William Paley, D. D. London 1825, i. 68 mention ten members in all, of whom Waving, Beadon, Vince, Pretyman and Milner are common to both. It is generally supposed that the Laws, Hey, Jebb, Watson and Frend were members at various times but there is no certain evidence for any but Jebb {Public Characters for 1802–3, 106–7). It is clear from his selection of members that Edmund Paley wished to emphasise his father's association with‘safe’men such as Beadon (later Master of Jesus then bishop of Gloucester) and Pretyman.Google Scholar

⁹ It is now acknowledged that we may speak of a specifically English ‘Enlightenment’,which by contrast with the infidelity associated with ‘Enlightenment’ elsewhere, evinced ‘a determination to maintain orthodox belief against the revival of ancient philosophy’. See Pocock, J. G. A., ‘Clergy and commerce. The conservative enlightenment in England’, in L'Eta dei Lumni: Studi storici sul Settecento Europeo in onore di Franco Venturi, Naples 1985, i. 554Google Scholar and passim; also Jacob, Margaret.C., The Newtonians and the English Revolution, Ithaca, New York 1976, and The Radical Enlightenment: pantheists, freemasons and republicans, London 1981.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Anthony, Lincoln, Some Political and Social Ideas of English Dissent, 1763–1800, Cambridge 1938, 22.Google Scholar

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¹⁵ According to Knight, University Rebel, 218, Frend eventually refused to believe even in negative roots because their existence could not be proved. William, Godwin, Political Justice, 3rd., London 1798, 2. 491–93Google Scholar, maintained that in a society without private property, no one would have to work more than half an hour a day to provide the necessaries of life. Needless to say, Paley and Watson were bitterly reviled as turncoats by their former friends among the radicals. See John, Gascoigne, ‘ Anglican Latitudinarianism and political radicalism in the late eighteenth century’, History 71 (1986), 36 and n. 74.Google Scholar

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¹⁷ Richard, WatsonAn Apology for Christianity, in a Series of Letters Addressed to Edward Gibbon, Esquire, Cambridge 1776, 2.Google Scholar

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¹⁹ Paley, , Works, iv. 72, 137, 157, 162, 75, 154.Google Scholar

²⁰ Ibid. iv. 511–12; Clarke, M.L.Paley, Evidences for the Man, London 1974, 86–7.Google Scholar

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²² Christie, Ian R., Stress and Stability in Late Eighteenth Century Britain: reflections on the British avoidance of revolution, Oxford 1984, 160–5; cf. ST II-II, Q.66, arts, 1, 2.Google Scholar

²³ Paley, , Works, iv. 158.Google Scholar

²⁴ Paley, Works, iv. 158.

²⁵ Ibid. iv. 80; cf. Herbert, A. Deane, The Political and Social Ideas of St Augustine, New York 1963, 104–6.Google Scholar

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²⁷ Ibid. iv. 75

²⁸ Ibid. iv. 25

²⁹ Ibid. iv. 477; Clarke, Paley, 84; John, Ehrman, The Younger Pitt, the reluctant transition, London 1983, 63.Google Scholar

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³² Edmund Paley reports that ‘Mr Paley was of every party, and friends with men of all parties, but never exclusively attached to any’: Paley, , Works, i. 72.Google Scholar

³³ Stephen, , English Thought, 1. 454–8,Google Scholar 464, is very scathing about Watson. A far more sympathetic account of Watson's growing political conservatism and its motivation, though one which concedes all to Stephen in the matter of latitudinarianism, is found in Norman, Sykes, Church and State in England in the 18th Century, Cambridge 1934, ch. viii.Google Scholar

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³⁹ See the annotations to the ‘Contents’ of each volume, especially to Lardner (vol. ii), Brett and Taylor (vol. iii), all the authors in vol. iv, Lardner and MacKnight (vol. v), and Fowler (vol. vi).

⁴⁰ Watson, , Theological Tracts, i. pp. 32, 7.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Ibid. i. p. xvi

⁴² Ibid. i. p. xiv

⁴³ Ibid. i. pp. xiii, x, xii. A closely similar cast of villains appears in Paley's Cambridge lecture notes (1767–76), printed by his son in Paley, , Works, i. 415.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Stephen, , English Thought, 76–7, 345.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Watson, , Theological Tracts, i. p. xv.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Ibid. i. pp. vi, ix, x, xi, xiii, xv, xvi

⁴⁷ Paleyl, , Works, iv. 13.Google Scholar

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⁵² Ibid. v. 65–6

⁵³ Watson, , Theological Tracts, 6. p. iii;Google ScholarPaley, , Works, i. 123–4. The Clergyman's Companion was mistakenly attributed to Paley himself and printed by R. Faulder & Son in Sermons and Tracts by the Late Rev. William Paley, D. D., Archdeacon of Carlisle, Subdean of Lincoln, etc., etc., London, 1808.Google Scholar

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⁵⁹ Hey, , Lectures, ii. 48, 200, 43.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Ibid. ii. 93, 94, 97

⁶¹ Ibid. ii. 97, 98, 6. Hey even noted with approval that ‘the Copts in .(AEgypt have divine service in a language they do not understand’: ibid. ii. 97

⁶² Ibid. ii. 99, 102

⁶³ Ibid. ii. 101. Hey's belief that there can be progress in understanding of scripture was shared by Edmund Law and it is instructive to contrast the inferences each drew from this. Law concluded that assent to formularies should not be required: Hey that it should be. See Gascoigne,‘Anglican Latitudinarianism’, 25 and n. 17.

⁶⁴ Stephen, , English Thought, 1. 420. Stephen quotes Foster:‘Where mystery begins religion ends’, and suggests that the sentiment is at least characteristic of the school [‘of Paley’]. Did Stephen actually read Hey's lectures?Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Tracts for the Times. No. 87, On Reserve in Communicating Religious Knowledge, part 4, London, 1840, 21–2: cf. Hey, ii. 100–3. See also Tract 8y, 56, for a view of the dangers of‘system’which closely resembles that of the Cambridge school.

⁶⁶ This was the edition used by Stephen: its pagination differs greatly from the first edition used in this article

⁶⁷ The author is grateful to the librarian of Trinity College, Toronto, for access to the original collection of the university

⁶⁸ George, Pretyman-Tomline, Elements of Christian Theology, 9th edn, 2vols, London 1812, ii. 572.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Ibid. i. pp. xv-xvii. The citation of Lardner (a Dissenter) and Macknight (a Scotch Presbyterian) is revealing for it shows that Pretyman agreed with Watson, as against Anglicans who ‘never read dissenting Divinity’, that what matters is not ‘the quarter from whence the matter was taken, but whether it was good’. See Watson, , Theological Tracts, i. p. xix.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Pretyman, Tomline, Elements, i. p. xiii.Google Scholar

⁷¹ King's scholars proceeded automatically to the BA and to a fellowship by lapse of time, being exempt by statute from university examinations. No King's man read for the Tripos until after the changes of the 1860s

⁷² The author is indebted to Dr Michael Halls, modern archivist, for access to the library records

⁷³ John, Overton, The True Churchman Ascertained: or, An Apology for those of the Regular Clergy of the Establishment who are sometimes called Evangelical Ministers: occasioned by the publications of Drs Paley, Hey, Croft; Messrs. Daubeny, Ludlam, Polwhele, Fellowes; the Reviewers, etc., etc., 2nd edn, York 1802, 156;Google Scholar 19, 24, 141; 129, 245–7.

⁷⁴ Sumner, J.B., Apostolical Preaching Considered, in an Examination of St. Paul's Epistles, London 1815;Google Scholar see Newman, J.H., Apologia Pro Vita Sua, new impression, London 1929, 8–9Google Scholar

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⁷⁸ Ibid. 250, 251, 252, 241

⁷⁹ Ibid. 24, 33, 69, 147

⁸⁰ Sumner, J.B., A Treatise on the Records of the Creation: with particular reference to Jewish history, and the consistency of the principle of population with the wisdom and goodness of the deity, London 1816, 2 vols, i. pp. xii, 21; ii. 251, 255, 262, 296–7, 361–2, 371–2.Google Scholar

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⁸³ The author is indebted to Dr William Parry, the librarian, for access to the library records

⁸⁴ Edward, Copleston, A Second Letter to the Right Hon. Robert Peel, M.P.for the University of Oxford, on the Causes of Pauperism and on the Poor Laws, By one of his Constituents, Oxford 1819, 23–4.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Though Whately was dissatisfied with Paley's moral philosophy, his hatred of‘party spirit’, his willingness to affirm the orthodox formularies combined with his detestation of any persecution of heterodoxy, his powerful attack on Humean scepticism, his devotion to logic and his Whiggish political conservatism mark him as one born out of his time, accidentally transposed from Cambridge of the 1780s.

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