William Wotton (1666–1727) first attacked the pernicious influence of freethought on English society in 1704. Responding to John Toland's recent publication of Letters to Serena, Wotton described the book as designed to drive Christianity out of the world. In Wotton's assessment, Toland's methods of enquiry into religious truth were pernicious not only to the individual believer but also to the English nation. Wotton identified Toland's anticlericalism as the key to understanding his wider project. Letters to Serena maintained that each man was born with prejudices that were then reinforced and propagated by the institutions of the Church. The clergy were politically motivated, grasping for power and not fulfilling their religious duty. Consequently, they taught superstition, denied men the ability to appeal to reason, which in turn barred them from locating religious truth, and condemned men to damnation. For Wotton, Toland's suggestion that reason alone would allow correct doctrine to be ascertained struck at the very heart of the Christian religion. ‘It was impossible’, he continued, ‘for any man that believes in the doctrines of the Old and New Testament, to vent such crude and wild assertions’. Both Scripture and Church history proved that the clergy were able to direct their flock towards truth, and salvation could be conferred by the sacrament of baptism and regular church attendance. Two years later, Wotton was equally scathing of Matthew Tindal's Rights of the Christian Church. Once again, he accused an anonymous author of jettisoning the Scriptures and the apostolic rights of the clergy as irrelevant to finding the truth. Instead, Tindal had declared every man ‘is under an indispensable obligation to worship God after the manner he thinks most agreeable to his will; and in all religious matters whatever, to follow the dictates of his own conscience’. Whilst he acknowledged various ways to ascertain doctrinal truth, exactly like his response to Toland two years earlier, Wotton insisted that attending the Church of England, partaking of sacraments and receiving clerical instruction were essential to maintaining the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England.

Historians have largely remembered John Toland and Matthew Tindal and forgotten William Wotton. When he is remembered, Wotton is known for his defence of the Royal Society and his account of the growth of scientific ideas.