"Well, Hodge," says Collins, "so you have been enjoying the fresh breezes of nature, this fine morning." The clown replied that "he had been worshipping nature's God," and proved it by repeating the substance of the Athanasian creed. Upon which Collins questions him as to the residence of his God: and for a reply is told that his God is so large, that he fills the universe; and so small that he dwells in his breast. This sublime fact, we are told, had more effect upon Collins's mind than all the books written against him by the clergy. When will sensible men reject such charlatanism? The next great work of Collins was his "Discourse on the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion," in two parts. The first containing some considerations on the quotations made from the Old in the New Testament, and particularly on the prophecies cited from the former, and said to be fulfilled in the latter. The second containing an examination of the scheme advanced by Mr. Whiston, in his essay towards restoring the true text of the Old Testament, and for vindicating the citations thence made in the New Testament, to which is prefixed an apology for free debate and liberty of writing. This book took the religious world by storm; it is even thought it struck more dismay amongst divines than his former essay on Freethink-ing. The book proceeds to show that Christianity is not proved by prophecy. That the Apostles relied on the predictions in the Old Testament, and their fulfilment in Jesus as the only sure proof of the truth of their religion; if therefore, the prophecies are not thoroughly literal, and fulfilled distinctly, there can be no proof in Christianity. He then examines the principal prophecies, and dismisses them, as allegorical fables too vague to be of any credit. In less than two years no less than thirty-five books were published in reply to this work, written by the ablest and most influential theologians in England. In 1727 Collins published another large work, "The Scheme of Literal Prophecy Considered," in which he still further defends his view principally against the sophistical reasoning of Whiston, and finally vanquished the whole of his opponents.