Apprenticed to James, Franklin admitted that he "now had access to better books."[i-394] Whatever the extent of James's library in 1718, by 1722 the _New England Courant_ collection included Burnet's _History of the Reformation_, _Theory of the Earth_, the _Spectator_ papers, _The Guardian_, _Art of Thinking_ [Du Port Royal], _The Tale of a Tub_, and the writings of Tillotson.[i-395] After reading most probably in these, and, as we are told, in Tryon's _Way to Health_, Xenophon's _Memorabilia_, digests of some of Boyle's lectures, Anthony Collins, Locke, and Shaftesbury, Franklin became in his Calvinist religion a "real doubter."[i-396] He became at the age of sixteen, as a result of reading Boyle's Lectures,[i-397] a "thorough Deist."[i-398] We cannot be certain of the Lectures read by Franklin, but we may observe Bentley's _Folly of Atheism_ (1692) and Derham's _Physico-Theology_ (1711-1712), which are representative of the series provided for by Boyle. Like Mather's _The Christian Philosopher_ (1721)[i-399] they both employ science and rationalism to reinforce (never as equivalent to or substitute for) scriptural theology. Fed by Newtonian physics, Bentley discovers in gravity "the great basis of all mechanism," the "immediate _fiat_ and finger of God, and the executions of the divine law."[i-400] Gravity, "the powerful cement which holds together this magnificent structure of the world,"[i-401] is the result of the Deity "who _always acts geometrically_." Borrowing from Cockburne, Ray, Bentley, and Fénelon, Derham offers likewise to prove the existence and operations of the Workman from his Work.[i-402] It is unlikely that Boyle's Lectures (characterized by orthodox rationalism, augmented by Newtonianism) would alone have precipitated in Franklin a "thorough deism." Not improbably Locke, Shaftesbury, and Anthony Collins (whom Franklin mentions reading) were most militant in overthrowing his inherited bibliolatry. Although he does not say exactly which of Collins's works he read, Collins's rationale is repeated clearly enough in any one of his pieces. Warring against "crack-brain'd Enthusiasts," the "prodigious Ignorance" and "Impositions of Priests," against defective scriptural texts, Collins defends "our natural Notions" against the authoritarianism of priests. Vilifying the authority of the surplice, he apotheosizes the authority of reason.[i-403] He intensifies the English tradition of every-man-his-own-priest, and exclaims "How uncertain Tradition is!"[i-404] From this militant friend of John Locke, Franklin was doubtless impregnated with an _odium theologicum_ and an exalted idea of the sanctity of Reason.