1730, author of _Discours hist., crit., theol., sur les Evénements les plus remarkables du V. et N.T._ 2. =The So-called Arians.= In the beginning of the century several distinguished theologians of the Anglican church sought to give currency to an Arian doctrine of the Trinity. Most conspicuous was =Wm. Whiston=, a distinguished mathematician, physicist, and astronomer of the school of Sir Isaac Newton, and his successor in the mathematical chair at Cambridge. Deprived of this office in A.D. 1708 for spreading his heterodox views, he issued in A.D. 1711 a five-volume work, “Primitive Christianity Revived,” in which he justified his Arian doctrine of the Trinity as primitive and as taught by the ante-Nicene Fathers, and insisted upon augmenting the N.T. canon by the addition of twenty-nine books of the apostolic and other Fathers, including the apostolic “Constitutions” and “Recognitions” which he maintained were genuine works of Clement. Subsequently he adopted Baptist views, and lost himself in fantastic chiliastic speculations. He died A.D. 1752. More sensible and moderate was =Samuel Clarke=, also distinguished as a mathematician of Newton’s school and as a classical philologist. As an opponent of deism in sermons and treatises he had gained a high reputation as a theologian, when his work, “The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity,” in A.D. 1712, led to his being accused of Arianism by convocation; but by conciliatory explanations he succeeded in retaining his office till his death in A.D. 1729. But the excitement caused by the publication of his work continued through several decades, and was everywhere the cause of division. His ablest apologist was Dan. Whitby, and his keenest opponent Dan. Waterland.