The Deists themselves appear to have been fully aware of the unpopularity of their speculations. They have been accused, and not without reason, of insinuating doubts which they dared not express openly. But then, why dared they not express them? The days of persecution for the expression of opinion were virtually ended. There were indeed laws still unrepealed against blasphemy and contempt of religion, but except in extreme cases (such as those of Woolston and Annet), they were no longer put into force. Warburton wrote no more than the truth when he addressed the Freethinkers thus: 'This liberty may you long possess and gratefully acknowledge. I say this because one cannot but observe that amidst full possession of it, you continue with the meanest affectation to fill your prefaces with repeated clamours against difficulties and discouragements attending the exercise of freethinking. There was a time, and that within our own memories, when such complaints were seasonable and useful; but happy for you, gentlemen, you have outlived it.'[193] They had outlived it, that is to say, so far as legal restrictions were concerned. If they did meet with 'difficulties and discouragements,' they were simply those which arose from the force of public opinion being against them. But be the cause what it may, the result is unquestionable. 'The English Deists wrote and taught their creed in vain; they were despised while living, and consigned to oblivion when dead; and they left the Church of England unhurt by the struggle.'[194] It was in France and Germany, not in England that the movement set on foot by the English Deists made a real and permanent impression. J.H.O. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 147: That is, not in virtue of anything he wrote which can be properly called Deism. Shaftesbury in his ethical and Bolingbroke in his political writings may perhaps be termed classical writers, but neither of them qua Deists.] [Footnote 148: See Hunt's _Religious Thought in England_, vol. ii. p. 214.] [Footnote 149: _View of the Deistical Writers_, Letter V. p. 32, &c., and Letter VI. p. 43, &c.] [Footnote 150: The Rev. W.M. Hatch. See his dedication.] [Footnote 151: See Warburton's Letters to Hurd, Letter XVIII. January 30, 1749-50.] [Footnote 152: See Warburton's _Dedication of the Divine Legation of Moses to the Freethinkers_. Jeffery, another contemporary, writes to the same effect.] [Footnote 153: _Sensus Communis_ (on the Freedom of Wit and Humour), Sec. 4.] [Footnote 154: Hoadly in one sense may be regarded as a 'Freethinker' himself; but it was the very fact that he was so which made him resent Collins's perversion of the term. The first of his 'Queries to the Author of a Discourse of Freethinking' is 'Whether that can be justly called Freethinking which is manifestly thinking with the utmost slavery; and with the strongest prejudices against every branch, and the very foundation of all religion?'--Hoadly's _Works_, vol. i.]