The award-winning film The Favourite, set in 18th century England during the reign of Queen Anne (photo), reminded me of several anecdotes in Will Durant’s The Story of Civilisation:

“Samuel Clarke (1675-1729), who knew enough mathematics and physics to defend Newton against Leibniz, undertook to prove the Christian creed by demonstrations as rigorous as geometry. In his Boyle lectures of 1704, he forged a chain of 12 propositions to prove the existence of God. History, with its usual humour, adds that Clarke was dismissed by Queen Anne as her chaplain because he was suspected of doubting the Trinity. In the next reign, according to Voltaire, Clarke was prevented from becoming archbishop of Canterbury because a bishop informed Princes Caroline that Clarke was the most learned man in England but he had one defect – he was not a Christian.”

Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travels and of the irreligious Tale of a Tub, returned to his native Ireland after Queen Anne reluctantly appointed him dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. Irish Anglicans thought that Swift would make an excellent prelate if only he believed in God.

“No one,” freethinker Anthony Collins said, “doubted the existence of God until the Boyle lectures undertook to prove it.”

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