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If Collins had been made to look back over the years 1676-1729, he probably would have summarized the last twenty with a paraphrase of the Popean line, “This long controversy, my life.” For several years and in such works as Priestcraft in Perfection (1710) and A Discourse of Free-Thinking (1713), he was a flailing polemicist against the entire Anglican hierarchy. Not until 1724 did he become a polished debater, when he initiated a controversy which for the next five years made a “very great noise” and which ended only with his death. The loudest shot in the persistent barrage was sounded by the Grounds and Reasons, and its last fusillade by the Discourse concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing.[6]

During those five years Collins concentrated upon a single opponent in each work and made it a rhetorical practice to change his “Adversary” in successive essays. He created in this way a composite victim whose strength was lessened by deindividualization; in this way too he ran no risk of being labelled a hobbyhorse rider or, more seriously, a persecutor. Throughout the Grounds and Reasons he laughed at, reasoned against, and satirized William Whiston’s assumption that messianic prophecies in the Old Testament were literally fulfilled in the figure and mission of Jesus. Within two years and in a new work, he substituted Edward Chandler, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, for the mathematician. It need not have been the Bishop; any one of thirty-four others could have qualified for the role of opponent, among them people like Clarke, and Sykes, and Sherwood, and even the ubiquitous Whiston. Collins rejected them, however, to debate in the Scheme with Bishop Chandler, the author of A Defence of Christianity from the Prophecies of the old Testament, with one who was, in short, the least controversial and yet the most orthodox of his many assailants.

Early in 1727 the Anglican establishment came to the abrupt realization that the subject of the continuing debate—the reliability of the argument from prophecy—was inconclusive, that it could lead only to pedantic wrangling and hair-splitting with each side vainly clutching victory. Certainly the devotion of many clergymen to biblical criticism was secondary to their interest in orthodoxy as a functional adjunct of government, both civil and canonical. It was against this interest, as it was enunciated in Rogers’s Eight Sermons concerning the Necessity of Revelation (1727) and particularly in its vindictive preface, that Collins chose to fight.[7] The debate had now taken a happy turn for him. As he saw it, the central issue devolved upon man’s natural right to religious liberty. At least he made this the theme of his Letter to Dr. Rogers. In writing to Des Maizeaux about the success of this work, he obviously enjoyed his own profane irony:

In time Rogers did. He counterattacked on 2 February 1728 with a Vindication of the Civil Establishment of Religion.[9] For Collins this work was a dogged repetition of what had gone before, and so it could be ignored except for one of its appendices, A Letter from the Rev. Dr. Marshall jun. To the Rev. Dr. Rogers, upon Occasion of his Preface to his Eight Sermons. Its inclusion seemed an afterthought; yet it altered the dimensions of the debate by narrowing and particularizing the areas of grievance which separated the debaters. Collins, therefore, rebutted it some fourteen months later in A Discourse concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing. He had great hopes for this pamphlet, preparing carefully for its reception. He encouraged the republication of his three preceding works, which find their inevitable conclusion, even their exoneration, in this last performance, and he probably persuaded his bookseller to undertake an elaborate promotional campaign. For the new editions were advertised on seven different days between 10 January and 27 February 1729 in the Daily Post. He wanted no one to miss the relationship between the Discourse concerning Ridicule and Irony and these earlier pieces or to overlook its presence when it finally appeared in the pamphlet shops on 17 March.

Collins was animated by his many debates. Indeed, “he sought the storms.” Otherwise he would not, could not, have participated in these many verbal contests. Throughout them all, his basic strategy—that of provocation—was determined by the very real fact that he had many more enemies than allies, among them, for instance, such formidable antagonists as Swift and Richard Bentley.[10] To survive he had to acquire a tough resilience, a skill in fending off attacks or turning them to his own advantage. Nevertheless, he remained a ready target all his life. Understandably so: his radicalism was stubborn and his opinions predictable. Such firmness may of course indicate his aversion to trimming. Or it may reveal a lack of intellectual growth; what he believed as a young man, he perpetuated as a mature adult. Whether our answer is drawn from either possibility or, more realistically, from both, the fact remains that he never camouflaged the two principles by which he lived and fought:

II

There is very little in this statement to offend modern readers. Yet the orthodox in Collins’s own time had reason to be angry with him: his arguments were inflammatory and his rhetoric was devious, cheeky, and effective. Those contesting him underscored