Between 1727 and 1729 Thomas Woolston publishes six Discourses on the Miracles of Our Saviour, reading the gospel miracles as allegory and fraud. In 1729 he is tried for blasphemy, fined, and imprisoned, dying in custody in 1733. The trial is the deist controversy's legal climax in England and a standing case in arguments over blasphemy law.
Tagged: Persecution Deism
The Event
- Date
- 1729 (exact)
- Era
- The Deist Controversy; Standard periodization of deist history
- Location
- London; today London, England
- Traditions
- Deism
- Streams
- Deism
- Key figures
- Thomas Woolston
- Key texts
- Discourses on the Miracles of Our Saviour
Primary Sources
- Woolston, Thomas. Six Discourses on the Miracles of Our Saviour. London, 1727-1729; and the trial report of 1729.
Secondary Sources
- Barnett, S. J. The Enlightenment and Religion: The Myths of Modernity. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003.
- Byrne, Peter. Natural Religion and the Nature of Religion: The Legacy of Deism. London: Routledge, 1989.
- Walters, Kerry S. The American Deists: Voices of Reason and Dissent in the Early Republic. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992.
Provenance: HIST-1363; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-30.
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