Shaftesbury resided among the Dutch during
the year 1691, and made a second visit in 1699. The adversaries of the
Deists enjoyed the same privilege, and did not hesitate to improve it.
Burnet became a great favorite in Holland. Lardner, who spent three
years there, was well known to the reading circles, for his works were
translated into their tongue. Lyttleton, Clarke, Sherlock, and Bentley
received no less favor. Leland enjoyed a cordial introduction by the pen
of Professor Bonnet, while Tillotson had his readers and admirers among
even the boatmen in the sluggish canals of Leyden, Rotterdam, and
Amsterdam. But the Deists of England gained more favor in Holland than
their opponents were able to acquire. The former were bold, while the
latter were timid and compromising. Consequently a brood of domestic
Deists sprang up, who borrowed all their capital from their English
fathers. Patot, a follower of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, referred to
Christ by asking, "What do we trouble ourselves about the words of a
carpenter?" He wrote his _Fable of the Bees_, to ridicule the doctrines
of the atonement and resurrection.
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