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Two years after the appearance of Worthington's volume, the idea of progress in religion was again offered to the consideration of the public by a writer much more prominent than he and immensely more skilled than either he or Edwards in metaphysical speculation. This new exponent of the doctrine was a fellow of Christ's College, widely known since 1731 as the translator and annotator of Archbishop King's De origine mali and destined presently to become Bishop of Carlisle-Edmund Law.' His book, which went through seven editions between 1745 and 1784, consisted of three discourses originally written for delivery before Cambridge University and collected under the title, Considerations on the state of the world with regard to the theory of religion, in three parts: I. Want of universality in natural and revealed religion, no just objection against either; II. The scheme of divine providence with regard to the time and manner of the several dispensations of revealed religion, more especially of the Christian; III. The progress of natural religion and science, or the continual improvement of the world in general.2 Law's problem in this work was set and his treatment of it in part determined by a controversy which had profoundly agitated the English religious world a little more than a decade before and which, by reason of the character and importance of the issues it involved, deserves to be considered one of the turning-points in eighteenth-century thought. 1 1703-87. On Law's career see, besides the article in the DNB, the notice by William Paley prefixed to Considerations on the theory of religion (London, 1820), pp. vil-xvi. 2 Cambridge, 1745. Unless otherwise stated, my references are to this edition. Law continued to interest himself in the book until shortly before his death, with the result that several of the later editions contain much new material, especially in the characteristically voluminous notes. These editions appeared as follows: 2d ed., Cambridge, 1749; 4th ed., London, 1759 (advertised in the London chronicle for October 17-19, 1758); 5th ed., Cambridge, 1765; 6th ed., Cambridge, 1774; 7th ed., Carlisle, 1784; "a new edition," London, 1820. A German translation from the fifth English edition was published at Leipzig in 1771. There is a brief discussion of the Considerations in Leslie Stephen, History of English thought in the eighteenth century, chap. viii, par. 36. [MoDraN PHILOLOOY, May, 19341 349

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