that the practice had been carried on with much success by the baptists. He had hitherto attended the services of the church of England, though in 1719 Henry Sacheverell [q. v.] had endeavoured to exclude him from the parish church. Whiston declined an offer from a lawyer to prosecute Sacheverell gratuitously, saying that it would prove him to be ‘as foolish and passionate as the doctor himself.’ He published a curious ‘Account’ of Dr. ‘Sacheverell's proceedings’ in this matter in 1719. Gradually he became uncomfortable about the Athanasian creed, and finally gave up communion with the church and joined the baptists after Trinity Sunday 1747. He heard a good character of the Moravians, but was cured by perceiving their ‘weakness and enthusiasm.’ His ‘most famous discovery,’ or revival of a discovery, was that the Tartars were the lost tribes. He was still lecturing at Tunbridge Wells in 1746 when he announced that the millennium would begin in twenty years, and that there would then be no more gaming-tables at Tunbridge Wells or infidels in Christendom (Memoirs, p. 333). He appears there in 1748 in the well-known picture prefixed to the third volume of the ‘Richardson Correspondence.’ In 1750 he gave another series of lectures (published in second volume of ‘Memoirs’), showing how his predictions were confirmed by the earthquake of that year, and that Mary Toft [q. v.], the rabbit-woman, had been foretold in the book of Esdras.
Whiston died on 22 Aug. 1752 at the house of Samuel Barker, husband of his only daughter, at Lyndon, Rutland. He was buried at Lyndon beside his wife, who died in January 1750–1. He left two sons, George and John [q. v.] A young brother, Daniel, was for fifty-two years curate of Somersham. He agreed with his brother's views, and wrote a ‘Primitive Catechism,’ published by his brother. He refused preferments from unwillingness to make the necessary subscriptions, and was protected, it is said, at the suggestion of Samuel Clarke, by the Duchess of Marlborough (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. viii. 376–7). He is apparently the Daniel who died on 19 April 1759, aged 82 (ib. i. 505).
Whiston belonged to a familiar type as a man of very acute but ill-balanced intellect. His learning was great, however fanciful his theories, and he no doubt helped to call attention to important points in ecclesiastical history. The charm of his simple-minded honesty gives great interest to his autobiography; though a large part of it is occupied with rather tiresome accounts of his writings and careful directions for their treatment by the future republishers, who have not yet appeared. In many respects he strongly resembles the Vicar of Wakefield, who adopted his principles of monogamy. His condemnation of Hoadly upon that and other grounds is in the spirit of Dr. Primrose (Memoirs, p. 209). It is not improbable that Whiston was more or less in Goldsmith's mind when he wrote his masterpiece.
Whiston's portrait, by Mrs. Sarah Hoadly, is in the National Portrait Gallery of London. A characteristic portrait, by B. White, is engraved in his ‘Memoirs,’ and also in Nichols's ‘Literary Anecdotes’ (i. 494). Another by Vertue was engraved in 1720.
Whiston's works, omitting a few occasional papers, are: 1. ‘A New Theory of the Earth,’ &c., 1696; appendix added to 5th edit. 1736. 2. ‘Short View of the Chronology of the Old Testament,’ &c., 1702. 3. ‘Essay on the Revelation of St. John,’ 1706 (nearly the same as ‘Synchronismorum Apostolicorum Series,’ 1713). 4. ‘Prælectiones Astronomicæ,’ 1707 (in English in 1715 and 1728). 5. ‘The accomplishment of Scripture Prophecies,’ 1708 (Boyle lectures). 6. ‘Sermons and Essays upon several Subjects,’ 1709. 7. ‘Prælectiones Physio-Mathematicæ,’ 1710 (in English in 1716). 8. ‘Essay upon the Teaching of St. Ignatius,’ 1710. 9. ‘Historical Preface,’ 1710 (in 1711 prefixed to ‘Primitive Christianity,’ and republished separately in 1718). 10. Two ‘Replies to Dr. Allen,’ 1711. 11. ‘Remarks upon Dr. Grabe's ‘Essay upon two Arabick MSS.,’ 1711. 12. ‘Primitive Christianity revived,’ 1711, 4 vols. 8vo (containing the Epistles of Ignatius, the ‘Apostolical Constitutions,’ and dissertations; a fifth volume, containing the ‘Recognitions of Clement,’ was added in 1712). 13. ‘Athanasius convicted of Forgery,’ 1712. 14. ‘Primitive Infant Baptism revived,’ 1712. 15. ‘Reflexions on an Anonymous Pamphlet’ (i.e. Collins's ‘Discourse of Freethinking’), 1712. 16. ‘Three Essays’ (on the Council of Nice, ‘Ancient Monuments relating to the Trinity,’ &c., and ‘The Liturgy of the Church of England reduced nearer to the Primitive Standard’), 1713. 17. ‘A Course of Mechanical, Optical, Hydrostatical, and Pneumatical Experiments,’ 1713 (with F. Hauksbee). 18. ‘A New Method of discovering the Longitude,’ 1714 (with Humphrey Ditton). 19. ‘An Argument to prove that … all Persons solemnly, though irregularly, set apart for the Ministry are real Clergymen …,’ 1714. 20. ‘A Vindication of the Sibylline Oracles,’ 1715. 21. ‘St. Clement's and St. Irenæus's Vindi-
