The Collected Works

Edmund Law's achievement was to establish Locke as the philosopher of English Protestantism.

His polemical writings against the rationalist views of Samuel Clarke, Locke's chief rival, were a lucid defence of divine providence and justification of revelation on the grounds of historical reason.

As a divine, he envisioned a unified church of broad comprehension, founded on the spirit of tolerance.

During his lifetime his works were much in demand and reprinted many times, but the rise of Romanticism in religion and the longing for more tangible forms of authority rendered his views unfashionable and they were for a time forgotten.

This collected edition of Law's works provides a source for the history of English thought in the 18th century, especially for an understanding of the reception and interpretation of Locke.

They also cast light on the Deist contoversy, the Trinitarian controversy, and the controversy over subscription to the Thirty-Nine Articles.