Collins, ANTHONY, deist, was born 21st June 1676, at Heston, near Hounslow, in Middlesex, and was the son of a country gentleman. He studied at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge, and became the disciple and friend of John Locke. In 1707 he published his Essay concerning the Use of Human Reason; and in 1709, his Priestcraft in Perfection. The controversy excited by this last work induced Collins to write his Historical and Critical Essay on the Thirty-nine Articles. His next work was a Vindication of the Divine Attributes, in reply to King, Archbishop of Dublin, who asserted the compatibility of Divine Predestination and Human Freedom. Collins was a philosophical Necessitarian, and afterwards advocated his opinions more fully in his Philosophical Inquiry concerning Liberty and Necessity (1715). In 1711 he visited Holland, where he made the friendship of Le Clerc and other eminent litterati. In 1713 he published his Discourse on Free-thinking, the best known, and the most important of all his works; to it Bentley made reply in his famous Remarks. In 1713 Collins made a second visit to
Holland; and in 1718 he was made treasurer for the county of Essex. In 1724 appeared his Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion. The contention that no fair interpretation of the Old Testament prophecies will secure a correspondence between them and their alleged fulfilment in the New Testament, created a violent controversy, and called forth no fewer than thirty-five replies. Two years later he defended himself in his Scheme of Literal Prophecy; and in 1727 he published his last work, the Scheme of Literal Prophecy Considered. Collins died 13th December 1729.