 It was only really after his death that More’s reputation began to rise, at least in Britain. There was renewed interest in his writings in the early eighteenth century, when More’s combination of rationalism with a passionate, almost enthusiastic, faith must have proved heartening to churchmen living in an age of deism. The natural theology which flourished in the age after Isaac Newton led to an increased emphasis on rationalism in religion but it was important for the clergy to avoid descending into deism, and to combine their natural theologies with a belief in Scripture, and with what More would have called the “Grand Mysteries” of religion. His reputation was also helped by the fact that he was seen as a prominent member of the early Latitudinarians, and as this rational and liberal approach to belief became dominant, More could be seen as one of the movement’s heroes. Furthermore, while More had been trying to promote necessitarian theology at a time when voluntarist theology was very much in the ascendant (especially in Calvinist countries), the eighteenth century saw a reversal, and necessitarian theology came to the fore, as represented seriously in Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man, and satirically in Voltaire’s Candide. As the eighteenth century progressed More’s reputation as a theologian, if not as a philosopher, became assured and it has remained high ever since (Taliaferro 2005).