 His tutor, Sir John Ellis, a Cartesian, apparently encouraged Clarke to provide a new annotated Latin translation of Rohault’s Treatise of Physics. The 1697 translation included Clarke’s Newtonian notes that criticized Rohault’s Cartesian text. The edition’s success rapidly expanded the understanding of Newtonian physics, and later editions became the standard physics textbook in England. In that same year, Clarke befriended William Whiston, who probably introduced Clarke into the Newtonian circle. These early years show Clarke’s interest in theology as well; he published Three practical essays on baptism, confirmation, and repentance (1699), A Paraphrase on the Four Evangelists (1701–1702), and Some Reflections on that Part of a Book called Amyntor (1699), a response to John Toland’s critique of the New Testament canon. These all demonstrate Clarke’s early interest in “primitive Christianity” (Christianity as practiced and believed in its first two hundred years), which would be central to his theological vision and would lead to the confrontations over the doctrine of the trinity in the 1710s.