Scientific rationalism, therefore, was what Newton called the “fundamental religion.” But it had been corrupted with “Monstrous Legends, false miracles, veneration of reliques, charmes, ye doctrine of Ghosts or Daemons, and their intercession, invocation & worship and other such heathen superstitions.”61 Newton was particularly incensed by the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, which, he argued, had been foisted on the faithful by Athanasius and other unscrupulous fourth-century theologians.
