[2] Ultimately, however, while retaining his regard for the men and his sympathy with their religious aims, he adopted a thoroughly Calvinistic creed, and resolved to remain in the Anglican Church.

[3] His style is often bombastic, but he displays a rare appreciation of natural beauty, and his simple piety made him many friends.

His earliest work, Meditations and Contemplations, said to have been modelled on Robert Boyle's Occasional Reflexions on various Subjects, within fourteen years passed through as many editions.

[3] Theron and Aspasio, or a series of Letters upon the most important and interesting Subjects, which appeared in 1755, and was equally well received, called forth some adverse criticism even from Calvinists, on account of tendencies which were considered to lead to antinomianism, and was strongly objected to by Wesley in his Preservative against unsettled Notions in Religion.

[5] In addition to this, the sombre and sweeping tone of his Meditations Among The Tombs (for example, "the dreadful pleasure inspired by gazing at fallen monuments and mouldering tombs") has led to his being placed amongst the 18th century "Graveyard School" of poets, rendering his work an important influence on Horace Walpole's "The Castle of Otranto" of 1764 and consequently, the entire genre of Gothic literature and the later Romanticism which the genre fuelled.