Toland bitterly compared the Protestant legislators to "Popish Inquisitors who performed that Execution on the Book, when they could not seize the Author, whom they had destined to the Flames".

[5] After his departure from Oxford Toland resided in London for most of the rest of his life, but was also a somewhat frequent visitor to the European continent, particularly Germany and the Netherlands.

[6] The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1911) says of him that at his death in London at age 51 "he died... as he had lived, in great poverty, in the midst of his books, with his pen in his hand.

"[7] Just before he died, he composed his own epitaph, part of which reads: "He was an assertor of liberty, a lover of all sorts of learning ... but no man's follower or dependent.

[9] John Toland was the first person called a freethinker (by Bishop Berkeley) and went on to write over a hundred books in various domains but mostly dedicated to criticising ecclesiastical institutions.

Many scholars know him for his role as either the biographer or editor of notable republicans from the mid-17th century such as James Harrington, Algernon Sidney and John Milton.

In his 1704 Letters to Serena—in which he used the expression "pantheism"—he carefully analysed the manner by which truth is arrived at, and why people are prone to forms of "false consciousness."

Toland's belief in the need for perfect equality among free-born citizens was extended to the Jewish community, tolerated, but still outsiders in early 18th century England.

He also produced some highly controversial polemics, rumors including the Treatise of the Three Impostors, in which Christianity, Judaism and Islam are all condemned as the three great political frauds.

[12] His republican sympathies were also evidenced by his editing of the writings of some of the great radicals of the 1650s, including James Harrington, Algernon Sydney, Edmund Ludlow and John Milton.

In his support for the Hanoverian monarchy he somewhat moderated his republican sentiments; though his ideal kingship was one that would work towards achieving civic virtue and social harmony, a 'just liberty' and the 'preservation and improvement of our reason.'

Toland's next work of importance, the Life of Milton (1698) referred to "the numerous supposititious pieces under the name of Christ and His apostles and other great persons," provoked the charge that he had called in question the genuineness of the New Testament writings.

Toland replied in his Amyntor, or a Defence of Milton's Life (1699), to which he added a remarkable list of what are now called New Testament apocrypha.

In the first three letters, he develops a historical account of the rise of superstition arguing that human reason cannot ever fully liberate itself from prejudices.

Later works of special importance include Tetradymus wherein can be found Clidophorus, a historical study of the distinction between esoteric and exoteric philosophies.

Fouke traces Toland's practices to Shaftesbury's conception of a comic or 'derisory' mode of philosophising aimed at exposing pedantry, imposture, dogmatism, and folly.

His intellectual reputation, moreover, was subsequently eclipsed by the likes of John Locke and David Hume, and still more by Montesquieu and the French radical thinkers.