This closed panel brings together a number of authors contributing to a forthcoming History of European Ideas special issue, entitled: The Church and the British Moralists. The special issue consists of 12 international scholars exploring how debates about, and within, ‘the church’ are an essential feature of British moral thought in the 17th and 18th centuries. This panel discussion draws attention to the neglected theme of ‘church’ within a group of thinkers which, at least since the 19th century, have been referred to as ‘the British moralists’; namely, influential ‘Enlightenment-era’ philosophers, from Hobbes and Locke to Hume and Bentham. With its novel focus on ‘the church’ and ‘the British moralists’, this panel will: Demonstrate the centrality of ‘church’ to ‘the British moralists’, and the central role of ‘the British moralists’ in debates about, and within, ‘the church’ in the early modern period Challenge the secularisation thesis that still often surrounds well-known early modern British moralists Redefine and broaden the category ‘the British moralists’ itself, from which important theologians, lawyers, and politicians, as well as female and/or non-white authors, have traditionally been excluded. Chair: Dafydd Mills Daniel (University of St AndrewsSpeakers:Dafydd Mills Daniel (University of St Andrews), Newtonian Rationalism, Lockean Tolerance, and a Sincere Faith: Between Deism and the High Church Eileen M. Hunt (University of Notre Dame), Miltonic Monsters among the British Moralists: The Imagination of AI from Hobbes to Shelley Robert G. Ingram (University of Florida), Sin, Salvation and Spirits in Eighteenth-Century England John Marshall (Johns Hopkins University), The life of a black man is of as much regard in the sight of God, as the life of any other man’: Christianity, Enlightenment Historiography, and Antislavery in Quobnah Ottobah Cugoano’s Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery (1787) Tom Stoneham (University of York), Matter, Spirit, and Natural Immortality Amongst the British Moralists Ashley Walsh (Cardiff University), Ideas of international Protestant union and the Enlightenment in England and Switzerland, 1700-1722