In theology Collier was an adherent of the High Church party, though his views were by no means orthodox. In the Jacobite _Mist's Journal_ he attacked Bishop Hoadly's defence of sincere errors. His views on the problems of Arianism, and his attempt to reconcile it with orthodox theology, are contained in _A Specimen of True Philosophy_ (1730, reprinted in _Metaphysical Tracts_, 1837) and _Logology, or a Treatise on the Logos in Seven Sermons on John i. 1, 2, 3, 14_ (1732, analysed in _Metaph. Tracts_). These may be compared with Berkeley's _Siris_.
See Robt. Benson, _Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Arthur Collier_ (1837); Tennemann, _History of Philosophy_; Hamilton, _Discussions_; A. C. Fraser, edition of _Berkeley's Works_; G. Lyon, "Un Idéaliste anglais au XVIII. siècle," in _Rev. philos._ (1880), x. 375.
COLLIER, JEREMY (1650-1726), English nonjuring divine, was born at Stow-with-Quy, Cambridgeshire, on the 23rd of September 1650. He was educated at Ipswich free school, over which his father presided, and at Caius College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1673 and M.A. in 1676. He acted for a short time as a private chaplain, but was appointed in 1679 to the small rectory of Ampton, near Bury St Edmunds, and in 1685 he was made lecturer of Gray's Inn.
At the Revolution he was committed to Newgate for writing in favour of James II. a tract entitled _The Desertion discuss'd in a Letter to a Country Gentleman_ (1688), in answer to Bishop Burnet's defence of King William's position. He was released after some months of imprisonment, without trial, by the intervention of his friends. In the two following years he continued to harass the government by his publications: and in 1692 he was again in prison under suspicion of treasonable correspondence with James. His scruples forbade him to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the court by accepting bail, but he was soon released. But in 1696 for his boldness in granting absolution on the scaffold to Sir John Friend and Sir William Parkyns, who had attempted the assassination of William, he was obliged to flee, and for the rest of his life continued under sentence of outlawry.
When the storm had blown over he returned to London, and employed his leisure in works which were less political in their tone. In 1697 appeared the first volume of his _Essays on Several Moral Subjects_, to which a second was added in 1705, and a third in 1709. The first series contained six essays, the most notable being that "On the office of a Chaplain," which throws much light on the position of a large section of the clergy at that time. Collier deprecated the extent of the authority assumed by the patron and the servility of the poorer clergy.