CHAPTER III.

THE DEISTS.

Of the many controversies which were rife during the first half of the

eighteenth century, none raised a question of greater importance than

that which lay at the root of the Deistical controversy. That question

was, in a word, this--How has God revealed Himself--how is He still

revealing Himself to man? Is the so-called written Word the only

means--is it the chief means--is it even a means at all, by which the

Creator makes His will known to His creatures? Admitting the existence

of a God--and with a few insignificant exceptions this admission would

have been made by all--What are the evidences of His existence and of

His dealings with us?

During the whole period of pre-reformation Christianity in England, and

during the century which succeeded the rupture between the Church of

England and that of Rome, all answers to this question, widely though

they might have differed in subordinate points, would at least have

agreed in this--that _some_ external authority, whether it were the

Scripture as interpreted by the Church, or the Scripture and Church

traditions combined, or the Scripture interpreted by the light which

itself affords or by the inner light which lighteth every man that

cometh into the world, was necessary to manifest God to man. The Deists

first ventured to hint that such authority was unnecessary; some even

went so far as to hint that it was impossible. This at least was the

tendency of their speculations; though it was not the avowed object of

them. There was hardly a writer among the Deists who did not affirm that

he had no wish to depreciate revealed truth. They all protested

vigorously against the assumption that Deism was in any way opposed to

Christianity rightly understood. 'Deism,' they said, 'is opposed to

Atheism on the one side and to superstition on the other; but to

Christianity--true, original Christianity--as it came forth from the

hands of its founder, the Deists are so far from being opposed, that

they are its truest defenders.' Whether their position was logically

tenable is quite another question, but that they assumed it in all

sincerity there is no reason to doubt.

It is, however, extremely difficult to assert or deny anything

respecting the Deists as a body, for as a matter of fact they had no

corporate existence. The writers who are generally grouped under the

name wrote apparently upon no preconcerted plan. They formed no sect,

properly so-called, and were bound by no creed. In this sense at least

they were genuine 'freethinkers,' in that they freely expressed their

thoughts without the slightest regard to what had been said or might be

said by their friends or foes. It was the fashion among their

contemporaries to speak of the Deists as if they were as distinct a sect

as the Quakers, the Socinians, the Presbyterians, or any other religious

denomination. But we look in vain for any common doctrine--any common

form of worship which belonged to the Deists as Deists. As a rule, they

showed no desire to separate themselves from communion with the National

Church, although they were quite out of harmony both with the articles

of its belief and the spirit of its prayers. A few negative tenets were

perhaps more or less common to all. That no traditional revelation can

have the same force of conviction as the direct revelation which God has

given to all mankind--in other words, that what is called revealed

religion must be inferior and subordinate to natural--that the

Scriptures must be criticised like any other book, and no part of them

be accepted as a revelation from God which does not harmonise with the

eternal and immutable reason of things; that, in point of fact, the Old

Testament is a tissue of fables and folly, and the New Testament has

much alloy mingled with the gold which it contains; that Jesus Christ is

not co-equal with the one God, and that his death can in no sense be

regarded as an atonement for sin, are tenets which may be found in most

of the Deistical writings; but beyond these negative points there is

little or nothing in common between the heterogeneous body of writers

who passed under the vague name of Deists. To complicate matters still

further, the name 'Deist' was loosely applied as a name of reproach to

men who, in the widest sense of the term, do not come within its

meaning. Thus Cudworth, Tillotson, Locke, and Samuel Clarke were

stigmatised as Deists by their enemies. On the other hand, men were

grouped under the category whose faith did not rise to the level of

Deism. Thus Hume is classified among the Deists. Yet if the term 'Deism'

is allowed to have any definite meaning at all, it implies the certainty

and obligation of natural religion. It is of its very essence that God

has revealed himself so plainly to mankind that there is no necessity,

as there is no sufficient evidence, for a better revelation. But Hume's

scepticism embraced natural as well as revealed religion. Hobbes, again,

occupies a prominent place among the Deists of the seventeenth century,

although the whole nature of his argument in 'The Leviathan' is alien to

the central thought of Deism. Add to all this, that the Deists proper

were constantly accused of holding views which they never held, and that

conclusions were drawn from their premisses which those premisses did

not warrant, and the difficulty of treating the subject as a whole will

be readily perceived. And yet treated it must be; the most superficial

sketch of English Church History during the eighteenth century would be

almost imperfect if it did not give a prominent place to this topic, for

it was the all-absorbing topic of a considerable portion of the period.

The Deistical writers attracted attention out of all proportion to their

literary merit. The pulpit rang with denunciations of their doctrines.

The press teemed with answers to their arguments. It may seem strange

that a mere handful of not very voluminous writers, not one of whom can

be said to have attained to the eminence of an English classic,[147]

should have created such a vast amount of excitement. But the excitement

was really caused by the subject itself, not by the method in which it

was handled. The Deists only gave expression--often a very coarse and

inadequate expression--to thoughts which the circumstances of the times

could scarcely fail to suggest.

The Scriptures had for many years been used to sanction the most

diametrically opposite views. They had been the watchword of each party

in turn whose extravagances had been the cause of all the disasters and

errors of several generations. Romanists had quoted them when they

condemned Protestants to the stake, Protestants when they condemned

Jesuits to the block. The Roundhead had founded his wild reign of

fanaticism on their authority. The Cavalier had texts ready at hand to

sanction the most unconstitutional measures. 'The right divine of kings

to govern wrong' had been grounded on Scriptural authority. All the

strange vagaries in which the seventeenth century had been so fruitful

claimed the voice of Scripture in their favour.

Such reckless use of Scripture tended to throw discredit upon it as a

revelation from God; while, on the other hand, the grand discoveries in

natural science which were a distinguishing feature of the seventeenth

century equally tended to exalt men's notions of that other revelation

of Himself which God has made in the Book of Nature. The calm attitude

of the men of science who had been steadily advancing in the knowledge

of the natural world, and by each fresh discovery had given fresh proofs

of the power, and wisdom, and goodness of God, stood forth in painful

contrast with the profitless wranglings and bitter animosities of

Divines. Men might well begin to ask themselves whether they could not

find rest from theological strife in natural religion? and the real

object of the Deists was to demonstrate that they could.

Thus the period of Deism was the period of a great religious crisis in

England. It is our present purpose briefly to trace the progress and

termination of this crisis.

It is hardly necessary to remark that Deism was not a product of the

eighteenth century. The spirit in which Deism appeared in its most

pronounced form had been growing for many generations previous to that

date. But we must pass over the earlier Deists, of whom the most

notable was Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and come at once to a writer who,

although his most notorious work was published before the seventeenth

century closed, lived and wrote during the eighteenth, and may fairly be

regarded as belonging to that era.

No work which can be properly called Deistical had raised anything like

the excitement which was caused by the anonymous publication in 1696 of

a short and incomplete treatise entitled 'Christianity not Mysterious,

or a Discourse showing that there is nothing in the Gospel contrary to

Reason nor above it, and that no Christian Doctrine can properly be

called a Mystery.' In the second edition, published the same year, the

author discovered himself to be a young Irishman of the name of John

Toland, who had been brought up a Roman Catholic. Leland passes over

this work with a slight notice; but it marked a distinct epoch in

Deistical literature. For the first time, the secular arm was brought to

bear upon a writer of this school. The book was presented by the Grand

Jury of Middlesex, and was burnt by the hands of the hangman in Dublin

by order of the Irish House of Commons. It was subsequently condemned as

heretical and impious by the Lower House of Convocation, which body felt

itself bitterly aggrieved when the Upper House refused to confirm the

sentence. These official censures were a reflex of the opinions

expressed out of doors. Pulpits rang with denunciations and confutations

of the new heretic, especially in his own country. A sermon against him

was 'as much expected as if it had been prescribed in the rubric;' an

Irish peer gave it as a reason why he had ceased to attend church that

once he heard something there about his Saviour Jesus Christ, but now

all the discourse was about one John Toland.[148]

Toland being a vain man rather enjoyed this notoriety than otherwise;

but if his own account of the object of his publication be correct (and

there is no reason to doubt his sincerity), he was singularly

unsuccessful in impressing his real meaning upon his contemporaries. He

affirmed that 'he wrote his book to defend Christianity, and prayed that

God would give him grace to vindicate religion,' and at a later period

he published his creed in terms that would satisfy the most orthodox

Christian.

For an explanation of the extraordinary discrepancy between the avowed

object of the writer and the alleged tendency of his book we naturally

turn to the work itself. After stating the conflicting views of divines

about the Gospel mysteries, the author maintains that there is nothing

in the Gospel contrary to reason nor above it, and that no Christian

doctrine can be properly called a mystery. He then defines the functions

of reason, and proceeds to controvert the two following positions, (1)

that though reason and the Gospel are not in themselves contradictory,

yet according to our conception of them they may seem directly to clash;

and (2) that we are to adore what we cannot comprehend. He declares that

what Infinite Goodness has not been pleased to reveal to us, we are

either sufficiently capable of discovering ourselves or need not

understand at all. He affirms that 'mystery' in the New Testament is

never put for anything inconceivable in itself or not to be judged by

our ordinary faculties; and concludes by showing that mysteries in the

present sense of the term were imported into Christianity partly by

Judaisers, but mainly by the heathen introducing their old mysteries

into Christianity when they were converted.

The stir which this small work created, marks a new phase in the history

of Deism. Compared with Lord Herbert's elaborate treatises, it is an

utterly insignificant work; but the excitement caused by Lord Herbert's

books was as nothing when compared with that which Toland's fragment

raised. The explanation may perhaps be found in the fact that at the

later date men's minds were more at leisure to consider the questions

raised than they were at the earlier, and also that they perceived, or

fancied they perceived, more clearly the drift of such speculations. A

little tract, published towards the end of the seventeenth century,

entitled 'The Growth of Deism,' brings out these points; and as a matter

of fact we find that for the next half century the minds of all classes

were on the alert--some in sympathy with, many more in bitter antagonism

against Deistical speculations. In his later writings, Toland went much

further in the direction of infidelity, if not of absolute Atheism, than

he did in his first work.

The next writer who comes under our notice was a greater man in every

sense of the term than Toland. Lord Shaftesbury's 'Miscellaneous

Essays,' which were ultimately grouped in one work, under the title of

'Characteristics of Men and Manners, &c.,' only bear incidentally upon

the points at issue between the Deists and the orthodox. But scattered

here and there are passages which show how strongly the writer felt upon

the subject. Leland was called to account, and half apologises for

ranking Shaftesbury among the Deists at all.[149] And there certainly is

one point of view from which Shaftesbury's speculations may be regarded

not only as Christian, but as greatly in advance of the Christianity of

many of the orthodox writers of his day. As a protest against the

selfish, utilitarian view of Christianity which was utterly at variance

with the spirit displayed and inculcated by Him 'who pleased not

Himself,' Lord Shaftesbury's work deserves the high tribute paid to it

by its latest editor, 'as a monument to immutable morality and Christian

philosophy which has survived many changes of opinion and revolutions of

thought.'[150] But from another point of view we shall come to a very

different conclusion.

Shaftesbury was regarded by his contemporaries as a decided and

formidable adversary of Christianity. Pope told Warburton,[151] that 'to

his knowledge "The Characteristics" had done more harm to Revealed

Religion in England than all the works of Infidelity put together.'

Voltaire called him 'even a too vehement opponent of Christianity.'

Warburton, while admitting his many excellent qualities both as a man

and as a writer, speaks of 'the inveterate rancour which he indulged

against Christianity.'[152]

A careful examination of Shaftesbury's writings can hardly fail to lead

us to the same conclusion. He writes, indeed, as an easy, well-bred man

of the world, and was no doubt perfectly sincere in his constantly

repeated disavowal of any wish to disturb the existing state of things.

But his reason obviously is that 'the game would not be worth the

candle.' No one can fail to perceive a contemptuous irony in many

passages in which Shaftesbury affirms his orthodoxy, or when he touches

upon the persecution of the early Christians, or upon the mysteries of

Christianity, or upon the sacred duty of complying with the established

religion with unreasoning faith, or upon his presumed scepticism, or

upon the nature of the Christian miracles, or upon the character of our

Blessed Saviour, or upon the representation of God in the Old Testament,

or upon the supposed omission of the virtue of friendship in the

Christian system of ethics.

It is needless to quote the passages in which Shaftesbury, like the

other Deists, abuses the Jews; neither is it necessary to dwell upon his

strange argument that ridicule is the best test of truth. In this, as in

other parts of his writings, it is often difficult to see when he is

writing seriously, when ironically. Perhaps he has himself furnished us

with the means of solving the difficulty. 'If,' he writes, 'men are

forbidden to speak their minds seriously on certain subjects, they will

do it ironically. If they are forbidden to speak at all upon such

subjects, or if they find it really dangerous to do so, they will then

redouble their disguise, involve themselves in mysteriousness, and talk

so as hardly to be understood or at least not plainly interpreted by

those who are disposed to do them a mischief.'[153] The general

tendency, however, of his writings is pretty clear, and is in harmony

with the Deistical theory that God's revelation of Himself in Nature is

certain, clear, and sufficient for all practical purposes, while any

other revelation is uncertain, obscure, and unnecessary. But he holds

that it would be unmannerly and disadvantageous to the interests of the

community to act upon this doctrine in practical life. 'Better take

things as they are. Laugh in your sleeve, if you will, at the follies

which priestcraft has imposed upon mankind; but do not show your bad

taste and bad humour by striving to battle against the stream of popular

opinion. When you are at Rome, do as Rome does. The question "What is

truth?" is a highly inconvenient one. If you must ask it, ask it to

yourself.'

It must be confessed that such low views of religion and morality are

strangely at variance with the exalted notions of the disinterestedness

of virtue which form the staple of one of Shaftesbury's most important

treatises. To reconcile the discrepancy seems impossible. Only let us

take care that while we emphatically repudiate the immoral compromise

between truth and expediency which Shaftesbury recommends, we do not

lose sight of the real service which he has rendered to religion as well

as philosophy by showing the excellency of virtue in itself without

regard to the rewards and punishments which are attached to its pursuit

or neglect.

The year before 'The Characteristics' appeared as a single work (1713),

a small treatise was published anonymously which was at first assigned

to the author of 'Christianity not Mysterious,' and which almost

rivalled that notorious work in the attention which it excited, out of

all proportion to its intrinsic merits. It was entitled 'A Discourse of

Freethinking, occasioned by the Rise and Growth of a Sect called

Freethinkers,' and was presently owned as the work of Anthony Collins,

an author who had previously entered into the lists of controversy in

connection with the disputes of Sacheverell, Dodwell, and Clarke. 'The

Discourse of Freethinking' was in itself a slight performance. Its

general scope was to show that every man has a right to think freely on

all religious as well as other subjects, and that the exercise of this

right is the sole remedy for the evil of superstition. The necessity of

freethinking is shown by the endless variety of opinions which priests

hold about all religious questions. Then the various objections to

Freethinking are considered, and the treatise ends with a list and

description of wise and virtuous Freethinkers--nineteen in number--from

Socrates to Tillotson.

In estimating the merits of this little book, and in accounting for the

excitement which it produced, we must not forget that what may now

appear to us truisms were 170 years ago new truths, even if they were

recognised as truths at all. At the beginning of the eighteenth century

it was not an unnecessary task to vindicate the right of every man to

think freely; and if Collins had performed the work which he had taken

in hand fully and fairly he might have done good service. But while

professedly advocating the duty of thinking freely, he showed so obvious

a bias in favour of thinking in a particular direction, and wrested

facts and quoted authorities in so one-sided a manner, that he laid

himself open to the just strictures of many who valued and practised

equally with himself the right of freethinking. Some of the most famous

men of the day at once entered into the lists against him, amongst whom

were Hoadly,[154] Swift, Whiston, Berkeley, and above all Bentley. The

latter, under the title of 'Phileleutherus Lipsiensis,' wrote in the

character of a German Lutheran to his English friend, Dr. Francis Hare,

'Remarks on a Discourse on Freethinking.' Regarded as a piece of

intellectual gladiatorship the Remarks are justly entitled to the fame

they have achieved. The great critic exposed unmercifully and

unanswerably Collins's slips in scholarship, ridiculed his style, made

merry over the rising and growing sect which professed its competency to

think _de quolibet ente_, protested indignantly against putting the

Talapoins of Siam on a level with the whole clergy of England, 'the

light and glory of Christianity,' and denied the right of the title of

Freethinkers to men who brought scandal on so good a word.

Bentley hit several blots, not only in Collins, but in others of the

'rising and growing sect.' The argument, _e.g._, drawn from the variety

of readings in the New Testament, is not only demolished but adroitly

used to place his adversary on the horns of a dilemma. Nothing again,

can be neater than his answer to various objections by showing that

those objections had been brought to light by Christians themselves. And

yet the general impression, when one has read Collins and Bentley

carefully, is that there is a real element of truth in the former to

which the latter has not done justice; that Bentley presses Collins's

arguments beyond their logical conclusion; that Collins is not what

Bentley would have him to be--a mere Materialist--an Atheist in

disguise; that Bentley's insinuation, that looseness of living is the

cause of his looseness of belief, is ungenerous, and requires proof

which Bentley has not given: that the bitter abuse which he heaps upon

his adversary as 'a wretched gleaner of weeds,' 'a pert teacher of his

betters,' 'an unsociable animal,' 'an obstinate and intractable wretch,'

and much more to the same effect, is unworthy of a Christian clergyman,

and calculated to damage rather than do service to the cause which he

has at heart.

Collins himself was not put to silence. Besides other writings of minor

importance, he published in 1724 the most weighty of all his works, a

'Discourse on the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion.' The

object of this book is to show that Christianity is entirely founded on

the fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies, and then to prove that

these prophecies were fulfilled not in a literal, but only in a typical

or secondary sense. Novelty, he argues, is a weighty reproach against

any religious institution; the truth of Christianity must depend upon

the old dispensation; it is founded on Judaism. Jesus makes claim to

obedience only so far as He is the Messias of the Old Testament; the

fundamental article of Christianity is that Jesus of Nazareth is the

Jewish Messiah, and this can only be known out of the Old Testament. In

fact, the Old Testament is the _only_ canon of Christians; for the New

Testament is not a law book for the ruling of the Church. The Apostles

rest their proof of Christianity only on the Old Testament. If this

proof is valid, Christianity is strong and built upon its true grounds;

if weak, Christianity is false. For no miracles, no authority of the New

Testament can prove its truth; miracles can only be a proof so far as

they are comprehended in and exactly consonant with the prophecies

concerning the Messias. It is only in this sense that Jesus appeals to

His miracles. Christianity, in a word, is simply the allegorical sense

of the Old Testament, and therefore may be rightly called 'Mystical

Judaism.'

As all this bore the appearance of explaining away Christianity

altogether, or at least of making it rest upon the most shadowy and

unsubstantial grounds, there is no wonder that it called forth a

vehement opposition: no less than thirty-five answerers appeared within

two years of its publication, among whom are found the great names of T.

Sherlock, Zachary Pearce, S. Clarke, and Dr. Chandler. The latter wrote

the most solid and profound, if not the most brilliant work which the

Deistical controversy had yet called forth.

But the strangest outcome of Collins's famous book was the work of

Woolston, an eccentric writer who is generally classed among the Deists,

but who was in fact _sui generis_. In the Collins Controversy, Woolston

appears as a moderator between an infidel and an apostate, the infidel

being Collins, and the apostate the Church of England, which had left

the good old paths of allegory to become slaves of the letter. In this,

as in previous works, he rides his hobby, which was a strange perversion

of patristic notions, to the death; and a few years later he returned to

the charge in one of the wildest, craziest books that ever was written

by human pen. It was entitled 'Six Discourses on the Miracles,' and in

it the literal interpretation of the New Testament miracles is ridiculed

with the coarsest blasphemy, while the mystical interpretations which he

substitutes in its place read like the disordered fancies of a sick

man's dream. He professes simply to follow the fathers, ignoring the

fact that the fathers, as a rule, had grafted their allegorical

interpretation upon the literal history, not substituted the one for the

other. Woolston was the only Deist--if Deist he is to be called,--who as

yet had suffered anything like persecution; indeed, with one exception,

and that a doubtful one, he was the only one who ever did. He was

brought before the King's Bench, condemned to pay 25_l._ for each of his

Six Discourses, and to suffer a year's imprisonment; after which he was

only to regain his liberty upon finding either two securities for

1,000_l._ or four for 500_l._; as no one would go bail for him, he

remained in prison until his death in 1731. The punishment was a cruel

one, considering the state of the poor man's mind, of the disordered

condition of which he was himself conscious. If he deserved to lose his

liberty at all, an asylum would have been a more fitting place of

confinement for him than a prison. But if we regard his writings as the

writings of a sane man, which, strange to say, his contemporaries appear

to have done, we can hardly be surprised at the fate he met with.

Supposing that _any_ blasphemous publication deserved punishment--a

supposition which in Woolston's days would have been granted as a matter

of course--it is impossible to conceive anything more outrageously

blasphemous than what is found in Woolston's wild book. The only strange

part of the matter was that it should have been treated seriously at

all. 30,000 copies of his discourses on the miracles were sold quickly

and at a very dear rate; whole bales of them were sent over to America.

Sixty adversaries wrote against him; and the Bishop of London thought it

necessary to send five pastoral letters to the people of his diocese on

the subject.

The works of Woolston were, however, in one way important, inasmuch as

they called the public attention to the miracles of our Lord, and

especially to the greatest miracle of all--His own Resurrection. The

most notable of the answers to Woolston was Thomas Sherlock's 'Tryal of

the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus.' This again called forth an

anonymous pamphlet entitled 'The Resurrection of Jesus considered,' by a

'moral philosopher,' who afterwards proved to be one Peter Annet. In no

strict sense of the term can Annet be called a Deist, though he is often

ranked in that class. His name is, however, worth noticing, from his

connection with the important and somewhat curiously conducted

controversy respecting the Resurrection, to which Sherlock's 'Tryal of

the Witnesses' gave both the impulse and the form. Annet, like Woolston,

was prosecuted for blasphemy and profanity; and if the secular arm

should ever be appealed to in such matters, which is doubtful, he

deserved it by the coarse ribaldry of his attacks upon sacred things.

It has been thought better to present at one view the works which were

written on the miracles. This, however, is anticipating. The year after

the publication of Woolston's discourses, and some years before Annet

wrote, by far the most important work which ever appeared on the part of

the Deists was published. Hitherto Deism had mainly been treated on its

negative or destructive side. The mysteries of Christianity, the

limitations to thought which it imposes, its system of rewards and

punishments, its fulfilment of prophecy, its miracles, had been in turn

attacked. The question then naturally arises, 'What will you substitute

in its place?' or rather, to put the question as a Deist would have put

it, 'What will you substitute in the place of the popular conception of

Christianity?' for this alone, not Christianity itself, Deism professed

to attack. In other words, 'What is the positive or constructive side of

Deism?'

This question Tindal attempts to answer in his 'Christianity as old as

the Creation.' The answer is a plain one, and the arguments by which he

supports it are repeated with an almost wearisome iteration. 'The

religion of nature,' he writes, 'is absolutely perfect; Revelation can

neither add to nor take from its perfection.' 'The law of nature has the

highest internal excellence, the greatest plainness, simplicity,

unanimity, universality, antiquity, and eternity. It does not depend

upon the uncertain meaning of words and phrases in dead languages, much

less upon types, metaphors, allegories, parables, or on the skill or

honesty of weak or designing transcribers (not to mention translators)

for many ages together, but on the immutable relation of things always

visible to the whole world.' Tindal is fond of stating the question in

the form of a dilemma. 'The law of nature,' he writes, 'either is or is

not a perfect law; if the first, it is not capable of additions; if the

last, does it not argue want of wisdom in the Legislator in first

enacting such an imperfect law, and then in letting it continue thus

imperfect from age to age, and at last thinking to make it absolutely

perfect by adding some merely positive and arbitrary precepts?' And

again, 'Revelation either bids or forbids men to use their reason in

judging of all religious matters; if the former, then it only declares

that to be our duty which was so, independent of and antecedent to

revelation; if the latter, then it does not deal with men as rational

creatures. Everyone is of this opinion who says we are not to read

Scripture with freedom of assenting or dissenting, just as we judge it

agrees or disagrees with the light of nature and reason of things.'

Coming more definitely to the way in which we are to treat the written

word, he writes: 'Admit all for Scripture that tends to the honour of

God, and nothing which does not.' Finally, he sums up by declaring in

yet plainer words the absolute identity of Christianity with natural

religion. 'God never intended mankind should be without a religion, or

could ordain an imperfect religion; there must have been from the

beginning a religion most perfect, which mankind at all times were

capable of knowing; Christianity is this perfect, original religion.'

In this book Deism reaches its climax. The sensation which it created

was greater than even Toland or Collins had raised. No less than one

hundred and fifteen answers appeared, one of the most remarkable of

which was Conybeare's 'Defence of Revealed Religion against

"Christianity as old as the Creation."' Avoiding the scurrility and

personality which characterised and marred most of the works written on

both sides of the question, Conybeare discusses in calm and dignified,

but at the same time luminous and impressive language, the important

question which Tindal had raised. Doing full justice to the element of

truth which Tindal's work contained, he unravels the complications in

which it is involved, shows that the author had confused two distinct

meanings of the phrase 'natural reason' or 'natural religion,' viz. (1)

that which is _founded_ on the nature and reason of things, and (2) that

which is _discoverable_ by man's natural power of mind, and

distinguishes between that which is perfect in its kind and that which

is absolutely perfect. This powerful work is but little known in the

present day. But it was highly appreciated by Conybeare's

contemporaries, and the German historian of English Deism hardly knows

how to find language strong enough to express his admiration of its

excellence.[155]

But Tindal had the honour of calling forth a still stronger adversary

than Conybeare. Butler's 'Analogy' deals with the arguments of

'Christianity as old as the Creation' more than with those of any other

book; but as this was not avowedly its object, and as it covered a far

wider ground than Tindal did, embracing in fact the whole range of the

Deistical controversy, it will be better to postpone the consideration

of this masterpiece until the sequel.

By friend and foe alike Tindal seems to have been regarded as the chief

exponent of Deism. Skelton in his 'Deism revealed' (published in 1748)

says that 'Tindal is the great apostle of Deism who has gathered

together the whole strength of the party, and his book is become the

bible of all Deistical readers.' Warburton places him at the head of his

party, classifying the Deists, 'from the mighty author of "Christianity

as old as the Creation," to the drunken, blaspheming cobbler who wrote

against Jesus and the Resurrection.'[156] The subsequent writers on the

Deistical side took their cue from Tindal, thus showing the estimation

in which his book was held by his own party.

Tindal was in many respects fitted for the position which he occupied.

He was an old man when he wrote his great work, and had observed and

taken an interest in the whole course of the Deistical controversy for

more than forty years. He had himself passed through many phases of

religion, having been a pupil of Hickes the Nonjuror, at Lincoln

College, Oxford, then a Roman Catholic, then a Low Churchman, and

finally, to use his own designation of himself, 'a Christian Deist.' He

had, no doubt, carefully studied the various writings of the Deists and

their opponents, and had detected the weak points of all. His book is

written in a comparatively temperate spirit, and the subject is treated

with great thoroughness and ability. Still it has many drawbacks, even

from a literary point of view. It is written in the wearisome form of

dialogue, and the writer falls into that error to which all

controversial writers in dialogue are peculiarly liable. When a man has

to slay giants of his own creation, he is sorely tempted to make his

giants no stronger than dwarfs. To this temptation Tindal yielded. His

defender of orthodoxy is so very weak, that a victory over him is no

great achievement. Again, there is a want of order and lucidity in his

book, and not sufficient precision in his definitions. But the worst

fault of all is the unfairness of his quotations, both from the Bible

and other books.

Perhaps one reason why, in spite of these defects, the book exercised so

vast an influence is, that the minds of many who sympathised with the

destructive process employed by preceding Deists may have begun to yearn

for something more constructive. They might ask themselves, 'What then

_is_ our religion to be? And Tindal answers the question after a

fashion. 'It is to be the religion of nature, and an expurgated

Christianity in so far as it agrees with the religion of nature.' The

answer is a somewhat vague one, but better than none, and as such may

have been welcomed. This, however, is mere conjecture.

Deism, as we have seen, had now reached its zenith; henceforth its

history is the history of a rapid decline. Tindal did not live to

complete his work; but after his death it was taken up by far feebler

hands.

Dr. Morgan in a work entitled 'The Moral Philosopher, or a Dialogue

between Philalethes a Christian Deist, and Theophanes a Christian Jew,'

follows closely in Tindal's footsteps. Like him, he insists upon the

absolute perfection of the law or religion of nature, of which

Christianity is only a republication. Like him, he professes himself a

Christian Deist and vigorously protests against being supposed to be an

enemy to Christianity. But his work is inferior to Tindal's in every

respect. It is an ill-written book. It is mainly directed against the

Jewish economy. But Morgan takes a far wider range than this, embracing

the whole of the Old Testament, which he appears to read backward,

finding objects of admiration in what are there set before us as objects

of reprobation and _vice versa_.

But though Morgan deals mainly with the Old Testament, he throws

considerable doubt in his third volume upon the New. The account given

of the life of Christ, still more, that of His Resurrection, and above

all, the miracles wrought by His apostles, are all thrown into

discredit.[157]

On the whole, this book marks a distinct epoch in the history of English

Deism. There is little indeed said by Morgan which had not been

insinuated by one or other of his predecessors, but the point to be

marked is that it _was_ now said, not merely insinuated. The whole tone

of the book indicates 'the beginning of the end' not far distant, that

end being what Lechler calls 'the dissolution of Deism into Scepticism.'

But there is yet one more author to be noticed whose works were still

written in the earlier vein of Deism. So far Deism had not found a

representative writer among the lower classes. The aristocracy and the

middle class had both found exponents of their views; but Deism had

penetrated into lower strata of society than these, and at length a very

fitting representative of this part of the community appeared in the

person of Thomas Chubb. Himself a working man, and to a great extent

self-educated, Chubb had had peculiar opportunities of observing the

mind of the class to which he belonged. His earlier writings were not

intended for publication, but were written for the benefit of a sort of

debating club of working men of which he was a member. He was with

difficulty persuaded to publish them, mainly through the influence of

the famous William Whiston, and henceforth became a somewhat voluminous

writer, leaving behind him at his death a number of tracts and essays,

which were published together under the title of 'Chubb's Posthumous

Works.' In his main arguments Chubb, like Morgan, follows closely in the

wake of Tindal. But his view of Deism was distinctly from the standpoint

of the working man. As Morgan had directed his attention mainly to the

Old Testament, Chubb directed his mainly to the New. Like others of his

school, he protests against being thought an enemy to Christianity. His

two works 'The True Gospel of Jesus Christ asserted,' and 'The True

Gospel of Jesus Christ vindicated,' give the best exposition of Chubb's

views. 'Our Lord Jesus Christ' he writes, 'undertook to be a reformer,

and in consequence thereof a Saviour. The true Gospel is this: (1)

Christ requires a conformity of mind and life to that eternal and

unalterable rule of action which is founded in the reason of things, and

makes that the only ground of divine acceptance, and the only and sure

way to life eternal. (2) If by violation of the law they have displeased

God, he requires repentance and reformation as the only and sure ground

of forgiveness. (3) There will be a judgment according to works. This

Gospel wrought a change which by a figure of speech is called "a new

birth"' (§ 13). Like Tindal, he contrasts the certainty of natural with

the uncertainty of any traditional religion. He owns 'the Christian

revelation was expedient because of the general corruption; but it was

no more than a publication of the original law of nature, and tortured

and made to speak different things.'[158] He repeats Tindal's objection

to the want of universality of revealed religion on the same grounds.

His chief attacks were, as has been said, made upon the New Testament.

He demurs to the acceptance of the Gospels as infallibly true.

Chubb expresses just those difficulties and objections which would

naturally have most weight with the more intelligent portion of the

working classes. Speculative questions are put comparatively in the

background. His view of the gospel is just that plain practical view

which an artisan could grasp without troubling himself about

transcendental questions, on the nice adjustment of which divines

disputed. 'Put all such abstruse matters aside,' Chubb says in effect to

his fellow-workmen, 'they have nothing to do with the main point at

issue, they are no parts of the true Gospel.' His rocks of offence, too,

are just those against which the working man would stumble. The

shortcomings of the clergy had long been part of the stock-in-trade of

almost all the Deistical writers. Their supposed wealth and idleness

gave, as was natural, special offence to the representative of the

working classes. He attacks individual clergymen, inveighs against the

'unnatural coalition of Church and State,'[159] and speaks of men living

in palaces like kings, clothing themselves in fine linen and costly

apparel, and faring sumptuously.

The lower and lower-middle classes have always been peculiarly sensitive

to the dangers of priestcraft and a relapse into Popery. Accordingly

Chubb constantly appealed to this anti-Popish feeling.[160]

Chubb, being an illiterate man, made here and there slips of

scholarship, but he wrote in a clear, vigorous, sensible style, and his

works had considerable influence over those to whom they were primarily

addressed.

The cause of Deism in its earlier sense was now almost extinct. Those

who were afterwards called Deists really belong to a different school of

thought. A remarkable book, which was partly the outcome, partly,

perhaps, the cause of this altered state of feeling, was published by

Dodwell the younger, in 1742. It was entitled 'Christianity not founded

on argument,' and there was at first a doubt whether the author wrote as

a friend or an enemy of Christianity. He was nominally opposed to both,

for both the Deists and their adversaries agreed that reason and

revelation were in perfect harmony. The Deist accused the Orthodox of

sacrificing reason at the shrine of revelation, the Orthodox accused the

Deist of sacrificing revelation at the shrine of reason; but both sides

vehemently repudiated the charge. The Orthodox was quite as anxious to

prove that his Christianity was not unreasonable, as the Deist was to

prove that his rationalism was not anti-Christian.

Now the author of 'Christianity not founded on argument' came forward to

prove that both parties were attempting an impossibility. In opposition

to everything that had been written on both sides of the controversy for

the last half century, Dodwell protested against all endeavours to

reconcile the irreconcilable.

His work is in the form of a letter to a young Oxford friend, who was

assumed to be yearning for a rational faith, 'as it was his duty to

prove all things.' 'Rational faith!' says Dodwell in effect, 'the thing

is impossible; it is a contradiction in terms. If you must prove all

things, you will hold nothing. Faith is commanded men as a duty. This

necessarily cuts it off from all connection with reason. There is no

clause providing that we should believe if we have time and ability to

examine, but the command is peremptory. It is a duty for every moment of

life, for every age. Children are to be led early to believe, but this,

from the nature of the case, cannot be on rational grounds. Proof

necessarily presupposes a suspension of conviction. The rational

Christian must have begun as a Sceptic; he must long have doubted

whether the Gospel was true or false. Can this be the faith that

"overcometh the world"? Can this be the faith that makes a martyr? No!

the true believer must open Heaven and see the Son of Man standing

plainly before his eyes, not see through the thick dark glass of history

and tradition. The Redeemer Himself gave no proofs; He taught as one

having authority, as a Master who has a right to dictate, who brought

the teaching which He imparted straight from Heaven. In this view of the

ground of faith, unbelief is a rebellious opposition against the working

of grace. The union of knowledge and faith is no longer nonsense. All

difficulties are chased away by the simple consideration "that with men

it is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Philosophy and

religion are utterly at variance. The groundwork of philosophy is all

doubt and suspicion; the groundwork of religion is all submission and

faith. The enlightened scholar of the Cross, if he regards the one

thing needful, rightly despises all lower studies. When he turns to

these he leaves his own proper sphere. Julian was all in the wrong when

he closed the philosophical schools to the Christians. He should have

given them all possible privileges that they might undermine the

principles of Christ. "Not many wise men after the flesh are called."

All attempts to establish a rational faith, from the time of Origen to

that of Tillotson, Dr. Clarke, and the Boyle lectures, are utterly

useless. Tertullian was right when he said _Credo quia absurdum et quia

impossibile est_, for there is an irreconcilable repugnancy in their

natures between reason and belief; therefore, "My son, give thyself to

the Lord with thy whole heart and lean not to thy own understanding."'

Such is the substance of this remarkable work. He hit, and hit very

forcibly, a blot which belonged to almost all writers in common who took

part in this controversy. The great deficiency of the age--a want of

spiritual earnestness, an exclusive regard to the intellectual, to the

ignoring of the emotional element of our nature--nowhere appears more

glaringly than in the Deistical and anti-Deistical literature. What

Dodwell urges in bitter irony, John Wesley urged in sober seriousness,

when he intimated that Deists and evidence writers alike were strangers

to those truths which are 'spiritually discerned.'

There is yet one more writer who is popularly regarded not only as a

Deist, but as the chief of the Deists--Lord Bolingbroke, to whom Leland

gives more space than to all the other Deists put together. So far as

the eminence of the man is concerned, the prominence given to him is not

disproportionate to his merits, but it is only in a very qualified sense

that Lord Bolingbroke can be called a Deist. He lived and was before the

public during the whole course of the Deistical controversy, so far as

it belongs to the eighteenth century; but he was known, not as a

theologian, but first as a brilliant, fashionable man of pleasure, then

as a politician. So far as he took any part in religious matters at all,

it was as a violent partisan of the established faith and as a

persecutor of Dissenters. It was mainly through his instrumentality that

the iniquitous Schism Act of 1713 was passed. In the House of Commons he

called it 'a bill of the last importance, since it concerned the

security of the Church of England, the best and firmest support of the

monarchy.' In his famous letter to Sir W. Wyndham, he justified his

action in regard to this measure, and the kindred bill against

occasional conformity, on purely political grounds. He publicly

expressed his abhorrence of the so-called Freethinkers, whom he

stigmatised as 'Pests of Society.' But in a letter to Mr. Pope, he gave

some intimation of his real sentiments, and at the same time justified

his reticence about them. 'Let us,' he writes, 'seek truth, but quietly,

as well as freely. Let us not imagine, like some who are called

Freethinkers, that every man who can think and judge for himself, as he

has a right to do, has therefore a right of speaking any more than

acting according to freedom of thought.' Then, after expressing

sentiments which are written in the very spirit of Deism, he adds, 'I

neither expect nor desire to see any public revision made of the present

system of Christianity. I should fear such an attempt, &c.' It was

accordingly not until after his death that his theological views were

fully expressed and published. These are principally contained in his

'Philosophical Works,' which he bequeathed to David Mallet with

instructions for their publication; and Mallet accordingly gave them to

the world in 1754. Honest Dr. Johnson's opinion of this method of

proceeding is well known. 'Sir, he was a scoundrel and a coward; a

scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality, a

coward because he had no resolution to fire it off himself, but left

half-a-crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger after his

death.' This is strong language, but it is not wholly undeserved. There

is something inexpressibly mean in a man countenancing the persecution

of his fellow creatures for heterodoxy, while he himself secretly held

opinions more heterodox than any of those whom he helped to persecute.

No doubt Bolingbroke regarded religion simply from a political point of

view; it was a useful, nay, a necessary engine of Government. He,

therefore, who wilfully unsettled men's minds on the subject was a bad

citizen, and consequently deserving of punishment. But then, this line

of argument would equally tell against the publication of unsettling

opinions after his death, as against publishing them during his

life-time. _Après moi le déluge_, is not an elevated maxim; yet the only

other principle upon which his mode of proceeding admits of explanation

is, that he wrote his last works in the spirit of a soured and

disappointed man, who had been in turn the betrayer and betrayed of

every party with which he had been connected.

What his motives, however, were, can only be a matter of conjecture; let

us proceed to examine the opinions themselves. They are contained

mainly[161] in a series of essays or letters addressed by him to his

friend Pope, who did not live to read them; and they give us in a

somewhat rambling, discursive fashion, his views on almost all subjects

connected with religion. Many passages have the genuine Deistical ring

about them. Like his precursors, he declares that he means particularly

to defend the Christian religion; that genuine Christianity contained in

the Gospels is the Word of God. Like them, he can scarcely find language

strong enough to express his abhorrence of the Jews and the Old

Testament generally. Like them, he abuses divines of all ages and their

theological systems in the most unmeasured terms. It is almost needless

to add that, in common with his predecessors, he contemptuously rejects

all such doctrines as the Divinity of the Word, Expiation for Sin in any

sense, the Holy Trinity, and the Efficacy of the Sacraments.

In many points, however, Lord Bolingbroke goes far beyond his

predecessors. His 'First Philosophy' marks a distinct advance or

decadence, according to the point of view from which we regard it, in

the history of Freethinking. Everything in the Bible is ruthlessly swept

aside, except what is contained in the Gospels. S. Paul, who had been an

object of admiration to the earlier Deists, is the object of

Bolingbroke's special abhorrence. And not only is the credibility of the

Gospel writers impugned, Christ's own teaching and character are also

carped at. Christ's conduct was 'reserved and cautious; His language

mystical and parabolical. He gives no complete system of morality. His

Sermon on the Mount gives some precepts which are impracticable,

inconsistent with natural instinct and quite destructive of society. His

miracles may be explained away.'

It may be said, indeed, that most of these tenets are contained in the

germ in the writings of earlier Deists. But there are yet others of

which this cannot be said.

Bolingbroke did not confine his attacks to revealed religion. Philosophy

fares as badly as religion in his estimate. 'It is the frantic mother of

a frantic offspring.' Plato is almost as detestable in his eyes as S.

Paul. He has the most contemptuous opinion of his fellow-creatures, and

declares that they are incapable of understanding the attributes of the

Deity. He throws doubt upon the very existence of a world to come. He

holds that 'we have not sufficient grounds to establish the doctrine of

a particular providence, and to reconcile it to that of a general

providence;' that 'prayer, or the abuse of prayer, carries with it

ridicule;' that 'we have much better determined ideas of the divine

wisdom than of the divine goodness,' and that 'to attempt to imitate God

is in highest degree absurd.'

There is no need to discuss here the system of optimism which Lord

Bolingbroke held in common with Lord Shaftesbury and Pope; for that

system is consistent both with a belief and with a disbelief of

Christianity, and we are at present concerned with Lord Bolingbroke's

views only in so far as they are connected with religion. From the

extracts given above, it will be seen how far in this system Deism had

drifted away from its old moorings.

After Bolingbroke no Deistical writing, properly so called, was

published in England. The great controversy had died a natural death;

but there are a few apologetic works which have survived the dispute

that called them forth, and may be fairly regarded as [Greek: ktêmata

es aei] of English theology. To attempt even to enumerate the works of

all the anti-Deistical writers would fill many pages. Those who are

curious in such matters must be referred to the popular work of Leland,

where they will find an account of the principal writers on both sides.

All that can be attempted here is to notice one or two of those which

are of permanent interest.

First among such is the immortal work of Bishop Butler. Wherever the

English language is spoken, Butler's 'Analogy' holds a distinguished

place among English classics. Published in the year 1736, when the

excitement raised by 'Christianity as old as the Creation' was at its

height, it was, as has been well remarked, 'the result of twenty years'

study, the very twenty years during which the Deistical notions formed

the atmosphere which educated people breathed.'[162] For those twenty

years and longer still, the absolute certainty of God's revelation of

Himself in nature, and the absolute perfection of the religion founded

on that revelation, in contradistinction to the uncertainty and

imperfection of all traditional religions, had been the incessant cry of

the new school of thought, a cry which had lately found its strongest

and ablest expression in Tindal's famous work. It was to those who

raised this cry, and to those who were likely to be influenced by it,

that Butler's famous argument was primarily addressed. 'You assert,' he

says in effect, 'that the law of nature is absolutely perfect and

absolutely certain; I will show you that precisely the same kind of

difficulties are found in nature as you find in revelation.' Butler

uttered no abuse, descended to no personalities such as spoiled too many

of the anti-Deistical writings; but his book shows that his mind was

positively steeped in Deistical literature. Hardly an argument which the

Deists had used is unnoticed; hardly an objection which they could raise

is not anticipated. But the very circumstance which constitutes one of

the chief excellences of the 'Analogy,' its freedom from polemical

bitterness, has been the principal cause of its being misunderstood. To

do any kind of justice to the book, it must be read in the light of

Deism. Had this obvious caution been always observed, such objections as

those of Pitt, that 'it was a dangerous book, raising more doubts than

it solves,' would never have been heard; for at the time when it was

written, the doubts were everywhere current. Similar objections have

been raised against the 'Analogy' in modern days, but the popular

verdict will not be easily reversed.

Next in importance to Butler's 'Analogy' is a far more voluminous and

pretentious work, that of Bishop Warburton on 'The Divine Legation of

Moses.' It is said to have been called forth by Morgan's 'Moral

Philosopher.' If so, it is somewhat curious that Warburton himself in

noticing this work deprecates any answer being given to it.[163]

But, at any rate, we have Warburton's own authority for saying that his

book had special reference to the Deists or Freethinkers (for the terms

were then used synonymously).

He begins the dedication of the first edition of the first three books

to the Freethinkers with the words, 'Gentlemen, as the following

discourse was written for your use, you have the best right to this

address.'

The argument of the 'Divine Legation' is stated thus by Warburton

himself in syllogistic form:--

'I. Whatsoever Religion and Society have no future state for their

support, must be supported by an extraordinary Providence.

'The Jewish Religion and Society had no future state for their support.

'Therefore, the Jewish Religion and Society was supported by an

extraordinary Providence.

'II. It was universally believed by the ancients on their common

principles of legislation and wisdom, that whatsoever Religion and

Society have no future state for their support, must be supported by an

extraordinary Providence.

'Moses, skilled in all that legislation and wisdom, instituted the

Jewish Religion and Society without a future state for its support.

'Therefore,--Moses, who taught, believed likewise that _this_ Religion

and Society was supported by an extraordinary Providence.'

The work is a colossal monument of the author's learning and industry:

the range of subjects which it embraces is enormous; and those who

cannot agree with his conclusions either on the main argument, or on the

many collateral points raised, must still admire the vast research and

varied knowledge which the writer displays. It is, however, a book more

talked about than read at the present day. Indeed, human life is too

short to enable the general reader to do more than skim cursorily over a

work of such proportions. Warburton's theory was novel and startling;

and perhaps few even of the Deistical writers themselves evoked more

criticism and opposition from the orthodox than this doughty champion of

orthodoxy. But Warburton was in his element when engaged in controversy.

He was quite ready to meet combatants from whatever side they might

come; and, wielding his bludgeon with a vigorous hand, he dealt his

blows now on the orthodox, now on the heterodox, with unsparing and

impartial force. Judged, however, from a literary point of view, 'The

Divine Legation' is too elaborate and too discursive a work to be

effective for the purpose for which it was written;[164] and most

readers will be inclined to agree with Bentley's verdict, that the

writer was 'a man of monstrous appetite but bad digestion.'

Of a very different character is the next work to be noticed, as one of

enduring interest on the Deistical controversy. Bishop Berkeley's

'Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher,' is one of the few exceptions to

the general dreariness and unreadableness of controversial writings in

the dialogistic form. The elegance and easiness of his style, and the

freshness and beauty of his descriptions of natural scenery by which the

tedium of the controversy is relieved, render this not only a readable,

but a fascinating book, even to the modern reader who has no present

interest in the controversial question. It is, however, by no means free

from the graver errors incident to this form of writing. Like Tindal, he

makes his adversaries state their case far too weakly. But, worse than

this, he puts into their mouths arguments which they would never have

used, and sentiments which they never held and which could not be fairly

deduced from their writings. Not that Bishop Berkeley ever wrote with

conscious unfairness. The truly Christian, if somewhat eccentric

character of the man forbids such a supposition for one moment. His

error, no doubt, arose from the vagueness with which the terms Deist,

Freethinker, Naturalist, Atheist, were used indiscriminately to

stigmatise men of very different views. There was, for example, little

or nothing in common between such men as Lord Shaftesbury and

Mandeville. The atrocious sentiment of the 'Fable of the Bees,' that

private vices are public benefits, was not the sentiment of any true

Deist. Yet Shaftesbury and Mandeville are the two writers who are most

constantly alluded to as representatives of one and the same system, in

this dialogue. Indeed the confusion here spoken of is apparent in

Berkeley's own advertisement. 'The author's design being to consider the

Freethinker in the various lights of Atheist, libertine, enthusiast,

scorner, critic, metaphysician, fatalist, and sceptic, it must not

therefore be imagined that every one of these characters agrees with

every individual Freethinker; no more being implied than that each part

agrees with some or other of the sect.' The fallacy here arises from the

assumption of a sect with a coherent system, which, as has been stated

above, never had any existence.

The principle upon which Berkeley tells us that he constructed his

dialogue is a dangerous one. 'It must not,' he writes, 'be thought that

authors are misrepresented if every notion of Alciphron or Lysicles is

not found precisely in them. A gentleman in private conference may be

supposed to speak plainer than others write, to improve on their hints,

and draw conclusions from their principles.' Yes; but this method of

development, when carried out by a vehement partisan, is apt to find

hints where there are no hints, and draw conclusions which are quite

unwarranted by the premisses.

It is somewhat discouraging to an aspirant after literary immortality,

to reflect that in spite of the enormous amount of learned writing

which the Deistical controversy elicited, many educated people who have

not made the subject a special study, probably derive their knowledge of

the Deists mainly from two unpretentious volumes--Leland's 'View of the

Deistical Writers.'

Leland avowedly wrote as an advocate, and therefore it would be

unreasonable to expect from him the measured judgment of a philosophical

historian. But _as_ an advocate he wrote with great fairness,--indeed,

considering the excitement which the Deists raised among their

contemporaries, with wonderful fairness. It is not without reason that

he boasts in his preface, 'Great care has been taken to make a fair

representation of them, according to the best judgment I could form of

their designs.' But, besides the fact that the representations of a man

who holds a brief for one side must necessarily be taken _cum grano_,

Leland lived too near the time to be able to view his subject in the

'dry light' of history. 'The best book,' said Burke in 1773, 'that has

ever been written against these people is that in which the author has

collected in a body the whole of the Infidel code, and has brought their

writings into one body to cut them all off together.' If the subject was

to be dealt with in this trenchant fashion, no one could have done it

more honestly than Leland has done. But the great questions which the

Deists raised cannot be dealt with thus summarily. Perhaps no book

professedly written 'against these people' could possibly do justice to

the whole case. Hence those who virtually adopt Leland as their chief

authority will at best have but a one-sided view of the matter. Leland

was a Dissenter; and it may be remarked in passing, that while the

National Church bore the chief part in the struggle, as it was right she

should, yet many Dissenters honourably distinguished themselves in the

cause of our common Christianity. The honoured names of Chandler,[165]

Lardner, Doddridge, Foster, Hallet, and Leland himself, to which many

others might be added, may be mentioned in proof of this assertion.

The attitude towards Deism of the authors hitherto named is

unmistakable. But there are yet two great names which cannot well be

passed over, and which both the friends and foes of Deism have claimed

for their side. These are the names of Alexander Pope and John Locke.

The former was, as is well known, by profession a Roman Catholic;[166]

but in his most elaborate, if not his most successful poem, he has been

supposed to express the sentiments of one, if not two, of the most

sceptical of the Deistical writers. How far did the author of the 'Essay

on Man' agree with the religious sentiments of his 'guide, philosopher

and friend,' Viscount Bolingbroke? Pope's biographer answers this

question very decisively. 'Pope,' says Ruffhead, 'permitted Bolingbroke

to be considered by the public as his philosopher and guide. They agreed

on the principle that "whatever is, is right," as opposed to impious

complaints against Providence; but Pope meant, because we only see a

part of the moral system, not the whole, therefore these irregularities

serving great purposes, such as the fuller manifestation of God's

goodness and justice, are right. Lord Bolingbroke's Essays are

vindications of providence against the confederacy between Divines and

Atheists who use a common principle, viz. that of the irregularities of

God's moral government here, for different ends: the one to establish a

future state, the others to discredit the being of a God.'

'Bolingbroke,' he adds, 'always tried to conceal his principles from

Pope, and Pope would not credit anything against him.' Warburton's

testimony is to the same effect. 'So little,' he writes, 'did Pope know

of the principles of the "First Philosophy," that when a common

acquaintance told him in his last illness that Lord Bolingbroke denied

God's moral attributes as commonly understood, he asked Lord Bolingbroke

whether he was mistaken, and was told he was.'

On the other hand, there are the letters from Bolingbroke to Pope quoted

above; there is the undoubted fact that Pope, Shaftesbury,[167] and

Bolingbroke so far agreed with one another that they were all ardent

disciples of the optimistic school; and, it must be added, there is the

utter absence of anything distinctively Christian in that poem in which

one would naturally have expected to find it. For, to say the least of

it, the 'Essay on Man' might have been written by an unbeliever, as also

might the Universal Prayer. The fact seems to have been that Pope was

distracted by the counter influences of two very powerful but two very

opposite minds. Between Warburton and Bolingbroke, the poet might well

become somewhat confused in his views. How far he would have agreed with

the more pronounced anti-Christian sentiments of Bolingbroke which were

addressed to him, but which never met his eye, can of course be only a

matter of conjecture. It is evident that Bolingbroke himself dreaded the

influence of Warburton, for he alludes constantly and almost nervously

to 'the foul-mouthed critic whom I know you have at your elbow,' and

anticipates objections which he suspected 'the dogmatical pedant' would

raise.

However, except in so far as it is always interesting to know the

attitude of any great man towards contemporary subjects of stirring

interest, it is not a very important question as to what were the poet's

sentiments in reference to Christianity and Deism. Pope's real greatness

lay in quite another direction; and even those who most admire the

marvellous execution of his grand philosophical poem will regret that

his brilliant talents were comparatively wasted on so uncongenial a

subject.

Far otherwise is it with the other great name which both Deists and

orthodox claim as their own. What was the relationship of John Locke,

who influenced the whole tone of thought of the eighteenth century more

than any other single man, to the great controversy which is the subject

of these pages? On the one hand, it is unquestionable that Locke had the

closest personal connection with two of the principal Deistical writers,

and that most of the rest show unmistakable signs of having studied his

works and followed more or less his line of thought. Nothing can exceed

the warmth of esteem and love which Locke expresses for his young friend

Collins, and the touching confidence which he reposes in him.[168] Nor

was it only Collins' moral worth which won Locke's admiration; he looked

upon him as belonging to the same school of intellectual thought as

himself, and was of opinion that Collins would appreciate his 'Essay on

the Human Understanding' better than anybody. Shaftesbury was grandson

of Locke's patron and friend. Locke was tutor to his father, for whom

he had been commissioned to choose a wife; and the author of 'The

Characteristics' was brought up according to Locke's principles.[169]

Both Toland's and Tindal's views about reason show them to have been

followers of Locke's system; while traces of Locke's influence are

constantly found in Lord Bolingbroke's philosophical works. Add to all

this that the progress and zenith of Deism followed in direct

chronological order after the publication of Locke's two great works,

and that in consequence of these works he was distinctly identified by

several obscure and at least one very distinguished writer with 'the

gentlemen of the new way of thinking.'

But there is another side of the picture to which we must now turn.

Though Locke died before the works of his two personal friends, Collins

and Shaftesbury, saw the light, Deism had already caused a great

sensation before his death, and Locke has not left us in the dark as to

his sentiments on the subject, so far as it had been developed in his

day. Toland used several arguments from Locke's essay in support of his

position that there was nothing in Christianity contrary to reason or

above it. Bishop Stillingfleet, in his 'Defence of the Mysteries of the

Trinity,' maintained that these arguments of Toland's were legitimate

deductions from Locke's premisses. This Locke explicitly denied, and

moreover disavowed any agreement with the main position of Toland in a

noble passage, in which he regretted that he could not find, and feared

he never should find, that perfect plainness and want of mystery in

Christianity which the author maintained.[170] He also declared his

implicit belief in the doctrines of revelation in the most express

terms.[171]

It was not, however, his essay, but his treatise on the 'Reasonableness

of Christianity,' published in 1695 (the year before the publication of

Toland's famous work), which brought Locke into the most direct

collision with some of the orthodox of his day. The vehement opposition

which this little work aroused seems to have caused the author unfeigned

surprise.--'When it came out,' he writes, 'the buzz and flutter and

noise which it made, and the reports which were raised that it subverted

all morality and was designed against the Christian religion ... amazed

me; knowing the sincerity of those thoughts which persuaded me to

publish it, not without some hope of doing some service to decaying

piety and mistaken and slandered Christianity.[172] In another passage

he tells us expressly that it was written against Deism. 'I was

flattered to think my book might be of some use to the world; especially

to those who thought either that there was no need of revelation at all,

or that the revelation of Our Saviour required belief of such articles

for salvation which the settled notions and their way of reasoning in

some, and want of understanding in others, made impossible to them. Upon

these two topics the objections seemed to turn, which were with most

assurance made by Deists not against Christianity, but against

Christianity misunderstood. It seemed to me, there needed no more to

show the weakness of their exceptions, but to lay plainly before them

the doctrines of our Saviour as delivered in the Scriptures.'[173] The

truth of this is amply borne out by the contents of the book itself.

It is not, however, so much in direct statements of doctrine as in the

whole tenour and frame of his spirit, that Locke differs 'in toto' from

the Deists: for Locke's was essentially a pious, reverent soul. But it

may be urged that all this does not really touch the point at issue. The

question is, not what were Locke's personal opinions on religious

matters, but what were the logical deductions from his philosophical

system. It is in his philosophy, not in his theology, that Locke's

reputation consists. Was then the Deistical line of argument derived

from his philosophical system? and if so, was it fairly derived? The

first question must be answered decidedly in the affirmative, the second

not so decidedly in the negative.

That Locke would have recoiled with horror from the conclusions which

the Deists drew from his premisses, and still more from the tone in

which those conclusions were expressed, can scarcely be doubted.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that they _were_ so drawn. That Toland

built upon his foundation, Locke himself acknowledges.[174] Traces of

his influence are plainly discernible in Collins, Tindal--of whom

Shaftesbury calls Locke the forerunner,--Morgan, Chubb, Bolingbroke, and

Hume.

On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that the opponents of Deism

built upon Locke's foundation quite as distinctly as any of the Deists

did. After his death, it was soon discovered that he was a Christian.

The orthodox Conybeare was not only an obvious follower of Locke, but

has left on record a noble testimony to his greatness and his influence:

'In the last century there arose a very extraordinary genius for

philosophical speculations; I mean Mr. Locke, the glory of that age and

the instructor of the present.' Warburton was an equally enthusiastic

admirer of our philosopher, and expressed his admiration in words very

similar to the above.[175] Benson the Presbyterian told Lardner that he

had made a pilgrimage to Locke's grave, and could hardly help crying,

'Sancte Johannes, ora pro nobis;' and innumerable other instances of the

love and admiration which Christians of all kinds felt for the great

philosopher might be quoted.

The question then arises, Which of the two parties, the Deists or their

adversaries, were the legitimate followers of Locke? And the answer to

this question is, 'Both.' The school of philosophy of which Locke was

the great apostle, was the dominant school of the period. And even in

the special application of his principles to religion, it would be wrong

to say that either of the two parties wholly diverged from Locke's

position. For the fact is, there were two sides to Locke's mind--a

critical and rationalising side, and a reverent and devotional side. He

must above all things demonstrate the reasonableness of the Christian

religion, thereby giving the key-note to the tone of theology of the

eighteenth century; but in proving this point, he is filled with a most

devout and God-fearing spirit. His dislike of all obscurity, and, in

consequence, his almost morbid shrinking from all systematizing and from

the use of all technical terms, form his point of contact with the

Deists. His strong personal faith, and his reverence for the Holy

Scripture as containing a true revelation from God, bring him into

harmony with the Christian advocates. No abuse on the part of the

clergy, no unfair treatment, could alienate him from Christianity. One

cannot help speculating how he would have borne himself had he lived to

see the later development of Deism. Perhaps his influence would have had

a beneficial effect upon both sides; but, in whatever period his lot had

been cast it is difficult to conceive Locke in any other light than that

of a sincere and devout Christian.[176]

It remains for us to consider what were the effects of the Deistical

movement.

The early period of the eighteenth century was a period of controversy

of all kinds, and of controversy carried on in a bitter and unchristian

spirit; and of all the controversies which arose, none was conducted

with greater bitterness than the Deistical.[177] The Deists must bear

the blame of setting the example. Their violent abuse of the Church,

their unfounded assertions that the clergy did not really believe what

they preached, that the Christian religion as taught by them was a mere

invention of priestcraft to serve its own ends, their overweening

pretensions contrasted with the scanty contributions which they actually

made either to theology or to philosophy or to philology,--all this was

sufficiently provoking.[178]

But the Christian advocates fell into a sad mistake when they fought

against them with their own weapons. Without attempting nicely to adjust

the degree of blame attributable to either party in this unseemly

dispute, we may easily see that this was one evil effect of the

Deistical controversy, that it generated on both sides a spirit of

rancour and scurrility.

Again, the Deists contributed in some degree, though not intentionally,

towards encouraging the low tone of morals which is admitted on all

sides to have been prevalent during the first half of the eighteenth

century. It was constantly insinuated that the Deists themselves were

men of immoral lives. This may have been true of individual Deists, but

it requires more proof than has been given, before so grave an

accusation can be admitted against them as a body.

But if the restrictions which Christianity imposes were not the real

objections to it in the minds of the Deistical writers, at any rate

their writings, or rather perhaps hazy notions of those writings picked

up at second-hand, were seized upon by others who were glad of any

excuse for throwing off the checks of religion.[179] The immorality of

the age may be more fairly said to have been connected with the

Deistical controversy than with the Deists themselves. It is not to be

supposed that the fine gentlemen of the coffee-houses troubled

themselves to read Collins or Bentley, Tindal or Conybeare. They only

heard vague rumours that the truths, and consequently the obligations of

Christianity were impugned, and that, by the admission of Christian

advocates themselves, unbelief was making great progress. The _roués_

were only Freethinkers in the sense that Squire Thornhill in the 'Vicar

of Wakefield' was.

Another ill effect was, that it took away the clergy from a very

important part of their practical work. There was something much more

attractive to a clergyman in immortalising his name by annihilating an

enemy of the Faith, than in the ordinary routine of parochial work.

Not, however, that the clergy as a rule made Deism a stepping-stone to

preferment. It would be difficult to point to a single clergyman who was

advanced to any high post in the Church in virtue of his services

against Deism, who would not have equally deserved and in all

probability obtained preferment, had his talents been exerted in another

direction. The talents of such men as Butler, Warburton, Waterland,

Gibson, Sherlock, Bentley, and Berkeley would have shed a lustre upon

any profession. But none the less is it true that the Deistical

controversy diverted attention from other and no less important matters;

and hence, indirectly, Deism was to a great extent the cause of that low

standard of spiritual life which might have been elevated, had the

clergy paid more attention to their flocks, and less to their literary

adversaries.

The effects, however, of the great controversy were not all evil. If

such sentiments as those to which the Deists gave utterance were

floating in men's minds, it was well that they should find expression. A

state of smouldering scepticism is always a dangerous state. Whatever

the doubts and difficulties might be, it was well that they should be

brought into the full light of day.

Moreover, if the Deists did no other good, they at least brought out the

full strength of the Christian cause, which otherwise might have lain

dormant. Although much of the anti-Deistical literature perished with

the occasion which called it forth, there is yet a residuum which will

be immortal.

Again, the free discussion of such questions as the Deists raised, led

to an ampler and nobler conception of Christianity than might otherwise

have been gained. For there was a certain element of truth in most of

the Deistical writings. If Toland failed to prove that there were no

mysteries in Christianity, yet perhaps he set men a-thinking that there

was a real danger of darkening counsel by words without knowledge,

through the indiscriminate use of scholastic jargon. If Collins

confounded freethinking with thinking in his own particular way, he yet

drew out from his opponents a more distinct admission of the right of

freethinking in the proper sense of the term than might otherwise have

been made. If Shaftesbury made too light of the rewards which the

righteous may look for, and the punishments which the wicked have to

fear, he at least helped, though unintentionally, to vindicate

Christianity from the charge of self-seeking, and to place morality upon

its proper basis. If Tindal attributed an unorthodox sense to the

assertion that 'Christianity was as old as the Creation,' he brought out

more distinctly an admission that there was an aspect in which it is

undoubtedly true.

One of the most striking features of this strange controversy was its

sudden collapse about the middle of the century. The whole interest in

the subject seems to have died away as suddenly as it arose fifty years

before. This change of feeling is strikingly illustrated by the flatness

of the reception given by the public to Bolingbroke's posthumous works

in 1754. For though few persons will be inclined to agree with Horace

Walpole's opinion that Bolingbroke's 'metaphysical divinity was the best

of his writings,' yet the eminence of the writer, the purity and

piquancy of his style, the real and extensive learning which he

displayed, would, one might have imagined, have awakened a far greater

interest in his writings than was actually shown. Very few replies were

written to this, the last, and in some respects, the most

important--certainly the most elaborate attack that ever was made upon

popular Christianity from the Deistical standpoint. The 'five pompous

quartos' of the great statesman attracted infinitely less attention than

the slight, fragmentary treatise of an obscure Irishman had done

fifty-eight years before. And after Bolingbroke not a single writer who

can properly be called a Deist appeared in England.

How are we to account for this strange revulsion of feeling, or rather

this marvellous change from excitement to apathy? One modern writer

imputes it to the inherent dulness of the Deists themselves;[180]

another to their utter defeat by the Christian apologists.[181] No doubt

there is force in both these reasons, but there were other causes at

work which contributed to the result.

One seems to have been the vagueness and unsatisfactoriness of the

constructive part of the Deists' work. They set themselves with vigour

to the work of destruction, but when this was completed--what next? The

religion which was to take the place of popular Christianity was at best

a singularly vague and intangible sort of thing. 'You are to follow

nature, and that will teach you what true Christianity is. If the facts

of the Bible don't agree, so much the worse for the facts.' There was an

inherent untenableness in this position.[182] Having gone thus far,

thoughtful men could not stand still. They must go on further or else

turn back. Some went forward in the direction of Hume, and found

themselves stranded in the dreary waste of pure scepticism, which was

something very different from genuine Deism. Others went backwards and

determined to stand upon the old ways, since no firm footing was given

them on the new. There was a want of any definite scheme or unanimity of

opinion on the part of the Deists. Collins boasted of the rise and

growth of a new sect. But, as Dr. Monk justly observes, 'the assumption

of a growing sect implies an uniformity of opinions which did not really

exist among the impugners of Christianity.'[183]

The independence of the Deists in relation to one another might render

it difficult to confute any particular tenet of the sect, for the simple

reason that there _was_ no sect: but this same independence prevented

them from making the impression upon the public mind which a compact

phalanx might have done. The Deists were a company of Free Lances rather

than a regular army, and effected no more than such irregular forces

usually do.

And here arises the question, What real hold had Deism upon the public

mind at all? There is abundance of contemporary evidence which would

lead us to believe that the majority of the nation were fast becoming

unchristianised. Bishop Butler was not the man to make a statement, and

especially a statement of such grave import, lightly, and his account of

the state of religion is melancholy indeed. 'It is come,' he writes, 'I

know not how, to be taken for granted, by many persons, that

Christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry, but that it is now

at length discovered to be fictitious. And accordingly, they treat it as

if, in the present age, this were an agreed point among all people of

discernment, and nothing remained but to set it up as a principal

subject of mirth and ridicule, for its having so long interrupted the

pleasures of the world.'[184] Archbishop Wake's testimony is equally

explicit,[185] so is Bishop Warburton's, so is Dean Swift's. Voltaire

declared that there was only just enough religion left in England to

distinguish Tories who had little from Whigs who had less.

In the face of such testimony it seems a bold thing to assert that there

was a vast amount of noise and bluster which caused a temporary panic,

but little else, and that after all Hurd's view of the matter was nearer

the truth. 'The truth of the case,' he writes, 'is no more than this. A

few fashionable men make a noise in the world; and this clamour being

echoed on all sides from the shallow circles of their admirers, misleads

the unwary into an opinion that the irreligious spirit is universal and

uncontrollable.' A strong proof of the absence of any real sympathy with

the Deists is afforded by the violent outcry which was raised against

them on all sides. This outcry was not confined to any one class or

party either in the political or religious world. We may not be

surprised to find Warburton mildly suggesting that 'he would hunt down

that pestilent herd of libertine scribblers with which the island is

overrun, as good King Edgar did his wolves,'[186] or Berkeley, that 'if

ever man deserved to be denied the common benefits of bread and water,

it was the author of a Discourse of Freethinking,'[187] and that 'he

should omit no endeavour to render the persons (of Freethinkers) as

despicable and their practice as odious in the eye of the world as they

deserve.'[188] But we find almost as truculent notions in writings where

we might least expect them. It was, for example, a favourite accusation

of the Tories against the Whigs that they favoured the Deists. 'We'

(Tories), writes Swift, 'accuse them [the Whigs] of the public

encouragement and patronage to Tindal, Toland, and other atheistical

writers.'[189] And yet we find the gentle Addison, Whig as he was,

suggesting in the most popular of periodicals, corporal punishment as a

suitable one for the Freethinker;[190] Steele, a Whig and the most

merciful of men, advocating in yet stronger terms a similar mode of

treatment;[191] Fielding, a Whig and not a particularly straitlaced man,

equally violent.[192]

This strong feeling against the Deists is all the more remarkable when

we remember that it existed at a time of great religious apathy, and at

a time when illiberality was far from being a besetting fault. The

dominant party in the Church was that which would now be called the

Broad Church party, and among the Dissenters at least equal

latitudinarianism was tolerated. This, however, which might seem at

first sight a reason why Deism should have been winked at, was probably

in reality one of the causes why it was so unpopular. The nation had

begun to be weary of controversy; in the religious as in the political

world, there was arising a disposition not to disturb the prevailing

quiet. The Deist was the _enfant terrible_ of the period, who would

persist in raising questions which men were not inclined to meddle with.

It was therefore necessary to snub him; and accordingly snubbed he was

most effectually.

The Deists themselves appear to have been fully aware of the

unpopularity of their speculations. They have been accused, and not

without reason, of insinuating doubts which they dared not express

openly. But then, why dared they not express them? The days of

persecution for the expression of opinion were virtually ended. There

were indeed laws still unrepealed against blasphemy and contempt of

religion, but except in extreme cases (such as those of Woolston and

Annet), they were no longer put into force. Warburton wrote no more than

the truth when he addressed the Freethinkers thus: 'This liberty may you

long possess and gratefully acknowledge. I say this because one cannot

but observe that amidst full possession of it, you continue with the

meanest affectation to fill your prefaces with repeated clamours against

difficulties and discouragements attending the exercise of freethinking.

There was a time, and that within our own memories, when such complaints

were seasonable and useful; but happy for you, gentlemen, you have

outlived it.'[193] They had outlived it, that is to say, so far as legal

restrictions were concerned. If they did meet with 'difficulties and

discouragements,' they were simply those which arose from the force of

public opinion being against them. But be the cause what it may, the

result is unquestionable. 'The English Deists wrote and taught their

creed in vain; they were despised while living, and consigned to

oblivion when dead; and they left the Church of England unhurt by the

struggle.'[194] It was in France and Germany, not in England that the

movement set on foot by the English Deists made a real and permanent

impression.

J.H.O.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 147: That is, not in virtue of anything he wrote which can be

properly called Deism. Shaftesbury in his ethical and Bolingbroke in his

political writings may perhaps be termed classical writers, but neither

of them quâ Deists.]

[Footnote 148: See Hunt's _Religious Thought in England_, vol. ii. p.

214.]

[Footnote 149: _View of the Deistical Writers_, Letter V. p. 32, &c.,

and Letter VI. p. 43, &c.]

[Footnote 150: The Rev. W.M. Hatch. See his dedication.]

[Footnote 151: See Warburton's Letters to Hurd, Letter XVIII. January

30, 1749-50.]

[Footnote 152: See Warburton's _Dedication of the Divine Legation of

Moses to the Freethinkers_. Jeffery, another contemporary, writes to the

same effect.]

[Footnote 153: _Sensus Communis_ (on the Freedom of Wit and Humour), §

4.]

[Footnote 154: Hoadly in one sense may be regarded as a 'Freethinker'

himself; but it was the very fact that he was so which made him resent

Collins's perversion of the term. The first of his 'Queries to the

Author of a Discourse of Freethinking' is 'Whether that can be justly

called Freethinking which is manifestly thinking with the utmost

slavery; and with the strongest prejudices against every branch, and the

very foundation of all religion?'--Hoadly's _Works_, vol. i.]

[Footnote 155: 'Conybeare, dessen Vertheidigung der geoffenbarten

Religion die gediegenste Gegenschrift ist, die gegen Tindal erschien. Es

ist eine logische Klarheit, eine Einfachheit der Darstellung, eine

überzeugende Kraft der Beweisführung, ein einleuchtender Zusammenhang

des Ganzen verbunden mit würdiger Haltung der Polemik, philosophischer

Bildung und freier Liberalität des Standpunkts in diesem Buch, vermöge

welcher es als meisterhaft anerkannt werden muss.'--Lechler's

_Geschichte des Englischen Deismus_, p. 362. Warburton calls Conybeare's

one of the best reasoned books in the world.]

[Footnote 156: See Watson's _Life of Warburton_, p. 293.]

[Footnote 157: _Ibid._ iii. 133, 190, 201, 261.]

[Footnote 158: _Enquiry into the Ground and Foundation of the Christian

Religion_, p. 59.]

[Footnote 159: See _Enquiry concerning Redemption_.]

[Footnote 160: See his _Discourse concerning Reason_, p. 23, and his

_Reflections upon the comparative excellence and usefulness of Moral and

Positive Duties_, p. 27, &c.]

[Footnote 161: His letters on the 'Study of History' contain the same

principles.]

[Footnote 162: Pattison's 'Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

1688-1750,' in _Essays and Reviews_.]

[Footnote 163: 'There is a book called _The Moral Philosopher_ lately

published. Is it looked into? I should hope not, merely for the sake of

the taste, the sense, and learning of the present age.... I hope nobody

will be so indiscreet as to take notice publicly of the book, though it

be only in the fag end of an objection.--It is that indiscreet conduct

in our defenders of religion that conveys so many worthless books from

hand to hand.'--Letter to Mr. Birch in 1737. In Nichols' _Literary

Illustrations of the Eighteenth Century_, ii. 70.]

[Footnote 164: See Charles Churchill's lines on Warburton in _The

Duellist_. After much foul abuse, he thus describes _The Divine

Legation_:--

To make himself a man of note,

He in defence of Scripture wrote.

So long he wrote, and long about it,

That e'en believers 'gan to doubt it!

A gentleman well-bred, if breeding

Rests in the article of reading;

A man of this world, for the next

Was ne'er included in his text,' &c. &c.

Gibbon calls _The Divine Legation_ 'a monument, already crumbling in the

dust, of the vigour and weakness of the human mind.'--See _Life of

Gibbon_, ch. vii. 223, note. Bishop Lowth says of it ironically, '_The

Divine Legation_, it seems, contains in it all knowledge, divine and

human, ancient and modern; it treats as of its proper subject, de omni

scibili et de quolibet ente; it is a perfect encyclopædia; it includes

in itself all history, chronology, criticism, divinity, law, politics,'

&c. &c.--_A Letter to the Right Rev. Author of 'The Divine Legation,'_

p. 13 (1765).]

[Footnote 165: There were two anti-Deistical writers of the name of

Chandler, (1) the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, and (2) Dr. Samuel

Chandler, an eminent Dissenter. Both wrote against Collins, but the

latter also against Morgan and the anonymous author of the _Resurrection

of Jesus considered_.

Sherlock's _Tryal of the Witnesses_ ought perhaps to have been noticed

as one of the works of permanent value written against the Deists.

Wharton says that 'Sherlock's _Discourses on Prophecy and Trial of the

Witnesses_ are, perhaps, the best defences of Christianity in our

language.' Sherlock's lawyer-like mind enabled him to manage the

controversy with rare skill, but the tone of theological thought has so

changed, that his once famous book is a little out of date at the

present day. Judged by its intrinsic merits, William Law's answer to

Tindal would also deserve to be ranked among the very best of the books

which were written against the Deists; but like almost all the works of

this most able and excellent man, it has fallen into undeserved

oblivion. Leslie's _Short and Easy Method with a Deist_ is also

admirable in its way.]

[Footnote 166: But it is no want of charity to say that his Roman

Catholicism sat very lightly upon him. He himself confesses it in a

letter to Atterbury.]

[Footnote 167: Pope was also clearly influenced by Shaftesbury's

arguments that virtue was to be practised and sin avoided, not for fear

of punishment or hope of reward, but for their own sakes. Witness the

verse in the Universal Prayer:--

'What conscience dictates to be done,

Or warns me not to do,

This teach me _more than_ hell to shun,

That _more than_ heaven pursue.']

[Footnote 168: See Hunt's _History of Religious Thought in England_,

vol. ii. p. 369, and Lechler's _Geschichte des Englischen Deismus_, p.

219.]

[Footnote 169: But Shaftesbury was bitterly opposed to one part of

Locke's philosophy. 'He was one of the first,' writes Mr. Morell

(_History of Modern Philosophy_, i. 203), 'to point out the dangerous

influence which Locke's total rejection of all innate practical

principles was likely to exert upon the interests of morality.' 'It was

Mr. Locke,' wrote Shaftesbury, 'that struck at all fundamentals, threw

all order and virtue out of the world, and made the very ideas of these

(which are the same as those of God) unnatural and without foundation in

our minds.' See also Bishop Fitzgerald in _Aids to Faith_.]

[Footnote 170: Locke's _Works_, vol. iv. p. 96.]

[Footnote 171: 'My lord, I read the revelation of Holy Scriptures with a

full assurance that all it delivers is true.'--Locke's _Works_, vol. iv.

341.]

[Footnote 172: Locke's _Works_, vol. vii. p. 166.]

[Footnote 173: Locke's _Works_, vol. vii. p. 188, Preface to the Reader

of 2nd Vindication.]

[Footnote 174: Locke's _Works_, vol. iv. 259, 260.]

[Footnote 175: 'Mr. Locke, the honour of this age and the instructor of

the future'.... 'That great philosopher'.... 'It was Mr. Locke's love of

it [Christianity] that seems principally to have exposed him to his

pupil's [Lord Shaftesbury's] bitterest insults.'--Dedication of _The

Divine Legation_ (first three books) to the Freethinkers.]

[Footnote 176: It is, however, not improbable that Locke contributed to

some extent to foster that dry, hard, unpoetical spirit which

characterised both the Deistical and anti-Deistical literature, and,

indeed, the whole tone of religion in the eighteenth century. 'His

philosophy,' it has been said, 'smells of the earth, earthy.' 'It is

curious,' writes Mr. Rogers (_Essays_, vol. iii. p. 104, 'John Locke,'

&c.) 'that there is hardly a passing remark in all Locke's great work on

any of the æsthetical or emotional characteristics of humanity; so that,

for anything that appears there, men might have nothing of the kind in

their composition. To all the forms of the Beautiful he seems to have

been almost insensible.' The same want in the followers of Locke's

system, both orthodox and unorthodox, is painfully conspicuous. And

again, as Dr. Whewell remarks (_History of Moral Philosophy_, Lecture v.

p. 74) 'the promulgation of Locke's philosophy was felt as a vast

accession of strength by the lower, and a great addition to the

difficulty of their task by the higher school of morality.' The lower or

utilitarian school of morality, which held that morals are to be judged

solely by their consequences, was largely followed in the eighteenth

century, and contributed not a little to the low moral and spiritual

tone of the period.]

[Footnote 177: The Calvinistic controversy was more bitter, but it

belonged to the second, not the first half of the century.]

[Footnote 178: 'They attacked a scientific problem without science, and

an historical problem without history.'--Mr. J.C. Morison's Review of

Leslie Stephen's 'History of English Thought' in _Macmillan's Magazine_

for February 1877.]

[Footnote 179: See Bishop Butler's charge to the clergy of Durham,

1751.--'A great source of infidelity plainly is, the endeavour to get

rid of religious restraints.']

[Footnote 180: Mr. Leslie Stephen, _Essays on Freethinking and Plain

Speaking_. On Shaftesbury's 'Characteristics.'--'The Deists were not

only pilloried for their heterodoxy, but branded with the fatal

inscription of "dulness."' This view is amplified in his larger work,

published since the above was written.]

[Footnote 181: _Aids to Faith_, p. 44.]

[Footnote 182: In a brilliant review of Mr. Leslie Stephen's work in

_Macmillan's Magazine_, February 1877, Mr. James Cotter Morison remarks

on the Deists' view that natural religion must be always alike plain and

perspicuous, 'against this convenient opinion the only objection was

that it contradicted the total experience of the human race.']

[Footnote 183: Monk's _Life of Bentley_, vol. i. See also Berkeley's

_Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher_, 107.]

[Footnote 184: Advertisement to the first edition of _The Analogy_, p.

xiv. See also Swift's description of the Duchess of Marlborough, in

_Last four Years of Queen Anne_, bk. i. The first and most prominent

subject of Bishop Butler's 'Durham Charge,' is 'the general decay of

religion,' 'which,' he says, 'is now observed by everyone, and has been

for some time the complaint of all serious persons' (written in 1751).

The Bishop then instructs his clergy at length how this sad fact is to

be dealt with; in fact this, directly or indirectly, is the topic of the

whole Charge.]

[Footnote 185: He wrote to Courayer in 1726,--'No care is wanting in our

clergy to defend the Christian Faith against all assaults, and I believe

no age or nation has produced more or better writings, &c.... This is

all we can do. Iniquity in practice, God knows, abounds,' &c.]

[Footnote 186: Watson's _Life of Warburton_, p. 293.]

[Footnote 187: _Guardian_, No. 3.]

[Footnote 188: _Guardian_, No. 88.]

[Footnote 189: _Examiner_, xxxix. See also Charles Leslie's _Theological

Works_, vol. ii. 533.]

[Footnote 190: _Tatler_, No. 108.]

[Footnote 191: _Tatler_, No. 137.]

[Footnote 192: See _Amelia_, bk. i. ch. iii. &c.]

[Footnote 193: Dedication of first three books of the _Divine Legation_.

See also Pattison's Essay in _Essays and Reviews_.]

[Footnote 194: Farrar's _Bampton Lectures_, 'History of Free Thought.']

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