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Updated: May 6, 2025
Asgill, Toland, Tindal, Collins, and Coward are classed as the Deistical writers of the eighteenth century. In his "History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century" Mr.
Deistical writers and philosophers of great note but small experience have built up whole theories, and have either overturned or striven to overturn ancient faiths and wholesome laws by arguments deduced, in the first instance, from the consideration of man in his simple or savage state; and from false premises they have deduced, logically, argument from argument, until even the most unwilling have begun to doubt.
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.
The defenders of Christianity were searching out evidences, and battling with deistical objections, while they slackened in their fight against the more palpable assaults of the world and the flesh. Pulpits sounded with theological arguments where admonitions were urgently needed.
This subject was fairly sifted in the Deistical controversy. The pains which were bestowed upon the Trinitarian controversy were not thrown away. But it is difficult to see what fresh light was thrown upon any subject by the Calvinistic controversy. It left the question exactly in the same position as it was in before.
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.
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.
The Roman Catholic ceremonies attracted her attention, and gave rise to conversations when they all met; and one of the gentlemen continually introduced deistical notions, when he ridiculed the pageantry they all were surprised at observing.
One common mode of argument among deistical writers is to imagine barbarous man let loose upon the earth without undergoing any previous preparation for the scene upon which he was about to enter; and they then trace out how, urged on by his necessities and aided by his senses, he successively discovered the natural productions necessary for his subsistence and the arts which ministered to his wants, until step by step he mounted to the pinnacle of civilization.
Mary thought of both the subjects, the Romish tenets, and the deistical doubts; and though not a sceptic, thought it right to examine the evidence on which her faith was built.
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