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The absence of any reference to a future state of retribution, in the Pentateuch and generally in the sacred writings of the Jews, and the continual appeal to hopes and fears of a worldly character, have been pronounced by deists an irremediable defect in the Jewish religion. It is precisely this, however, says Lessing, which constitutes one of its signal excellences.
The Bible is pervaded by a sentiment, which is implied everywhere, viz. the intimate sympathy of the Pure and Perfect God with the heart of each faithful worshipper. This is that which is wanting in Greek philosophers, English Deists, German Pantheists, and all formalists.
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.
As a compositor Franklin was engaged in setting up one of the many religious treatises then pouring out against the deists, and as the author's arguments seemed insufficient to the young reasoner, he wrote and printed a rejoinder.
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.
He was an entirely original worker; and he was on a new tack, as we shall see presently. And he would not in any case have thought much, as a practical naturalist, of the more or less mystical intellectual speculations of the Deists of 1790-1830. Scientific workers were very tired of Deism just then.
He may have respected him as the best rider and pistol shot in Virginia; but in politics he thought him a theorist and doctrinaire imbued with the abstract notions of the French philosophical deists and democrats. Jefferson, he thought, knew nothing and cared nothing about military affairs.
It is also to be noticed that with both sections the interest of morality was the principal motive. The orthodox held that the revealed doctrine of future rewards and punishments is necessary for morality; the deists, that morality depends on reason alone, and that revelation contains a great deal that is repugnant to moral ideals.
His history, in fact, was to be a history of real not nominal Christians. He thought that too much had been said about ecclesiastical wickedness, and that Deists and Sceptics had taken advantage of this against Christians. Such a work was a 'desideratum, and had the execution been equal to the conception, it would have been simply invaluable.
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.
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