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Updated: June 9, 2025
After a disquisition, chiefly relative to the history of Christianity, Dr Kennedy observed, "We must, on all occasions, but more particularly in fair and logical discussions with sceptics, or Deists, make a distinction between Christianity, as it is found in the Scriptures, and the errors, abuses, and imperfections of Christians themselves."
Let us interrogate the religionists in this fashion, say the deists. Chinese, what religion would be the best, if your own were not the best? Naturalism. Mussulmans, what faith would you embrace, if you abjured Mahomet? Naturalism. Christians, what is the true religion, if it be not Christianity? Judaism. But you, O Jews, what is the true religion, if Judaism be false? Naturalism.
It had fought a good battle against Rome, and against the Deists; and the hold which, since the middle of the century, had been gained in it by the Evangelical revival proved it not incapable of kindling with a zeal which some had begun to think was foreign to its nature. The Church, therefore, as a great national institution, was perfectly safe.
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.
And, thirdly, while the criticisms on the Bible are in the same vein as those of the earlier deists, Paine is the first to present with force the incongruity of the Christian scheme with the conception of the universe attained by astronomical science. The two beliefs cannot be held together in the same mind; and he who thinks that he believes both has thought but little of either.
The name atheism, which, it is true, orthodoxy held ready for every belief incorrect according to its standard, was on the contrary undeserved. The deists did not attack Christian revelation, still less belief in God. They considered the atheist bereft of reason, and they by no means esteemed historical revelation superfluous.
Defoe attacks Carracioli's deistic arguments through his narrator, Captain Johnson, who remarks that such ideas are pernicious only to "weak Men who cannot discover their Fallacy." But since similar ideas appear in Robert Drury's Journal published a year later, it may be assumed that the arguments of the deists held a certain fascination for Defoe at this time.
The latter resolved themselves, finally, into two schools: one, the larger in number, of rational deists or theists, repudiating Christianity; the more extreme portion, into a new sect or organization, which met shortly afterwards in Dresden. These last free-thinkers, when assembled, declared that they were discontented with all previous protests against religion, as not going sufficiently far.
In religious affairs, Frederick allowed great individual liberty; for he was a deist, and, like other deists of the time, believed in religious toleration. More important even than justice, education, and toleration, he considered the promotion of material prosperity among his people. He would have considered himself a failure, had his reign not meant "good times" for farmers and merchants.
I answer that all the articles which are subscribed at present by no means exclude Deists who will prevaricate; and upon this scheme you would at least exclude fewer honest men."
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