man's moral consciousness, it is evident that facts dependent upon testimony, no less than doctrines above reason, are excluded from its creed. And accordingly we find Morgan asserting that he 'cannot receive any historical facts as infallibly true;'* and in the same spirit his contemporary Chubb more explicitly declares, 'The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not an historical account of matters of fact. As thus, Christ suffered, died, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, &c. These are historical facts, the credibility of which arises from the strength of those evidences which are or can be offered in their favour; but then those facts are not the Gospel of Jesus Christ, neither in whole nor in part.' † The same position is maintained a few years later, in 1744, in the work entitled 'The Resurrection of Jesus considered, by a Moral Philosopher,'- a work which was for some time attributed to Morgan, but which was really the production of Peter Annet. This writer follows Morgan and Chubb in the rejection of 'Historical Christianity.' 'My aim,' he says, 'is to convince the world that an Historical Faith is no part of true and pure religion, which is founded only on truth and purity; that it does not consist in the belief of any History, which, whether true or false, makes no man wiser nor better.' Annet's writings were collected and published in 1766, under the title of A Collection of the Tracts of a certain Free Enquirer, noted by his sufferings for his Opinions.' On a separate title the author is designated as 'P. A., Minister of the Gospel.' The pamphlet called 'Social Bliss considered,' which forms part of this collection, is a sufficient proof that free inquiry, in the hands of this author, was as impatient of the restraints of morality and decency as of those of religion. In Annet the Deism of England had reached its lowest point. His work does not, like those of most of the earlier Deists, profess a respect for Christianity as a whole, while attacking it in parts. It rather marks the commencement of a new phase in the progress of unbelief, which, having undermined the substance of the faith, finds it no longer necessary to profess allegiance to the shadow. 'It indicates,' as Mr. Farrar remarks, the commencement of the open allegation of literary imposture as distinct from philosophical error, which subsequently marked the criticism of the French school of infidelity, and affected the English unbelievers of the latter half of the century.' The same spirit of revolt from all Christianity is also the predominant character, as far as so inconsistent a writer can be *Moral Philosopher,' vol. i. p. 411. †True Gospel,' p. 43. Resurrection of Jesus considered,' p. 87. said -as said to have a character at all, of the writings of Bolingbroke. Like his successor Gibbon, Bolingbroke generally makes his attack rather by way of sneer and insinuation than of direct accusation: he sometimes even condescends to speak respectfully and patronisingly of Christianity; but his real purpose is not the less discernible for being in some degree disguised. Bolingbroke's opinion of the Divine authority of Christianity may be gathered from his sneering comparison between it and Platonism: his estimate of one portion at least of the Christian Scriptures may be seen in his language concerning St. Paul, whom he describes as having carried with him, from the pharisaical schools, a great profusion of words and of involved unconnected discourse being often absurd, or profane, or trifling-as teaching things ' repugnant to common sense and to all the ideas of God's moral perfections.'† Bolingbroke distinguishes, indeed, as Morgan had done, between the teaching of St. Paul and that of the other Apostles; but in a different manner and for a different purpose. According to Morgan, the Judaizing Apostles corrupted the true Gospel by their Messianic traditions; while St. Paul represents the Christian Deist who preached it in its purity and universality. According to Bolingbroke, the Gospel was intended by Christ for the Jews only; and St. Paul was the first who saw the necessity of extending it to the Gentiles, while he was at the same time the great corrupter of its original simplicity. The true Gospel he describes in general terms, after Tindal, as a republication of the law of nature; while at the same time he does not hesitate to set aside its doctrines and precepts in detail, whenever they impose an inconvenient restraint on the inclinations of men. Polygamy he regards as a 'reasonable indulgence to mankind,' and its prohibition as 'a prohibition of that which nature permits in the fullest manner.' Monogamy is only reasonable when accompanied by an unlimited facility of divorce, without which it is an absurd, unnatural, and cruel imposition.' The precept of our Lord in this matter is spoken of as sanctioning a new interpretation of the law, founded on a grammatical criticism;' and the Christian law of marriage as 'a new jurisprudence, the child of usurpation, of ignorance and bigotry.' § Marriages within certain degrees of consanguinity and affinity (the degrees include even that of brother and sister) are forbid by political insti tutions and for political reasons, but are left indifferent by the law of nature.' Future rewards and punishments, which he admits to be sanctions of the evangelical law, he maintains never 6 † Ibid. pp. 326, 331. § Ibid. vol. v. pp. 160-171. Bolingbroke's Works, vol. iv. p. 341. theless theless to be a doctrine invented by men, and one which it is impossible to reconcile to the Divine attributes.* Even the immortality of the soul, though not absolutely denied, is treated as being at best an invention of men, and of very doubtful truth. 'It was originally an hypothesis; and it may, therefore, be a vulgar error. It was taken upon trust by the people who first adopted it, and made prevalent by art and industry among the vulgar, who never examine, till it came to be doubted, disputed, and denied by such as did examine. . . . It was communicated from Egypt, the mother of good policy as well as superstition, to Greece.' Against the belief in particular providences, he urges that such providences are inconsistent with the government of the world by general laws; and he hints that this belief, and that of the efficacy of prayer, are an invention of priestcraft. To keep up a belief of particular providences,' he says, serves to keep up a belief, not only of the efficacy of prayer and of the intercession of saints in heaven, as well as of the Church on earth, but of the several rites of external devotion; and to keep up a belief that they are few, and that the providence of God, as it is exercised in this world, is therefore on the whole unjust, serves to keep up a belief of another world, wherein all that is amiss here shall be set right. The ministry of a clergy is thought necessary on both these accounts by all; and there are few who see how difficult it is to make the two doctrines, which these reverend persons maintain, appear in any tolerable manner consistent. On the whole, the tendency of Bolingbroke's scheme, the close and the consummation of the freethinking of his age, is not unfairly exhibited in the summary of Leland. Man, according to his account of him, is merely a superior animal, whose views are confined to this present life, and who has no reasonable prospect of existing in any other state. God has given him appetites and passions; these appetites lead him to pleasure, which is their only object. He has reason indeed; but this reason is only to enable him to provide and contrive what is most conducive to his happiness; that is, what will yield him a continued permanent series of the most agreeable sensations or pleasures, which is the definition of happiness. And if no regard be had to futurity, he must govern himself by what he thinks most conducive to his interest, or his pleasure, in his present circumstances. The constitution of his nature is his only guide: God has given him no other, and concerns himself no farther about him, nor will ever call him to an account for his actions. In this constitution his flesh or body is his all: there is no distinct im * Works, vol. v. pp. 512-516. Ibid. pp. 351-352. Ibid. p. 419. material material principle: nor has he any moral sense or feelings naturally implanted in his heart; and therefore to please the flesh, and pursue its interest, or gratify its appetites and inclinations, must be his principal end. Only he must take care so to gratify them, as not to expose himself to the penalties of human laws, which are the only sanctions of the law of nature for particular persons. * Bolingbroke's works may be regarded as the last utterance of the philosophical Deism which attacked Christianity by appeals to reason and natural religion; and also as the partial commencement of a new phase of unbelief, which appealed to historical criticism and the testimony in behalf of facts. In both characters, they produced but little effect; for the old Deism was virtually refuted and worn out before their publication; and the new, in Bolingbroke's hands, was too slight and trifling to attract serious attention. But in the former aspect, at the close of half a century of infidel speculations, these writings have a significance for us which they had not in their own day. They exhibit the natural result of a current of unbelief of English origin, which ran its course and did its work in its native soil once; and may, under similar influences, run a similar course once again. They exhibit the natural tendency of the combined influences of Empiricism and Latitudinarianism, of a philosophy impatient of the supernatural, and a polity hostile to creeds and articles and formularies of faith. They shew how the cry for a reasonable belief and a comprehensive communion, set on foot, with the best intentions, by men of persuasive genius and amiable character and sincere Christian belief, became a weapon in the hands of coarse ignorance and elegant profligacy, to destroy, first the doctrines and facts of Christianity, and then its precepts and moral restraints. The history of English Deism, thus exhibited, is of itself sufficient to explain the fate which has attended the writings of its chief representatives. They were men pushed into adventitious celebrity for a time by the magnificence of their promises, and then consigned to deserved oblivion by the worthlessness of their performances. They acquired a transitory reputation under the specious pretext of reforming and purifying Christianity: they sank to their proper level when it was discovered that the true result of their principles was not to reform, but to destroy. Such will ever be the fate of that spirit of minute cavil and negative inquiry, which applies itself to overthrow the hope and the trust of ages, to substitute in its place, not a belief, but the criti * View of the Principal Deistical Writers,' vol. ii. p. 44, ed. 1798. cism of a belief. Powerless alike as a source of good and as a defence against evil, powerless alike to satisfy the religious needs of the longing soul and to restrain the violence of unruly passions, it may stand for a while in the calm weather of a lethargic rationalism, too proud to worship and too wise to feel;' but it falls prostrate as soon as the sense of spiritual want is awakened in the heart, and men begin to ask, with trembling, 'What must I do to be saved?' We have described with some detail, as our main subject, the progress of the unbelief of the last century, as regards its direct antagonism to the doctrines of the Church. But the parallel between that age and the present, and the lesson to be learned from that parallel, would be incomplete, did we not also bear in mind another feature of the movement, of which our limits will permit only a passing notice; namely, the indirect antagonism by which the same doctrines were assailed through the securities which constitute their external safeguards. The Church of England at that day, here again offering a remarkable parallel to her condition at the present time, had lost, by the secession of the Nonjurors, much of the zeal and learning, and yet more of the Catholic spirit which still lingered round the close of the golden age of her theology; and the extravagance which disfigured this spirit in some of its later representatives fostered the reaction which political causes had introduced. And thus, side by side with the progress of Freethinking within and without the Church, there arose, as its natural accompaniment, a series of attempts to evade or abolish those Subscriptions and Declarations of Belief, which, so long as they exist, constitute a distinct self-condemnation on the part of those who remain in the ministry of the Church while rejecting her doctrines. These attempts may be regarded as commencing with the proposal of Tillotson, at the time of the Commission in 1689, to substitute, in the place of all former declarations and subscriptions required of the clergy, a mere promise to submit to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Church of England—a proposal which strongly reminds us of that ingenious casuistry of the present day which maintains that a man may 'allow,' as a law, articles which he would be horror-struck' to have enacted. To this succeeded the pleas of Clarke and Sykes in behalf of Arian Subscription, and Hoadly's denial of all authority in the Church to legislate or interpret in religious matters; while, about the same time, the Independent Whig' propounded the notable discovery, which an Oxford Professor has not been ashamed to revive in the present day, that subscription to definite statements of |