Socinians, Arians, and Anti-trinitarians; and he speaks of serious men who had not only abandoned their religious beliefs but sought to persuade others to do the same.' Under the rule of Cromwell, tolerant as he was of Christian sectarianism, and even of Unitarianism as represented by Biddle, the more advanced heresies would get small liberty. It was only privately that such men as Henry Marten and Thomas Chaloner, the regicides, could avow themselves to be of " the natural religion".

2

But between the advance in speculation forced on by the disputes themselves, and the usual revolt against the theological spirit after a long and ferocious display of it, there arose even under the Commonwealth a new temper of secularity. On the one hand the temperamental distaste for theology took form in the private associations for scientific research which were the antecedents of the Royal Society. On the other hand the spirit of religious doubt spread widely in the middle and upper classes. A work entitled Dispute betwixt an Atheist and a Christian (1646), shows the existence not indeed of Atheists but of Deists, though the Deist in the dialogue is a Fleming. The discourse on Atheism in the posthumous works of John Smith of Cambridge (d. 1652) is entirely retrospective; but soon another note is sounded. As early as 1652 the prolific Walter Charleton, who had been physician to the king, issued a book entitled The Darkness of Atheism expelled by the light of Nature, wherein he asserted that England "hath of late produced and and doth foster more swarms of Atheisticall monsters . then any Age, then any Nation hath been infested withall". In the following year, Henry More, the Cambridge Platonist, published his Antidote against Atheism, which assumes that the atheistic way of thinking had lately become rather

1

Cp. citations in Buckle, i, 347

2 Cp. Carlyle's Cromwell, ii, 194; and articles in Nat. Dict. of Biog. Vaughan (Hist. of England, 1840, ii, 477, note) speaks of Walwyn and Overton as "among the freethinkers of the times of the Commonwealth". They were, however, Biblicists, not unbelievers.

fashionable. In 1654, again, there is noted' a treatise in Latin, Atheismus Vapulans, by William Towers, whose contents can in part be inferred from its title. After the Restoration, naturally, all the new tendencies were. greatly reinforced,' alike by the attitude of the king and his companions, all influenced by French culture, and by the general reaction against Puritanism. Whatever ways of thought had been characteristic of the Puritans were now in more or less complete disfavor; the belief in witchcraft was scouted as much on this ground as on any other; and the Deistic doctrines found a ready audience among royalists whose enemies had been above all things Bibliolators.

We gather this, however, still from the apologetic treatises; not from new Deistic literature; for Herbert was thus far the only professed Deistic writer in the field, and Hobbes the only other of similar influence. Baxter, writing in 1655 on The Unreasonableness of Infidelity, handles chiefly Anabaptists; but in his Reasons of the Christian Religion, issued in 1667, he thinks fit to prove the existence of God and a future state, and the truth and the supernatural character of the Christian religion. Any Deist or Atheist who took the trouble to read through it would have been rewarded by the discovery that the learned author has annihilated his own case. In his first part he affirms: "If there were no life of Retribution after this, Obedience to God would be finally men's loss and ruine: But Obedience to God shall not be finally men's loss and ruine: Ergo, there is another life." In the second part he writes that "Man's personal interest is an unfit rule and measure of God's goodness ";"

1 Fabricius, Delectus Argumentorum et Syllabus Scriptorum, 1725, p. 341. 2 No copy in British Museum.

3 Cp. Glanvil, pref. Address to his Scepsis Scientifica, Owen's ed., 1885, pp. lv-lvii; and Henry More's Divine Dialogues, Dial. i, c. 32.

4 Cp. Lecky, Rationalism, i, 109.

5 There is evidence that Charles II was himself at heart a Deist. See Burnet's History of his Own Time, ed. 1838, pp. 61, 175, and notes.

• Work cited, ed. 1667, p. 136. The proposition is reiterated.
7
" Id., p. 388.

and, going on to meet the new argument against Christianity based on the inference that an infinity of stars are inhabited, he writes:

44

'Ask any man who knoweth these things whether all this earth be any more in comparison of the whole creation, than one Prison is to a Kingdom or Empire, or the paring of one nail . . . . in comparison of the whole body. And if God should cast off all this earth, and use all the sinners in it as they deserve, it is no more sign of a want of benignity or mercy in him than it is for a King to cast one subject of a million into a jail . . . . or than it is to pare a man's nails, or cut off a wart, or a hair, or to pull out a rotten aking tooth."

Thus the second part absolutely destroys one of the fundamental positions of the first. No semblance of levity on the part of the freethinkers could compare with the profound intellectua! insincerity of such a propaganda as this; and Deism and Atheism continued to gain ground. A" Person of Honour " produced in 1669 an essay on The Unreasonableness of Atheism made Manifest, which, without supplying any valid arguments, gives some explanation of the growth of unbelief in terms of the political and other antecedents". Baxter in 1671* complains that "infidels are grown so numerous and so audacious, and look so big and talk so loud"; and still the process continues. In 1672 appeared The Atheist Silenced, by one J. M.; in 1677 Bishop Stillingfleet's Letter to a Deist; and in 1678 the massive work of Cudworth on The True Intellectual System of the Universe, attacking Atheism (not Deism) on philosophic lines which sadly compromised the learned author. All the while, the censorship of the press, which was one of the means by which the clerical party under Charles combated heresy, prevented any new and outspoken writing on the Deistic side. The Humane Reason (1674) of Martin Clifford, a scholarly man-about-town who was made

1 Id., pp. 388-9.

2 Said to be Sir Charles Wolseley.

3 Cp. Dynamics of Religion, pp. 86-7, 89-90.

Replying to Herbert's De Veritate, which he seems not to have read

before.

Cp Dynamics of Religion, pp. 87, 94-98, 111, 112.

Master of the Charterhouse, was guarded enough to allow of his putting his name to the second edition. But the tendency of such claims was obvious enough to inspire Boyle's Discourse of Things above Reason (1681), an attempt which anticipates Berkeley's argument against freethinking mathematicians.'

At length, during an accidental lapse of the press laws, the Deist CHARLES BLOUNT produced his Anima Mundi (1679), in which there is set forth a measure of cautious unbelief: following it up (1680) by his much more pronounced essay, Great is Diana of the Ephesians, a keen attack on the principle of revelation and clericalism in general, and his translation of Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana, so annotated as to be an ingenious counterblast to the Christian claims. The book was condemned to be burnt; and only the influence of Blount's family3, probably, prevented his being prosecuted. The propaganda, however, was resumed by Blount and his friends. in small tracts, and after his suicide' in 1692 these were collected as the Oracles of Reason (1693), his collected works (without the Apollonius) appearing in 1695. By this time the political tension of the Revolution of 1688 was over the Boyle Lecture had been established for the confutation of unbelievers; and henceforth it rains. refutations. A partial list will suffice to show the rate of increase of the ferment from 1692 onwards :

1683. Dr. Rust, Discourse on the Use of Reason in . . . Religion, against Enthusiasts and Deists.

1 Work cited, pp. 10, 14, 30, 55.

"

Concerning whom see Macaulay's History, ch. xix, ed. 1877, ii, 411412-a grossly prejudiced account. Blount is there spoken of as one of the most unscrupulous plagiaries that ever lived" and as having "stolen from Milton, because he issued a pamphlet "By Philopatris ", largely made up from the Areopagitica. Compare Macaulay's treatment of Locke, who adopted Dudley North's currency scheme (ch. xxi, vol. ii, p. 547).

3 As to these, see the Dict. of Nat. Biog. The statements of Anthony à Wood as to the writings of Blount's father, relied on in the author's Dynamics of Religion, appear to be erroneous.

+ All that is known of this tragedy is that Blount loved his deceased wife's sister and wished to marry her; but she held it unlawful, and he was in despair. An overstrung nervous system may be diagnosed from much of his writing.

1685. The Atheist Unmask'd. By a Person of Honour.

1692. Bentley's Sermons on Atheism. (First Boyle Lecture.)

1693. A Conference between an Atheist and his Friend.

1694. J. Goodman, A Winter Evening Conference between Neighbours.

1694. Bishop Kidder, A Demonstration of the Messias. (Boyle Lect.). 1695. John Edwards, D.D., Some Thoughts concerning the Several Causes and occasions of Atheism.

1695. John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity. 1696. An Account of the Growth of Deism in England.

1696. Reflections on a Pamphlet, etc. (the last named).

1696. Sir Charles Wolseley, The Unreasonableness of Atheism Demonstrated. (Reprint.)

1696. Dr. Nichols' Conference with a Theist. Pt. I. (Answer to Blount).

1697. Stephen Nye, A Discourse concerning Natural and Revealed Religion.

1697. Bishop Gastrell, The Certainty and Necessity of Religion. (Boyle Lect.). 1697. H. Prideaux, Discourse vindicating Christianity, etc.

1697. C. Leslie, A Short and Easy Method with the Deists.

1698. Dr. J. Harris, A Refutation of Atheistical Objections. (Boyle Lect.) 1699. J. Bradley, An Impartial View of the Truth of Christianity. (Answer to Blount.)

1700.

Bishop Bradford. The Credibility of the Christian Revelation. (Boyle
Lect.)

1701. W. Scot, Discourses concerning the wisdom and goodness of God.

1702.

1702.

A Confutation of Atheism.

Dr. Stanhope, The Truth and Excellency of the Christian Religion. (Boyle Lect.)

1704. An Antidote of Atheism (? Reprint of More).

1705. Ed. Pelling, Discourse concerning the existence of God.

1705. Dr. Samuel Clarke, A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God,

etc. (Boyle Lect.)

1706. A Preservative against Atheism and Infidelity.

1707. Dr. John Hancock, Arguments to prove the Being of a God. (Boyle Lect.)

Still there was no new deistic literature. Blount's famous stratagem' had led to the dropping of the official censorship of the press (1695: last Act, 1693); but the new Blasphemy Law of 1696 served sufficiently to terrorise writers and printers for the time being. Freethinking ideas were still mainly for private circulation. The anonymous pamphlet entitled The Natural History of Superstition, by the Deist John Trenchard, M.P. (1709), does not venture on overt heresy.

1 Macaulay, as cited.