In France, the English Deism was adopted isd^ ftised by Voltaire and the Encyclopedists (q. v.): ^ it soon became frivolous, immoral, and, in fixti ^ istic. In Germany, the same seed sprang up is ^ 18th century in the theories which gave rise to tk modem Rationalism (q. v.). '' The dei^ical inona^ if viewed as a whole, is obsolete. If the sme ^^ are now repeated, they do not recor in the bsim^ but are connected with new fbnns of phi]o8C|iliv«^ altered by contact with more recent criticisBi. ^^ present day sceptics would believe less thta th ^ ists, or believe more, both in philosophy and is cd)* cism. In philosophy, the titct that tiie aaow i^^ ties occur in natural religion as well as in rerab^ would now throw them back from Monothasi^ Atheism or Pantheism ; while the mysteries of i«^ tion, which by a rough criticism were thai dan^ would be now conceded and explafaied awaj a 1^ chological peculiarities of races or individuls- ^ criticism, the delicate examination of the sacnd lit*-
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i -woold. now prevent both the reyival of the cold, Ukginatiye want of appreciation of its extreme lit- ir beauty, and the hasty imputation of the charge terory forgery against the authors of the doco- ts. In the deist controversy, the whole question ed upon the differences and respective degrees of S&tioii. of natural and revealed religion, moral and txyre duties ; the deist conceding the one, denying other. The permanent contribution to thought ,e b3' the controversy consisted in turning atten- f rom abstract theology to psychological, firom met- y sical dlsquisitioos on the nature of God to ethical sideration of the moral scheme of redemption for u Theology came forth from the conflict, recon- tred from the psychological point of view, and re- lated to meet the doubts which the new form of Losopby — ^psychology and ethics — ^might suggest. ) attack of revealed religion by reason awoke the ance, and no period in Church history is so remark- e for -works on the Christian evidences — grand mon- ents of mind and industry. The works of defend-
are marked by the adoption of the same basis of laon as their opponents, and hence the topics which »y illustrate have a permanent philosophical value, mgh their special utility as arguments be lessened the alteration in the point of view now assumed by >e thought" (Farrar, CrUical HUtory of Free ThougU^ :t. iv).
The aim of honest deists has professedly been to untain the doctrine of a Personal God ; and they vve asserted and assumed that this doctrine can be titer and more surely vindicated apart from what ey call the entanglements of Christian faith than in •nnection with them. But the history of thought, I the last century especially, shows that Deism, or 3lief in a Personal God apart from Christianity, gives ay steadily before the assaults of Pantheism and ositiviam. No robust £fdth has ever sprung out of ^ism. The so-called spiritualistic writers of France ave contended nobly (e. g. Cousin, Saisset, and oth- ri) against Materialism ; but their task of upholding lieism in France has devolved now almost wholly pen Christian thinkers.
A succinct account of the English deists and their frinciples will be found in Van Mildert, Boyle Leo- ure^ sermon x ; Lechler, GeschicMe d, englisdt. Deis- nu8 (1841). See also Leland,F»ev ofdeistical Writ- ir8 (new ed. by Edmonds, Lond. 1837, 8vo); Noack, Die Freidenker in der Religion (Bern. 1853-66, 8 vols. ; s^ol. i treats of the " English Deists,'* vol. ii of the " French Freethinkers," vol. iii of the " German En- lightenment") ; Farrar, Critical History of Free Thought COxf, 1868, 8vo; repub. Boston, 1863, 12mo); Hurst, History of RaHonaUsm^ chap, xix ; Hagenbach, Hist, of Doctrines, § 288; Domer, Geschi<Ate d, protest, The- ologie (1867), p. 487 ; Liddon, Bampton Lecture, 1867. Compare the articles Izcfidblity ; Rationalism. For the writers against Deism, see Apoloobtics; Apoloot; Evidbncbs.
Deity, a name of the Supreme Being, from the Latin Deus, God. It was originally an abstract term, oud thence transferred to signify, in a concrete sense. Him whom we call God,
DEITY OF Jesus Chbist. " In the use of this phrase concerning our Lord we mean to assert that he was *the very and eternal God.* It is a more proper expression than *the divimty of Christ,' since this lat- ter does not necessarily imply anything more of our Lord's nature than that it was god/i^, or of heavenly origin ; whereas the term * Deity' contains in it the notion of essential Godhead. The other expression, however, has prevailed, on account of the word * De- ity' having come to be so commonly used as the con- crete instead of the abstract sense, to denote a divine Bany."—Eden, Churchmctn's Dictionary, a. v. See Chbistolooy; Truiity.
De'kar (Heb. Decker, •ign, a thrusting through), the father of Solomon's purviayor in the second royal district (1 lUngs iv, 9), from which passage it appears that his son Ben-Deksr (^i?^l^ ; Sept. vlb^ Aaxap ; Yulg. Bendecar) was the royal commissariat officer in the western part of the hill-country of Judah and Ben- jamin, Shaalbim and Bethshemesh. B.C. ante 1014.
De la Mennaifl. See La Msifif ais.
Delai'^ah (Heb. Delc^ah', rnb'n,yre«J by Jehovah ; also in the prolonged form Delaya'hu, ^M'^b'n, 1 Chron. xxiv, 18 ; Jer. xxxvi, 12, 25 ; comp. AtnXtvOtpoc Kt;- piov, 1 Cor. vii, 22 ; also the Phosnician name AiXaia- ordprot, quoted from Menander by Josephus, Ap. i, 18, and the modem name Godfrey =Got^frey), the name of several men.