RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Deism
lished by a teleological government of the universe between certain acts and their consequences. In spite of his supernaturalist tendencies, Locke nevertheless maintained, in his Letters on Toleration (1689-92), that only rational demonstration, and not compulsion or mere assertion, can establish the vahdity of revelation. In the 'Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690) he had investigated the conception of revelation from the epistemological standpoint, and laid down the criteria by which the true revelation is to be distinguished from other doctrines which claim such authority. Strict proof of the formal character of revelation must be adduced; the tradition which communicates it to us must be fully accredited by both external and internal evidence; and its content must be shown to correspond with rational metaphysics and ethics. Revelation is revelation; but, after it is once given, it may be shown a posteriori to be rational, i.e., capable of being deduced from the premises of our reason. Only where this is possible is there a presumption in favor of the purely mysterious parts of revelation. Where these criteria are disregarded the way is open to the excesses of sects and priesthoods by which religion, the differentia of reasoning man, has often made him appear less rational than the beasts. Locke advances therefore the remarkable conception of a revelation that reveals only the reasonable and the universally cognizable. The practical consequences of the thesis are deduced in his Reasonableness of Christianity as Delivered in the Scriptures (1695), which aims at the termination of religious strife through the recovery of the truths of primitive, rational Christianity. From the Gospels and the Acts, as distingxiished from the Epistles, he elicits as the fundamental Christian verities the doctrine of the Messiahship of Jesus and that of the kingdom of God. Inseparably connected with these are the recognition of Jesus as ruler of this kingdom, forgiveness of sins, and subjection to the moral law of the kingdom. This law is identical with the ethical portion of the law of Moses, which in its turn corresponds to the lex naturae or rationis. The Gospel is but the divine summary and exposition of the law of nature, and it is the advantage of Christianity over pagan creeds and philosophies that it oifers this law of nature intelligibly, with divine authority, and free from merely ceremonial sacerdotalism. To do this it requires the aid of a supernatural revelation, whose message is attainable through reason also, but only in an imperfect way.
Deducing the full consequences of Locke's theory, John Toland (q.v.; d. 1722), in his Christianity not g Mysterious (1696), maintained that
Collins ' content of revelation must neither g^jjjj ' contradict jior transcend the dictates Others. reason. Revelation is not the basis of truth, but only a " means of information " by which man may arrive at knowledge, the sanction for which must be found in reason. Primitive Christianity knew nothing of mystery, whose sources are Judaic and Greek, and the original Christian use of the word mysterium conveyed no idea of that which transcended reason. The basis is thus laid for the critical study of early
Christianity. Further problems of Biblical criticism and the distinction between the diverse parties in primitive Christianity are advanced in Toland's Amyntor (1699) and Nazarenus ; or Jewish, Gentile and Mahometan Christianity (1718). In like manner, Anthony Collins (q.v.; d. 1729), in his Discourse of Freethinking (1713), developed the consequences of Locke's propositions. Revelation depends for its sanction upon its agreement with reason, and what is contrary to reason is not revelation. Practical morality is independent of dogma, which, on the contrary, has been the cause of much evU in the history of the world. Christ and the Apostles, the prototypes of the freethinkers, never made use of supernatural authority, but confined themselves to simple, rational demonstration. CoUins's work elicited numerous replies; but none really made answer to his main thesis. After remaining silent for eleven years, Collins renewed the contest with a contribution on prophecy and miracles. Setting out from Locke's proposition that revelation was truth sanctioned by reason, he found it a simple step to reject prophecy and miracles as non-essential characteristics of religion, amounting at most to mere didactic devices. The mathematician William Whiston (q.v.; d. 1752) gave a new impulse to the controversy by the publication of The True Text (1722), in which the lack of real concordance between the New Testament interpretation of Old Testament prophecies is pointed out, and the prevailing allegorical method of reconciling such differences summarily rejected. The present form of the Old Testament is characterized as a forgery perpetrated by the Jews, and an attempt is made by Whiston to restore the original text. Collins, in his Discourse on the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion (1724), agreed with Whiston as to the discrepancies between the two Testaments, but defended the allegorical method of interpretation. Thomas Woolston (q.v.; d. 1733) came to the support of Collins in this controversy over the Biblical prophecies; and when his opponents shifted their appeal from the prophecies to the miraculous acts of Jesus he applied his destructive allegorical method to those also, in his Discourses on the Miracles of our Saviour (1727-30).
Matthew Tindal (q.v.; d. 1733), in his dialogue Christianity as Old as the Creation, or the Gospel a Republication of the Religion of Nature (1730), produced the standard text-book of Deism. Proceeding from Locke's proposition of the identity of the truths of revelation with those of 6. Mat- reason, he adduces a new array of arguments in support of that position. The goodness of God, the vast extent of the earth, the long duration of human life on earth render it improbable that only to Jews and Christians was vouchsafed the favor of perceiving truth. We now have brought in the classic example of the three hundred million Chinese who surely could not all be excluded from the truth, and Confucianism begins to be extolled against much that is repugnant and harsh in the Mosaic law. Christianity, to be the truth, must find its, substance in all religions; it must be as old as creation. The doctrines of the fall and of original
thaw Tindal.
Seism