Deism: References & Edit History

Important works by the major deists include Edward Herbert, De Veritate (1937, reissued 1992; originally published in Latin, 3rd ed., 1645); John Toland, Christianity Not Mysterious; or, A Treatise Shewing That There Is Nothing in the Gospel Contrary to Reason, nor Above It: And That No Christian Doctrine Can Be Properly Call’d a Mystery (1696, reprinted as Christianity Not Mysterious, 1984); Anthony Collins, A Discourse of Free-Thinking, Occasion’d by the Rise and Growth of a Sect Call’d Free-Thinkers (1713; reprinted in An Essay Concerning the Use of Reason in Propositions: A Discourse of Free-Thinking, 1984); Matthew Tindal, Christianity as Old as the Creation; or, The Gospel, a Republication of the Religion of Nature (1730, reprinted as Christianity as Old as the Creation, 1978); and Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 3 parts (1794–1811, reissued 1993). John Leland, A View of the Principal Deistical Writers That Have Appeared in England in the Last and Present Century, 3 vol. (1754–56, reissued 1978), is an extensive account of deism by one of its early opponents.

Modern studies include Leslie Stephen, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, 3rd ed., 2 vol. (1902, reissued 1991)—probably still the most comprehensive study, although it betrays the author’s attitude toward religious belief; Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (1951, reissued 1979; originally published in German, 1932); John Martin Creed and John Sandwith Boys Smith (eds.), Religious Thought in the Eighteenth Century (1934), a useful collection of passages from the original sources; Herbert M. Morais, Deism in Eighteenth Century America (1934, reissued 1960); Roland N. Stromberg, Religious Liberalism in Eighteenth-Century England (1954); J.S. Spink, French Free-Thought from Gassendi to Voltaire (1960); Henry E. Allison, Lessing and the Enlightenment (1966); John Redwood, Reason, Ridicule, and Religion: The Age of Enlightenment in England, 1660–1750 (1976, reissued 1996); Henning Reventlow, The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World (1984; originally published in German, 1980); Robert E. Sullivan, John Toland and the Deist Controversy: A Study in Adaptations (1982); Peter Byrne, Natural Religion and the Nature of Religion: The Legacy of Deism (1989); and David A. Pailin, “Should Herbert of Cherbury Be Regarded as a ‘Deist’?” in Journal of Theological Studies, 51(1):119–149 (April 2000).