There was much more in the same vein; and the upshot was, under the thin
veil of serving faith, to show that the Christian dogmas were
essentially unreasonable.

Bayle’s work, marked by scholarship and extraordinary learning, had a
great influence in England as well as in France. It supplied weapons to
assailants of Christianity in both countries. At first the assault was
carried on with most vigour and ability by the English deists, who,
though their writings are little read now, did memorable work by their
polemic against the authority of revealed religion.

The controversy between the deists and their orthodox opponents turned
on the question whether the Deity of natural religion —the God whose
existence, as was thought, could be proved by reason—can be identified
with the author of the Christian revelation. To the deists this seemed
impossible. The nature of the alleged revelation seemed inconsistent
with the character

[138] of the God to whom reason pointed. The defenders of revelation, at
least all the most competent, agreed with the deists in making reason
supreme, and through this reliance on reason some of them fell into
heresies. Clarke, for instance, one of the ablest, was very unsound on
the dogma of the Trinity. It is also to be noticed that with both
sections the interest of morality was the principal motive. The orthodox
held that the revealed doctrine of future rewards and punishments is
necessary for morality; the deists, that morality depends on reason
alone, and that revelation contains a great deal that is repugnant to
moral ideals. Throughout the eighteenth century morality was the guiding
consideration with Anglican Churchmen, and religious emotion, finding no
satisfaction within the Church, was driven, as it were, outside, and