The Religious Enlightenment and the English Jesus-Centered Deists

Abstract

In most of the twentieth century, the Enlightenment was seen as a time when religious belief was incompatible with Enlightenment values of reason, toleration, and science. David Sorkin maintains that many religious Protestants, Catholics, and Jews emphasized toleration and reason while participating in the secular public sphere. Sorkin asserts that these people were part of the religious Enlightenment. This article focuses on a group of ten English deists who identified themselves as deists, claimed to be Christian, and devoted their writings to explaining their concept of true Christianity. This article argues that these ten deists, whom I label “Jesus-centered deists”, were much more religious than other deists. Like the Protestants, Catholics, and Jews that Sorkin considers part of the religious Enlightenment, these deists emphasized toleration and used reason to defend their conception of God and genuine Christianity. Furthermore, these deists participated in discussions in the public sphere about secular Enlightenment concerns. Unlike stereotypical Enlightenment deists, these Jesus-centered deists did not believe in an inactive and impersonal God. Instead, they believed in a loving and kind God who performed miracles and made revelations. They also emphasized developing a closer relationship with God through prayer. These deists should be included in the religious Enlightenment.

1. Introduction

During most of the twentieth century, the Enlightenment was widely viewed as a period in which people rejected the Christian worldview in favor of the secular and scientific worldview. Furthermore, the deists, especially the English deists, were seen as influential leaders of this transition. In 1966, Peter Gay published the classic statement of this viewpoint. He asserted that the Enlightenment leaders used their classical education to reject the Christian worldview and then they adopted the secular, scientific worldview. While the leaders came from many countries, Gay stated that “there was only one Enlightenment” that they were all advocating. Gay believed that the people who were part of this one Enlightenment had a mission of articulating “a naturalistic world view, a secular ethical system, and above all a triumphant scientific method”. Gay also gave the English deists an important role in the mission to develop a post-Christian worldview, stating that “the first men in modern times to set out on this mission were the English deists… they redrew the religious map of Europe” (Gay 1977, vol. 1:1, p. 374).

Since Gay’s time, both the nature of the Enlightenment and English deism have been hotly debated. Roy Porter says that Gay’s view of the Enlightenment is flawed because Gay took the French experience, in which there was an antagonistic relationship between Christianity and the Enlightenment, as the model of what happened in every country. Porter argues that in England, unlike in France, religious values and Enlightenment values were not seen as antagonistic but as compatible (Porter 1981, pp. vii, 1–11). B. W. Young extends Porter’s view by saying that the leading figures of the Enlightenment in England were ministers and, thus, England had a “clerical Enlightenment” (Young 1998, pp. 3, 14–15, 171). Other scholars, such as James E. Bradley and Dale K. Van Kley, have shown that in other countries, religious faith and Enlightenment values were seen as compatible (Bradley and Van Kley 2001, p. 15). Because the Enlightenment was different in different countries, many scholars now maintain that there was not a single and unified Enlightenment but a “family of Enlightenments” (Sheehan 2003, pp. 1066–67).

Jonathan Israel rejects the idea of seeing the Enlightenment as a “family of Enlightenments”, even claiming this is a dangerous idea because it leads to “a meaningless relativism contributing to the loss of basic values needed by modern society”. He agrees that there was a moderate Enlightenment, in which religious belief and Enlightenment were compatible. However, he maintains that the true Enlightenment, the one we should care about, was a Radical Enlightenment composed of secular, atheistic, and irreligious thinkers who were inspired by Spinoza’s ideas. Israel thinks the secular-oriented Radical Enlightenment was the true Enlightenment because its proponents created our modern world through their advocacy of democracy, personal liberty, and equal rights (Israel 2006, pp. 863–66).

David Sorkin adds the concept of the religious Enlightenment to Israel’s moderate and Radical Enlightenments. Sorkin says the religious Enlightenment included many Protestants, Catholics, and Jews who were religious but who also emphasized toleration and reasonable religious beliefs. Furthermore, they were actively engaged in the public sphere about secular subjects. He asserts that many, but not all, exponents of the religious Enlightenment were part of Israel’s moderate Enlightenment (Sorkin 2011, pp. 5–21).

Just as the nature of the Enlightenment has been hotly debated since Gay’s time, so too has the nature of English deism. David Berman extends Gay’s idea that the English deists advocated science and materialism by saying that the leading English deists were actually atheists. Berman asserts that these so-called deists were engaged in the practice of “theological lying” to avoid persecution for their atheist beliefs (Berman 1987, pp. 61–78). A number of scholars, including James A. Herrick, have agreed with Berman’s analysis (Herrick 1997, pp. 24, 65–69).

Other scholars argue that we misunderstand the English deists unless we realize that their theological view of God was a very important aspect of their beliefs. Charles Taylor advocates this position in his influential theory of the secularization of the Western mindset. He argues that for English deists, like John Toland and Matthew Tindal, their beliefs about God were the foundation of their thought (Taylor 1989, p. 245). Diego Lucci, Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth, and Wayne Hudson also emphasize how the English deists’ view of God was important to them (Lucci and Wigelsworth 2009, pp. 29–43). Furthermore, Hudson asserts that there was not merely one single kind of English deism. He says that too often, scholars of English deism equate English deism with the eighteenth-century kind of deism, whose proponents claimed to be Christian, emphasized natural religion, and believed in both a providentially active God and an immortal soul. Hudson says that the seventeenth-century English deists were much more radical and often stated that God was not providentially active in the world and that people had no immortal souls (Hudson 2008, pp. 3–4; 2014, pp. 20–21).

Hudson is right that any analysis of the general nature of English deism must not equate English deism with the eighteenth-century, Christian-oriented kind of deism. However, this present article is not about the nature of English deism in general. Instead of making any claims about all of English deism, it focuses on just a subgroup of the English deists who have been neglected. This subgroup comprises the ten unorthodox thinkers living in England who identified themselves as deists, claimed to be Christian, and devoted their religious writings to explaining their idea of Christianity. This article argues three points about these ten self-identified, Christian-oriented deists. First, it points out that there were more Christian-oriented deists in England than scholars have previously thought. Besides focusing on four Christian-oriented deists commonly included among the English deists (Matthew Tindall, Thomas Morgan, Thomas Chubb, and Peter Annet), this article adds six more of these deists that were previously unknown to scholars. Second, this article argues that these ten deists shared the major characteristics of the people that Sorkin includes in the religious Enlightenment and that these deists should be included in it. Finally, this article argues that these ten deists do more than meet the formal qualifications to be included in the religious Enlightenment: they were also very religious in the sense of having a close, personal relationship with God. Not only did these deists emphasize prayer as a spiritual practice to develop a closer relationship with God, but several of these deists even thought that God-centered people could get so close to God that they became partakers of the divine nature.

The ten English deists this article discusses all called themselves “Christians” or “Christian deists”. However, it is misleading to call these deists either of these terms because their idea of Christianity was very different from most people’s understanding of Christianity. These deists claimed that genuine Christianity comprised just the original teachings of Jesus in the Gospels and had nothing to do with any other part of the Bible. Furthermore, Jesus only taught that if people loved God and their neighbors, they would go to heaven. These deists argued that every other Christian doctrine had been added by Jesus’ later followers. Because these deists’ idea of Christianity was so different from most people’s understanding of it, calling them “Christian deists” does not accurately describe them. These deists’ religious books and pamphlets were focused on explaining Jesus’ true teachings, so I will label them “Jesus-centered deists” as this term describes them much more accurately than “Christians” or “Christian deists”.

2. Identifying the Jesus-Centered Deists and Their Religious Beliefs

In 1697, the Parliament passed the Blasphemy Act, which made it a crime for anyone raised a Christian to deny important Christian doctrines such as the Trinity and the divine authority of the Old and New Testament. Considering that there were no professed atheists or agnostics living in England at the time, and very few Jews, Muslims, or adherents of any other traditional religion, this law applied to basically everyone (British History Online 1820). Blasphemy was also sometimes severely punished. Furthermore, Christian ministers commonly stated that the only reason deists did not accept Christianity was that the deists were too wicked to live the moral life that Christianity demanded (Clarke 1711, pp. 340–48). Therefore, very few people in eighteenth-century England would identify themselves as deists. Hence, when scholars think about which unorthodox thinkers living in England should be included among the deists, scholars look at people labelled “deists” by the deists’ contemporaries. Scholars especially look at John Leland’s 1754 book, The principal deistical writers living in England, because it presented the most thorough analysis of the English deists (Leland 1766).

When scholars look at the religious beliefs of people called deists by their contemporaries, scholars cannot identify any set of religious beliefs that these thinkers shared. James A. Herrick says, “the actual religious convictions of the Deists are so varied and complex as to raise questions about the descriptive usefulness of the term Deist” (Herrick 1997, pp. 23–24). Hudson, Lucci, and Wigelsworth assert that in the eighteenth century, the words “deist” and “atheist” did not have stable meanings. These three say that both words “were shifting designators in this period” because they meant different things to different people (Hudson et al. 2014, p. 3). David Pailin provides an explanation about why the word “deist” did not always have the same meaning. He says, “When people describe others as ‘deists’, they are not in practice conveying much more than they judge the latter to be deficient in unspecified beliefs which the former consider to be essential to authentic religious faith” (Pailin 2001, pp. 130–31). Because the word “deism” has no clear and singular meaning, Pascal Taranto says, “the historical category of deism becomes unusable, and many historians reject it” (Taranto 2000, p. 426).

The words “deism” and “deist” were used in different ways by non-deists including Leland. But rather than rejecting the concept of deism, another approach is to look at how the deists themselves characterized deism. This approach is based on the idea that deism was such a toxic label that no person of sound mind other than deists would ever state that they were deists or associate their religious beliefs with deism.

This article focuses only on the self-identified deists who were Jesus-centered deists. Therefore, I am only concerned with those English deists who satisfied three criteria. First, these deists stated that they were Christians. Second, they cared about Christianity so much that they focused their religious writings on explaining their idea of genuine Christianity. Finally, they thought that Jesus or Christianity was special in some way.

There were ten English deists who fit these criteria. To begin with, three unorthodox English thinkers explicitly declared they were Christian deists, and another stated he advocated Christian deism. One was Thomas Morgan, a former minister, who stated, “I am a profess’d Christian Deist” (Morgan 1738–1740, vol. 1: title page, pp. 392, 394). Another was John Holwell, who became very wealthy in India. Holwell, who often used the word “we” when discussing his ideas, asserted, “we glory in avowing ourself—A CHRISTIAN DEIST” (Holwell 1765–1771, vol. 3, pp. 90–91). A third was Thomas Amory, who wrote three novels filled with extremely long theological discussions. In his novels, Amory often defended well-known English deists, and his main character also stated that “I was determined, tho’ I lost his [father’s] favour and large fortune by the resolution; to live and die a Christian deist” (Amory 1755, pp. 9, 61, 267, 419–20, 516–17; 1756–1766, vol. 1, p. 380). Finally, there was Matthew Tindal, a lawyer and fellow of Oxford University. Tindal laid out his religious beliefs and then stated three times that these beliefs were “Christian deism” (Tindal 1731, pp. 337–42).

Six other unorthodox thinkers equated Christianity with deism or stated that they were advocating both deism and Christianity. Thomas Bewick, a noted wildlife illustrator, maintained that Christianity had become corrupted, but he believed in the “plain doctrines & truely [sic] charitable principles which Christ laid down … He [Christ] was a Deist” (Bewick 1975, pp. 215–16). Thomas Chubb, an uneducated salesclerk, continually maintained that he was an advocate of the pure and original Christianity that Jesus taught. Chubb was frequently called a promoter of deism, and he responded, “the following Enquiry is designed and calculated to promote and encourage Deism. But then, how this can be done in prejudice to Revealed Religion in general, and to Christianity in particular, I am at a loss to discover” (Chubb 1740, p. viii). Peter Annet, who was imprisoned for denying Moses’ miracles, defended deism while often declaring he was a Christian. For instance, he said,

The Deists therefore we may Christians call,

The least corrupted, the most spiritual, …

Deists are christians uncorrupt and pure.

(Annet 1746, pp. 4–7, title page, 95–98; 1763, pp. 19–20; 1769, pp. 32–42, 128–35)

The writer and editor James Pitt said that he was a follower of Lord Shaftesbury’s system and “that System alone is true Deism”. Pitt also stated that the true plan of Christianity comprised just the moral doctrines that Jesus taught. Then, Pitt linked deism to Christianity by asserting, “Lord Shaftesbury is (upon this true Plan of Christianity,) a real Christian, without the Name of Christian; and such Christians, are real Deists, with the Name of Christians” (Pitt 1732a, p. 1, col. 2; 1732b, p. 1, col. 1 & p. 2, col. 1). Finally, two other English thinkers used pseudonyms. One, who wrote the book Christianity True Deism, used the pen name “Misophenax”, and he declared that he was a Christian. Misophenax further identified genuine Christianity with genuine deism, stating, “true Christianity may very justly be said to be true Deism” (Misophenax 1762, p. 68). The other anonymous writer, who used the pen name “Rational Christian”, also stated that he was a Christian. At the very beginning of his book, he addressed the deists directly, saying to them that his goal was “to vindicate the characters of CHRIST and of his APOSTLES, … and to prove that the religion which they taught, was the religion of nature and reason, … by you, stiled [sic] DEISM” (Rational Christian 1765, p. 1). These two anonymous writers had concerns and a writing style that was very different from that of every other deist and from each other.

Tindal, Annet, Chubb, and Morgan are well known to deist scholars and commonly included in lists of English deists. The other six Jesus-centered deists were previously not known by deist scholars. Besides Bewick being a well-known wildlife illustrator and wood engraver, Pitt, Amory, and Holwell were also significant people in their time. Pitt was the editor of England’s most popular newspaper, the London Journal. He wrote dozens of articles about deism for this newspaper from 1729 to 1735 under the pen names of “Socrates” and “Publicola”. A scholar estimates that because of the way these newspapers were often read aloud to groups of people, as many as a hundred thousand people heard or read Pitt’s articles (Targett 2004, vol. 44, p. 440). This newspaper was so popular that it circulated in the American colonies, and Ben Franklin reprinted nine of Pitt’s deist essays in the Pennsylvania Gazette.1 Amory’s theological novels received long reviews in the Monthly Review, where his novels were compared in a favorable tone to Shakespeare’s plays and Samuel Richardson’s novels (Review of The Life of John Buncle, Esq., vol. 2, by Thomas Amory 1766, p. 34). John Holwell was extremely well known in England because in 1756, he was governor of Britain’s colonial outpost in India, and his account of surviving the so-called “Black Hole of Calcutta” was an important justification for the British conquest of India. Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India at the end of the nineteenth century, even hailed Holwell “as a founding father of British India” (Stuart 2006, pp. 276–77).

The ten self-identified deists all shared a common set of religious beliefs. They believed that God existed and that God’s actions were determined by the same moral standards as morally good people. This meant that God always treated everyone in a good and fair manner and gave each person what he or she deserved based on his or her individual actions. These deists all maintained that orthodox Christianity was mistaken in thinking that the way to heaven was to have faith, believe in certain doctrines, or perform certain rituals. Instead, they said that the way to heaven was to love God and their neighbors. They also all claimed that their religious views were based on knowledge from their natural faculties before they were aware of any supernatural revelation. In early modernity, this kind of religion was known as natural religion or the religion of nature. As a later section will show, most of the Jesus-centered deists maintained that Jesus’ teachings were divine revelations. However, these deists also stated that Jesus did not teach a new religion; he only taught the principles of natural religion. That is to say, they maintained that Jesus taught that God loved everyone equally and that if people loved God and their neighbors, they would go to heaven.2 Because many self-identified English deists believed in revelation, deism cannot simply be defined as natural religion. Deism should be defined as the belief that natural religion has more authority than revealed religions and always judges the truth of any alleged divine revelation.

My way of defining deism differs from the way many people who call themselves deists nowadays define deism. For example, Robert Cook, in his 2024 book Deism: A Beginner’s Guide, asserts, “Deism is a belief system that emphasizes reason and logic over revelation and religious dogma. Unlike traditional theistic religions, Deists believe God exists but does not interfere with the world through miracles or supernatural events” (Cook 2024, p. xi). However, my definition of deism agrees with the way Enlightenment deism has often been characterized in the past. For example, in his nineteenth-century history of English deism, Gotthard Victor Lechler said, “deism is essentially an elevation of natural religion, supported by free examination, to the norm and rule of all positive [revealed] religions” (Lechler 1841, p. 460). My definition, though, now has more authority than Lechler’s definition because it was what the deists themselves said about deism.

3. Two Concerns with the Concept of Jesus-Centered Deism

There are two concerns readers may have with the concept of Jesus-centered deism. First, many scholars believe that deists who called themselves Christians were lying to avoid persecution for their more heterodox beliefs. If this is true, there is no such category as “Jesus-centered deist”. Second, some scholars deny it is possible to clearly separate these deists from the liberal Christians who shared many of the same beliefs. If this is correct, the category is not very useful.

The most important concern about the concept of Jesus-centered deism is the belief that these deists were only claiming to be Christian as “a tactical move to deter accusations of heresy” (J. M. Byrne 1997, p. 111). This concern is valid about deists such as John Toland and Anthony Collins who went to the continent and encountered irreligious and atheistic ideas there. It also makes sense for thinkers who were well educated or who had contact with these radical ideas through their network of associates. But the Jesus-centered deists, except for Tindal and Pitt, seem to have had no awareness of these irreligious ideas. Furthermore, they lacked ways to be aware of these ideas because they never went to the continent, they were often too poorly educated to know about them, and they were not part of any network of people who knew about these ideas. Moreover, with the possible exception of Tindal, the Jesus-centered deists showed no signs of having radical ideas. They did not circulate private manuscripts with more radical ideas and they did not use techniques that writers of the time commonly used to signal to readers that they were hiding their real beliefs. Finally, the Jesus-centered deists did not make orthodox assertions in one place and take them back elsewhere. On the contrary, most of them publicly asserted heterodox and blasphemous ideas, such as Annet stating that Moses had faked his miracles (Annet 1826, pp. 49–51, 90–96).

Another important difference between the Jesus-centered deists and Toland was that, as Justin Champion asserts, Toland focused his writings on freeing society from the social authority of the Anglican Church (Champion 1999, p. 441). Furthermore, Toland did not reveal any deep feelings for God. Apart from Tindal and Pitt, however, the Jesus-centered deists showed no concern for politics or challenging the religious structure. Instead, their writings were focused on changing people’s ideas about the nature of Christianity. Moreover, as a later section will show, they often revealed a great love and devotion to God that Toland never showed.

A second concern about the category of Jesus-centered deism is that the liberal Anglicans known as Latitudinarians emphasized the concept of natural religion before the deists had. The Latitudinarians, such as John Tillotson and Samuel Clarke, thought that natural religion showed that God acted by the same moral standards of righteousness as moral people and so God was always good and fair to everyone. They also emphasized that original Christianity meant following Jesus’ moral teachings in the Gospels and being charitable and kind to everyone. The Jesus-centered deists were heavily influenced by the Latitudinarians and had many similarities to them.3 Indeed, there are so many similarities that some scholars say that there was no clear dividing line between the Latitudinarians and the Jesus-centered deists. For example, Jonathan Israel states, “there was often only a shade of difference between such ‘Christian deists’, who acknowledged a deity distinct from nature, and other Christians”. Furthermore, Israel asserts, “it became increasingly difficult in practice during the early eighteenth century to draw a clear dividing line between Christians and moderate deists” (Israel 2002, pp. 471–72).

K. K. Ruthven says that the main distinction between the deists and the Latitudinarians was that the deists “do not believe in revelation” whereas the Latitudinarians did (Ruthven 1971, p. 245). The next section will show that this was inaccurate because almost half of the Jesus-centered deists believed in revelation. Roger Emerson makes a much better distinction, maintaining that those who say there was little difference between the deists and the Latitudinarians are paying too much attention to the Boyle Lectures, where the Latitudinarians were trying to convert non-Christians. Emerson says that scholars also need to pay attention to the Latitudinarians’ sermons and other writings. Emerson looks at the most widely read Latitudinarian, Tillotson, and shows that there were major differences between Tillotson and the deists. The most important differences were that Tillotson believed that Jesus reconciled us to God by bearing our sins and that the sacraments conveyed spiritual grace to people (Emerson 1987, pp. 26–27, 30–44). The Jesus-centered deists maintained that Jesus taught only natural religion, and so they rejected both Christian doctrines.

Emerson’s way of distinguishing between Christians and deists is incomplete because he only deals with the Latitudinarians. They were all ministers within the Church of England, but there were many ministers outside the Church of England who also emphasized natural religion. The most liberal of these ministers were the Unitarians, who did not believe that Jesus was God. The Unitarians did not share the Latitudinarians’ beliefs about Jesus and the sacraments, and thus, separating them from the Jesus-centered deists requires more elucidation.

A clear and significant dividing line between the two Christian groups and the deists concerns their differing reactions to the seemingly immoral actions of the Old Testament deity. The Old Testament reports that God ordered the Israelites to kill every man, woman, and child of entire ethnic groups (1 Samuel 15:3). Moreover, God cursed entire ethnic groups for the sins of their ancestors (Genesis 9:20–27). God also chastised cities and nations with plagues, fires, and other calamities (Genesis 18 & 19).

Throughout the eighteenth-century, English Christians of all kinds believed that God continued to chastise immoral nations with plagues, earthquakes, fires, and other calamities. This idea was so widespread that the English government often proclaimed days of humiliation, fasting, and repentance whenever these calamities occurred or seemed likely to occur. The Jesus-centered deists thought the idea that God punished entire countries violated the most basic principle of natural religion: that God had the same moral standards as people and treated everyone in a totally fair manner. For example, Thomas Chubb condemned this doctrine because “virtue and sin are only and wholly personal, so, in reason, both rewards and punishments, whether in this life, or another, ought to be only and wholly personal also” (Chubb 1730, p. 472). Contrariwise, none of the Latitudinarians or Unitarians during this time rejected the doctrine that God chastised whole nations with collective punishments. In fact, the most prominent Latitudinarian theologians, including John Tillotson, Simon Patrick, Edward Fowler, Samuel Clarke, William Stukeley, William Whiston, Stephen Hales, and Richard Watson, preached sermons on these days of fasting and repentance.4 So too did the most prominent Unitarians, including Joseph Priestley, Richard Price, John Taylor, John Disney, Newcome Cappe, Jonathan Mayhew, Ebenezer Gay, and Andrew Kippis.5 During these sermons, the Latitudinarian and Unitarian ministers all stated that the calamity currently afflicting their country was God’s punishment for people being impious and immoral. For instance, Whiston claimed that the 1747 cattle plague was God’s punishment for England’s sins. Hales made the same claim about the 1750 London earthquakes, and in 1780 Watson made the same assertion about the British losses in the American Revolutionary War.6 All these ministers then urged people to repent and reform so that God would avert his wrath and stop punishing their country.

While the Jesus-centered deists, the Latitudinarians, and the Unitarians all emphasized natural religion, only the Jesus-centered deists consistently emphasized the authority of natural religion over that of revealed religion. This marked a clear and significant dividing line between the Jesus-centered deists and both the Latitudinarians and Unitarians.

4. The Jesus-Centered Deists Were Religious Enlighteners

Even if Jesus-centered deism is a viable category, should these deists be included in the religious Enlightenment? Sorkin calls the people who were part of the religious Enlightenment “religious enlighteners”. He says they shared four characteristics. They maintained the reasonableness of religious belief, they emphasized toleration based on natural law, they actively engaged in the public sphere about secular Enlightenment ideas, and they advocated state support for a national religion (Sorkin 2011, pp. 11–19). The only characteristic from Sorkin’s list that these deists did not share is that they did not support a national religion. However, by including people in the religious Enlightenment who did not fit all of Sorkin’s characteristics, I am following other scholars who argue for a more capacious concept of the term than Sorkin’s restrictive sense of it. Ulrich L. Lehner uses a less restrictive sense of the term when he includes many eighteenth-century German Benedictine monks in the religious Enlightenment (Grote 2014, p. 154; Lehner 2016, p. 2). Jonathan C. P. Birch does the same when he includes the German deist Hermann Samuel Reimarus in the religious Enlightenment (Birch 2018, p. 247). Ronald Schechter argues that Sorkin’s most important goal—showing that the Enlightenment period was much more religious than commonly thought—is harmed by Sorkin limiting religious enlighteners to people who supported a national religion. Schechter states that Voltaire ridiculed the Bible, but the French philosophe only objected to traditional religion because “its dogmas and practices constituted an affront to God. Yet deists do not qualify for inclusion in Sorkin’s religious Enlightenment… however, a little more attention to non-traditional religiosity among Enlightenment figures would have strengthened the author’s argument about the role of religion in the Enlightenment” (Schechter 2010, pp. 822–23).

The most important of Sorkin’s characteristics to show that these deists shared is that they had a similar sense of the relationship between religion and reason to that of Sorkin’s religious enlighteners. When evaluating the religious beliefs of the ten Jesus-centered deists, it is very important to realize that we are only considering these Jesus-centered deists and no other deists. Thus, there is a need to bracket the studies of deism that are based on other deists. As I pointed out, the thesis of this article is that these Jesus-centered deists were different than other deists. Furthermore, Tindal is the most familiar and best-known of the Jesus-centered deists, but he should not be seen as the model or archetype of them. Pitt published many articles about Jesus-centered deism before Tindal’s magnum opus, Christianity as Old as the Creation, was published. Furthermore, Pitt wrote articles in England’s most popular newspaper and his articles reached a much wider audience than Tindal’s book did. Furthermore, Tindal was very different from the other Jesus-centered deists as he was much better educated and less religious than most of the others.

Sorkin elucidates the religious beliefs of the religious enlighteners by saying that they advocated a middle way between traditional religion and utter skepticism. He further states that this middle way was grounded in natural religion based on reasonable belief. Sorkin particularly highlights how reasonable “should be distinguished from rational, the term scholars commonly employ to assert the Enlightenment’s primary if not exclusive reliance on reason”. The religious enlighteners asserted that revelation never contradicted reason because God had given people both “lights”. The religious enlighteners acknowledged reason as a criterion of judgment, and in judging the truth of any alleged divine revelation, the religious enlighteners believed that people had to use criteria such as witnesses’ testimonies and the credibility of tradition and miracles (Sorkin 2011, p. 12).

The ten Jesus-centered deists agreed with the religious enlighteners that there was a middle way based on a reasonable belief in natural religion. Many scholars think of all deists as rationalists primarily because the scholars maintain that the deists based their idea of natural religion just on reason. For example, Peter Byrne defines natural religion as “a religion of reason derived from reflection on nature” (P. Byrne 2013, p. 8). However, these ten deists did not think that natural religion was based exclusively on reason. Instead, most of the Jesus-centered deists thought people’s knowledge of natural religion, especially its moral principles, was intimately connected to God. Misophenax believed that God “engraved in the Hearts and Consciences of all Men” the principles of natural religion. Misophenax stated that these principles “spring immediately from God, and are by him interwoven in our very Frame and Constitution” (Misophenax 1762, p. 67). Morgan wrote a paragraph, which Amory copied, in which he said that moral truths “are as evident to the understanding, as light and colours are to the eye” because they were impressed “upon every man’s heart and conscience” (Amory 1756–1766, vol. 2, pp. 311–12; Morgan 1741, pp. 235–36). Tindal declared that when people think about the principles of natural religion, people see these principles are true because of “God himself, who immediately illuminates them” (Tindal 1731, p. 10). Tindal also stated about these moral principles that “he [God] continues daily to implant it in the minds of all Men” (Tindal 1731, pp. 51, 120). James Pitt maintained that our moral ideas are “natural Ideas; or Ideas of Right and Wrong, which naturally grow up with us, and thrust themselves upon us whether we will or not, without any Teaching or Instruction”. Pitt further asserted that God was teaching people by means of their moral ideas. Pitt declared, “In this Sense, we are all taught of God; and these Ideas, all Men, of all Countries, and of all Ages, do agree in, or would agree in were they not led wrong, by Men whose Interest ‘tis to deceive them” (Pitt 1732c, p. 1, col. 3). Chubb and Rational Christian agreed with these other deists that God had written the principles of natural religion on our conscience (Chubb 1731, p. 54; Rational Christian 1765, p. 1). While the Jesus-centered deists’ religious beliefs were not grounded in any traditional faith, they also were not rationalists who grounded them in unassisted reason.

Another thing separating the Jesus-centered deists from the rationalists was that these deists did not see reason as an autonomous human faculty. Instead, they saw human reason as closely connected to God. Morgan declared, “Reason itself is a natural Revelation from God to Man” (Morgan 1738–1740, vol. 2, p. 26). Amory maintained that “all our knowledge of every kind may be called a revelation from God, and be ascribed, as it is by Elihu in Job, to the inspiration of the Almighty” (Amory 1756–1766, vol. 1, p. 161). Matthew Tindal thought that reason “is the common bond which unites Heaven & Earth” (Tindal 1731, p. 20).

Finally, the most important reason these deists were not rationalists is that almost all of them stated that they believed in miracles and revelations. Eight of the Jesus-centered deists stated that they believed that Jesus or the apostles had performed miracles while only two denied miracles.7 Furthermore, seven of the ten Jesus-centered deists maintained that Jesus was a divine messenger and his teachings were divine revelations.8 Only one Jesus-centered deist, Peter Annet, stated that revelations never happened (Annet 1746, pp. 86–89). Another deist, Thomas Bewick, did not state an opinion about the subject, while Rational Christian made inconsistent statements about it (Rational Christian 1765, pp. 366, 402–4). The previous section gave reasons why the Jesus-centered deists were sincere when they stated they were Christians. These same reasons apply to believing in the sincerity of those who stated that they believed in miracles and revelations.

While most of the Jesus-centered deists believed in miracles and revelations, they denied that it was reasonable to accept that Jesus’ miracles proved that he was God and that the Christian doctrines were true. None of these deists embraced the orthodox Protestant position that the Bible was the totally inspired Word of God. Nor did these deists believe that Jesus reconciled humanity with God by bearing our sins. These deists also did not think that Jesus started a new religion. Instead, they focused on Jesus’ statement that the essence of his teaching was that if one loved God and one’s neighbor, one would be rewarded with heaven. They then claimed that Jesus’ message was a divine revelation but that it was merely restating the moral principles of natural religion. For example, Matthew Tindal declared, “the business of the Christian dispensation was to destroy all those traditional Revelations, & restore, free from all Idolatry, the true primitive, and natural Religion, implanted in Mankind from the Creation” (Tindal 1731, pp. 347–48).

The Jesus-centered deists did not reject many traditional Christian beliefs because they saw religious beliefs based on supernatural phenomena as fundamentally irrational. Rather, they rejected these beliefs because they thought these beliefs could not withstand a reasoned analysis. Some, like Chubb, believed in some biblical miracles while rejecting others because they thought that only some miracles were reasonable to accept (Chubb 1748, vol. 2, pp. 187–90). Others, like Amory argued that Jesus was a divine being created before the angels, but they also maintained that a careful reading of the Bible did not support the idea that Jesus was God (Amory 1755, pp. 517–18). Finally, as I argue in detail in another place, all the Jesus-centered deists rejected many Christian doctrines because they did not think it was reasonable to believe that a totally good and fair God would be so unfair and cruel as these doctrines portrayed God.9

The Jesus-centered deists were like the religious enlighteners in basing their religious beliefs on a reasonable analysis of the Christian claim that Jesus performed miracles and that there was a divine revelation in Jesus’ time. However, the Jesus-centered deists had a much different idea from the religious enlighteners about what a reasoned analysis showed about the ramifications of these beliefs.

Sorkin’s second characteristic of religious enlighteners is that they emphasized religious toleration. The Enlightenment deists in general were strong advocates of toleration because they were often persecuted for their religious beliefs. The Jesus-centered deists were the same. Tindal made a significant contribution to toleration in his early pamphlets (Lalor 2006, pp. 44–53). Annet even argued that the Jesus-centered deists were the only true Protestants because these deists were the only ones staying true to the idea that Christians had the liberty to interpret the Bible according to their consciences (Annet 1769, pp. 32–42).

Like other religious enlighteners, the Jesus-centered deists were actively engaged in the public sphere, and some of their ideas about philosophical, medical, scientific, legal, and political matters were discussed on the continent and in America. Not only was Morgan’s 1725 book on the scientific principles of medicine positively referred to by ten British medical writers, but the American Cotton Mather praised it, as did several German writers. Forty-two years after the book’s publication, it gained international fame when the influential Swiss physician Albrecht von Haller quoted Morgan several times and dedicated a paragraph to him (Van Den Berg 2021, pp. 63–65). Tindal was a prominent lawyer who made an argument based on natural law in an important case about international law and piracy. He also wrote influential pamphlets advocating the toleration of religion (Lalor 2006, pp. 37–53). Amory’s novels had detailed discussions about antiquities and natural science. One of his novels was translated into German, and the German philosopher Moses Mendelssohn discussed him with the playwright Gotthold Lessing (Jones 1967, pp. 298–306). John Holwell was one of the first Europeans to deal with Indian antiquities and ancient religion, and Voltaire used Holwell’s works in his battle against Christianity. Holwell also wrote a treatise on small-pox inoculation in India, was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and was an early advocate of both animal rights and vegetarianism (Stuart 2006, pp. 277, 279–80, 287–88; Holwell 1767, title page). Thomas Bewick was an important naturalist and illustrator noted for his book A History of British Birds (Bewick 1826). Peter Annet defended the right to divorce and was important in extending the public sphere to the working class through being a pillar of the internationally renowned Robinhood debating society (Annet 1750, pp. 192–262; Thale 1997, p. 38). Thomas Chubb’s philosophical discussion about free will was attacked at length by the American theologian Jonathan Edwards (Edwards 1860, pp. 87–102, pt. 1, sec. X). James Pitt was a prominent political writer defending pro-Whig policies (Targett 2004, vol. 44, p. 440). He also wrote on philosophical topics, and his essays on virtue and pleasure were republished by Ben Franklin in the Pennsylvania Gazette (A Dialogue between Philocles and Horatio 1730; A Second Dialogue between Philocles and Horatio 1730). The two anonymous writers were the only Jesus-centered deists who cannot be shown to have been actively engaged in the secular public sphere.

The Jesus-centered deists should be seen as part of the religious Enlightenment because they fit the most important criteria of being included in it.

5. The English Jesus-Centered Deists Believed They Had Religious Duties to a Caring God

The previous section argued that ten English Jesus-centered deists met the most important of Sorkin’s formal qualifications for those people he includes in the religious Enlightenment. The rest of this article argues that the Jesus-centered deists did more than meet the formal qualifications. These deists were also religious in the personal sense of caring very much about God, feeling they had duties to God, and wanting to have a closer personal relationship with God.

The key to understanding the Jesus-centered deists’ personal religiosity is realizing that all the Jesus-centered deists saw God as their father or parent. For instance, Rational Christian stated, “God is the Father of all his creatures”, and James Pitt asserted, “God is the Father of the World, a Father perfectly Wise and infinitely Good” (Pitt 1729, p. 1, col. 2; Rational Christian 1765, p. 61). Many Jesus-centered deists, besides stating that God was humanity’s father or parent, also said that people were God’s children. For instance, Peter Annet stated that all people “are alike his [God’s] Offspring, and the Objects of his Care and Protection” (Annet 1746, p. 86).

The Jesus-centered deists’ view of people’s religious duties was based on their belief that God was a good father who was totally happy and lacked nothing. Therefore, these deists believed that God did not create people because he needed something from them. Instead, he created people only to communicate his happiness and love to them. Thomas Chubb stated, “God is a Being in whom all moral perfections take place, in the highest degree, and, therefore, as selfishness could not possibly be the motive, which induc’d him to call any of his creatures into being; so, of course, it must be true goodness, that is, a true regard to the happiness and well-being of the creatures themselves which excited him to it” (Chubb 1730, p. 400).

A number of Jesus-centered deists had an almost mystical sense about how much God loved and cared for people. For instance, Rational Christian stated, “every days’ experience witnesses his [God’s] goodness to us; and every rising sun opens a new scene of wonder, and excites fresh emotions of gratitude and praise”. After this, Rational Christian stated, “He must indeed be blind who cannot see this truth; and he deserves to be for ever dumb, who does not gratefully acknowledge it, and whose tongue is not employed in sounding forth the praise of the universal Father and Benefactor of all his creatures” (Rational Christian 1765, pp. 63–64). Tindal expressed rapturous joy and was ecstatic over how wonderfully God had treated humanity. Tindal wrote that once we reflect about the way God cares so much for us, these reflections “must give us a wonderful and surprizing sense of the divine Goodness, fill us with admiration, transport & extacy [sic]… [and] force us to express a never-failing gratitude in raptures of the highest praise and thanksgiving” (Tindal 1731, p. 13).

The Jesus-centered deists believed that because God was so good to people, people had several duties to him. One duty was thanking him and acknowledging our dependence on him. James Pitt asserted that because God was “our Creator, we ought to humbly and thankfully to acknowledge our Dependence upon him for our Existence, and the Preservation of that Existence” (Pitt 1729, p. 1, col. 1). Another duty was venerating, loving, and worshipping God. Thomas Amory stated, “we are bound, as obliged benficiarys [sic], to love and worship him, to have filial awe, and the deepest reverence for him; to make him the supreme object of our contemplation and affection, and adore him with a true devotion of mind” (Amory 1755, pp. 213–14). A third duty people owed God was following God’s will. Amory stated that since God has given us “innumerable benefits most gratiously bestowed; we ought … to obey him, as far as human weakness can go, and humbly submit and resign ourselves and all our interests to his will; continually confide in his goodness, and constantly imitate him as far as our weak nature is capable” (Amory 1756–1766, vol. 1, pp. 8–9).

The Jesus-centered deists expressed their idea about how to follow God’s will in two ways. One way was in neutral, philosophical language. It stated that because God made us to communicate happiness to us, his will was that we should be like him and make other people happy. Thomas Bewick stated that people should “yield with humility & resignation to his [God’s] Will & I know of no way, so well of what is called serving God, as that of being good to his creatures—and of fulfilling the moral duties, as that of being good Sons, Brothers, Husbands, Fathers, Neighbours & members of society” (Bewick 1975, p. 48). The other way the Jesus-centered deists expressed their belief about how to follow God’s will was in Christian terms. Thomas Morgan declared that Jesus “prov’d and demonstrated by his own Example, that this Method of full and unreserv’d Obedience and absolute Resignation to the divine Will, was the one and only Method of pleasing God and obtaining his Favour”. Morgan then asserted that Jesus died on the cross “to bring us to the same Spirit, Disposition, and Temper” of absolute resignation to God’s will (Morgan 1738–1740, vol. 1, pp. 225, 228).

The English Jesus-centered deists thought we had a duty to worship and serve God because he took such loving and kind care of us.

6. The English Jesus-Centered Deists Emphasized Prayer as the Way to Have a Closer Relationship with God

The most important way to show that the Jesus-centered deists were religious in the personal sense of the word is through their emphasis on prayer. They did not encourage the kind of prayer that tries to change God’s actions by praying for a miracle. Instead, they encouraged the kind of prayer that changed people’s attitudes by making them more aware of their dependence on God, making them more willing to follow his will, and making them more loving.

Almost all the English Jesus-centered deists encouraged people to pray.10 For example, Peter Annet encouraged prayer because it made people realize how dependent they were on God and helped people more readily follow God’s will. Annet believed that prayer “keeps up a Dependence on Deity in the Minds of the People, and so may be a Means to help to subdue the Mind to Virtue, and Submission to God’s Will” (Annet 1750, p. 146). Thomas Morgan encouraged people to pray because it fostered love for God and trust in him as a father. Morgan declared, “this filial Dependence on, Trust in, and Love of God as a Father, is what, I said, I take to be the Life, Spirit, or Soul of Prayer” (Morgan 1741, p. 325). Thomas Chubb advocated that people should pray frequently because prayer helps us get closer “to a nearer and stricter conformity of mind and life, to the divine mind, and the divine will”. Chubb maintained that frequent prayer is good because it is intended “to make us Godlike, by leading us to imitate the Deity in all his moral perfections” (Chubb 1739, pp. 72–73).

Four of the Jesus-centered deists, Annet, Morgan, Amory, and John Holwell, even wrote their own prayers and included them in their books and pamphlets (Amory 1756–1766, vol. 1, pp. 248–60; Morgan 1738–1740, vol. 1, pp. 426–27; Holwell 1786, pp. 127–42; Annet 1765, pp. 33–34). For example, Morgan’s prayer started with “I own, therefore, O Father of Spirits, this natural, necessary Dependence upon thy constant, universal Presence, Power and Agency. Take me under the constant, uninterrupted Protection and Care of thy Divine Wisdom, … for ever bless me with the enlightening, felicitating of thy benign Presence, Power, and Love” (Morgan 1738–1740, vol. 1, pp. 427–28). Amory and Holwell did much more than write a single prayer: they wrote full worship services filled with many prayers (Amory 1756–1766, vol. 1, pp. 248–60; Holwell 1786, pp. 127–42).

When they prayed, a handful of the Jesus-centered deists felt very close to God. Rational Christian stated that when he prayed and worshipped God, “I seem to be in a more particular manner regarded by him. At such time, methinks I see the omniscient eye [of God] penetrating my very soul” (Rational Christian 1765, p. 59). Three of the Jesus-centered deists even thought that spiritually oriented people could have such a close relationship with God that they would be deeply transformed by it.

Annet had a mystical interpretation of the Bible, and he said that the word “Christ” did not refer to the person of Jesus, but to the “Christ [that] is God’s nature in mankind”. Annet believed that through praying and living in a spiritual way, people could develop an awareness of their inner Christ nature and be transformed by it. Annet said,

The God in man does man’s low nature raise, …

And sanctifies the heart and makes it clean.

It love inspires, regenerates the soul,

And makes that pure which before was foul.

(Annet 1763, pp. 18, 20)

Annet also stated that people who become aware of their Christ nature by living a spiritually oriented life could become so close to God that they “shalt be filled with God, and the Rays of the Divinity will ennoble thy Thoughts, adorn thy Speech, and direct thy Ways” (Annet 1750, p. 331).

Morgan stated that if people were spiritually oriented and frequently prayed, they could experience such a deep change that they could be united to God and transformed into God’s image and likeness. Morgan asserted that people who focused on spiritual matters and not worldly ones could be “united to, or consimilated [become similar] with the Deity” and experience “that consimilating Love of God, or Transformation into the Image and Likeness of the Deity” (Morgan 1741, pp. 157–58).

Amory asserted that people who prayed often and focused their lives on God could have a “blessed transforming union” through which they were “made a partaker of the divine nature” (Amory 1756–1766, vol. 1, p. 308). Amory asserted that when this union happened, people were in such an intimate relationship with God that they became a manifestation of God. Amory asserted that there was a “special presence of God in the righteous, as much as the cloud of glory did manifest him in the temple. The power and wisdom and goodness of God are displayed in the holy lives of men. Like the heavens they declare his glory, and are the visible epistle of Christ to the world, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the Living God” (Amory 1756–1766, vol. 1, p. 393).

The English Jesus-centered deists had a deep personal relationship with a loving and kind God. They also emphasized prayer to develop a closer relationship to him. While they were not religious in the communal sense of going to church and performing rituals, in the personal sense of the term, they were profoundly religious.

7. Conclusions

The Enlightenment deists have traditionally been seen as secular-minded thinkers who took a half step to atheism because they supposedly believed in an inactive and impersonal God. This article has challenged this view of deism by discussing a group of ten English deists who were not secular-minded thinkers but cared deeply about God. This group of English deists were like other deists in maintaining that natural religion was superior to revealed religion and people that should use it to judge the truth of any alleged revelation. This group of deists claimed to be Christian, they revered Jesus, and their religious books and pamphlets were focused on explaining Jesus’ true teachings. These Jesus-centered deists (as I call them) believed that God was a kind and loving parent who actively intervened in the world by performing miracles and making revelations. They thought that God took such good care of people that people had a duty to worship him and follow his will by being benevolent to other people. Furthermore, they encouraged people to pray because prayer helped people have a closer relationship with God.

In his book The Religious Enlightenment, David Sorkin maintains that there was no rigid dichotomy between those advocating religious beliefs and those advocating Enlightenment values. He argues that religious groups, including some Jews, Catholics, and Protestants, were part of the religious Enlightenment. He demonstrates that people in these groups saw their religious beliefs as reasonable, emphasized toleration, were actively engaged in the secular public sphere, and supported a national religion (Sorkin 2011, pp. 11–19).

It is inaccurate to think, as many scholars do, that all the Enlightenment deists were irreligious and secular thinkers. At least one group of deists, the English, Jesus-centered deists, were part of the religious Enlightenment. While these deists did not support a national religion, they emphasized toleration, were actively engaged in the public sphere about secular matters and considered their religious beliefs to be reasonable and grounded in natural religion. Furthermore, these deists were personally very religious. Thus, they should be included in the religious Enlightenment.