by Lewis Loflin
English Deism rose in the 17th-century Age of Reason, a rational push against revelation’s strife and priestly guile. Kin to Socinians, Unitarians, and liberal Anglicans, it shares their trust in reason and nature over dogma. Lord Herbert of Cherbury’s “Five Articles” in De Veritate (1624) define this natural religion, distinct from French radicalism’s secular turn.
Lord Herbert (d. 1648) laid out these tenets:
Herbert saw these as universal truths, shared by Socinians, Unitarians, and liberal Anglicans, free of clerical distortions.
Richard Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (1590s) set the stage: “The natural measure whereby to judge our doings, is the sentence of Reason” (Book I)—see Origins of English Rationalism. Liberal Anglicans like Hooker coexisted non-hostilely with this rationalism. John Locke’s Reasonableness of Christianity (1695) bridged faith and reason—see Locke on Reason and Faith—while Isaac Newton, tied to Dutch and English circles, saw an active God: “an infinite and omnipresent spirit in which matter is moved” (Opticks, cited in English Rationalism). Some of these men—Herbert, Locke, Newton—may have crossed paths in England or Holland.
Unlike French Deism’s drift to atheism—see French Deism—this was reformist kinship. Thomas Jefferson caught the echo in 1823: “It is impossible for the human mind not to perceive… design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom” (Jefferson Cyclopedia)—see Existence of Deity-God.
This rational thread—English Deists, Socinians, Unitarians, liberal Anglicans—hit America. Ben Franklin’s 1790 creed to Ezra Stiles sums it:
“Here is my creed. I believe in One God, the Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by His Providence. That He ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we can render Him is doing good to His other children. That the soul of man is immortal and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental principles of all sound religion.” (Daughters of the American Revolution, Vol. 106, 1972, p. 541)
A providential God, not Voltaire’s “watchmaker,” unites this kin—Jefferson’s Unitarian leanings included.
Modern “Deism” veers to pantheism or humanism—see Pantheism—unlike the theistic core of English Deism and its kin. Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason holds to a Creator and afterlife—see Paine on Deism. Wilder notes Deists “did not hold” to an absentee God (Contra Mundum, 1991)—see English Rationalism.
More at Exploring Deism Origins-History or Deism Mainpage.
Acknowledgment: Thanks to Grok (xAI) for drafting help. My edits, my take, enriched by T.E. Wilder’s analysis.
Thanks to Grok (xAI) for drafting aid. My edits, my take, with nods to T.E. Wilder’s work.
