Page:The Life and Mission of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/24

 noon. The decade after the middle of the last century is constantly referred to by English and German historians as the period of the downfall of Deism. Thus Dr. Dorner:—

"A further result of the conflicts and disorders in the region of politics, morals, and religion was the appearance of Deism after the second half of the seventeenth century, and its unchecked and triumphant progress till about 1750. . . . In 1750 many who desired that the excellence of Christian morality should be admitted, owned their obligations to Deism for having delivered them from superstition and dogmatism. Thus was Deism dreaming of its victory over Christianity. . . . But it was just now, when in the public opinion of the educated world the victory of Deism seemed in a scientific aspect decided, and when being unobstructed by opponents it was to begin to develop the supposed fulness and self-assurance of Deistic reason, in the place of that Christianity which it rejected, that its emptiness became apparent, and it incurred the fate of all negative criticism. It had unconsciously been living upon its adversary, theological science; and when this succumbed, it fell with it."

This testimony of "the greatest living theologian," in his History of Protestant Theology, to the common fall, just after 1750, both of the old "theological science," belonging to the scheme of faith alone, and of Deistic reason, is noteworthy. So again Leslie Stephen: "Every creed decays; or certainly the creed decayed in this instance, as it became incapable of satisfying the instincts of various classes of the population, and the perception of its logical defects was the consequence, not the cause, of its gradual break-up. . . . Towards the middle of the century the decay of the old schools of theology was becoming complete. Watts died in 1748; Doddridge