The Reaction to Collins Abroad

Abstract

In England the second half of the eighteenth century was to see, apparently, the total eclipse of deism. Here, unlike France, religion was associated not with an establishment that was failing and unpopular, but with one that was preeminently successful. It was perhaps not unfitting that it was on the continent, in the Low Countries, in Germany, and especially in France, that Collins was to have an impact. This was to be greater in fact in France than it was in England. In Germany the immediate reaction was hostile. In the universities religion was strong, and deism was of slow growth. The English deists in general had an effect in making certain German theologians more concerned with a rational examination of the Scriptures, but the idea of Revelation was not easily abandoned. Christian Wolff, at Halle, in the first half of the century, stressed the idea that morality was purely an affair of, and faith an exercise of reason, but he did not deny Revelation.¹ In the mid-century theologians such as Christian Benedict Michaelis and Johann August Ernesti were applying rational criticism to scripture, but not denying inspiration.² Others like Johann Salomo Semler went far in limiting the content of Revelation but did not deny the concept, though this concept was “used only to support and sanction those truths which are comprehensible to, and quite in keeping with, reason.”³