The English Deists: Charles Blount

These various tendencies could not show themselves fully under the ecclesiastical restraint of the Restoration, yet they appear clearly enough in the writings of Charles Blount (d. 1693), usually placed second to Herbert in the lists of Deists. Like his predecessor, Blount dwells on the conflict between rival religions, and finds a standard of adjustment in a fusion of Herbert's theory of universal characteristics with Hobbes's prescription by the State. Like Hobbes and Spinoza, he touches serious problems of Biblical criticism at this early date. Freedom from prejudice is his boast; he asserts the supernatural character of Christianity on the basis of its miracles, after he has already rendered them dubious by parallels with non-Christian miracles. His works were: Anima mundi (London, 1679), Great is Diana of the Ephesians (1680), and The Two First Books of Philostratus concerning the Life of Apollonius Tyaneus, published in English with notes (1680).

The Founders of English Deism with John Locke as a bridge between Deism, Unitarianism, and Christianity.
• The English Deists: Introduction
• The English Deists: Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Founder
• The English Deists: Matthew Tindal (redefined)
• The English Deists: Henry St. John Bolingbroke
• Information on John Locke (Unitarian)
• John Locke on reason and faith.
• The English Deists: Thomas Hobbes
• The English Deists: Charles Blount
• The English Deists: John Toland
• The English Deists: Morgan, Annet, Middleton
• The English Deists: Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Dodwell, Bolingbroke
• The English Deists: David Hume (atheist?)
• At the Origins of English Rationalism

See the following in three parts:

• French Deism: deistic Humanism, Pantheism
• The English Deists: Introduction
• Is it Unitarianism or Deism?

Humanism

• Humanism
• What is Humanism? Atheist
• Why UU Humanism Requires Rejecting Our Humanity

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