, in his attack upon the
evidences of revealed religion, had taken the same ground as Voltaire
and the old English deists. And when we have said this, we have
sufficiently defined his position, for the tenets of the deists are at
the present day pretty well known, and are, moreover, of very little
vital importance, having long since been supplanted by a more just
and comprehensive philosophy. Reimarus accepted neither miracles nor
revelation; but in accordance with the rudimentary state of criticism in
his time, he admitted the historical character of the earliest Christian
records, and was thus driven to the conclusion that those writings must
have been fraudulently composed. How such a set of impostors as the
apostles must on this hypothesis have been, should have succeeded in
inspiring large numbers of their contemporaries with higher and grander
religious notions than had ever before been conceived; how they should
have laid the foundations of a theological system destined to hold
together the most enlightened and progressive portion of human society
for seventeen or eighteen centuries,--does not seem to have entered his
mind. Against such attacks as this, orthodoxy was comparatively safe;
for whatever doubt might be thrown upon some of its leading dogmas,
the system as a whole was more consistent and rational than any of
the theories which were endeavouring to supplant it. And the fact that
nearly all the great thinkers of the eighteenth century adopted this
deistic hypothesis, shows, more than anything else, the crudeness of
their psychological knowledge, and their utter lack of what is called
"the historical sense."

Lessing at once saw the weak point in Reimarus's argument, but his
method of disposing of it differed signally from that adopted by his
orthodox contemporaries. The more advanced German theologians of that
day, while accepting the New Testament records as literally historical,
were disposed to rationalize the accounts of miracles contained in them,
in such a way as to get rid of any presumed infractions of the laws of
nature. This method of exegesis, which reached its perfection in Paulus,
is too well known to need describing. Its unsatisfactory character was
clearly shown, thirty years ago, by Strauss, and it is now generally
abandoned, though some traces of it may still be seen in the recent
works of Renan. Lessing steadily avoided this method of interpretation.
He had studied Spinoza to some purpo