tion of treatises,
entitled "The Oracles of Reason;" a work which may be considered as
expressing the opinions of a little band of unbelievers, of whom Blount
was one.(384) The mention of two of the papers in it will explain the
views intended. One is on natural religion,(385) in which the ideas of
Herbert are reproduced, and exception is taken to revelation as partial
and not self-evident, and therefore uncertain; and the objections to the
sufficiency and potency of natural religion are refuted. A second is on
the deist's religion,(386) in which the deist creed is explained to be the
belief in a God who is to be worshipped, not by sacrifice, nor by
mediation, but by piety. Punishment in a future world is denied as
incompatible with Divine benevolence; and the safety of the deist creed is
supported by showing that a moral life is superior to belief in mysteries.
It will be seen from these remarks that Blount hardly makes an advance on
his deist predecessor Herbert, save that his view is more positive, and
his antipathy to Christian worship less concealed.

At the close of the seventeenth century two new influences were in
operation, the one political, the other intellectual; viz., the civil and
religious liberty which ensued on the revolution, generating free
speculation, and compelling each man to form his political creed; and the
reconsideration of the first principles of knowledge(387) implied in the
philosophy of Locke.(388)

The effect of these new influences on religion is very marked.
Controversies no longer turned upon questions in which the appeal lay to
the common ground of scripture, as in the contest which Churchmen had
conducted against Puritans or Romanists, but extended to the examination
of the first principles of ethics or politics; such as the foundation of
government, whether it depends on hereditary right or on compact, as in
the controversy against the nonjurors(389) before the close of the
century; or the spiritual rights of the church, and the right of every man
to religious liberty and private judgment in religion, as in the
Convocation and Bangorian(390) controversy, which marked the early years
of the next century. The very diminution also of quotations of authorities
is a pertinent illustration that the appeal was now being made to deeper
standards.

The philosophy of Locke, which attempted to lay a basis for knowledge in
psychology, coincided with, where it did not create, this general atte