An Account of the Growth of Deism in England

Stephens, William, -1718Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
54K words
Chapters
6

Tags

English Originals Western PhilosophyReligion Religious PhilosophyDeismFaith DebateReligious ThoughtIntellectual HistoryWestern ThoughtModern ThoughtAcademic StudyIntellectual CommentaryBritish Enlightenment

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.An Account of the Growth of Deism in England by William StephensAuthor: Stephens, William, -1718,Language: English, Class: BL: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion: Religion: General, Miscellaneous and Atheism, Release Date: Sep 3, 2011

Editor's review

This book is a historical account by the late-17th-century English theologian William Stephens of the rise of Deism in England, belonging to the history of religious thought and polemical literature. Its value lies not in offering a neutral general history of ideas, but in giving readers direct access to a first-hand narrative by a participant in the controversies of the time: the author traces the spread of Deism from a contemporary's perspective and carries a distinctly apologetic stance. For those studying the shifts in religious thought in the early English Enlightenment and the debates between Deism and orthodox Christianity, this text can serve as primary material, helping to understand the discourse and concerns of both sides. The arguments bear the imprint of their era, and the style of reasoning differs considerably from today's academic writing, requiring some knowledge of historical context. It is suitable as supplementary reading for courses in religious history and intellectual history, or for thematic study by readers interested in the English Enlightenment's religious controversies, rather than as a popular introduction.

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Reading tips

  1. First understand the late-17th-century English religious and political background before entering the original text, to reduce obstacles to comprehension
  2. Read this book alongside general histories of Deism, distinguishing first-hand narrative from later scholarship
  3. Note the author's apologetic stance while reading, and maintain a critical distance from evaluative statements in the book
  4. Excerpt key arguments and figures and arrange them into a timeline to grasp the contours of the controversy

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

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FAQ

Is this book a general history of Deism? No. It is an account written by a late-17th-century author as a contemporary, with a clear apologetic stance; it is polemical primary literature, not a neutral general history in the modern sense. It should be read in conjunction with later scholarship.
Can I understand it without a background in religious history? You can read it, but it is quite difficult. The book involves theological concepts, denominations, and the polemical context of the time; without background knowledge it is easy to misunderstand the author's intent. It is advisable to first fill in the religious background of the English Enlightenment period before reading the original text.
How difficult is the English in this book? As a late-17th-century English text, it has long sentences and wording that differs from present-day English, and its polemical passages are logically dense. Readers with good English reading ability can attempt it; general readers may use annotations or related scholarly works to aid comprehension.

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About the author

Stephens, William, -1718 Author

William Stephens (Stephens, William, -1718) has left only very limited biographical material in publicly available sources; his nationality, education, and professional career are not clearly recorded, and his intellectual profile can be approached only through his surviving work. He is known as the author of An Account of the Growth of Deism in England, a work that traces the rise and spread of deism in England around the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and belongs to the religious controversies of its time. The subject reflects a concern with the tension between reason and revelation, and the writing carries a polemical tone, seeking to set out the origins and development of deist thought and to respond to it. Such a work offers some reference value for the study of religious thought during the English Enlightenment and provides textual evidence for understanding the terms of contemporary deist debate. Owing to the scarcity of biographical sources, details of his life and the full range of his writings remain to be further examined; only a brief account of his work's themes is given here.