Dr. Morgan in a work entitled ’The Moral Philosopher, or a Dialogue between Philalethes a Christian Deist, and Theophanes a Christian Jew,’ follows closely in Tindal’s footsteps.  Like him, he insists upon the absolute perfection of the law or religion of nature, of which Christianity is only a republication.  Like him, he professes himself a Christian Deist and vigorously protests against being supposed to be an enemy to Christianity.  But his work is inferior to Tindal’s in every respect.  It is an ill-written book.  It is mainly directed against the Jewish economy.  But Morgan takes a far wider range than this, embracing the whole of the Old Testament, which he appears to read backward, finding objects of admiration in what are there set before us as objects of reprobation and vice versa.

But though Morgan deals mainly with the Old Testament, he throws considerable doubt in his third volume upon the New.  The account given of the life of Christ, still more, that of His Resurrection, and above all, the miracles wrought by His apostles, are all thrown into discredit.[157]

On the whole, this book marks a distinct epoch in the history of English Deism.  There is little indeed said by Morgan which had not been insinuated by one or other of his predecessors, but the point to be marked is that it was now said, not merely insinuated.  The whole tone of the book indicates ‘the beginning of the end’ not far distant, that end being what Lechler calls ‘the dissolution of Deism into Scepticism.’

But there is yet one more author to be noticed whose works were still written in the earlier vein of Deism.  So far Deism had not found a representative writer among the lower classes.  The aristocracy and the middle class had both found exponents of their views; but Deism had penetrated into lower strata of society than these, and at length a very fitting representative of this part of the community appeared in the person of Thomas Chubb.  Himself a working man, and to a great extent self-educated, Chubb had had peculiar opportunities of observing the mind of the class to which he belonged.  His earlier writings were not intended for publication, but were written for the benefit of a sort of debating club of working men of which he was a member.  He was with difficulty persuaded to publish them, mainly through the influence of the famous William Whiston, and henceforth became a somewhat voluminous writer, leaving behind him at his death a number of tracts and essays, which were published together under the title of ’Chubb’s Posthumous Works.’  In his main arguments Chubb, like Morgan, follows closely in the wake of Tindal.  But his view of Deism was distinctly from the standpoint of the working man.  As Morgan had directed his attention mainly to the Old Testament, Chubb directed his mainly to the New.  Like others of his school, he protests against being thought an enemy to Christianity.  His two works ‘The True Gospel of Jesus Christ asserted,’ and ’The