aid that he preferred to be
at the mercy of blind chance than in the hands of an autocrat who, if he
pleased Lord Shaftesbury's sense

[150] of order, had created flies to be devoured by spiders. But this
was an aspect of the universe which did not much trouble thinkers in the
eighteenth century. On the other hand, the character of the God of the
Old Testament roused Shaftesbury's aversion. He attacks Scripture not
directly, but by allusion or with irony. He hints that if there is a
God, he would be less displeased with atheists than with those who
accepted him in the guise of Jehovah. As Plutarch said, "I had rather
men should say of me that there neither is nor ever was such a one as
Plutarch, than they should say 'There was a Plutarch, an unsteady,
changeable, easily provokable and revengeful man.' " Shaftesbury's
significance is that he built up a positive theory of morals, and
although it had no philosophical depth, his influence on French and
German thinkers of the eighteenth century was immense.

In some ways perhaps the ablest of the deists, and certainly the most
scholarly, was Rev. Conyers Middleton, who remained within the Church.
He supported Christianity on grounds of utility. Even if it is an
imposture, he said, it would be wrong to destroy it. For it is
established by law and it has a long tradition behind it. Some
traditional religion is necessary and it would

[151] be hopeless to supplant Christianity by reason. But his writings
contain effective arguments which go to undermine Revelation. The most
important was his Free Inquiry into Christian miracles (1748), which put
in a new and dangerous light an old question: At what time did the
Church cease to have the power of performing miracles? We shall see
presently how Gibbon applied Middleton's method.

The leading adversaries of the deists appealed, like them, to reason,
and, in appealing to reason, did much to undermine authority. The ablest
defence of the faith, Bishop Butler's Analogy (1736), is suspected of
having raised more doubts than it appeased. This was the experience of
William Pitt the Younger, and the Analogy made James Mill (the
utilitarian) an unbeliever. The deists, argued that the unjust and cruel
God of Revelation could not be the God of nature; Butler pointed to
nature and said, There you behold cruelty and injustice. The argument
was perfectly good against the optimism of Shaftesbury, but it plainly
admitted of the conclusion--op