A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 of 2 by J. M. Robertson

there came "naturalistic" and semi-rationalistic teaching, as in the Reflections on the most important truths of religion [1283] (1768-1769) of J. F. W. Jerusalem, Abbot of Marienthal in Brunswick, and later of Riddagshausen (1709-1789). Jerusalem had travelled in Europe, and had spent two years in Holland and one in England, where he studied the deists and their opponents. "In England alone," he declared, "is mankind original." [1284] Though really written by way of defending Christianity against the freethinkers, in particular against Bolingbroke and Voltaire, [1285] the very title of his book is suggestive of a process of disintegration; and in it certain unedifying Scriptural miracles are actually rejected. [1286] It was probably this measure of adaptation to new needs that gave it its great popularity in Germany and secured its translation into several other languages. Goethe called him a "freely and gently thinking theologian"; and a modern orthodox historian of the Church groups him with those who "contributed to the spread of Rationalism by sermons and by popular doctrinal and devotional works." [1287] Jerusalem was, however, at most a semi-rationalist, taking a view of the fundamental Christian dogmas which approached closely to that of Locke. [1288] It was, as Goethe said later, the epoch of common sense; and the very theologians tended to a "religion of nature." [1289]