In approaching the subject, a student would probably commence with the first two classes; and after having thus acquired for himself a carte du pays, would then explore it in detail by the aid of the third and fourth.
1. The works which have professedly treated of the history of infidelity, as a whole, are not of great importance.
One of the earliest was the Historia Univ. Atheismi, 1725, of Reimannus; and the De Atheismo, 1737, of Buddeus. (An explanation of the word Atheism, as employed by them, is given in Note [21]. p. [413].) hey furnish, as the name implies, a history of scepticism, as well as of sceptics; yet, though the labours of such diligent and learned men can never be useless, they afford little information now available. Their date also necessarily precluded them from knowing the more recent forms of unbelief. Perhaps under this head we ought also to name the chapters on [pg xv] polemical theology in the great works of bibliography of the German scholars of the same time, such as Pfaff (Hist. Litt. Thol.); Buddeus (Isagoge); Fabricius (Delectus Argum.); Walch's (Biblical Theol. Select.); which contain lists of sceptical works, either directly, or indirectly by naming the apologists who have answered them. The references to these works will be found in Note [39]. p. [436].
Among French writers, the only one of importance is Houtteville, who prefixed an Introduction to his work, La Religion Chrétienne prouvée par des faits, 1722, containing an account of the writers for and against Christianity from the earliest times. (Translated 1739.) It contains little information concerning the authors or the events, but a clearly and correctly written analysis of their works and thoughts.
Among the English writers who have attempted a consecutive history of the whole subject was Van Mildert, afterwards bishop of Durham, who has been already named. The first volume of his Boyle Lectures, in 1802-4, was devoted to the history of infidelity; the second to a general statement of the evidences for Christianity. This work, on account of its date, necessarily stops short before the existence of modern forms of doubt; and indeed evinces no knowledge concerning the contemporary forms of literature in Germany, which had already attracted the attention of Dr. Herbert Marsh. The point of view of the work, as already described, almost entirely precludes the author from entering upon the analysis of the causes, either emotional or intellectual, which have produced unbelief. Its value accordingly is chiefly in the literary materials collected in the notes; in which respect it bears marks of careful study. Though mostly drawn from second-hand sources, it exhibits wide reading and thoughtful judgment.
A portion of the Bampton Lectures for 1852, by the Rev. J. C. Riddle, was devoted to the subject of infidelity. The author's object, as the title[22] implies, was to give the natural history of unbelief, to the neglect of the literary. Psychological rather than historical analysis was used by him for the investigation; and his examination of the moral causes of doubt is better than [pg xvi] of the intellectual. The notes contain a collection of valuable quotations, which supplement those of Van Mildert, but are unfortunately given, for the most part, without references.
This completes[23] the enumeration of the histories professedly devoted to infidelity, with the exception of a small but very creditable production published since several of these lectures were written, Defence of the Faith; Part I. Forms of Unbelief, by the Rev. S. Robins, forming the first part of a work, of which the second is to treat the evidences; the third to draw the moral. It does not profess to be a very deep work;[24] but it is interesting; drawn generally from the best sources, and written in an eloquent style and devout spirit.
2. The transition is natural from these works, which treat of the history of unbelief or give lists of the works of unbelievers, to the notices of sceptical writers contained in general histories of the church or of literature.
In this, as in the former case, it is only in modern times that important notices occur concerning forms of unbelief. The circumstance that in the early ages unbelief took the form of opposition or persecution on the part of heathens, and that in the middle ages it was so rare, caused the ancient church historians and mediæval church chroniclers to record little respecting actual unbelief, though they give information about heresy. Even in modern times, it is not till the early part of the eighteenth century that any attention is bestowed on the subject. The earlier historians, both Protestant, such as the Magdeburg Centuriators, and Catholic, like Baronius, wrote the history of the past for a controversial purpose in relation to the contests of their own times: and in the next period, in the one church, Arnold confined himself to the history of heresy rather than unbelief; and in the [pg xvii] other, Fleury and Tillemont wrote the history of deeds rather than of ideas, and afford no information, except in a few allusions of the latter writer to the early intellectual opposition of the heathens.
But about the middle of the eighteenth century, in the period of cold orthodoxy and solid learning which immediately preceded the rise of rationalism, as well as in that of incipient free thought, we meet not only with the historians of theological literature already named above, but with historians of thought like Brucker, and of the church like Mosheim, possessed of large taste for inquiry, and wide literary sympathies, who contribute information on the subject: and towards the close of the century we find Schröckh, who, in his lengthy and careful history of the church since the Reformation,[25] has taken so extensive a view of the nature of church history, that he has included in it an account of the struggle with freethinkers. Among the same class, with the exception that he differs in being marked by rationalist sympathies, must be ranked Henke.[26]