When Henry St. John Bolingbroke died in November 1751, his Letters on History containing attacks on the authenticity of the Bible was released to the public. Samuel Formey, a French Protestant pastor King Frederick the Great had made the Perpetual Secretary of his academy in Berlin, seized the occasion to publish a violent attack on incredulity, adding that kings who neglected to punish authors of such works “ceased to represent God on earth.”1 Voltaire was then living at Frederick's court and one his earliest attacks on Christianity, Sermon of the Fifty,² was circulating. He had also begun collaborating with the king on his Philosophical Dictionary—in secret, he believed. Voltaire had known Lord Bolingbroke in the 1720s. He published this measured reply under a very obviously fake English name. Lord Chesterfield, whose chaplain he humorously pretends to be, was also an acquaintance and admirer. This piece provides glimpses of his familiarity with many eminent biblical scholars of the time (Richard Simon, Abbadie, Houtteville) well before his full-fledged écrasez-l'infâme campaign began in the 1760s.

It is a duty to defend the memory of our illustrious dead. We shall therefore take up the cause of the late Lord Bolingbroke, insulted in a few gazettes on the occasion of the publishing of his excellent letters.

It is said in these journals that his name should have no authority in matters of religion and morals. As to morals, the man who furnished the admirable Alexander Pope with all the principles of his Essay on Man is doubtless the greatest master of wisdom and propriety that ever was. As to religion, he never spoke of it except as a man accomplished in history and philosophy. He had the modesty to limit himself to the historical aspects, submitted to the examination of all scholars; and one must suppose that if those who had written against him so bitterly had carefully examined what this illustrious Englishman said, and what he chose not to say, they would have treated his memory with more consideration.

Milord Bolingbroke did not enter into theological discussions regarding Moses. We shall follow his example here, in taking up his defense.

We shall content ourselves with remarking that faith is the surest argument of the Christians, and that it is through faith alone that one must believe the stories reported in the Pentateuch. If it were necessary to cite these books in the tribune of reason alone, how could one ever put an end to the disputes they have occasioned? Is reason not powerless to explain how it is that the snake used to speak, how he seduced the mother of mankind, how the she-ass of Balaam spoke to her master, and so many other things our feeble knowledge cannot fathom? Do not the prodigious numbers of miracles that rapidly succeed each other appall human reason? Can reason, abandoned to its own lights, understand that the priests of the Egyptian gods performed the same prodigies as Moses, sent by the true God; that they, for example, turned all the waters in Egypt into blood after Moses had effected this prodigious transformation? What law of physics, what philosophy, can explain how these Egyptian priests still managed to find water to turn into blood, once Moses had already done so?

Indeed, if the weak and trembling light of human reason were our only guide, there are few pages in the Pentateuch we would be able to admit, according to the rules established by men to judge of human things. Everyone admits that it is impossible to conciliate the confused chronology that reigns in this book. Everyone admits that its geography is inaccurate in many places on the names of the towns it gives, which were not called by those names till long after the time of Moses. This still causes great grief, despite all the torturous efforts made to explain such difficult passages.

When Milord Bolingbroke applied the rules of analysis to the Pentateuch, his aim was not to shake the foundations of religion, and it was in this view that he separated dogmas from history, with a circumspection that should earn great praise from those who have sought to decry him. This powerful genius anticipated his adversaries by separating faith from reason, the sole means of terminating all these disputes. Many scholars before him, and especially Father Simon,3 have been of his opinion, saying it mattered little whether Moses himself had written Genesis and Exodus or whether priests had later gathered the traditional stories Moses had left behind. It is enough to believe in these books with a humble, submissive faith, without knowing precisely to which author God alone visibly inspired them to confound reason.

The adversaries of the great man whose defense we undertake here say, “it is as well proven that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch as it is that Homer wrote the Iliad.” They will permit us to respond that the comparison is unjust. Homer does not cite a single fact in the Iliad that happened long after he was dead. Homer does not give names to towns and provinces that they did not have in his time. It is therefore clear that by applying the rules of unsacred analysis, we may safely presume that Homer is the author of the Iliad, but not that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch. Submission to religion alone can cut through all these difficulties and I do not see why Milord Bolingbroke, as submitted to this religion as any other, has been so violently attacked.

They affect to pity him for not having read Abbadie. To whom do they make this reproach? To a man who has read nearly all of it; to a man who cites him.⁴ He scorned Abbadie quite a bit, I agree; but I also acknowledge that Abbadie was not a genius to be compared with the Viscount of Bolingbroke. He sometimes defended truth with lies. He held opinions on the Trinity that have been judged erroneous and, in the end, he died in dementia in Dublin.

Lord Bolingbroke is reproached for not having read the book by Abbé Houtteville, entitled The Verity of the Christian Religion Proven by the Facts. We were personally acquainted with Abbé Houtteville. He lived for a long time with a tax farmer who had a very lovely harem. He then became secretary to the famous Cardinal Dubois, who refused the sacraments throughout his life and whose libertinage was all too public. He dedicated his book to the Cardinal of Auvergne, the Abbé of Cluny, propter Clunes. This occasioned much laughter in Paris where I was at the time (in 1722), both of the book and of the dedication, for we know that the objections against the Christian religion in this book, being unfortunately much stronger than his responses, made a disastrous impression whose effects we see every day with pain.

Milord Bolingbroke claims that Christianity fell into decadence long ago. Do not his adversaries admit as much? Do they not complain of it every day? We take the liberty here of telling them, for the good of the common cause and for their own good, that invectives and speaking so despisingly, joined to such poor reasoning, will never bring the spirit back to those who have the misfortune of being unbelievers. Insults revolt everyone, and convince no one. Reproaches of debauchery and bad conduct are too swiftly and flippantly dealt to philosophers who should only be pitied for having been led astray in their opinions.

For example, the adversaries of Milord Bolingbroke call him a debauchee for having communicated his thoughts on history to Milord Cornsbury.

We do not see what relation this accusation could have with his book. A man who wrote in favor of concubines while living in a harem, a loan shark who wrote in favor of usury, an Apicius who wrote of gluttony, a tyrant or a rebel who wrote against the laws; men such as these would no doubt deserve to be accused of letting their morals dictate their writings. But a statesman such as Milord Bolingbroke, living in philosophical retirement and using his immense culture to cultivate the mind of a lord worthy of being instructed by him, certainly did not deserve to have men, who should pride themselves on decency, impute to past debaucheries works that are only the fruit of reason enlightened by profound study.

In what case is it permitted to reproach the disorders of his life to a man? It is in this case alone, perhaps: when his morals give lie to what he preaches. One might have compared the sermons of a famous preacher of our time with the larcenies he committed on Milord Galloway, and with his amorous intrigues. One might have compared the sermons of the famous parish priest of Les Invalides, and of Fantin, the parish priest of Versailles, with the lawsuits brought against them for having seduced and robbed their penitents. One might have compared the morals of so many popes and bishops with the religion they upheld by fire and sword. One might have considered their plundering, their bastards, their assassinations on the one hand, with their papal bulls and mandates on the other. On such occasions it is excusable to be lacking in the charity that demands we hide the faults of our brothers. But who told the detractor of Milord Bolingbroke that he liked wine and girls? And even if he had, even if he had as many concubines as David or Salomon or the Grand Turk, would we know any more about who the true author of the Pentateuch is?

We agree that there are only too many deists. We groan to see that Europe is full of them. They are in the magistracy, in the armies, in the Church, near the throne, and on the throne itself. Literature is especially inundated with it; the academies, overflowing. Can we say that it is the spirit of debauchery, of license, of abandoning themselves to their passions that unites them? Dare we speak of them with such affected contempt? If we despised them that much, we would write against them with less venom. But we greatly fear that this venom, which is too real, and this air of contempt, which is so false, might have quite the contrary effect to what a gentle and charitable zeal, supported by a healthy doctrine and true philosophy, could produce.

Why should we treat deists, who are not idolaters, more harshly than the papists we have so often reproached with idolatry? We would jeer at a Jesuit who said today that it was licentiousness that produced Protestants. We would laugh at a Protestant who said that it was depravity of morals that made people go to mass. What right then do we have to say to philosophic worshippers of God, who attend neither mass nor sermons, that they are men plunged in vice?

It sometimes happens that indecent invectives are used to attack people who, in truth, are unfortunate enough to be mistaken, but whose lives could serve as models to those who attack them. We have seen journalists carry imprudence so far as to injuriously designate the most respectable people of Europe, and the most powerful. Not long ago, in a public paper, a man carried away by an indiscreet zeal, or some other motive,5 made a strange attack on those who think that “wise laws, military discipline, a just government, and virtuous examples can suffice to govern men, while leaving to God the care of governing consciences.”

A very great man⁶ was referred to in this journalistic piece in terms not very measured at all. He could have avenged himself as a man, or meted out punishment as a prince, but he responded like a philosopher, “These wretches must be fully persuaded of our virtue, and especially of our indulgence, since they slander us so fearlessly and with such brutality.”

Such a reply should indeed confound this author, whoever he is,7 for having used such odious weapons while combatting for the cause of Christianity. We entreat our brothers to make themselves loved if they wish to make our religion loved.

What indeed can a diligent prince think, or a magistrate bent under years of labor, or a philosopher who has spent his life in study—in a word, all those who have had the misfortune of embracing deism through the illusions of a deceived wisdom when they see so many writings calling them birdbrains, dandies, fops, or wits without any morals? Let us be wary that the scorn and indignation inspired by such writings do not fortify their feelings.

Let us add yet another motive to these considerations: it is that this mass of deists that covers all Europe is more likely to receive our truths than to adopt the dogmas of the Roman communion.⁸ They all admit that our religion is more sensible than that of the papists. Let us not estrange them from us then; we who are alone capable of bringing them back. They adore a god, as we do. They teach virtue, as we do. They want men to obey the authorities, to all be treated like brothers, and we think the same and share these principles. Let us treat them then as relatives who hold the titles of our families in their hands and who show them to those who, descended from the same lines, know only that they a share a common father, but who do not hold the titles.

A deist is a man who is of the religion of Adam, of Shem,⁹ and of Noah. Up to that point, he agrees with us. Say to him: You have only one step to take from the religion of Noah to the precepts given to Abraham. After Abraham, pass on to those of Moses, to those of the Messiah and, once you've seen that the religion of the Messiah has been corrupted, you can choose between Wycliffe, Luther, John Huss, Calvin, Melanchthon, Oecolampade, Zwingli, Storck, Parker, Servet, Socinus, George Fox, and other reformers. That way, you will find a thread to guide you through this great labyrinth, from the creation of the earth right up through the year 1752. If he replies that he has read all these great men, and that he prefers the religion of Socrates, Plato, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Cicero, Pliny, etc., we will pity him, we will pray that God illuminate him, and we will not cast slurs on him. We don't slur Muslims or the disciples of Confucius. We don't even cast slurs on the Jews, who made our god die by capital punishment. On the contrary, we began with them, so we will accord them the greatest privileges. We therefore have no reason to cry out in such furor against those who worship a god along with the Muslims, the Chinese, the Jews, and us, and who do not accept our theology any more than other nations do.

We understand perfectly that horrible screaming went on in a time when indulgences and benefices were being sold on one side, while on the other, bishops were being dispossessed and convent doors smashed in.10 Bile flowed with the blood. It was all about conserving or destroying usurpations. But we do not see that Lord Bolingbroke, Lord Shaftsbury, nor the illustrious Alexander Pope, who immortalized the principles of both, wished to nab the pension of any minister of the Holy Scripture. Jurieu had Bayle's pension taken away, but never did the illustrious Bayle think of diminishing the appointments of Jurieu.¹¹ Let us then rest in peace. Let us preach morals as pure as those of the philosophers, worshippers of a God who, in agreement with us on this great principle, teach the same virtues that we do, which no one disputes, but who do not preach the same dogmas we have been disputing these past seventeen hundred years, and which we will continue to dispute.