The definition of deism is based on the definition given by the 43 unorthodox Enlightenment thinkers who declared they were deists, asserted they were advocating deism, or identified their religious views with deism. They defined deism as natural religion or the religion nature — the religion that people knew about through their natural faculties alone. These natural faculties included reason, conscience, feelings, the heart, and looking at nature.
Some of these self-identified deists stated that Jesus made a divine revelation, but they also said he was merely restating the principles of natural religion and that he was not God nor creating a new religion. I call these deists “Jesus-centered deists.”
Someone was only included as a deist based on their writings and reliable reports of their public speeches. No one was included as a deist based on what their contemporaries said about them. Thus, Thomas Woolston and Henry Dodwell Jr. are not included as deists because neither of them championed natural religion in their writings. Someone was not included as a deist if they advocated deism for a while but then later abjured and embraced orthodox Christianity. Thus, Charles Gildon, James Lackington, and Albert Radicati are not included as deists. Someone was not included as a deist if they were German theologians advocating the kind of Protestantism known as neology because neologians are better seen as forerunners of Liberal Protestantism (especially because they influenced Friedrich Schleiermacher’s development of Liberal Protestantism).
I tried to err on the side of caution in labelling someone a deist. In revolutionary France, when Maximilien Robespierre was in control of the government and forcefully pushing his deist religion, I only included someone as a deist if they showed that they cared about deism by writing enough about it to show that they were not just taking the safe political line of the time. In Protestant countries, there had to be a clear indication that they were not a Unitarian or a Latitudinarian by showing that they rejected important Christian doctrines that were accepted by major Latitudinarian and Unitarian theologians but were not compatible with natural religion. I did not include unorthodox thinkers whose writings I could not read enough of to be sure that they were deists. Thus, I did not include thinkers writing in Hebrew or East European languages. I also found it difficult to access material on the Italian and Spanish writers, so I did not include them.
Based on this definition, below are lists of the forty-three Enlightenment deists.
Self-identified English Deists
M. Robles, Bigotry, Superstition and Hypocrisy Worse than Atheism (London, 1742), 30-3; Manasseh Dawes, An Essay on Intellectual Liberty (London, 1780), 57; Charles Blount, The Miscellaneous Works of Charles Blount (London, 1695), 88-96; A Deist, Thomas Paine Vindicated, Being a Short Letter to the Bishop of Landaff’s [sic] Reply to Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason (London, 1796), title page, 12, 17-8, 27-9, 35-6; Rational Christian, The Morality of the New Testament Digested under Various Heads (London, 1765), 1-4; Real Deist, Thoughts on Miracles in General, and as They Relate to the Establishment of Christianity in Particular (London, 1767), 91-107; Allan Macleod, The Bishop of Landaff’s ‘Apology for the Bible’ Examined (London, 1796), 283; William Corry, Reflections Upon Liberty and Necessity, &c. (London, 1759), 44-6; Matthew Tindal, Christianity as Old as the Creation or the Gospel a Republication of the Religion of Nature (London, 1731), 337-342; James Boevey, The Deists [sic] Reflections on Religion, (1692, DE/P/F47/4, Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies); Thomas Morgan, The Moral Philosopher, 3 vols. (London, 1738-1740), 1: title page, 394; J. Z. Holwell, Interesting Historical Events, Relative to the Provinces of Bengal, and the Empire of Indostan, 3 vols. (London, 1766-1771) 3:90-1; James Pitt, “The Vindication of Lord Shaftsbury’s [sic] Writings continued,” London Journal, June 17, 1732, p. 1, col. 1; Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason(Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1974) , 84, 185-7; Peter Annet, Deism Fairly Stated, and Fully Vindicated (London, 1746), title page, 95; Thomas Chubb, An Enquiry into the Ground and Foundation of Religion (London, 1740), viii; Misophenax, Christianity True Deism, Addressed to the Younger Clergy of the Church of England (London, 1762), title page, 67, passim; Thomas Amory, The Life of John Buncle, Esq., 2 vols. (London, 1756-1766), 1:380; Thomas Amory, Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain (London, 1755), 517, 61.
Self-identified French Revolutionary Deists
Jacques-Pierre Brissot, Mémoires de Brissot [Memoirs of Brissot], vol. 1 (Bruxelles, 1830), 109-11, & Jacques-Pierre Brissot, Lettres philosophiques sur St. Paul [Letters of St. Paul] (Neuchâtel, 1783), 3-4, 50-55, 47-8; Pierre Paganel, Essai historique et critique sur la révolution francaise [Historical and critical essay on the French Revolution], 3rd ed., vol. 2 (Paris, 1815), 457-65; François Nicolas Bénoist-Lamothe, Discours sur la religion naturelle . . . Floréal [Discourse on natural religion . . . Floréal], (Sens, 1794), 17-22, 5-8, 16; François Lanthenas, Déclaration des devoirs de l’homme . . . morale universelle [Declaration of the rights of man . . . universal moral], (Paris, 1793), 7-8, 28-33, 47, 21-6; for Jean-François Sobry, Desforges, Navoigille, Regnier Sr., see Jean-François Sobry, Le Culte Libre [The free worship] (n. p., n. d.), 2, 8; for Bouvet, Auber, Hebert, Belhost, Thierry, and Canu, see Archives parlementaires de 1787 à 1860 (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1976): series 1, 91:593.
Self-identified Deists from Other Countries Besides England and Revolutionary France
Pieter Bakker, De godsdienst zonder bygeloof . . . deïsten (Deventer, 1752), title page, passim; Georg Schade, Die unwandelbare und ewige Religion . . . freund (Berlin, 1760), 35; John Fowler, The Truth of the Bible . . . Own Facts(Alexandria, Virginia, 1797), 16-7, 148-50; Schack Hermann Ewald, Natürliche Religion nach Ursprung, Beschaffenheit und Schicksalen (Berlin, 1784), 128-9, 135-6; Anonymous, Glaubensbekenntniß eines Deisten in einem vertrauten Briefe an * [sic] (Berlin, 1789), title page; Christian Tobias Damm, Vom historische Glauben, part 2 (n. p., 1773), 107; Julius Friedrich Knüppeln, Philosophische Skizze von Berlin, vol. 1(Leipzig, 1788), 172-76; Friedrich Christian Laukhard, F. C. Laukhards Leben und Schicksale, von ihm selbst beschrieben, 6 vols. (Halle, 1792-1802), 1:297-302, 323; Anonymous, “The Deists [sic] Creed,” The Temple of Reason, 8 November 1800, p. 2; Denis Driscol, “Christian Morality Compared with that of the Pagan Philosophers,” The Temple of Reason, 29 November 1800, p. 1; Elihu Palmer, Prospect: Or, View of the Moral World, for the Year 1804 (New York, n. d.), 221-3, & The Principles of Nature . . . Species, 3rd ed. (n. p., 1806), 241; Anonymous, Geschichte der Abrahamiten Israeliten und Deisten in Böhmen nebst ihrem abgelegten Glaubensbekenntniss (n. p., 1783), 42-3, 49-50. (For more on the Bohemian deists, see Stephen Steiner, “Der Schwarmgeist der Intoleranz – Deisten und Israeliten im Böhmen des späten 18. Jahrhunderts,” Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Religions- und Kulturgeschichte, 102 (2008): 59-79, http://doi.org/10.5169/seals-130420.)
The essays linked below highlight some of the most important deists and their beliefs:
Enlightenment Deism 