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]