# Deism**Source:** https://www.britannica.com/topic/deism---Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.Deism , an unorthodox religious attitude that found expression among a group of English writers beginning with Edward Herbert (later 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury ) in the first half of the 17th century and ending with Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, in the middle of the 18th century. These writers subsequently inspired a similar religious attitude in Europe during the second half of the 18th century and in the colonial United States of America in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In general, Deism refers to what can be called natural religion , the acceptance of a certain body of religious knowledge that is inborn in every person or that can be acquired by the use of reason and the rejection of religious knowledge when it is acquired through either revelation or the teaching of any church.Though an initial use of the term occurred in 16th-century France, the later appearance of the doctrine on the Continent was stimulated by the translation and adaptation of the English models. The high point of Deist thought occurred in England from about 1689 through 1742, during a period when, despite widespread counterattacks from the established Church of England , there was relative freedom of religious expression following upon the Glorious Revolution that ended the rule of James II and brought William III and Mary II to the throne. Deism took deep root in 18th-century Germany after it had ceased to be a vital subject of controversy in England.