deistIc, de IstIcal

[Eng. deist; -ic, ing the doctrines of deism. -ical.] Pertaining to deism or the deists; contain who have taken the pen in hand to support the deistical or antichristian scheme of our days."- Watts . Deistic Controversy: Ch. Hist .: A controversy which arose in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, between those who believed and those who disbelieved in revelation; the latter, however, not occupying the atheistic standpoint, but accepting as a settled point the being of a God. [DEIST.] The first, in point of time, of the celebrated English deists was Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the publication of whose work, De Veritate , which appeared in Paris in 1624, commenced the controversy. There followed, on the same side, Hobbes, Tindal, Morgan, To land, Bolingbroke, Paine, and others. The standard work on the subject is the Rev. Dr. John Leland's Deist ical Writers. Leland's work was first published in A. D. 1754. After the manner of deists. de-ist-ic-al-lý, adv. [English deistical; -ly.]