Deism is a school of thought that rejects supernaturalism in religion and clings to natural religion. Its earliest exponent was Lord Herbert of Cherbury who maintained that religion should meet these tests:
Belief in the existence of God
Enouragement of the worship of God
Promotion of better living as the chief end of worship
Better living must be preceded by the repentance of sins
Belief in a world to come, in which man will be death with in accordance with his daily life on earth
Conyers Middleton, Thomas Woolston, and David Hume were prominent deists. Alexander Pope's Universal Prayer and Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason were outstanding deistic works.
