Thomas Chubb
English Deist writer (1679–1747)
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Through Tallow
Life
Chubb, the son of a maltster, was born at East Harnham, near Salisbury. The death of his father in 1688 cut short his education, and in 1694 he was apprenticed to a glover in Salisbury, but subsequently entered the employment of a tallow-chandler. He picked up a fair knowledge of mathematics and geography, but theology was his favourite study. His habit of committing his thoughts to writing gave him a clear and fluent style.
Chubb spent some years living and working in London at the house of Joseph Jekyll, Master of the Rolls. However, he was drawn back to Salisbury, where by the kindness of friends he was enabled to devote the rest of his days to his studies.
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Views on prayer
Joseph Waligore states in a 2012 article, "The Piety of the English Deists", that Chubb discussed prayer more than any other deist. Chubb's longest writing on the subject was a 30-page pamphlet, "An Enquiry Concerning Prayer", where he began by insisting that prayer was a duty God required for achieving a closer relationship with him. The purpose of prayer was to render someone
"a suitable and proper object of God's special care and love. For as prayer is an address or application of a dependent being to his supreme governour, and original benefactor.... It naturally draws forth our souls in filial fear, in hope and trust, in love, delight, and joy in God; and creates in us a just concern to please him, and to approve ourselves in his sight; and consequently to put on that purity and piety, humility and charity which is the spirit and practice of true Christianity."
Chubb said we should pray often and "it is when we forget God, when God is not in all our thoughts, that we do amiss; then our minds and lives are corrupted and defiled."
He also discussed whom we should pray to. First he said we should not pray to dead human souls, as we have no reason to think they hear our prayers or have any power to help us. Then he discussed whether we should pray to angels. Unlike Morgan – who thought we should pray to both God and angels – Chubb thought we probably should not pray to angels. He said even though they were "ministering spirits", we could not be sure they heard our prayers, and they might not be at liberty to help us without God's direct guidance. He spent a final ten pages wondering whether we should pray to Jesus or just to God the Father, concluding we should pray to God the Father "in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ".
Chubb was sure that God heard all our petitions, but he did not think God answered them all in the way we wished. God answered only if they were for lawful things and people prayed earnestly "with a modest resignation to God's will".[vi] Chubb thought that God sometimes gave us harmful things we had prayed for, but then God acted "in displeasure". In another tract, he was more pessimistic about God's positive response rate to our prayers. He cited evidence that God did not often answer our prayers: over the previous 200 years, millions of sincere, fervent prayers had petitioned God for the defeat of the Antichrist, but the Roman Catholic hierarchy or other interests ostensibly bent on defeating God's kingdom still existed.