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"What is it that thus cheats us, and gulls us of our religion; that makes us thus constantly to tread the same ring and circle of duties, where we make no progress at all forwards, and, the further we go, are still never the nearer to our journey's end? What is it that thus starves our religion, and makes it look like those kine in Pharaoh's dream, ill-favoured and lean-fleshed; that it hath no colour in its face, no blood in its veins, no life nor heat at all in its members? What is it that doth thus be-dwarf us in our Christianity? What low, sordid, and unworthy principles do we act by, that thus hinder our growth, and make us stand at a stay, and keep us always in the very porch and entrance, where we first began? Is it a sleepy, sluggish conceit, That it is enough for us if we be but once in a state of grace; if we have but once stepped over the threshold, we need not take so 'great pains to travel any further? Or is it another damping, choaking, stifling opinion, That Christ hath done all for us already without us, and nothing need more to be done within us? No matter how wicked we be in ourselves, for we have holiness without us; no matter how sickly and diseased our souls be within, for they have health without them! Why may we not as well be satisfied and contented, to have happiness without us too to all eternity, and so ourselves for ever continue miserable? • Little children, let no man deceive you: He that doeth righteousness, is righteous, even as He is righteous; but he that committeth sin, is of the devil.' I shall therefore exhort you in the wholesome words of St. Peter: Give all diligence to add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; &c."

I linger with much complacency over this single specimen of Arminian preaching before the Long Parliament; because it exhibits, in such a conspicuous manner, the practical and hallowing tendency of the principles of GENERAL REDEMPTION. This Discourse presents the first-fruits of that glorious harvest which sprung up from the seed sown by the Dutch Remonstrants during the Inter-regnum, (p. 785,) and not from the school of Laud, who did not permit this scriptural system freely to develope itself." (Page 691.) I prize it the more highly, because it contains a distinct recognition of that spirituality and holiness which I have pointed out, (pp. xxvi, 803,) as distinguishing characteristics of the doctrines which genuine Arminianism derives from the Scriptures, and which it uniformly inculcates. Of the spiritual religion, here described, Dr. Cudworth was not ashamed after the Restoration, when all the wit of man was employed in exposing it to ridicule, on account of the abuse of it by the Puritans: (Page 296:) For he reprinted this Sermon in the first edition (1678) of his immortal work, "THE TRUE INTELLECTUAL SYSTEM OF THE UNIVERSE," without any omission except that of the Dedication to the House of Commons. Every man of piety

will be charmed by such manly and scriptural eloquence as breathes in the following passages:

"The Gospel is a true Bethesda,-a pool of grace,-where such poor, lame, and infirm creatures as we are, upon the moving of God's Spirit in it, may descend down, not only to wash our skin and outside, but also to be cured of our diseases within. And whatever the world thinks, there is a powerful Spirit that moves upon these waters, the waters of the Gospel, for this new creation, the regeneration of souls: The very same Spirit, that once moved upon the waters of the universe at the first creation, and, spreading its mighty wings over them, did hatch the new-born world into this perfection; I say, the same Almighty Spirit of Christ still worketh in the Gospel, spreading its gentle, healing, quickening wings over our souls. The Gospel is not like Abana and Pharphar, those common rivers of Damascus, that could only cleanse the outside; but it is a true Jordan, in which such leprous Naamans, as we all are, may wash and be clean. Blessed, indeed, are they, whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered! Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin !' But yet, rather blessed are they, whose sins are removed like a morning-cloud, and quite taken away from them! Blessed,' thrice blessed, are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.'

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"Now, therefore, I beseech you, let us consider, whether or no we know Christ indeed; not by our acquaintance with systems and models of Divinity; not by our skill in books and papers; but by our keeping of Christ's commandments. All the books and writings which we converse with, they can but represent spiritual objects to our understandings; which yet we can never see in their own true figure, colour, and proportion, until we have a Divine light within, to irradiate and shine upon them. Though there be never such excellent truths concerning Christ and his Gospel, set down in words and letters, yet they will be but unknown characters to us until we have a living Spirit within us, that can decipher them; until the same Spirit, by secret whispers in our hearts, do comment upon them, which did at first indite them. There be many that understand the Greek and Hebrew of the Scripture, the original languages in which the text was written, that never understood the language of the Spirit. There is a caro and a spiritus, a flesh and a spirit, a body and a soul, in all the writings of the Scriptures. It is but the flesh and body of Divine truths, that is printed upon paper; which many moths of books and libraries do only feed upon; many walking skeletons of knowledge, that bury and entomb truths in the living sepulchres of their souls, do only converse with: Such as never did any thing else but pick at the mere

bark and rind of truths, and crack the shells of them, But there is a soul and spirit of Divine truths, that could never yet be congealed into ink, that could never be blotted upon paper, which, by a secret traduction and conveyance, passeth from one soul unto another; being able to dwell and lodge no where but in a spiritual being, in a living thing, because itself is nothing but life and spirit. Neither can it, where indeed it is, express itself sufficiently in words and sounds, but it will best declare and speak itself in actions: As the old manner of writing among the Egyptians was, not by words, but things. The life of Divine truths is better expressed in actions than in words, because actions are more living things than words. Words are nothing but the dead resemblances and pictures of those truths, which live and breathe in actions; and the kingdom of God,' (as the Apostle speaketh,) consisteth not in wORD, but in LIFE and power.' Sheep do not come,' saith the Moral Philosopher, ' and bring their fodder to their shepherd, and shew him how much they eat; but, inwardly concocting and digesting it, they make it appear, by the fleece which they wear upon their backs, and by the milk which they give.' And let not us Christians affect only to talk and dispute of Christ, and so measure our knowledge of him by our words; but let us shew our knowledge concocted into our lives and actions; and then let us really manifest that we are Christ's sheep indeed, that we are his disciples, by that fleece of holiness which we wear,* and by the fruits that we daily

• The following beautiful description of Holiness is in the best style of "the judicious Hooker," and will prove, both to the critic and the Christian, that Dr. Cudworth had read with the deepest attention the productions of that great Divine :

"GRACE is holiness militant,-holiness encumbered with many enemies and difficulties, which it still fights against, and manfully quits itself of: And GLORY is nothing else but holiness triumphant,-holiness with a palm of victory in her hand, and a crown upon her head. "God himself cannot make me happy, if he be only without me; and unless he give in a participation of himself, and his own likeness into my soul.'-Happiness is nothing, but the releasing and unfettering of our souls from all these narrow, scant, and particular good things; and the espousing of them to the Highest and most Universal Good, which is not this or that particular good, but GOODNESS ITSELF: And this is the same thing that we call HOLINESS.

"Holiness is no solitary neglected thing; it hath stronger confederacies, greater alliances, than sin and wickedness. It is in league with God, and the whole universe; the whole creation smiles upon it: There is something of God in it, and therefore it must needs be a victorious and triumphant thing.-Wickedness is a weak, cowardly, and guilty thing, a fearful and trembling shadow. It is the child of ignorance and darkness; it is afraid of light, and cannot possibly withstand the power of it, nor endure the sight of its glittering armour. It is allianced to none but wretched, forlorn, and apostate spirits, that do what they can to support their own weak and tottering kingdom of darkness, but are only strong in weakness and impotency. The whole polity and commonwealth of devils is not so powerful as one child of Light, one babe in Christ: They are not all able to quench the least smoking flax,' to extinguish one spark of grace.

yield in our lives and conversations. For herein,' saith Christ, is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit: so shall ye be my disciples. Let us not, I beseech you, judge of our knowing Christ, by our ungrounded persuasions that Christ from all eternity hath loved us, and given himself particularly for us, without the conformity of our lives to Christ's commandments, without the real partaking of the image of Christ in our hearts. The great mystery of the Gospel doth not lie only in Christ without us, (though we must know also what he hath done for us,) but the very pith and kernel of it consists in Christ inwardly formed in our hearts. Nothing is truly ours, but what lives in our spirits. Salvation itself cannot save us, as long as it is only without us; no more than health can cure us and make us sound, when it is not within us, but somewhere at distance from us; no more than Arts and Sciences, whilst they lie only in books and papers without us, can make us learned."

7.-The Re-establishment of Episcopacy, and a comprehensive View of the Act of Uniformity.

In a preceding page, (xciv,) and in other parts of this work, I have shewn the close affinity which subsists between Arminianism and Civil and Religious Liberty. In the long note, page 687, I have also tendered much information concerning the relative political circumstances, in which the English Calvinists and Arminians were placed at the commencement of the Civil Wars. In the preceding extracts from Dr. Cudworth's sermon, he has expressed the same sentiments concerning liberty of con science, and his being not greatly scrupulous about the externals of Darkness is not able to make resistance against light, but ever, as it comes, flies before it. But if wickedness invite the society of devils to it, (as we learn by the sad experience of these present times, in many examples of those that were possessed with malice, revengefulness, and lust,) so that those cursed fiends do most readily apply themselves to it, and offer their service to feed it and encourage it; because it is their own life and nature, their own kingdom of darkness, which they strive to enlarge, and to spread the dominions of: Shall we then think, that holiness, which is so nearly allied unto God, hath no GOOD GENIUS at all in the world to attend upon it, to help it, and encourage it? Shall not the kingdom of Light be as true to its own interest, and as vigilant for the enlarging of itself, as the kingdom of Darkness?-Holiness is never alone in the world, but God is always with it; and his loving Spirit doth ever associate and join itself to it. He that sent it into the world is with it, as Christ speaketh of himself, The Father hath not left me alone, because I do always those things that please him.' Holiness is the life of God, which he cannot but feed and maintain wheresoever it is; and as the devils are always active to encourage evil, so we cannot imagine but that the heavenly host of blessed angels above are as busily employed, in the promoting of that which they love best, that which is dearest to God whom they serve, THE LIFE AND NATURE OF GOD! There is joy in heaven at the conversion of one sinner;' Heaven takes notice of it; there is a choir of angels that sweetly sings the epithalamium of a soul divorced from sin and Satan, and espoused unto Christ."

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religion, (p. 800,) as the English Latitude-men did in the year 1662. Though attached to the chaste ceremonies of the Church of England, they were not so unreasonable as to number them among the essentials of salvation. They lived to see the truth of that opinion which I have quoted, in page 635, from Grotius, when he recommends the Dutch Remonstrants to adopt Epis copacy by "receiving imposition of hands from the Irish Archbishop" then in Holland, " and so commence their return to customs which are at once ancient and salutary." This is a high and disinterested compliment to the rites of the Church of England, then in ruins. "Whenever those customs have been despised," Grotius adds, "the licence for framing new opinions has in"creased, and has created new churches; and what the articles of belief in such churches will be a few years hence, we cannot "determine."-Having beheld with their own eyes a sad exemplification of this religious licentiousness, Tillotson, Burnet, Cudworth, and other great and good men, declared themselves in favour of Episcopal government, as soon as the former unjust restraints upon it were removed, and before that species of regimen was re-established by law. The reader will find, in a subsequent part of this Introduction, the grievous lamentations of the Nonconformists when these eminent individuals refused to join their ranks, and to oppose the rising interests of Arminianism. The accession of such divines as these was most important to Episcopacy. Their principles were generally of a milder and more tolerant complexion, than those of their predecessors; and the fine description, in page 801, is exceedingly appropriate: "They seemed to be the very chariots and horsemen of the Church," &c.

These excellent men had not obtained much influence in 1662: Their share, therefore, in the permanent settlement of the Church at that period, was exceedingly slight; and the religious persecution which ensued, does not attach to the Arminians of "the new learning." But had their conduct been different, had they even become active partizans in that persecution of Dissenters, many excuses might have been made for them, on the common principles of human nature, and from the peculiar circumstances in which the Episcopal party had been previously placed.

The Act of Uniformity and its concomitants are industriously represented, by the advocates of the party aggrieved, as insulated occurrences unconnected with former transactions. To those who are inclined to give implicit credence to such representations, and, without accurate information, to circulate such reports, it may be well to submit the following account from one of the finest and most impartial biographical notices that was ever written in the English language:*

The high authority of PARR's Life of Archbishop Usher was demonstrated at the period of its first issuing from the press, which was in the tyrannical reign of King James the Second, who interposed his power to prevent its publication.

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