of all men, and that with these principles the doctrines of Scripture ultimately coincided. Christianity, therefore, was not so much disowned by him, as deprived of its special authority, and embraced in a more general system. It is said, that in his last illness, he wished to receive the sacrament, and applied to Archbishop Usher, who refused to administer it. Lord Herbert of Cherbury died before the middle of the seventeenth century. The deistical view, expiring for the time with him, did not reappear till the close of the century. In the interval, the inquiries of earnest and thoughtful minds-assuming Christianity as a divine fact, turned wholly on the mode of conceiving it, and the interpretation of the books in which it is contained.

SECT. III.

REACTION AGAINST THE DOCTRINES OF THE FIRST

REFORMERS.

The externality of the Roman Catholic system, the barrier of sacerdotal and saintly mediation which it interposed between the mind of the believer and Christ, and the stress which it laid on the merit of mere works-produced an intense reaction among the Reformers, which determined the governing principle of their theology. The

availableness of faith alone to salvation, and the reconciliation of the elect with God, through the atoning efficacy of Christ's blood and the imputation of his righteousness-became the great doctrines of the Reformation, equally recognised, with some modifications of detail, in the Lutheran and the Calvinistic Churches. The heart exulted in the privilege of direct access to Christ and of unceasing communion with him. Faith was its joy and its triumph. Those high mysteries of the old theology, which had subsided, in the latter period of Papal ascendancy, into quiet traditional forms of thought-perhaps of mere expression—were now kindled into living convictions, which absorbed the entire energy of the religious sentiment; and every approach to the latent Photinianism and Pelagianism, which had once qualified their influence, was shrunk from with horror as the device of AntiChrist to bring back the exploded iniquity of Popery. Christ and the Scriptures were the sole foundation of human hopes; it was impious to admit a moment's distrust of them. Of the two elements-the divine and the human-which are so wonderfully combined in the life of Christ, and furnish the true explanation of such diverse opinions respecting him the former was elevated into prominence, and the latter almost kept out of view; since, to exalt faith and give it new merit, precisely those doctrines which seem most opposed to the reason

and moral feeling of mankind-the incarnation of deity, the atonement, the election and final perseverance of saints-were most eagerly clung to, as the true orthodoxy.-Such was the general character of the Reformed theology:-we have an illustration of it in English Puritanism.

But it was soon perceived by reflecting minds, disgusted with the dogmatism and intolerance of the common herd of Protestant divines, that in shunning one extreme, the vehemence of public opinion had only gone into another; and a return towards a more liberal and moderate system was the consequence. Grotius and Leibnitz-one the greatest jurist, the other the most universal scholar and philosopher, of the seventeenth century— are known to have cherished the hope, that the differences between the old and the new Christianity might be reconciled, and were even charged by their enemies with being Papists. Similar influences were not unfelt in England. strength of the popular theology lay in two main points (1.) the satisfaction to divine justice by the death of Christ, involving the allied doctrines of original sin and the salvation of the elect by faith alone; and (2.) the proper deity of Christ, as qualifying him to make full atonement for the sins of mankind. These dogmas were closely-related parts of a common system, recommended to the religious feeling of the time by the very won

The

der and mystery, in which they were shrouded, and which it was deemed irreverent to attempt to penetrate. But to both of them, opposition was now beginning to be made. The first was encountered by the Arminians or Remonstrants in Holland, with the concurrence and high authority of Grotius; and at a still earlier period, both had been rejected by a society of learned men in the north of Italy, which was afterwards dispersed by the Inquisition. Among these were the Socini-uncle and nephew -who sought refuge in Switzerland and Poland.

The Arminian and Socinian systems were not identical, but they had near affinities, and grew out of a common tendency of mind. They both indicated a determination to quit the ground of authority, or of mere appeal to enthusiastic feeling, and to bring the doctrines of religion to the test of conscience and the understanding, -Arminianism being more immediately the dictate of moral sentiment, and Socinianism a product of the reason. Of both these systems, the knowledge and the influence came into England immediately from Holland. In that country the Socinians had at various times attempted to make a settlement; and although the Calvinistic Synods always protested strongly against their toleration, several of them found shelter, without being openly recognized, among the Arminians, who did not refuse communion with them: and

even before the close of the sixteenth century, many of their writings had been translated and circulated there.a With Holland the religious intercourse and sympathy of England was very great during the first half of the seventeenth century. Thither the founders of Independency had fled from persecution at home, and the Synod of Dort, in 1618, though it decided in favour of the Calvinistic system, had, as I have before observed, a marked effect on the English theology in the opposite direction. It was at Dort, influenced by the powerful reasoning of Episcopius on John iii. 16, that Hales-to use his own words-" bid John Calvin good night." b

SECT. IV.

RISE OF LATITUDINARIAN PRINCIPLES.

It was in this state of things, while the contest between the Church and the Puritans was every day becoming more violent and implacable, that a small society of learned and intellectual men, keeping far aloof from the public strife, often met, before the breaking out of the war, for free religious discourse, at the seat of Lord Falkland, at Burford, near Oxford, whose house, says Hyde,

Bayle, Dict. Hist. et Crit., Notes K. and L.

⚫ Farindon's Letter, prefixed to Hales's Golden Remains.