ason of things. CUDWORTH'S great work--or, at least, the first
part, which alone was completed,--_The Intellectual System of the
World_, appeared in 1678. In it CUDWORTH deals with atheism on
the ground of reason, demonstrating its irrationality. The book is
remarkable for the fairness and fulness with which CUDWORTH states the
arguments in favour of atheism.

So much for the lives and individual characteristics of the Cambridge
Platonists: what were the great principles that animated both their
lives and their philosophy? These, I think, were two: first, the
essential unity of religion and morality; second, the essential unity of
revelation and reason.

With clearer perception of ethical truth than either Puritan or High
Churchman, the Cambridge Platonists saw that true Christianity is
neither a matter of mere belief, nor consists in the mere performance
of good works; but is rather a matter of character. To them Christianity
connoted regeneration. "Religion," says WHICHCOTE, "is the Frame and
TEMPER of our Minds, and the RULE of our Lives"; and again, "Heaven is
FIRST a Temper, and THEN a Place."(1) To the man of heavenly temper,
they taught, the performance of good works would be no irksome matter
imposed merely by a sense of duty, but would be done spontaneously as a
delight. To drudge in religion may very well be necessary as an initial
stage, but it is not its perfection.

(1) My quotations from WHICHCOTE and SMITH are taken from the selection
of their discourses edited by E. T. CAMPAGNAC, M.A. (1901).

In his sermon before the House of Commons, CUDWORTH well exposes
the error of those who made the mere holding of certain beliefs the
essential element in Christianity. There are many passages I should like
to quote from this eloquent discourse, but the following must suffice:
"We must not judge of our knowing of Christ, by our skill in Books
and Papers, but by our keeping of his Commandments... He is the best
Christian, whose heart beats with the truest pulse towards heaven; not
he whose head spinneth out the finest cobwebs. He that endeavours really
to mortifie his lusts, and to comply with that truth in his life, which
his Conscience is convinced of; is neerer a Christian, though he never
heard of Christ; then he that believes all the vulgar Articles of the
Christian faith, and plainly denyeth Christ in his life.... The great
Mysterie of the Gospel, it doth not lie only in CHRIST WITHOUT US,
(though we mu