ward Mann] to send down Ralph ffrettwells Book, I suppose he
intends to see thee shortly and if he can find ye Book to bring itt
with him."--_Journal_ (Cambridge edition), ii. p. 305.

[75] Walton's _Notes and Materials_, pp. 227 and 231.

[76] See Walton's _Notes and Materials_, pp. 3, 46, 72, and 404.

[77] William Law lies beyond the period to which this volume is
devoted. It is customary to call the edition of Behmen's _Works_,
published 1764-1781, "William Law's Edition." This is quite incorrect.
This edition is in the main a reprint of the earlier Translations by
Sparrow and Ellistone. It was edited by George Ward, assisted by
Thomas Langcake, and printed at the expense of Mrs. Hutcheson, an
intimate friend of William Law.

{235}

CHAPTER XIII

EARLY ENGLISH INTERPRETERS OF SPIRITUAL RELIGION:
JOHN EVERARD, GILES RANDALL, AND OTHERS

I

The ideas developed by spiritual Reformers on the Continent were
brought into England by a great variety of carriers and over many
routes. Some of the routes were devious and are difficult to trace,
but some of them, on the other hand, are obvious and easily found. One
of the potent and pervasive intellectual influences for the formation
of the "spiritual" type of thought in England was the Platonic
influence which came to England through the Humanists. This strand of
thought, inherited from the remote past, is woven into the inner
structure of all these interpreters of the divine Life. The English
revival of Greek philosophy is closely connected with the work of the
early Italian Humanists, especially with that of the Florentine
scholar, Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), who was selected and educated by
Cosimo de Medici to be the head of the new Academy in Florence. It was
a fixed idea of Ficino that Philosophy and Religion are identical, and
therefore that Religion, if it is true Religion, is rooted and grounded
in Reason, since God is the source of all Truth and all that is
rational. Plato, in Ficino's eyes, is Philosophy. He was the divine
forerunner of Christ in the realm of intellect as John the Baptist was
in the realm of the law. In his mind Plato's Philosophy is the
greatest possible preparation for an adequate understanding of the
world of Truth which Christ has unveiled and of the way {236} of Life
which He has revealed. Ficino translated Plato's Dialogues into Latin,
and gave his own interpretation of the great philosopher in a Treatise
on _Pla