d a Papist, or Mahometan; Pagan or
Atheist. And trulie, Sir, you are wholly mistaken in the whole course of
my studies. You say you find me largelie in their _Apologia_; to my
knowledge I never saw or heard of the book before! . . . I have not read
manie bookes; but I have studied a fewe: meditation and invention hath
bin my life rather than reading; and trulie I have more read Calvine and
Perkins and Beza than all the bookes, authors and names you mention. _I
have alwaies expected reason for what men say_, less valuing persons and
authorities in the stating and {295} resolving of truth, therefore have
read them most where I have found itt. I have not looked at anie thing
as more than an opinion which hath not bin underpropt by convincing
reason or plaine and satisfactorie Scripture."[18]

As to the charge that he has become immersed in philosophy, Whichcote
modestly replies: "I find the Philosophers that I read good as farre as
they go: and it makes me secretlie blush before God when I find eyther my
head, heart or life challenged by them, which I must confess, I often
find." To the criticism that he "cries-up reason," he answers that he
has always found in his own experience that "that preaching has most
commanded my heart which has most illuminated my head." "Everie
Christian," he insists, "must think and believe as he finds cause. Shall
he speak in religion otherwise than he thinks? Truth is truth, whoever
hath spoken itt or howsoever itt hath bin abused. If this libertie be
not allowed to the Universitie wherefore do wee study? We have nothing
to do butt to get good memories and to learn by heart."[19] Finally, to
the impression expressed by Dr. Tuckney that his sermons are less
edifying and heart-searching, he replies with dignity and evidently with
truth: "I am sure I have bin all along well understood by persons of
honest heartes, but of mean place and education: and I have had the
blessing of the soules of such at their departure out of this world. I
thanke God, my conscience tells me, that I have not herein affected
worldlie shewe, but the real service of truth."[20]

We need not follow further this voluminous correspondence in which two
high-minded and absolutely honest men reveal the two diverging lines of
their religious faith. To the man whose mind found its spiritual footing
alone on the solid ground of Calvin's unmodified system, the new
"persuasion" was sure to seem "cloudie and obscure";