Bygone Beliefs [78]
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 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 it self cannot SAVE us, as long as it is onely without us; no more then 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 onely in Books and Papers without us; can make us learned."[1]
[1] RALPH CUDWORTH, B.D.: _A Sermon Preached before the Honourable House of Commons at Westminster, Mar_. 31, 1647 (1st edn.), pp. 3, 14, 42, and 43.
The Cambridge Platonists were not ascetics; their moral doctrine was one of temperance. Their sound wisdom on this point is well evident in the following passage from WHICHCOTE: "What can be alledged for Intemperance; since Nature is content with very few things? Why should any one over-do in this kind? A Man is better in Health and Strength, if he be temperate. We enjoy ourselves more in a sober and temperate Use of ourselves."[2]
[2] BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE: _The Venerable Nature and Transcendant Benefit of Christian Religion. Op. cit_., p. 40.
The other great principle animating their philosophy was, as I have said, the essential unity of reason and revelation. To those who argued that self-surrender implied a giving up of reason, they replied that "To go against REASON, is to go against GOD: it is the self same thing, to do that which the Reason of the Case doth require; and that which God Himself doth appoint: Reason is the DIVINE Governor of Man's Life; it is the very Voice of God."[3] Reason, Conscience, and the Scriptures, these, taught the Cambridge Platonists, testify of one another and are the true guides which alone a man should follow. All other authority they repudiated. But true reason is not merely sensuous, and the only way whereby it may be gained is by the purification of the self from the desires that draw it away from the Source of all Reason. "God," writes MORE, "reserves His choicest secrets for the purest Minds," adding his conviction that "true Holiness [is] the only safe Entrance into Divine Knowledge." Or as SMITH, who speaks of "a GOOD LIFE as the PROLEPSIS and Fundamental principle of DIVINE SCIENCE," puts it, ". . . if . . . KNOWLEDGE be not attended with HUMILITY and a deep sense of SELF-PENURY and _*Self-emptiness_, we may easily fall short of that True Knowledge of God which we seem to aspire after."[1b]
[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 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 it self cannot SAVE us, as long as it is onely without us; no more then 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 onely in Books and Papers without us; can make us learned."[1]
[1] RALPH CUDWORTH, B.D.: _A Sermon Preached before the Honourable House of Commons at Westminster, Mar_. 31, 1647 (1st edn.), pp. 3, 14, 42, and 43.
The Cambridge Platonists were not ascetics; their moral doctrine was one of temperance. Their sound wisdom on this point is well evident in the following passage from WHICHCOTE: "What can be alledged for Intemperance; since Nature is content with very few things? Why should any one over-do in this kind? A Man is better in Health and Strength, if he be temperate. We enjoy ourselves more in a sober and temperate Use of ourselves."[2]
[2] BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE: _The Venerable Nature and Transcendant Benefit of Christian Religion. Op. cit_., p. 40.
The other great principle animating their philosophy was, as I have said, the essential unity of reason and revelation. To those who argued that self-surrender implied a giving up of reason, they replied that "To go against REASON, is to go against GOD: it is the self same thing, to do that which the Reason of the Case doth require; and that which God Himself doth appoint: Reason is the DIVINE Governor of Man's Life; it is the very Voice of God."[3] Reason, Conscience, and the Scriptures, these, taught the Cambridge Platonists, testify of one another and are the true guides which alone a man should follow. All other authority they repudiated. But true reason is not merely sensuous, and the only way whereby it may be gained is by the purification of the self from the desires that draw it away from the Source of all Reason. "God," writes MORE, "reserves His choicest secrets for the purest Minds," adding his conviction that "true Holiness [is] the only safe Entrance into Divine Knowledge." Or as SMITH, who speaks of "a GOOD LIFE as the PROLEPSIS and Fundamental principle of DIVINE SCIENCE," puts it, ". . . if . . . KNOWLEDGE be not attended with HUMILITY and a deep sense of SELF-PENURY and _*Self-emptiness_, we may easily fall short of that True Knowledge of God which we seem to aspire after."[1b]