having entertained erroneous opinions, which they were no way able to defend, were taught by their more cunning seducers to wink hard, and except against all offensive weapons; so, on the other hand, to chastise the sauciness of Socinus and his followers, who dare set Hagar above her mistress, and make faith wait at the elbow of corrupt and distorted reason-to "take off the head of that uncircumcised Philistine with his own sword," but better sharpened, and then to lay it up behind the ephod in the sanctuary. An enterprise, I confess, of no small import; which yet, he hoped, with God's assistance to have effected, by giving unto reason the things that are reason's, and unto faith the things that are faith's. And had the world been favoured with his longer life, the height of his parts, and the earnest he gave, had bespoken very ample expectations in those who knew and heard him. But it pleased God, having first melted him with His love, and then chastised him, though somewhat sharply, to take him to Himself; from the contemplation of the light of nature, to the enjoyment of one supernatural, that pôs aπpóσiтov-light inaccessible, which none can see and live, and to translate him from snuffing a candle here to be made partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light. So that all that he finished towards that undertaking was this Discourse of the Light of Nature in general, not descending so low as to show how the moral law was founded in it, or that gospelrevelation doth not extinguish it. Wherein, if, standing in the midst between two adversaries of extreme persuasions, while he opposes the one, he seems to favour the other more than is meet; when thou shalt observe him, at

another time, to declare as much against the other, thou wilt then be of another mind. Judge candidly, and take his opinion, as thou wouldst do his picture, sitting;not from a luxuriant expression, wherein he always allowed for the shrinking, but from his declared judgment when he speaks professedly of such a subject. For instance, if any expression seem to lift reason up too high, you may, if you please, otherwise hear it confess and bewail its own weakness (chap. xii.); you may see it bow the head and worship, and then lay itself down quietly at the feet of faith (chap. xviii.) So that, if thou read but the whole discourse, thou wilt easily perceive, as himself would often affirm, that he abhorred the very thought of advancing the power of Nature into the throne of free grace, or by the light of nature [reason] in the least measure to eclipse that of faith."

It is not my purpose to enter on the discussion of the merits of the Discourse as an exercise in ethical philosophy. That will be done immediately to good purpose, by one who, from the course of his studies, as well as for a deeper reason, is better able than I am to deal with such a subject. I may be permitted, however, to remark, that to form a fair estimate of the merit of the work, and the genius of its author, it is necessary to recollect, that it was published before any of the great works on morals, which illustrated the literature of England during the last half of the seventeenth century, had appeared. Dillingham informs us that it was written six years before the author's death, that is, about the year 1646. Now Jeremy Taylor's Ductor Dubitantium, Cumberland's De Legibus, and Cudworth's Intel

1 Pp. 8, 9.

lectual System, were all published posterior to this; the first in 1660, the second in 1672, and the third in 1678.1

Though he could not have read the works of that 'set of men' at Cambridge, 'who,' as Burnet2 says, 'studied to assert and examine the principles of morality on clear grounds, and in a philosophic method,' he no doubt enjoyed the advantage of frequent and intimate intercourse with some of them; and though he differed from these great men on points of the quinquarticular controversy, he obviously had read the same books, cultivated the same studies, and cherished the same enlightened liberal spirit. It would be difficult to believe that John Howe, who entered the University in 1647, was not a great admirer of Culverwel, then one of the most celebrated of the university preachers; and that his influence, fully as much as that of More or Smith, contributed to turn Howe's congenerous mind to those studies which gave his writings a character so different from that of any of those of the other great Nonconformists. Traces of Culverwel are to be found in Howe's works.

It only remains that I say a few words in reference to the manner in which this edition of the Discourse of the Light of Nature has been prepared for republication.

The citations from books in foreign tongues have generally been put into the foot-margin, and translations have taken their place in the text; so executed, I trust, as to leave little or no trace of the fact, that a distance of two centuries intervened between the author and the translator.

1 Hallam, iii.

2 Life and Times, vol. i. p. 188, fol. ed.

Considerable pains have been bestowed on properly placing the points, and dividing the paragraphs.

While the author's language has been scrupulously retained, the archaic and irregular orthography has been modernized and made uniform; and some affected colloquial abbreviations, which deform the writings of some of the authors of this period, have been removed. Indeed, anything more with regard to the language would have been worse than supererogatory. The style is admirable for its perspicuity, force, and elegance; and scarcely any either of the words or forms of expression, 'turns of phrase,' as Hallam calls them, have, through the mutations of language during two centuries, become obsolete. So much for the advantage of a man writing unaffectedly and in earnest, on a subject he understands, and with the importance of which, deeply impressed himself, he wishes to impress others.

Almost the only fault of the style is that referred to by Mr. More in his Critique-a superabundance of figurative expression. It is, as he says, to a great extent a book of poesie in prose compiled.' This dulce vitium may, no doubt, be carried too far; but in Culverwel's pages, as well as in Bacon's, figures body forth abstract thought more accurately, as well as more agreeably, than the most literal expressions could. Indeed Dillingham's encomium scarcely passes the bounds of truth, when he calls this little book, 'cloth of gold' 'weaved of sunbeams.' Culverwel was certainly an exception to Dr. Hey's sweeping charge, that 'the Puritans were void of what we call taste and elegance."1

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1 Lectures, book iv. art. xx. sec. 1.

In the former editions, there are few if any references. It has been found impossible to verify all the citations, and to give in every case the correct reference; but a good deal has been done in this way, at an expense of time and trouble which I would almost blush to specify.

A few notes, chiefly in reference to some of the authors referred to, have been added. It would have been absurd to give notices of the leading philosophers of antiquity, as Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, or of the Greek and Roman Classical Authors, or of the great Fathers of the Church, or even of the more distinguished schoolmen, such as Aquinas, Scotus, Anselm, and Bradwardine, or of those men nearer the author's own age, who have secured for themselves a high and enduring place in the remembrance of all generations, such as the two Bacons-the Friar and the Chancellor-Selden, Grotius, and Hooker; but in the present age, when a taste for such compositions as The Discourse of the Light of Nature is diffused far beyond the limits of academic education or professional scholarship, many will find it convenient to have an introduction to some of Culverwel's familiar acquaintance, to whom even the scholars of our times are all but strangers, and of whom the great body of readers have never heard the names such as Suarez and Vasquez, Nemesius and Zabarella, Averroes and Prosper. For all the notes I am answerable for Dillingham's edition is as unencumbered with these as the original texts of the Greek or Latin classics. It would have been an advantage to have had a few annotations written at the time. It would have saved a subsequent editor much trouble, and might have given