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.
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