tion, and new modifications of things corporeal, it is surely reasonable to think that an absolutely perfect Being can do something more; that is, create new substances, . or give them their whole being. And it may well be thought as easy for God, or an Omnipotent Being, to make a whole world, matter and all, as it is for us to create a thought or to move a finger, or for the sun to send out rays, or a candle, light; or, lastly, for an opaque body to produce an image of itself in a glass of water, or to project a shadow; all these imperfect things being but the energies, rays, images, or shadows of the Deity. For a substance to be made out of nothing by God, or a Being infinitely perfect, is not for it to be made out of nothing in the impossible sense, becanse it comes from Him who is all. Nor can it be said to be impossible for anything whatever to be made by that which hath not only infinitely greater perfection, but also infinite active power. It is indeed true that infinite power itself cannot do things in their own nature impossible; and, therefore, those who deny creation ought to prove that it is absolutely impossible for a substance, though not for an accident or modification to be brought from non-existence into being. But nothing is in itself impossible which does not imply contradiction; and though it be a contradiction to be and not to be at the same time, there is surely no contradiction in conceiving an imperfect being, which before was not, afterwards to be.

DR. RICHARD CUMBERLAND-ROBERT SANDERSON.

DR. RICHARD CUMBERLAND (1632-1718), another learned and amiable divine of the Church of England, was raised by King William to the see of Peterborough in 1691. He had published, in 1672, a Latin work, De Legibus Naturæ Disquisitio Philosophica,' &c. ; or, 'A Philosophical Inquiry into the Laws of Nature; in which their form, order, promulgation, and obligation, are investigated from the nature of things; and in which, also, the philosophical principles of Hobbes, moral as well as civil, are considered and refuted.' This modest and erudite, but verbose production-of which two English translations have appeared-contains many sound, and at that time novel views on moral science, along with others of very doubtful soundness The laws of nature he deduces from the results of human conduct, regarding that to be commanded by God which conduces to the happiness of man. He wrote also a learned Essay towards the Recovery of the Jewish Weights and Measures, comprehending their Monies (1686), and a translation of Sanchoniatho's 'Phoenician History' (which was not published till 1720). In the performance of his episcopal duties he displayed a rare degree of activity, moderation, and benevolence. When expostulated with by his friends on account of the great labour which he underwent, he replied: 'I will do my duty as long as I can; a man had better wear out than rust out.' He lived, however, to the advanced age of eighty-six, in the enjoyment of such mental vigour that he successfully studied the Coptic language cnly three years before his death.

The Tabernacle and Temple of the Jews.

The fit measures of the tabernacle and temple, to the uses of the whole nation of the Jews, demonstrate God's early care to settle his people Israel, in the form of one entire national church, under Moses, Aaron, and the other priests, who were general officers for all Israel. The church in the wilderness, mentioned by St. Stephen (Acts vii. 38), was thus national, and is the first collective body of men called a church in the Scripture language, by a man full of the evangelical spirit.

Synagogues for particular neighborhoods' convenience, in the public exercise of

religion, were introduced long after, by the pious prudence of the national governors of the Jewish church and state, and accordingly were all subordinate to them. It is to be observed, also, that this limited place for public national worship was within their own nation, in the midst of their camp in the wilderness, in their own land in Canaan. No recourse from it to a foreign church by appeals, but all differences finally decided within their own nation, and therein all, even Aaron, although the highpriest, and elder brother of Moses, yet was subject to Moses, who was king in Jesurun. By these means, all schismatical setting up of one altar against another was prevented; national communion in solemn and decent piety, with perfect charity, was promoted; which being no shadows, but the most substantial concerns of religion, are to be preserved in the gospel times.

Hereby is more evidently proved the magnificence, symmetry, and beauty that was in the structure of the temple; and the liberal maintenance which God provided for the Levites his ministers. For if the cubit by me proposed determine the area both of the temple and of the priests' suburbs-as the Scripture sets them both out by cubits-they must be much longer; and if they were set out by so many shorter cubits-suppose cubits of eighteen inches-in such proportion as the squares of these different cubits bear to each other, by the nineteenth and twentieth proposition of Euclid's sixth book. But the square of these different cubits are in footmeasure, which is here more convenient, as 3, 82 to 2, 25; the bigger of which is near half as much more as the less. Therefore the areas of the temple, and of the priests' suburbs, are, according to my measure, near half as big again as they would be if determined by that shorter cubit.

Such greatness of the temple Solomon intimates to the king of Tyre to be requisite, as best suiting with the greatness of God (2 Chronicles, ii. 5). This reason, alleged by Solomon to a heathen, must be of moral or natural, and therefore perpetual force, continuing to evangelical times; and therefore intimating to us, that even now magnificent and stately buildings are useful means to signify what great and honourable thoughts we have of God, and design to promote in those that come to the places of his public worship. And from God's liberal provision of land in the Levites' suburbs, besides other advantages, we are taught by St. Paul, that even so those that preach the gospel should live of the gospel (1 Corinthians, ix. 14).

The fitness, safety, and honour of keeping to the use of such indifferent things as have been determined by law or custom, is clearly proved by the constancy of Israel's using those measures-although others might be assigned, as the Greek or Roman measures, to serve the same ends from the time of Moses, and probably before, to the captivity and after. And this, notwithstanding they were used by the Egyptians and Canaanites, which altered not their nature in the least. And this instance proves undeniably that such indifferent practices, as the use of the measures, may be highly useful to the greatest moral duties, the public honour of God, and the preservation of justice among them.

ROBERT SANDERSON (1587-1663) was eight years Regius Professor of Divinity, with the canonry of Christ Church, Oxford, annexed. He was ejected by the Parliamentary visitors of 1642, but was restored after the Restoration, and made bishop of Lincoln. He was author of various works, one of which, Logica Artis Compendium' (1615) was often reprinted, and has been characterised by Sir William Hamilton as 'the excellent work of an accomplished logician.' The 'Sermons' of Sanderson are also admired for vigour and clearness of thought; and one of his theological treatises, Nine Cases of Conscience Resolved' (1668-1674), is a standard work.

JOHN GAUDEN-BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE.

JOHN GAUDEN (1605-1662), an English prelate, was born at Mayfield, in Essex. He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge; and on the commencement of the Civil War, he complied with the

Presbyterian party. He received several church preferments, but abandoned the Parliament when it proceeded against monarchy. When the army resolved to impeach and try the king in 1648, he published A Religious and Loyal Protestation' against their purposes and proceedings. But his grand service to that party consisted in his writing Eikon Basilike; or the portraiture of his Most Sacred Majesty in his Solitude and Sufferings,' a work professing to emanate from the pen of Charles I. himself, and to contain the devout meditations of his latter days. There appears to have been an intertion to publish this Portraiture' before the execution of the king, as an attempt to save his life by working on the feelings of the people; but either from the difficulty of getting it printed, or some other cause, it did not make its appearance till several days after his majesty's death. The sensation which it produced in his favour was extraordinary. It is not easy,' says Hume, 'to conceive the general compassion excited towards the king by the publishing, at so critical a juncture, a work so full of piety, meekness, and humanity. Many have not scrupled to ascribe to that book the subsequent restoration of the royal family. Milton compares its effects to those which were wrought on the tumultuous Romans by Anthony's reading to them the will of Cæsar.' So eagerly and universally was the book perused by the nation, that it passed through fifty editions in a single year. Milton, in his Eikonoclastes,' alludes to the doubts which prevailed as to the authorship of the work, but at this time the real history was unknown.

The first disclosure took place in 1691, when there appeared in an Amsterdam edition of Milton's Eikonoclastes,' a memorandum said to have been made by the Earl of Anglesey, in which that nobleman affirms he had been told by Charles II. and his brother that the 'Eikon Basilike' was the production of Gauden. This report was confirmed in the following year by a circumstantial narrative published by Gauden's former curate, Walker. Several writers then entered the field on both sides of the question; the principal defender of the king's claim being Wagstaffe, a nonjuring clergyman, who published an elaborate Vindication of King Charles the Martyr,' in 1693. For ten years subsequently, the literary war continued; but after this there ensued a long interval of repose. When Hume wrote Lis History, the evidence on the two sides appeared so equally balanced, that, with regard to the genuineness of that production, it is not easy,' says he, for a historian to fix any opinion which will be entirely to his own satisfaction.' In 1786, however, the scale of evidence was turned by the publication, in the third volume of the Clarendon State Papers, of some of Gauden's letters, the most important of which are six addressed by him to Lord Chancellor Clarendon after the Restoration. He there complains of the poverty of the see of Exeter, to which he had already been appointed, and urgently solicits a further reward for the important secret service which he had

performed to the royal cause. Some of these letters, containing allusions to the circumstance, had formerly been printed, though in a less authentic form; but now for the first time appeared one, dated the 13th of March 1661, in which he explicitly grounds his claim to additional remuneration, 'not on what was known to the world under my name, but what goes under the late blessed king's name, the Eikon or Portraiture of his Majesty in his Solitude and Sufferings. This book and figure,' he adds, was wholly and only my invention, making, and design; in order to vindicate the king's wisdom, honour, and piety.' Clarendon had before this learned the secret from his own intimate friend, Morley, bishop of Worcester, and had otherwise ample means of investigating its truth: and not only does he, in a letter to Gauden, fully acquiesce in the unpalatable statement, but, in his 'History of the Rebellion,' written at the desire of Charles I. and avowedly intended as a vindication of the royal character and cause, he maintains the most rigid silence with respect to the Eikon Basilike.' The troublesome solicitations of Gauden were so effectual as to lead to his promotion, in 1662, to the bishopric of Worcester; a dignity, however, which he did not long enjoy, for he died in the same year. The controversy as to the authorship of the ' Eikon Basilike' is by some still decided in favour of the king. Such is the conclusion arrived at in a work, entitled Who wrote Eikon Basilike?' published in 1824, by the late Dr. Wordsworth, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge; and Southey in the Quarterly Review' ranged himself on the same side. But the arguments of Malcolm Laing, Mr. Todd, Sir James Mackintosh, and Mr Hal am, added to the internal evidence, fully support Gauden's claim (acquiesced in by his royalist contemporaries) to be considered the author. The style is much too measured and rhetorical for that of Charles, who was a careless, confused, and inexact writer.

Events of the Civil War.

The various successes of this unhappy war have at least afforded me variety of good meditations. Sometimes God was pleased to try me with victory, by worsting my enemies, that I might know how with moderation and thanks to own and use His power, who is only the true Lord of Hosts, able, when he pleases, to repress the confidence of those that fought against me with so great advantages for power and number.

From small beginnings on my part, he let me see that I was not wholly forsaken by my people's love or his protection. Other times God was pleased to exercise my patience, and teach me not to trust in the arm of flesh, but in the living God. My sins sometimas prevailed against the justice of my cause; and those that were with me wanted not matter and occasion for his just chastisement both of them and me. Nor were my enemies less punished by that prosperity, which hardened them to continue that injustice by open hostility, which was begun by most riotous and unparliamentary tumults.

There is no doubt but personal and private sius may ofttimes overbalance the justice of public engagements; nor doth God account every gallant man, in the world's esteem, a fit instrument to assert in the way of war a righteous cause. The more men are prone to arrogate to their own skill, valour and strength, the less doth God ordinarily work by them for his own glory.

I am sure the event of success can never state the justice of any cause, nor the peace of men's consciences, nor the eternal fate of their souls.

Those with me had, I think, clearly and undoubtedly for their justification the Word of God and the laws of the land, together with their own oaths; all requiring obedience to my just commands; but to none other under heaven without me, or against me, in the point of raising arms.

Those on the other side are forced to fly to the shifts of some pretended fears, and wild fundamentals of state, as they call them, which actually overthrow the present fabric both of church and state; being such imaginary reasons for self-defense as are most impertinent for those men to allege, who, being my subjects, were manifestly the first assaulters of me and the laws, first by unsuppressed tumults, after by listed forces. The same allegations they use, will fit any faction that hath but power and confidence enough to second with the sword all their demands against the present laws and governors, which can never be such as some side or other will not find fault with, so as to urge what they call a reformation of them to a rebellion against them.

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BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, a divine of enlarged and liberal mind, who exercised considerable influence in his day, was a native of Shropshire, born in March, 1609-10. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he became tutor. He was afterwards provost of King's College, and, according to Principal Tulloch, he was he teacher who, more than any other at Cambridge, impressed his own mode of thought both upon his colleagues in the university and the rising generation of students.' At the restoration of Charles II. Whichcote was removed from the provostshop, but he retained a country rectory which he had received from his college, and in 1668 he was presented by Bishop Wilkins to the vicarage of St. Lawrence Jewry, London, which he held till his death in 1683. The works of Whichcote consist of four volumes of Discourses' and a series of "Moral and Religious Aphorisms,' all published after his death, and which, it is said, give but an imperfect idea of the power and influ ence he possessed as a living teacher. The leading principle of all his thought was the use of reason in religion. To speak of natural light,' he says, of the use of rea-on in religion, is to do no disservice at all to grace; for God is acknowledged in both-in the former as laying the groundwork of His creation, in the latter as reviving and restoring it.'

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THOMAS FULLER.

A distinguished place in the prose literature of this age is due to DR. THOMAS FULLER (1608-1661), author of various works in practical divinity and history. Fuller was the son of a clergyman of the same name settled at Aldwinckle, in Northamptonshire; he and Dryden were thus natives of the same place. A quick intellect and uncommon powers of memory made him a scholar almost in his boyhood; his studies at Queen's College, Cambridge, were attended with the highest triumphs of the university, and on entering life as a preacher in that city, he acquired the greatest popularity. He afterwards passed through a rapid succession of promotions, until he ac quired the lectureship of the Savoy in London. In 1840, he published his History of the Holy War,' and in 1642 his' Holy State.'

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