other people's, except that he usually drank nothing but water; and he thought his abstinence in this respect had preserved his life so long, although his constitution was so weak. He attributed to the same cause the preservation of his sight, which was not much impaired at the end of his life; for he could read by candle-light all sorts of books, unless the print was very small, and he never made use of spectacles. He had no other infirmity but his asthma, except that four years before his death he became very deaf, during a period of about six months. Finding himself thus deprived of the pleasure of conversation, he doubted whether blindness was not preferable to deafness, as he wrote to one of his friends; otherwise he bore his infirmities very patiently." "This," as Le Clerc says, " is an accurate, and by no means a flattered description of this great man."

The views which Locke, after a patient and laborious examination of the Scriptures, was led to take of some of the leading doctrines of Christianity, appear to have been substantially the same as those of Milton and Sir Isaac Newton. Truth was, on all occasions, the object of his researches: he valued it above all things; and the diligence of his inquiries was proportioned to the importance of their aim. But, that he should always have attained to the knowledge of truth, who shall affirm? particularly on those awful subjects where the

vast interests every man has at stake render it incumbent on him to trust the decisions of no judgment but his own; which, considering the natural inequalities discoverable in human intellect, and the wonderful diversities of human character, must necessarily give rise to error; though doubtless the sincere seeker will always find so much of truth as may be necessary to his eternal salvation. "A holy life," says Jeremy Taylor, "will make our belief holy, if we consult not humanity and its imperfections in the choice of our religion, but search for truth without designs, save only of acquiring heaven, and then be as careful to preserve charity, as we are to get a point of faith. I am much persuaded we should find out more truths by this means; or however (which is the main of all) wè shall be secured though we miss them; and then we are well enough."1

This was the course pursued by Locke in composing the Reasonableness of Christianity. He had discovered the inconsistencies and unsatisfactoriness of the ordinary systems of divinity; and not to consult "humanity and its imperfections" in the choice of his religion, he betook himself to the diligent study of the Scriptures, which he found to contain doctrines clear and intelligible, and adapted to the apprehension of the bulk of

Liberty of Prophesying, p. 5.

mankind. From the title and general tone of the work, we should have inferred that it was chiefly addressed to those professors of Christianity who overlook its precepts to dwell upon its mysteries, and seem desirous of setting faith and reason in opposition to each other; who think they can never have enough to believe, though far too much to practice; who, confident in their imagined strength, rush in "where angel's fear to tread;" enter dogmatically into the secret designs and purposes of God; rashly seek to lift the veil from those things which 'eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive;' and, not even yet content, set themselves up as infallible in their way, and require all men to adopt their opinions, and hazard their salvation on the soundness of their judgments. This is what, from a perusal of the work, we should have supposed. But, in the preface to the Second Vindication, Locke himself gives us the history of the book, and an explanation of his views in composing it. Addressing himself to the Rev. Mr. Bold, who, without being personally acquainted with him, had undertaken his defence, he says:-" Since you seem to me to comprehend what I have laid together, with the same disposition of mind, and in the same sense that I received it from the holy Scriptures, I shall, as a mark of my respect to you, give you a particular account of the occasion of it.

"The beginning of the year in which it was published, the controversy that made so much noise and heat amongst some of the Dissenters, coming one day accidentally into my mind, drew me, by degrees, into a stricter and more thorough inquiry into the question about justification. The Scripture was direct and plain; and it was faith that justified the next question then was, What faith that was that justified; what it was which, if a man believed, it should be imputed to him for righteousness? To find out this, I thought the right way was, to search the Scriptures; and thereupon betook myself seriously to the reading of the New Testament, only to that purpose. What that produced, you and the world have seen.

"The first view I had of it seemed mightily to satisfy my mind, in the reasonableness and plainness of this doctrine; but yet the general silence I had in my little reading met with, concerning any such thing, awed me with apprehension of singularity, till going on in the Gospel history, the whole tenour of it made it so clear and visible, that I more wondered that every body did not see and embrace it, than that I should assent to what was so plainly laid down, and so frequently inculcated in Holy Writ, though systems of divinity said nothing of it. That which added to my satisfaction was, that it led me into a discovery of the

marvellous and divine wisdom of our Saviour's conduct, in all the circumstances of his promulgating this doctrine; as well as of the necessity that such a lawgiver should be sent from God for the reforming the morality of the world; two points that, I must confess, I had not found so fully and advantageously explained in the books of divinity I had met with, as the history of the Gospel seemed to me, upon an attentive perusal, to give occasion and matter for. But the necessity and wisdom of our Saviour's opening the doctrine (which he came to publish) as he did, in parables and figurative ways of speaking, carries such a thread of evidence through the whole history of the Evangelists, as I think is impossible to be resisted; and makes it a demonstration, that the sacred historians did not write by concert, as advocates for a bad cause, or to give colour and credit to an imposture, they would usher into the world; since they, every one of them, in some place or other, omit some passages of our Saviour's life, or circumstances of his actions, which show the wisdom and wariness of his conduct; and which even those of the Evangelists who have recorded, do barely and transiently mention, without laying any stress on them, or making the least remark of what consequence they are, to give us our Saviour's true character, and to prove the truth of their history.