etc. These holy men were full of that strength already referred to as imparted by faith. They needed no natural joy to brighten their lives, mirth being displaced by religious exaltation. They erred, however, in making themselves a measure for the world at large, and insured the overthrow of their cause by drawing too heavily upon average human nature. "This much," says Hallam, "is certain, that when the Puritan party employed their authority in proscribing all diversions, and enforcing all the Jewish rigor about the Sabbath, they rendered their own yoke intolerable to the young and gay; nor did any other cause, perhaps, so materially contribute to bring about the Restoration."
In 1646, the "Confession" being agreed upon, it was presented to Parliament, which, in 1648, accepted and published its doctrinal portion. There was no lack of definiteness in the Assembly's statements. They spoke as confidently of the divine enactments as if each member had been personally privy to the counsels of the Most High. When Luther in the Castle of Marburg had had enough of the arguments of Zuinglius on the "real presence," he is said to have ended the controversy by taking up a bit of chalk and writing firmly and finally upon the table, "Hoc est corpus meum." Equally downright and definite were the divines at Westminster. They were modest in offering their conclusions to Parliament as "humble advice," but there was no flicker of doubt either in their theology or their cosmology. "From the beginning of the world," they say, "to the resurrection of Christ the last day of the week was kept holy as a Sabbath"; while from the resurrection it "was changed into the first day of the week, which in Scripture is called the Lord's day, and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath." The notions of the divines regarding the "beginning and the end" of the world were primitive but decided. An ancient philosopher was once mobbed for venturing the extravagant opinion that the sun, which appeared to be a circle less than a yard in diameter, might really be as large as the whole country of Greece. Imagine a man with the knowledge of a modern geologist uttering his blasphemies among these Westminster divines! "It pleased God," they continue, "at the beginning, to create, or make of nothing, the world and all things therein, whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days, and all very good." Judged from our present scientific standpoint, this, of course, is mere nonsense. But the calling of it by this name does not exhaust the question. The real point of interest to me, I confess, is not the cosmological errors of the Assembly, but the hold which theology has taken of the human mind, and which enables it to survive the ruin of what was long deemed essential to its stability. On this question of "essentials" the gravest mistakes are constantly made. Save as a passing form, no part of objective religion is essential. Religion lives not by the force and aid of dogma, but because it is ingrained in the nature of man. To draw
