ad claimed as so especially its own.

It is certainly remarkable that a subject which excited so much
apprehension should have entered, nevertheless, into almost every
theological discussion. Yet it could not be otherwise. Controversy upon
the grounds of faith and all secondary arguments and inferences
connected with it gather necessarily round four leading
principles--Reason, Scripture, Church Authority, Spiritual Illumination.
Throughout the century, the relation more particularly of the last of
these principles to the other three, became the real, though often
unconfessed centre alike of speculation and of practical theology. What
is this mystic power which had been so extravagantly asserted--in
comparison with which Scripture, Reason, and Authority had been almost
set aside as only lesser lights? Is there indeed such a thing as a
Divine illumination, an inner light, a heavenly inspiration, a directing
principle within the soul? If so--and that there is in man a spiritual
presence of some kind no Christian doubts--what are its powers? how far
is it a rule of faith? What is its rightful province? What are its
relations to faith and conscience? to Reason, Scripture, Church
Authority? Can it be implicitly trusted? By what criterion may its
utterances be distinguished and tested? Such, variously stated, were the
questions asked, sometimes jealously and with suspicion, often from a
sincere, unprejudiced desire to ascertain the truth, and often from an
apprehension of their direct practical and devotional value. The
inquiry, therefore, was one which formed an important element both in
the divinity and philosophy of the period, and also in its popular
religious movements. It was discussed by Locke and by every succeeding
writer who, throughout the century, endeavoured to mark the powers and
limits of the human understanding. It entered into most disputes between
Deists and evidence writers as to the properties of evidence and the
nature of Reasonable Religion. It had to do with debates upon
inspiration, upon apostolic gifts, upon the Canon of Scripture, with
controversies as to the basis of the English Church and of the
Reformation generally, the essentials and nonessentials of Christianity,
the rights of the individual conscience, toleration, comprehension, the
authority of the Church, the authority of the early fathers. It had
immediate relation to the speculations of the Cambridge Platonists, and
their influence on eight