The Latitudinarians also had their favourite portions of hallowed Writ, raising the moral teaching of the New Testament, and what they considered the large and liberal views of humanity given in the Bible, above the doctrinal sentences which so much occupied the attention of Anglicans on the one hand, and above those which equally occupied the attention of Puritans on the other. To Latitudinarians, Christianity seemed more an ethical than a doctrinal system; and in their writings evangelic truth shines with a very subdued and chilly kind of illumination. The Quakers, too, had their favourite verses, and were continually insisting upon those which, as they thought, supported the idea of an inward light. What has now been imperfectly advanced in relation to predominant lines of thinking in the seventeenth century is to be accepted only in a general sense. One writer differed so much from another, that, whilst resemblances exist, mere general statements respecting them are likely to mislead, unless they are checked and modified by a careful review of individual opinions. Such a review is now to be attempted, with a full conviction of its very great difficulties. [Sidenote: THEOLOGY.] Taking the period between the opening of the Long Parliament and the Revolution (1640–1688), I might divide it into two epochs--the one extending as far as the end of the Commonwealth, the other beginning at that crisis. Modes of thought of the kind just pointed out can be traced along the whole course, abreast of each other. The two antagonistic systems are Anglicanism and Puritanism; and from 1640 to 1660, Puritanism is seen in the ascendant, as a reaction against Anglicanism; and from 1660 to 1688, Anglicanism is in the ascendant, as a reaction against Puritanism. No doubt some slight differences obtained between the Anglicanism of the first twenty years and the Anglicanism of the last twenty-eight, and the same may be said of the Puritanism of the first and second of those generations; but there is no necessity for breaking the history into two parts, since the general identity of each system is preserved throughout the whole period, and all the leading representatives lived and studied, and most of them acted and wrote, both before and after the Restoration; besides, to separate their later from their earlier works would destroy the unity of this narrative, and create confusion in the reader’s mind. The Latitudinarians appeared at Cambridge before the death of Oliver Cromwell, and at that period began to produce some effect upon theological speculation and religious life; but it was not until afterwards that their characteristic tendencies became fully apparent. Quaker Mysticism took its rise in the midst of the Commonwealth era, and continued its course, with increasing power, up to the hour of the Revolution. Therefore to cut in two the theological history of this half century would be inconvenient; and although the plan which