Hales died in 1656, and was followed to the grave two years afterwards by his attached friend Anthony Farindon, both of them being members of the University of Oxford. Farindon was far more evangelical than Hales and Chillingworth. He had not the mystical turn of mind which is so marked in John Smith, nor was he so manifestly a Platonist. Altogether his habits of thought are much more on a level with common understandings. The distance which severed Farindon from the Anglicans comes out in the following passage:--“And now, if we look into the Church, we shall find that most men stand in need of a ‘yea, rather.’ ... _Felix sacramentum!_ ‘Blessed sacrament of baptism!’ ... It is true; but there is ... ‘Yea, rather; blessed are they that have put on Christ.’ ‘Blessed sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.’ It is true; but, ‘Yea, rather; blessed are they that dwell in Christ.’ ‘Blessed profession of Christianity!’ ‘Yea, rather; blessed are they that are Christ’s.’ ‘Blessed cross!’ The Fathers call it so. ‘Yea, rather; blessed are they that have crucified their flesh, with the affections and lusts.’ ‘Blessed Church!’ ‘Yea, rather; blessed are they who are members of Christ.’ ‘Blessed Reformation!’ ‘Yea, rather; blessed are they that reform themselves.’”[464] Nor is the distinction between Farindon and the Puritans much less visible, when he remarks, with regard to the act of justification, “What mattereth it whether I believe or not believe, know or not know, that our justification doth consist in one or more acts, so that I certainly know and believe that it is the greatest blessing that God can let fall upon His creature, and believe that by it I am made acceptable in His sight, and, though I have broken the law, yet shall be dealt with as if I had been just and righteous indeed? whether it be done by pardoning all my sins, or imputing universal obedience to me, or the active and passive obedience of Christ?” “And as in justification, so in the point of faith by which we are justified, what profit is there so busily to inquire whether the nature of faith consisteth in an obsequious assent, or in the appropriation of the grace and mercy of God, or in a mere fiducial apprehension and application of the merits of Christ?”[465] It would be difficult to point out, in the writings of this theologian, a precise definition either of justification or of faith, and equally difficult to point out any statement adverse to those views of salvation by grace in which all evangelic Christians agree. He finds fault with Augustine for confounding justification with sanctification, and separates himself from the Anglican, though not so widely as from the Romanist, when he stigmatizes as “an unsavoury tenet” the doctrine, “that justification is not a pronouncing, but a making one righteous; that inherent holiness is the formal cause of justification; and that we may redeem our sins, and purchase forgiveness, by fasting, almsdeeds,