upon conscience and a natural sense of religion. In his reasoning he anticipates Cudworth, and will bear honourable comparison with his great successor. [Sidenote: PURITAN WORKS ON EVIDENCES.] The first part of Howe’s _Living Temple_ appeared in 1676. In it he proves the “existence of God and His conversableness with men.” His first argument is the same as Gale’s,[512] the consent of mankind; but Howe does not appear to be indebted to his predecessor for this mode of treating his subject. Common consent, Howe extends from God’s existence to God’s conversableness,--in other words, to religious worship; he quotes from Plutarch in proof of its universality, it being characteristic of the age to cite an ancient classic in proof of a statement of fact, which we should test by our own experience and observation. Howe anticipates the _Demonstration_ contrived by Samuel Clarke, and engages in a strain of reasoning beyond that of either Gale or Cudworth.[513] He argues that since something exists now, something must always have existed, unless we admit, that at one period or another, something sprung out of nothing. When he proceeds to prove the intelligence of this Eternal and uncaused Being, he enters upon the _à posteriori_ path, which Gale and Cudworth, and indeed the ancients, traversed to some extent, but in which the moderns have gone so far beyond them. It is worthy of remark, that the ingenious reference of Paley to a watch, as illustrating the indication of design in nature is found in Howe; and to him also belongs the credit of including among the proofs of Divine purpose, the constitution of the human mind, as well as the organization of matter,--a department in natural theology the neglect of which by many was lamented by Lord Brougham. I may add, that when Howe demands of the atheist, whether, if he will reject all the preceding evidence for the existence of God, there are any conceivable methods by which the fact of the Divine existence could be certified,--he opens another spring of thought on this subject, as original as it is profound. After establishing the truth of the Divine existence, Howe resumes his argument for the Divine conversableness; and after ingeniously overthrowing the Epicurean theory, he deduces from what he has said, that God is such a Being as can converse with men, and he asserts His omniscience, His omnipotence, His immensity, and His unlimited goodness. There is another work by John Howe of singular eloquence--_The Vanity of Man as Mortal_--in which the author suggests arguments for the soul’s immortality, of a kind which only occur to minds of a superior order. The works just noticed relate to natural religion. John Owen and Richard Baxter wrote upon the evidences of revealed religion.