Ralph Cudworth
Ralph Cudworth
Ralph Cudworth was an English Anglican clergyman, Christian Hebraist, classicist, theologian and philosopher, and a leading figure among the Cambridge Platonists who became 11th Regius Professor of Hebrew (1645–1688), 26th Master of Clare Hall (1645–1654), and 14th Master of Christ's College (1654–1688). A leading opponent of Hobbes's political and philosophical views, his magnum opus was his The
"The best assurance any one can have of his interest in God, is doubtless the conformity of his soul to Him. When our heart is once turned into a conformity with the mind of God. when we feel our will conformed to His will, we shall then presently perceive a spirit of adoption within ourselves, teaching us to say, "Abba, Father."
"Knowledge is not a passion from without the mind, but an active exertion of the inward strength, vigour and power of the mind, displaying itself from within."
"The true knowledge or science which exists nowhere but in the mind itself, has no other entity at all besides intelligibility; and therefore whatsoever is clearly intelligible, is absolutely true."
"Truth is the most unbending and uncompliable, the most necessary, firm, immutable, and adamantine thing in the world."
"If intellection and knowledge were mere passion from without, or the bare reception of extraneous and adventitious forms, then no reason could be given at all why a mirror or looking-glass should not understand; whereas it cannot so much as sensibly perceive those images which it receives and reflects to us."
