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benefit preferably to our private advantage, whenever the two happen to come visibly into competition; and as we live in society, we are to do our parts towards rendering it as beneficial as lies in our power, to every member of it within our reach. Therefore whenever the interest of Religion or practical Philosophy may be forwarded by our aid, when an improvement in any science, or art, or manufacture, or convenience for benefit of mankind can be made, any service done to the public, any real good procured for our neighbor, whether by instruction, exhortation, censure, ridicule, example, or otherwise, it is a noble self-denial to stop short in the pursuit of our own desires, that we may apply our industry to the greater advantage of others.

But opportunities of this sort rarely happen to most of us: we are not of such importance as that much of what passes around should depend upon our management; therefore our principal attention is due to the conducting ourselves well in our own affairs and several professions, for thereby we shall contribute the most effectually we can, towards promoting all other more general interests. And in so doing we shall be of more importance than we can perceive, for we are stationed and portioned by Providence, in whose works every little engine employed is necessary for completing the great design, when acting in the sphere assigned it. This then is our province, or I may call it the little world which God has put under our government: it is our business to know the extent of our province, that we may not encroach upon territories beyond our commission, and to lay our narrow plan of Providence for the administration of it similar, so far as human infirmity will permit, though immensely unequal, to his universal one; ordering everything therein for the best, according to the measure of understanding and power vouchsafed us. our own discernment being short and our powers feeble, it will behove us to avail ourselves of those methods that have been prescribed for enlarging the one, and invigorating the other: those then I purpose next to take under consideration, examining into their several uses and manner of operation, in hopes to rescue them from the contempt they have lain under with some persons, and to settle their value upon the right bottom which has been misplaced by others, whereby we may the better learn how to apply them in due measure, and upon proper occasions.

But

CHAP. XXI.

CHRISTIAN SCHEME.

By the methods prescribed for enlarging our discernment and invigorating our powers, spoken of at the conclusion of the last Chapter, it will easily be understood that I had in view the Christian institutions: the examination whereof is best pursued by a calm and careful exercise of our judgment upon their several uses and operations. But the surest basis and necessary guidance for forming a judgment upon the parts of a system, can only be found in the general scope and main design of the whole, and the spirit wherein it was delivered which will enable us to attain a clear conception of the words and phrases as we go along. The gifted preacher, when talking most sweetly and with power, so as to raise ecstatic transports in his audience, runs on in a string of animating words, with no determinate meaning. Whether or no this be the proper method for confirming and strengthening the godly, it is certainly not the right way to succeed upon the rationalist, whom I am to deal with for he will expect to be addressed in an intelligible language, rather calculated to inform the understanding, than to warm the heart, or touch the springs of affection. Now the common language of mankind being various and fluctuating, the same terms and the same expressions carrying a very different sense according to the occasion whereon they are employed, nothing but an attention to the purpose wherewith, and spirit wherein they were delivered, can ascertain their proper force. Neither poetry, nor rhetoric, nor argumentation, nor, perhaps, any other performances, except in mathematics, can be fully understood, without entering into the spirit of the performer. And the Scriptures being given in the language of the Jewish populace, and abounding in figurative, mysterious expressions, many times seeming at first sight contradictory, it is nowhere more eminently true than here, That the letter killeth, but the spirit maketh alive.

But as you must pour water into a pump, before you can draw a supply of water from thence; and give fire to a cannon in order to excite the fire of the powder: so without a proper spirit of inquiry, you can never reach that of the object you contemplate. For a dull, or careless, or wrong-directed application will find nothing but lumpish lead, or, at most, delusive blaze in whatever it falls upon. Hence it appears, there are two spirits to be considered, that of the learner, and that of the teacher; the former preparative for reception of the other. Therefore St. John bids us try

the spirits; because they being the leading principles, whoever gives heed to those of a wrong turn will be misled, which is worse than no guidance at all.

2. The spirit of opposition and cavil is least likely of any to carry a man beyond the letter, to which it pertinaciously adheres for that very reason, because it is killing or if it ever attempt to strike out a latent meaning, it finds one that is the most exceptionable, because affording the most ample matter for censure and ridicule.

The spirit of prejudice and prepossession, though not quite so pernicious as the former, serves as little to profit by: for it will admit of no improvement upon what it had brought from its own fund, but rather, like a mortification, turns the soundest parts into its own likeness. When a man has strongly imbibed the tenets of a sect, or espoused some particular notions of his own, he proceeds thenceforward with a spirit of zeal rather than improvement: he searches the Scriptures, not to learn by them, but to hunt for detached texts in support of his opinions. He forms a composition wherein several Scripture terms are repeatedly introduced without any accurate meaning, or apt connection in the places they are made to occupy, and then by help of a Concordance finds out all the passages wherein those terms occur, to be produced as divine authorities for his coarse-wrought texture.

There is likewise a spirit of vanity, which often mingles among the two foregoing, and sometimes operates alone. The scoffer and caviller move as much by impulse of vanity as crossness: the credit of shrewdness, and smartness of overthrowing great authorities, and debasing revered characters, works powerfully upon some tempers; and good-nature may more willingly admit this for the general root of opposition, because being a less blameable principle than mere rancor and resentment. In the zealot his prepossession seems to be the first spring of motion, but quickly leads. him into an opinion of excelling, of conceiting himself the sole sure interpreter of the Sacred Writings, pitying the bulk of mankind, as deluded, carnal-minded creatures, and even ascribing the preservation and property of the nation more to himself, and his associates in the same way of thinking, than to our counsellors and senators, our generals and admirals: for what avails the wisdom of the wise, the valor of the brave, or strength of the mighty, without the blessing of Heaven? which blessing is drawn down by the pious breathings of a few true believers persevering in their uprightness amidst a sinful and corrupt generation; so that our Sodom is saved for the sake of ten righteous persons happily found therein. Yet vanity will maintain her ground without either cap

tiousness or prior engagement to support her. An ingenious exposition or plausible construction that nobody has hit upon before, will often beguile the most impartial inquirer to wander out of the way, and stop his ears against all remonstrances urged to bring him back again for there is a shame in retracting an opinion one has once strongly given course to, and this will work unperceived even by the party under its influence. I have already remarked in my Chapter upon that article, that vanity will find means upon some particular occasions to insinuate itself into persons who are in general of an humble and rather diffident disposition; that none can be too vigilant against its attacks, because none can be secure against having them made upon him in the most covert manner.

Another spirit is that of novelty, which entices by the mere pleasure of making discoveries, without any reflection on their being the produce of an extraordinary penetration, or any comparison with the oversights of others. The knowledge of any truth apprehended useful is sweet to the mind, and our eagerness to taste this sweetness makes us entertain a persuasion of our knowing a thing before we really do know it. Therefore it is dangerous to pass a judgment upon a new discovery while it is a new one, and until time shall have abated the sweetness of novelty, and given scope for reflection to flow in from different quarters.

3. Besides these, there is a spirit of terror and anxiety, and a spirit of enthusiasm, which though of opposite qualities, the one being phlegmatic and diffident, the other fiery and presumptuous, nevertheless often unite in the same person. The first of these represents every persuasion of a divine truth as sacred, and every error or ignorance as the sin of infidelity. Whomsoever this spirit possesses, he is obliged under pain of damnation to find evidences in the sacred records of what he has esteemed a sacred truth; and that instantly, without hesitation; nor may he suffer his thoughts to suggest for a moment a construction of any text, however obvious and natural, that seems to raise a doubt against it: for to disbelieve or even doubt the word of God would be the most atrocious offence against his Glory. So he proceeds under a perpetual dread and trepidation lest he should mistake or harbor any mistrust not being able to distinguish that it is one thing to doubt whether the word of God be true, and quite another to doubt whether some particular article be the true sense of that word. But without the latter doubt, there is no room for deliberation: for when you are clear on one side of the question, what have you to deliberate upon? Every searching the Scriptures implies a mistrust that our knowledge may not yet be complete, and a decent confidence that we may get information by an honest exercise

of our judgment upon them. But a fearful awe and hurrying solicitude must needs cramp the mind, not giving free scope for the balance of judgment to play, nor the weights to enter the scale; so that it can never make a fresh decision, either for improvement of knowledge or rectifying of mistakes. The case is the same in the most common matters: if a man going to examine a tailor's bill, should have a pistol holden over him, and be threatened with being shot through the head, if he did not cast it up exactly right in three minutes, he would be able to make no use of his arithmetic in such a situation. Therefore the timid inquirer may indeed be secure against losing such knowledge as he happens to have; but if he lie under any misapprehensions, (as what mortal man is exempt from them?) it is impossible he should ever be cured.

The spirit of enthusiasm is no less averse to doubt and deliberation, which appear superfluous; for it proceeds wholly by impulse and intuition. It possesses with the notion of a supernatural power and illumination accompanying the sanctified, which displays to him objects in their true shapes and colors, that never could have been discovered by the exercise of the natural faculties. So he has no use for his understanding, but only for his eyes, to carry him along the several spots whereon the light within. him from time to time shall strike. This spirit naturally introduces that of prejudice and prepossession; and its misguidings are harder to be rectified than those of any before mentioned. For being known only by the strength of glare it casts, whatever strikes strongly upon the fancy, or is rivetted therein by continual harangues chimed always in the same strain, is taken for a supernatural light and if anybody offers to examine or reason upon it, he is rejected without hearing; for all human reasoning gives marks of a carnal man, who cannot know the things of God, because they are spiritually discerned.

None of these spirits appear at all likely to reach the vivifying principle wanted: for either they stick at the dead letter, or extract something from it equally deadly with the letter itself. But the most serious and sincere being liable to fall, more or less, under the influence of any of them, except the first, it seemed expedient to take notice of the various dangers surrounding on all quarters, that we may know what to guard against.

4. For if we can keep clear of their misguidings, we shall more readily imbibe the proper spirit of a learner, which is that of meekness and sobriety, of calm consideration, attentive industry, and the docility of children; for of such we are told is the kingdom of heaven. I do not apprehend it understood that we are to come with the ignorance, but with the simplicity and inquisitiveness of

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