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change your opinion, nor frightened at the name of a changeling. Learn to scorn those vulgar bugbears which confirm foolish man in his old mistakes, for fear of being charged with inconstancy. I confess it is better not to judge, than to judge falsely; and it is wiser to with-hold our assent till we see complete evidence: but if we have too suddenly given our assent, as the wisest man does sometimes, if we have professed what we find afterwards to be false, we should never be ashamed nor afraid to renounce a mistake. That is a noble essay which is found among the occasional papers, to encourage the world to practise retractions; and I would recommend it to the perusal of every scholar and every Christian.

XII. HE that would raise his judgement above the vulgar rank of mankind, and learn to pass a just sentence on persons and things, must take heed of a fanciful temper of mind, and a humorous conduct in his affairs. Fancy and humour, early and constantly indulged, may expect an old age over-run with follies.

The notion of a humourist is, one that is greatly pleased or greatly displeased with little things, who sets his heart much upon matters of very small importance, who has his will determined every day by trifles, his actions seldom directed by the reason and nature of things, and his passions frequently raised by things of little moment. Where this practice is allowed, it will insensibly warp the judgement to pronounce little things great, and tempt you to lay a great weight upon them. In short, this temper will incline you to pass an unjust value on almost every thing that occurs; and every step that you take in this path is just so far out of the way to wisdom.

XIII. FOR the same reason have a care of trifling with things important and momentous, or of sporting with things awful and sacred: do not indulge a spirit of ridicule, as some witty men do on all occasions and subjects. This will as unhappily bias the judgement on the other side, and incline you to pass a low esteem on the most valuable objects.

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Whatsoever evil habit we indulge in practice, it will insensibly obtain a power over our understanding, and betray us into many errors. Jocander is ready with his jest to answer every thing that he hears; he reads books in the same jovial humour, and has got the art of turning every thought and sentence into merriment. How many awkward and irregular judgements does this man pass upon solemn subjects, even when he designs to be grave and in earnest? His mirth and laughing humour is formed into habit and temper, and leads his understanding shamefully astray. You will see him wandering in pursuit of a gay flying feather, and he is drawn by a sort of ignis fatuus into bogs and mire almost every day of his life.

XIV. EVER maintain a virtuous and pious frame of spirit; for an indulgence of vicious inclinations debases the understanding, and perverts the judgement. Whoredom and wine, and new wine, take away the heart and soul and reason of a man. Sensuality ruins the better faculties of the mind an indulgence to appetite and passion enfeebles the powers of reason, it makes the judgement weak and susceptive of every falsehood, and especially of such mistakes as have a tendency towards the gratification of the animal; and it warps the soul aside strangely from that steadfast honesty and integrity that necessarily belongs to the pursuit of truth. It is the virtuous man who is in a fair way to wisdom."God gives to those that are good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy,” Eccl. ii. 26.

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Piety towards God, as well as sobriety and virtue, are necessary qualifications to make a truly wise and judicious man. He that abandons religion must act in such a contradiction to his own conscience and best judgement, that he abuses and spoils the faculty itself. It is thus in the nature of things, and it is thus by the righteous judgement of God: even the pretended sages among the heathens, who did not like to retain God in their knowledge, they were given up to a reprobate mind, as vev adoxμov, an undistinguishing or injudicious

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injudicious mind, so that they judged inconsistently, and practised mere absurdities, τa un amxovta, Rom. i. 28.

And it is the character of the slaves to Antichrist, 2 Thess. ii. 1o. &c. that those "who receive not the love "of the truth were exposed to the power of diabolical "slights and lying wonders." When divine revelation shines and blazes in the face of men with glorious evidence, and they wink their eyes against it, the god of this world is suffered to blind them even in the most obvious, common, and sensible things. The great God of heaven, for this cause, sends them strong delusions, that they should believe a lie; and the nonsense of transubstantiation in the pop-ish world is a most glaring accomplishment of this prophecy, beyond ever what could have been thought of or expected among creatures who pretend to reason.

XV. WATCH against the pride of your own reason, and a vain conceit of your intellectual powers, with the neglect of divine aid and blessing. Presume not upon great attainments in knowledge by your own self-sufficiency: those who trust to their own understanding entirely are pronounced fools in the word of God: and the wisest of men gives them this character," he that trusteth in his own "heart is a fool," Prov. xxviii. 26. And the same divine writer advises us to "trust in the Lord with all our heart, ❝and not to lean to our own understandings, nor to be wise "in our own eyes," chap. iii. 5.7.

Those who, with a neglect of religion, and dependence upon God, apply themselves to search out every article in the things of God by the mere dint of their own reason, have been suffered to run into wild excesses of foolery, and strange extravagance of opinions. Every one who pursues this vain course, and will not ask for the conduct of God in the study of religion, has just reason to fear he shall be left of God, and given up a prey to a thousand prejudices: that he shall be consigned over to the follies of his own heart, and pursue his own temporal and eternal ruin. And even

in common studies we should, by humility and dependence, engage the God of truth on our side.

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XVI. OFFER up, therefore, your daily requests to God, the Father of lights, that he would bless all your attempts and labours in reading, study, and conversation. Think with yourself how easily and how insensibly, by one turn of thought, he can lead you into a large scene of useful ideas he can teach you to lay hold on a clue which may guide your thoughts with safety and ease through all the difficulties of an intricate subject. Think how easily the Author of your beings can direct your motions by his providence, so that the glance of an eye, or a word striking the ear, or a sudden turn of the fancy, shall conduct you to a train of happy sentiments. By his secret and supreme method of government, he can draw you to read such a treatise, or to converse with such a person who may give you more light into some deep subject in an hour, than you could obtain by a month of your own solitary labour.

Think with yourself with how much ease the God of spirits can cast into your mind some useful suggestion, and give a happy turn to your own thoughts, or the thoughts of those with whom you converse, whence you may derive unspeakable light and satisfaction in a matter that has long puzzled and entangled you: he can shew you a "path which "the vulture's eye has not seen," and lead you by some unknown gate, or portal, out of a wilderness and labyrinth of difficulties wherein you have been long wandering.

Implore constantly his divine grace to point your inclinations to proper studies, and to fix your heart there. He can keep off temptations on the right hand and on the left, both by the course of his providence, and by the secret and insensible intimations of his Spirit. He can guard your understanding from every evil influence of error, and secure you from the danger of evil books and men, which might otherwise have a fatal effect, and lead you into pernicious mistakes.

Nor let this sort of advice fall under the censure of the

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godless and profane, as a mere piece of bigotry or enthusiasm derived from faith and the Bible: for the reasons, which I have given to support this pious practice of invoking the blessing of God on our studies, are derived from the light of nature as well as revelation. He that made our souls, and is the Father of spirits, shall he not be supposed to have a most friendly influence towards the instruction and government of them? The Author of our rational powers can involve them in darkness when he pleases by a sudden distemper, or he can abandon them to wander into dark and foolish opinions, when they are filled with a vain conceit of their own light. He expects to be acknowledged in the `common affairs of life, and he does as certainly expect it in the superior operations of the mind, and in the search of knowledge and truth. The very Greek heathens, by the light of reason, were taught to say, Ex Alos agxoμerba, and the Latins, A Jove principium, musa. In the works of learning they thought it necessary to begin with God. Even the poets call upon the muse as a goddess to assist them in their compositions.

The first lines of Homer in his Iliad and his Odyssey, the first line of Musæus in his song of Hero and Leander, the beginning of Hesiod in his poem of Weeks and Days, and several others, furnish us with sufficient examples of this kind ; nor does Ovid leave out this piece of devotion as he begins his stories of the Metamorphosis. Christianity so much the more obliges us by the precepts of scripture to invoke the assistance of the true God in all our labours of the mind, for the improvement of ourselves and others. Bishop Saunderson says, that study without prayer is atheism, and that prayer without study is presumption. And we are still more abundantly encouraged by the testimony of those who have acknowledged, from their own experience, that sincere prayer was no hindrance to their duties; they have gotten more knowledge sometimes upon their knees, than by their labour in perusing a variety of authors; and they have left this observation for such as

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