doubted of by others; for some persons have been unreasonably credulous, and others have been as unreasonably sceptical. Then only should a proposition be called an axiom or a self-evident truth, when by a moderate attention to the subject and predicate, their connexion appears in so plain a light and 30 clear an evidence, as needs no third idea or middle term to prove them to be connected.

X. While you are in search after truth in questions of a doubtful nature, or such as you have not yet thoroughly examined, keep up a just indifference to either side of the question, if you would be led honestly into the truth: for a desire or inclination leaning to either side, biasses the judgment strangely; whereas by this indifference for every thing but truth, you will be excited to examine fairly instead of presuming, and your assent will be secured from going beyond your evidence.

XI. For the most part people are born to their opinions, and never question the truth of what their family or their country or their party profess. They clothe their minds as they do their bodies, after the fashion in vogue, nor one of a hundred ever examines their principles. It is suspected of lukewarmness to suppose examination necessary, and it will be charged as a tendency to apostacy if we go about to examine them. Persons are applauded for presuming they are in the right, and (as Mr. Locke saith) he that considers and enquires into the reasons of things is counted a foe to orthodoxy, because possibly he may deviate from some of the received doctrines. And thus men without any industry or acquisition of their own, (lazy and idle as they are) inherit local truths, that is, the truths of that place where they live, and are inured to assent without evidence. This hath a long and unhappy influence; for if a man bring his mind once to be positive and fierce for propositions whose evidence he hath never examined, and that in matters of the greatest concernment, he will naturally follow this short and easy way of judging and believing in cases of less moment, and build all his opinions upon insufficient grounds.

XII. In determining a question, especially when it is a matter of difficulty and importance, do not take up with partial examination, but turn your thoughts on all sides, to gather in all the light you can toward the solution of it. Take time, and use all the helps that are to be attained before you fully determine, except only where present necessity of action calls for speedy determination. If you would know what may be called a partial examination take these instances, viz. When you examine an object of sense, or enquire into some matter of sensation at too great a distance from the object, or in an inconvenient situation of it, or under any indisposition of the organs, or any disguise whatsoever relating to the medium or the organ of the object

i self; or when you examine it by one sense only where others might be employed? Or when you enquire into it by sense only, without the use of the understanding and judgment and reason.

If it be a question which is to be determined by reason and argument, then your examination is partial, when you turn the question only in one light and do not turn it on all sides; when you look upon it only in its relations and aspects to one sort of objects and not to another; when you consider only the advantages of it and the reasons for it, and neglect to think of the reasons against it, and never survey its inconveniences too: when you determine on a sudden, before you have given yourself a due time for weighing all circumstances, &c.

Again, If it be a question of fact depending upon the report or testimony of men, your examination is but partial, when you enquire only what one man or a few say, and avoid the testimony of others, when you only ask what those report who were not eye or ear-witnesses, and neglect those who saw and heard it; when you content yourself with mere loose and general talk about it, and never enter into particulars; or, when there are many who deny the fact, and you never concern yourself about their reasons for denying it, but resolve to believe only those who affirm it.

There is yet further a fault in your partial examination of any question, when you resolve to determine it by natural reason only, where you might be assisted by supernatural revelation; or when you decide the point by some word or sentence, or by some part of revelation; without comparing it with other parts, which might give further light and better help to determine the meaning. It is also a culpable partiality, if you examine some doubtful or pretended vision or revelation without the use of reason; or without the use of that revelation, which is undoubted and sufficiently proved to be divine. These are all instances of imperfect examination, and we should never determine a question by one or two lights, where we may have the advantage of three or four.

XIII. Take heed lest some darling notion, some favourite hypothesis, some beloved doctrine, or some common but unexamined opinion, be made a test of the truth or falsehood of all other propositions about the same subject. Dare not build much upon such a notion or doctrine till it be very fully examined, accurately adjusted, and sufficiently confirmed. Some persons by indulging such a practice, have been led into long ranks of error; they have found themselves involved in a train of mistakes, by taking up some pretty hypothesis or principle, either in philosophy, politics, or religion, upon slight and insufficient grounds, and establishing that as a test and rule by which to judge of all other things.

XIV. For the same reason, have a care of suddenly determining any one question on which the determination of any kindred or parallel cases will easily or naturally follow. Take heed of receiving any wrong turn in your early judgment of things; be watchful, as far as possible, against any false bias which may be given to the understanding, especially in younger years. The indulgence of some one silly opinion, or the giving credit to one foolish fable, lays the mind open to be imposed upon by many. The ancient Romans were taught to believe, that Romulus and Remus the founders of their state and empire, were exposed in the woods and nursed by a wolf: this story prepared their minds for the reception of any tales of the like nature relating to other countries. Trogus Pompeius would enforce the belief, that one of the ancient kings of Spain was also nursed and suckled by a hart, from the fable of Romulus and Remus. It was by the same influence they learned to give up their hopes and fears to omens and soothsaying, when they were once persuaded that the greatness of their empire and the glory of Romulus their founder, were predicted by the happy omen of twelve vultures appearing to him when he sought where to build the city. They readily received all the following legends of prodigies, auguries, and prognostics, for many ages together, with which Livy has furnished his huge history.

So the child who is once taught to believe any one occurrence to be a good or evil omen, or any day of the month or week to be lucky or unlucky, hath a wide inroad made on the soundness of his understanding in the following judgments of his life: he lies ever open to all the silly impressions and idle tales of nurses, and imbibes many a foolish story with greediness, which he must unlearn again if ever he become acquainted with truth and wisdom.

XV. Have a care of interesting your warm and religious zeal in those matters which are not sufficiently evident in themselves, or which are not fully and thoroughly determined and proved for this zeal, whether right or wrong, when it is once engaged, will have a powerful influence to establish your own minds in those doctrines which are really doubtful, and to stop up all the avenues of further light. This will bring upon the soul a sort of sacred awe and dread of heresy: with a divine concern to maintain whatever you have espoused as divine, though perhaps you have espoused it without any just evidence, and ought to have renounced it as false and pernicious.

We ought to be zealous for the most important points of our religion, and to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints; but we ought not to employ this sacred fervour of spirit in the service of any article, till we have seen it made out with plain and strong conviction, that it is a necessary or impor

tant point of faith or practice, and is either an evident dictate of the light of nature, or an assured article of revelation. Zeal must not reign over the powers of our understanding, but obey them: God is the God of light and truth, a God of reason and order, and he never requires mankind to use their natural faculties amiss for the support of his cause. Even the most mysterious and sublime doctrines of revelation, are not to be believed without a just reason for it; nor should our pious affections be engaged in the defence of them, till we have plain and convin~ cing proof that they are certainly revealed, though perhaps we may never in this world attain to such clear and distinct ideas of them as we desire.

XVI. As a warm zeal ought never to be employed in the defence of any revealed truth, till our reason be well convinced of the revelation; so neither should wit and banter, jest and ridicule, ever be indulged to oppose or assault any doctrines of professed revelation, till reason has proved they are not really revealed. And even then, these methods should be used very seldom, and with the utmost caution and prudence. Railery and wit were never made to answer our enquiries after truth, and to determine a question of rational controversy; though they may sometimes be serviceable to expose to contempt those inconsistent follies which have been first abundantly refuted by argument; they serve indeed only to cover nonsense with shame, when reason has first proved it to be mere nonsense.

It is therefore a silly and most unreasonable test which some of our deists have introduced to judge of divine revelation, viz. to try if it will bear ridicule and laughter. They are effectually beaten in all their combats at the weapons of men, that is, reason and argument; and it would not be unjust (though it is a litthe uncourtly) to say that they would now attack our religion with the talents of a vile animal, that is, grin and grimace.

I cannot think that a jester or a monkey, a droll or a puppet, can be proper judges or deciders of controversy. That which dresses up all things in disguise, is not likely to lead us into any just sentiments about them. Plato or Socrates, Cæsar or Alexander, might have a fool's coat clapt upon any of them, and perhaps in this disguise, neither the wisdom of the one, nor the majesty of the other, would secure them from a sneer; this treatment would never inform us whether they were kings or slaves, whether they were fools or philosophers. The strongest reasoning, the best sense, and the politest thoughts, may be set in a most ridiculous light by this grinning faculty: the most obvious axioms of eternal truth may be drest in a very foolish form, and wrapt up in artful absurdities by this talent; but they are truth and reason, and good sense still. Euclid with all his demonstrations might be so covered and overwhelmed with banter,

that a beginner in the mathematics might be tempted to doubt, whether his theorems were true or no, and to imagine they could never be useful. So weaker minds might be easily prejudiced against the noblest principles of truth and goodness; and the younger part of mankind might be beat off from the belief of the most serious, the most rational and important points even of natural religion, by the impudent jests of a profane wit. The moral duties of the civil life, as well as the articles of christianity, may be painted over with the colours of folly, and exposed upon a stage, so as to ruin all social and personal virtue among the gay and thoughtless part of the world.

XVII. It should be observed also, that these very men cry out loudly against the use of all severe railing and reproach in debates, and all penalties and persecutions of the state, in order to convince the minds and consciences of men and determine points of truth and error. Now I renounce these penal and smarting methods of conviction as much as they do, and yet I think. still these are every whit as wise, as just, and as good for this purpose, as banter and ridicule. Why should public mockery in print, or a merry joke upon a stage, be a better test of truth, than severe railing sarcasms and public persecutions and penalties? Why should more light be derived to the understanding by a song of scurrilous mirth or a witty ballad, than there is by a rude cudgel? When a professor of any religion is set up to be laughed at, I cannot see how this should help us to judge of the truth of his faith, any better than if he were scourged. The jeers of a theatre, the pillory, and the whipping-post, are very near a-kin. When the person or his opinion is made the jest of the mob, or his back the shambles of the executioner, I think there is no more conviction in the one than in the other.

XVIII. Besides, supposing it is but barely possible that the great God should reveal his mind and will to men by miracle, vision or inspiration, it is a piece of contempt and profane insolence, to treat any tolerable or rational appearance of such a revelation with jest and laughter, in order to find whether it be divine or not. And yet if this be a proper test of revelation, it may be properly applied to the true as well as the false, in order to distinguish it. Suppose a royal proclamation were sent to a distant part of the kingdom, and some of the subjects should doubt whether it came from the king or no; is it possible that wit and ridicule should ever decide the point? or would the prince ever think himself treated with just honour, to have his proclamation canvassed in this manner on a public stage, and become the sport of buffoons, in order to determine the question, Whether it is the word of a king or no?

Let such sort of writers go on at their dearest peril, and