ready to excite in us mistaken judgments concerning it. Let an erect cone be placed in a horizontal plane, at a great diftance from the eye, and it appears a plain triangle; but we fall judge that very cone to be nothing but a flat circle, if its base be obverted towards us. Set a common round plate a little obliquely before our eyes afar off, and we shall think it an oval figure; but if the very edge of it be turned towards us, we fhall take it for a ftrait line. So when we view the feveral folds of a changeable silk, we pronounce this part red, and that yellow, becaufe of its different pofition to the light, though the filk laid fmooth in one light appears all of one colour.

When we furvey the miseries of mankind, and think of the forrows of millions, both on earth and in hell, the divine government has a terrible afpect, and we may be tempted to think hardly even of God himself: but if we view the profufion of his bounty and grace amongst his creatures on earth, or the happy spirits in heaven, we shall have fo exalted an idea of his goodness as to forget his vengeance. Some men dwell entirely upon the promises of his gofpel, and think him all mercy others, under a melancholy frame, dwell upon his terrors and his threatnings, and are overwhelmed with the thought of his feverity and vengeance, as though there were no mercy in him.

The true method of delivering ourselves from this prejudice is to view a thing on all fides, to compare all the various appearances of the fame thing with one another, and let each of them have its full weight in the balance of our judgment, before we fully determine our opinion. It was by this means that the modern aftronomers came to find out that the planet Saturn hath a flat broad circle round its globe, which is called its ring, by obferving the different appearances as a narrow or a broader oval, or as it fometimes feems to be a strait line, in the different parts of its twenty-nine years revolution through the ecliptic. And if we take the fame juft and religious furvey of the great and bleffed God in all the difcoveries of his vengeance and his mercy, we fhail at last conclude him to be both juft and good.

V. The caufal affociation of many of our ideas, becomes the fpring of another prejudice or rafh judgment, to which we are fometimes expofed. If in our younger years we have taken medicines that have been naufeous, when any medicine whatsoever is afterward proposed to us under: ficknefs, we immediately judge it naufeeus:our fancy has fo clofely joined thefe ideas together, that we know not how to separate them: then the ftomach feels the difguft, and perhaps refuses the only drug that can preferve life. So a child who has been let blood joins the ideas of pain and the furgeontogether, that he hates the fight of the furgeon, because he thinks of his pain or if he has drunk a bitter potion, he conceives a bitter idea of the cup which held it, and will drink nothing out of that cup.

It is for the fame realon that the bulk of the common people are fo fuperftitioufly fond of the Pialmstranflated by Hopkins and Sternhold, and think them facred and divine, becaufe they have been now for than an hundred years bound up in the fame co-vers with our bibles.

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The beft relief against this prejudice of affociation, is to confider, whether there be any natural and neceflary. connection between thofe ideas which fancy, custom, or chance hath thus joined together and if nature has not joined them, let our judgment correct the folly of | our imagination, and feparate those ideas again.

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SECT. II.

Prejudices arifing from Words.

UR ideas and words are fo linked together, that while we judge of things according to words, we are led into feveral mistakes. These may be diftributed. under two general heads, (viz.) fuch as arife from fingle words or phrafes, or fuch as arife from words join-ed in fpeech, and compofing a discourse.

I. The most eminent and remarkable errors of the firit kind are thefe three. (1.) When our words are infignificant, and have no ideas; as when the mystical divines talk of the prayer of filence, the fupernatural and paffive night of the foul, the vacuity of powers, the fufpention of all thoughts; or (2.) when our words are equivocal, and fignify two or more ideas, as the words law, light, fleth, fpirit, righteoufnefs, and many other terms in fcripture; or (3.) when two or three words lare fynonymous, and fignify one idea, as regeneration and new creation in the new teftament; both which mean only a change of the heart from fin to holiness; or as the elector of Cologn and bishop of Cologn are two titles of the fame man.

Thefe kinds of phrases are the occafions of various mistakes: but none fo unhappy as those in theology: for both words without ideas, as well as fynonymous and equivocal words have been used and abused by the humours, paffions, interefts, or by the real ignorance and weakness of men, to beget terrible contefts among chriftians.

But to relieve us under all thofe dangers, and to remove thofe forts of prejudices which arife from single words or phrases, I must remit the reader to part I, chap. 4. where I have treated about words, and to thofe directions which I have given concerning the definition of names, part I. chap. 6. fect 3.

II. There is another fort of falfe judgments or miftakes which we are exposed to by words; and that is when they are joined in fpeech, and compofe a difcourfe; and here we are in danger two ways.

The one is when a man writes good fente, or speaks much to the purpofe, but he has not a happy and engaging manner of expreflion. Perhaps he ufes coarte and vulgar words, or old, obfolete, and unfashionable language, or terms and phrafes that are foreign, latinized, fcholaftic, very uncommon, and hard to be underitood: and this is ftill worfe, if his fentences are long and intricate, or the found of them harfh and grating to the ear. All thefe indeed are defects in style, and lead fome nice and unthinking hearers or readers into an ill opinion of all that fuch a perfon fpeaks or writes.

Many an excellent difcourfe of our forefathers has had abundance of contempt cast upon it by our modern pre-tenders to fenfe, for want of their diftinguishing be-tween the language and the ideas.

On the other hand, when a man of eloquence fpeaks or writes upon any fubject, we are too ready to run into his fentiments, being fweetly and infenfibly drawnby the fmoothnefs of his harangue, and the pathetic power of his language. Rhetoric will varnish every error so that it fhall appear in the dress of truth, and put fuch ornaments upon vice, as to make it look like virtue it is an art of wondrous and extenfive influence: it often conceals, obfcures or overwhelms the truth, and places fometimes a grofs falfhood in a moft alluring light. The decency of action, the music of the voice, the harmony of the periods, the beauty of the: ftile, and all the engaging airs of the fpeaker, have often charmed the hearers into error, and perfu.ded: them to approve whatfoever is propofed in fo agreeable a manner. A large affembly itands expofed at once to› the power of thefe prejudices, and imbibes them all... So Cicero and Demofthenes made the Romans and the Athenians believe almoft whatfoever they pleased..

The beft defence against both thefe dangers, is to learn the fkill (as much as poffible) of feparating our thoughts and ideas from words and phrafes, to judge of the things in their own natures, and in their natural or juft relation to one another, abftracted from the use of language, and to maintain a steady and obftinate refo-lution, to hearken to nothing but truth, in whatfoever style or drefs it appears.

Then we fhall hear a fermon of pious and just senti-ments with esteem and reverence, though the preacher has but an unpolifhed ftyle, and many defects in the manner of his delivery. Then we fhall neglect and difregard all the flattering infinuations whereby the orator would make way for his own fentiments to take poffeffion of our fouls, if he has not folid and inftruc-tive fenfe equal to his language. Oratory is a happytalent, when it is rightly employed to excite the paffionsto the practice of virtue and piety; but to speak properly, this art hath nothing to do in the fearch after truth..

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SECT III.

Prejudices arifing from ourselves.

EITHER words nor things would so often lead us aftray from truth, if we had not within ourselves fuch fprings of error as thefe that follow.

I. Many errors are derived from our weakness of reafon, and incapacity to judge of things in our infant ftate. Thefe are called the prejudices of infancy. We frame early mistakes about the common objects which furround us, and the common affairs of life: we fancy the nurfe is our best friend, because children receive from their nurfes their food and other conveniences of life. We judge that books are very unpleasant things, because perhaps we have been driven to them by the fcourge. We judge alfo that the fky touches the diftant hills, because we cannot inform ourselves better in childhood. We believe the ftars are not rifen till the fun is fet, because we never fee them by day. But fome of these errors, may feem to be derived from the next spring.

The way to cure the prejudices of infancy is to diftinguish, as far as we can, which are thofe opinions which we framed in perfect childhood, to remember that at that time our reafon was incapable of forming a right judgment, and to bring thefe propofitions again to be examined at the bar of mature reafon.

II. Our fenfes give us many a false information of things, and tempt us to judge amifs. This is called the prejudice of fenfe, as when we fuppofe the fun and moon to be flat bodies, and to be but a few inches broad, because they appear so to the eye. Senfe inclines us to judge that air has no weight, because we do not feel it preis heavy upon us; and we judge also by our senses that cold and heat, fweet and four, red and blue, &c. are fuch real properties in the objects themfelves, and exactly like thofe fenfations which they excite in us.