female world to the only bufinefs of the needle,, and fecluded them moft unmercifully from the pleasures of knowledge, and the divine improvements of reafon ? But we begin to break all these chains, and reason begins to dictate the education of youth. May the growing age be learned and wife!

It is by the prejudice arifing from our own customs, that we judge of all other civil and religious forms and practices. The rites and ceremonies of war and peace in other nations, the forms of weddings and funerals, the feveral ranks of magiftracy, the trades and employments of both fexes, the public and the domeftic affairs of life, and almoft every thing of foreign cultoms, is judged irregular. It is all imagined to be unreasonable or unnatural, by those who have no other rule to judge of nature and reason, but the cuftoms of their own country, or the little town where they dwell. Custom is called a second nature, but we often mistake it for nature itself.

Befides all this, there is a fashion in opinions, there is a fashion in writing and printing, in style and language. In our day it is the vogue of the nation, that parliaments may fettle the fucceffion of the crown, and that a people can make a king; in the last age this was a doctrine a-kin to treafon. Citations from the Latin poets were an embellishment of ftyle in the last century, and whole pages in that day were covered with them; it is now forbidden by custom and exposed by the name of pedantry; whereas in truth both these are extremes. Sometimes our printed books fhall abound in capitals and fometimes reject them all. Now we deal much in effays, and moft unreasonably defpife fyftematic learning, whereas our fathers had a juft value for regularity and fyftems; then folio's and quarto's were the fashionable fizes, as volumes in octavo are now. We are ever ready to run into extremes, and yet custom still perfuades us that reafon and nature are on our fide..

This bufinefs of the fashions has a most powerful influence on our judgments; for it employs those two ftrong engines of fear and fhame to operate upon our underitandings with unhappy fuccefs. We are afham

ed to believe or profefs an unfafhionable opinion in philosophy, and a cowardly foul dares not so much as indulge a thought contrary to the established or fa-, fhionable faith, nor act in oppofition to cuftom, though it be according to the dictates of reafon.

I confess, there is a refpect due to mankind, which fhould incline even the wifeft of men to follow the innocent customs of their country in outward practices of the civil life, and in fome measure to submit to fashion in all indifferent affairs, where reafon and scripture make no remonftrances against it. But the judgments of the mind ought to be for ever free, and not biaffed by the customs and fashions of any age or nation whatsoever.

To deliver our understandings from this danger and flavery, we should confider thefe three things:

1. That the greatest part of the civil cuftoms of any particular nation or age fpring from humour rather than reason. Sometimes the humour of the prince prevails, and sometimes the humour of the people. It is either the great or the many who dictate the fashion, and these have not always the higheft reafon on their fide.

2. Confider alfo, that the customs of the fame nation in different ages, the customs of different nations in the fame age, and the customs of different towns and villages in the fame nation, are very various, and contrary to each other. The fashionable learning, language, fentiments and rules of politenefs differ greatly in different countries and ages of mankind; but truth and reason are of a more uniform and fteady nature, and do not change with the fashion. Upon this account, to cure the prepoffeffions which arife from cuftom, it is of excellent use to travel, and fee the customs of various countries, and to read the travels of other men, and the hiftory of paft ages, that every thing may not feem ftrange and uncouth, which is not practifed within the limits of our own parish, or in the narrow space of our own life time.

3. Confider yet again, how often we ourselves have changed our own opinions concerning the decency, propriety, or congruity of feveral modes or practices

in the world, especially if we have lived to the age of thirty or forty. Custom or fashion, even in all its changes, has been ready to have some degree of ascendency over our understandings, and what at one time. feemed decent appears obfolete and difagreeable afterwards, when the fashion changes. Let us learn therefore to abstract as much as poffible from custom and fashion, when we would pass a judgment concerning the real value and intrinsic nature of things.

III. The authority of men is the fpring of another rank of prejudices.

Among these the authority of our forefathers and ancient authors is most remarkable. We pay deference to the opinions of others, merely because they lived a thousand years before us; and even the trifles and impertinencies that have a mark of antiquity upon them are reverenced for this reason, because they came from the ancients. It is granted, that the ancients had many wife and great men among them, and fome of their writings, which time hath delivered down to us, are truly valuable but those writers lived rather in the infant ftate of the world; and the philofophers, as well. as the polite authors of our age, are properly the elders, who have seen the mistakes of the younger ages of mankind, and corrected them by obfervation and experience.

Some borrow all their religion from the fathers of the Chriftian church, or from their fynods or councils; but he, that will read Monfieur Daille on the use of the fathers, will find many reafons why they are by no means fit to dictate our faith, fince we have the gofpel of Chrift, and the writings of the apostles and prophets in our own hands.

Some perfons believe every thing that their kindreds, their parents, and their tutors believe. The veneration and the love which they have for their ancestors incline them to fwallow down all their opinions at once, without examining what truth or falfehood there is in them. Men take up their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their eftates, because they are born heirs to them. I freely grant, that pas

rents are appointed by God and nature to teach us all the fentiments and practices of our younger years; and happy are thofe whofe parents lead them into the paths of wisdom and truth! I grant farther, that when perfons come to years of difcretion, and judge for themfelves, they ought to examine the opinions of their parents with the greatest modefty, and with an humble deference to their fuperior character; they ought, in matters perfectly dubious, to give the preference to their parent's advice, and always to pay them the first respect, nor ever depart from their opinions and practice, till reason and conscience make it neceffary. But after all, it is poffible that parents may be mistaken, and therefore reafon and fcripture ought to be our final rules of determination in matters that relate to this world, and that which is to come.

Sometimes a favourite author, or a writer of great name, drags a thousand followers after him into his own mistakes, merely by the authority of his name and character. The fentiments of Ariftotle were imbibed and maintained by all the schools in Europe for feveral centuries; and a citation from his writings was thought a fufficient proof of any propofition. The great Defcartes had alfo too many implicit believers in the laft age, though he himself, in his philofophy, difclaims all fuch influence over the minds of his readers. Calvin and Luther, in the days of reformation from popery, were learned and pious men, and there have been a fucceffion of their difciples even to this day, who pay too much reverence to the words of their mafters. There are others who renounce their authority, but give themfelves up in too fervile a manner to the opinion and authority of other masters, and follow as bad or worse guides in religion.

If only learned, and wife, and good men had inAuence on the sentiments of others, it would be at least a more excufable fort of prejudice, and there would be fome colour and fhadow of reafon for it; but that riches, honours, and outward fplendor fhould fet up perfons for dictators to all the rest of mankind; this is a most shameful invafion of the right of our understandings on the one hand, and as fhameful a flavery of the R

foul on the other. The poor man, or the labourer, too often believes fuch a principle in politics, or in morality, and judges concerning the rights of the king and the people, just as his wealthy neighbours do. Half the parifh follows the opinion of the efquire, and the tenants of a manor fall into the fentiments of their lord, efpecially if he live amongst them. How unreasonable and yet how common is this!

As for principles of religion, we frequently find how they are taken up and forfaken, changed and resumed by the influence of princes. In all nations the priests have much power alfo in dictating the religion of the people, but the princes dictate to them: And where there is a great pomp and grandeur attending the priesthood in any religion whatfoever, with fo much the more reverence and stronger faith do the people believe whatever they teach them: yet it is too often evident that riches, and dominions, and high titles in church or ftate, have no manner of pretence to truth and certainty, wisdom and goodness, above the rest of mortals, because these fuperiorities in this world are not always conferred according to merit.

I confefs, where a man of wisdom and years, of obfervation and experience, gives us his opinion and advice in matters of the civil or the moral life, reafon tells us we fhould pay a great attention to him, it is probable he may be in the right. Where a man of long exercise or piety speaks of practical religion, there is a due deference to be paid to his fentiments: and the same we may fay concerning an ingenious man long versed in any art or science, he may juftly expect due regard, when he speaks of his own affairs and proper business. But in other things each of thefe may be ignorant enough, notwithstanding all their piety and years, and particular fkill: nor even in their own proper province are they to be believed in every thing without reserve, and without examination.

Tofree ourselves from these prejudices, it is fufficient to remember, that there is no rank nor character among mankind, which has any just pretence to sway the judgments of other men by their authority; for there have been perfons of the fame rank and character