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 propofed to us under fickness, we immediately judge it naufe-ous our fancy has fo clofely joined thefe ideas together, that we know not how to feparate them thenthe 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 furgeon together, 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 reason that the bulk of the common people are fo fuperftitioufly fond of the Palms tranflated by Hopkins and Sternhold, and think themfacred and divine, becaufe they have been now for more than an hundred years bound up in the fame covers with our bibles.

The best relief againft 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 thofe ideas again.

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SECT. II.

Prejudices arifing from Words.

UR ideas and words are fo linked together, thatt

OUR while we judge of things according to words, we

are led into feveral miftakes. These may be diftributed under two general heads, (viz.) fuch as arife from finegle words or phrafes, or fuch as arise from words joined in fpeech, and compofing a discourse.

I. The most eminent and remarkable errors of the firit kind are these 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 fufpenfion of all thoughts; or (2.) when our words are equivocal, and fignify two or more ideas, as the words. law, light, flefh, fpirit, righteoufnefs, and many other terms in fcripture; or (3.) when two or three words are 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 phrafes are the occafions of various miftakes but none fo unhappy as thofe 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 contests among chriftians.

But to relieve us under all thofe dangers, and to remove those forts of prejudices which arise from single words or phrafes, I must remit the reader to part I. chap. 4. where I have treated about words, and to thole 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 expofed to by words; and that is when they are joined in fpeech, and compofe a discourse; and here we are in danger two ways.

The one is when a man writes good fenfe, or fpeaks much to the purpofe, but he has not a happy and engaging manner of expreflion. Perhaps he ufes coarfe and vulgar words, or old, obfolete, and unfashionable language, or terms and phrafes that are foreign, latinized, fcholaftic, very uncommon, and hard to be underftood and this is ftill worfe, if his fentences are long and intricate, or the found of them harsh and grating to the ear. All these indeed are defects in ftyle, 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 caft upon it by our modern pre-tenders to fenfe, for want of their diftinguifhing be-tween the language and the ideas.

On the other hand, when a man of eloquence speaks; or writes upon any fubject, we are too ready to run into his fentiments, being fweetly and infenfibly drawn: by the fmoothness of his harangue, and the pathetic power of his language. Rhetoric will varnish every error fo 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 stile, and all the engaging airs of the fpeaker, have often charmed the hearers into error, and perfuaded. them to approve whatsoever is proposed in so agreeable a. manner. A large affembly ftands expofed at once to the power of these prejudices, and imbibes them all. So Cicero and Demofthenes made the Romans and the Athenians believe almost whatfoever they pleafed.

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 just relation to one another, abstracted from the use of language, and to maintain a steady and obftinate refo-lution, to hearken to nothing but truth, in whatsoever ftyle 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 unpolished 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 inftructive fenfe equal to his language. Oratory is a happy talent, when it is rightly employed to excite the paflions to 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 itate. These 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 nurse is our best friend, becaufe children receive from their nurfes their food and other conveniences of life. We judge that books are very unpleafant 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 see them by day. But fome of thefe errors, may feem to be derived from the next spring.

The way to cure the prejudices of infancy is to diftinguifh, 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 falfe 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. Sense inclines us to judge that air has no weight, because we do not feel it prefs heavy upon us; and we judge alfo by our senses that cold and heat, fweet and four, red and blue, &c. are fuch real properties in the objects themselves, and exactly like those sensations which they excite in us.

Note. Those mistakes of this fort which all mankind drop and lofe in their advancing age, are called mere prejudices of infancy, but thofe which abide with the vulgar part of the world, and generally with all men, till learning and philofophy cure them, more properly attain the name of prejudices of fenfe.

These prejudices are to be removed feveral ways. (1.) By the affiftance of one fenfe we cure the miftakes of another, as when a stick thrust into the water seems crooked, we are prevented from judging it to be really fo in itself, for when we take it out of the water, both our fight and our feeling agree and determine it to be ftrait. (2.) The exercife of our reafon, and an application to mathematical and philofophical ftudies, cures many other prejudices of fenfe, both with relation to the heavenly and earthly bodies. (3.) We fhould remember that our fenfes have often deceived us in various inftances, that they give but a confused and imperfect representation of things in many cafes, that they often reprefent falfly thofe very objects to which they feem to be fuited, fuch as the fhape, motion, fize and fituation of grofs bodies, if they are but placed at a dif tance from us; and as for the minute particles of which bodies are compofed, our fenfes cannot diftinguish them, (4.) We fhould remember alfo, that one prime and original defign of our fenfes, is to inform us what various relations the bodies that are round about us bear to our own animal body, and to give us notice what is pleasant and useful, or what is painful and injurious to us; but they are not fufficient of themselves to lead us into a philofophical acquaintance with the inward nature of things. It must be confeffed it is by the assistance of the eye, and the ear efpecially (which are called the fenfes of difcipline) that our minds are furnished with various parts of knowledge, by reading, hearing, and obferving things divine and human; yet reason ought always to accompany the exercife of our fenfes whenever we would form a just judgment of things proposed to our enquiry.

Here it is proper to obferve also, that as the weaknefs of reason in our infancy, and the dictates of our fenfes, fometimes in advancing years, lead the wifer