2. A dogmatical spirit naturally leads us to arrogance of mind, and gives a man some airs in conversation, which are too haughty and assuming. Audens is a man of learning and very good company, but his infallible assurance renders his carriage sometimes unsupporta ble. Loosen

13.Adogmatical spirit inclines a man to be censorious of his neighbours. Every one of his opinions appear to him written as it were with sun-beams, and he grows angry that his neighbour does not see it in the same light. He is tempted to disdain his correspondents as men of a low and dark understanding, because they will not believe what he does. Furio goes further in this wild track, and charges those who refuse his notions, with wilful obstinacy and vile hypocrisy; he tells them boldly, that they resist the truth, and sin against their consciences. svan Bugil ogstworth

59These are the men, that when they deal in controversy, delight in reproaches. They abound in tossing about absurdity and stupidity among their brethren: they cast the imputation of heresy and nonsense plentifully upon their antagonists; and in matters of sacred importance they deal out their anathemas in abundance upon chris tians better than themselves; they denounce damnation upon their neighbours without either justice or mercy, and when they pronounce sentences of divine wrath against supposed heretics, they add their own human fire and indignation. A dogmatist in religion is not a great way off from a bigot, and is in high danger of growing up to be a bloody persecutor.

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XI. Though caution and slow assent will guard you against frequent mistakes and retractations, yet you should get humility and courage enough to retract any mistake, and confess an error; frequent changes are tokens of levity, in our first determinations; yet you should never be too proud to change your opinion, nor frighted 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 judge falsely; and it is wiser to withhold our assent till we see complete evidence ; but if we have too suddenly given up 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 that is found among the occasional papers to encourage the world to practice retractations; and I would recommend it to the perusal of every søhelar and every christian.

XII. He that would raise his judgment 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 overrun with follies.

The notion of a humourist is one that is greatly pleas ed 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.

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Where this practice is allowed, it will insensibly warp the judgment 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 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 judgment on the other side, and incline you to pass a low esteem on the most valuable objects. Whatsoever evil habit we indulge in practice, it will insensibly obtain a power rove 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 judgments 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 judgment. 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 pas sion enfeebles the powers of reason, it makes the judgment weak and susceptive of every falsehood, and especially of such mistakes as have a tendency toward 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.

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 judgment, that he abuses and spoils the faculty itself. It is thus in the nature of things, and it is thus by the righteous judgment 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, eis vv ádóximov, an undistinguishing or injudicious mind, so that they judged inconsistently and practised mere absurdities, rà un ȧvnxovтa, Rom. i, 28

And it is the character of the slaves of antichrist, 2 Thess.ii. 10. &c. that those who receive not the love of the truth were exposed to the power of diabolical sleights 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 în the popish world is a most glaring accomplishment of this prophecy beyond ever what could have been thought of or expected amongst creatures who pretend to reason.

XV. Watch against the pride of your own reason, and a vain conceit of your own 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 understandings entirely are pronounced fools in the word of God, and it is 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 under standings, nor to be wise in our own eyes, Chap, iii. 5. 7,

Those who with a neglect of religion and dependance on 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,

XVI. Offer up therefore your daily requests to God the father of lights, that he would bless all your attempts