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Watchfulness, which is always neceffary,

is chiefly fo, when the firft affaults are made for then the enemy is most easily repulsed, if we never fuffer him to get ⚫ within us, but upon the first approach

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'draw up our forces, and fight him without ⚫ the gate and this will be more manifeft, • if we observe by what methods and degrees temptations grow upon us. —— The first thing that presents itself to the mind is a plain single thought; this ftreight is improved into a strong imagination; that again ⚫ enforced by a fenfible delight; then follow • evil motions; and when these are once ftir

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red, there wants nothing but the affent of the will, and then the work is finifhed. Now the first fteps to this are seldom thought worthy of our care, and fome• times not taken notice of; whence the enemy is frequently near us, and even within our trenches, before we observe • him (e).'

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As men have their particular fins, which moft eafily befet them; fo they have their particular temptations, which do moft eafily overcome them. That may be a very great temptation to one, which is none at all to another. And if a man fhould not know what

(e) Stanhope's Thomas à Kempis, pag. 22.

what are his greatest temptations, he must have been a great stranger indeed to the bufinefs of felf-employment.

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As the subtle enemy of mankind takes care to draw men gradually into fin, so he ufually draws them by degrees into temptation. As he disguises the fin, fo he conceals the temptation to it: well knowing, that were they but once fenfible of the danger of fin, they would be on their guard against it. Would we know ourselves thoroughly, then, we must get acquainted not only with our most usual temptations, that we be not unawares drawn into fin, but with the previous fteps and preparatory circumftances, which make way for those temptations, that we be not drawn unawares into the occafions of fin; for those things which lead us into temptations are to be confidered as temptations, as well as those which immediately lead us into fin. And a man that knows himself will be aware of his remote temptations, as well as the more immediate ones; e. g. If he find the company of a paffionate man is a temptation (as Solomon tells us it is, Prov. xxii. 24, 25.) he will not only avoid it, but those occafions that may lead him into it. And the petition in the Lord's Prayer makes it as much a man's duty to be upon his guard againft temptation, as under it. Nor can a

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man pray from his heart that GOD would not lead him into temptation, if he take no care himself to avoid it.

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Self-Knowledge difcovers the fecret Prejudices of the Heart.

VIII.

NOTHER important branch of

A felf-knowledge is, for a man to be

acquainted with his own prejudices; or those fecret prepoffeffions of his heart, which, though fo deep and latent, that he may not be sensible of them, are often fo ftrong and prevalent, as to give a mighty but imperceptible bias to the mind.

There is no one particular that I know of wherein felf-knowledge more eminently confifts than it does in this. It being therefore fo effential a branch of my fubject, and a point to which men seldom pay an attention equal to its importance, I beg leave to treat it with a little more precision.

These prejudices of the human mind may be confidered with regard to opinions, perfons, and things.

(1.) With regard to opinions.

It is a common observation, but well expreffed by a late celebrated writer, that we G • fet

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fet out in life with fuch poor beginnings of knowledge, and grow up under fuch re'mains of fuperftition and ignorance, fuch influences of company and fashion, such infinuations of pleasure, &c. that it is no ' wonder, if men acquire habits of thinking only in one way; that these habits in time grow rigid and confirmed; whence their ' minds come to be overcaft with thick prejudices, fcarce penetrable by any ray of truth, or light of reafon (ƒ).'

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There is no man but is more attached to one particular fet or scheme of opinions in philofophy, politics and religion, than he is to another; I mean, if he hath employed his thoughts at all about them. The queftion we should examine then is; how came we by these attachments? Whence are we so fond of these particular notions ? did we come fairly by them? or were they imposed upon us, and dictated to our eafy belief, before we were able to judge of them? This is moft likely. For the impreffions we early receive generally grow up with us, and are those we least care to part with. However, which way foever we came by them, they must be re-examined, and brought to the touchftone of found fenfe, folid reafon and

(f) See Religion of Nature del.n. pag. 129.

and plain Scripture. If they will not bear this after-scrutiny, they must be difmiffed, as ungenuine principles of truth, and as counterfeits imposed on us under the guise and femblance of it.

As Reafon and Scripture muft discover our prejudices to us, fo they only can affist us to get rid of them. By these are we to rectify, and to these are we to conform, all our opinions and fentiments in religion, as our only ftandard, exclufive of all other rules, light or authority whatsoever.

Care must farther be taken that we do not make Scripture and reason bend or fubmit to our notions; which would rather confirm our prejudices than cure them. For whatever cannot evidently be proved, without the aid of overftrained metaphors, and the arts of fophiftry, is much to be fufpected; which used to make archbishop Tillotfon say, non amo argutias in Theologia; I do not love fubtleties in divinity. But,

(2.) The human mind is very apt to be prejudiced either for or against certain perfons, as well as certain fentiments. And as prejudice will lead a man to talk very unreasonably with regard to the latter, fo will it lead him to act as unreasonably with regard to the former.

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