A TREATISE, SHEWING THE NATURE AND BENEFIT OF That important Science, AND THE WAY TO ATTAIN IT. INTERMIXED WITH Various Reflections and Obfervations ON HUMAN NATURE. BY JOHN MASON, A. M. e Calo defcendit γνωθι σεαυτον, Jυν. THE THIRTEENTH EDITION. LONDON: Printed for C. DILLY; F. and C. Rivington; J. Mat- M,DCC,XCVII. PREFACE. TH HE fubject of the enfuing Treatife is of great importance; and yet I do not remember to have feen it cultivated with. that precifion, perfpicuity, and force, with which many other moral and theological themes have been managed. And indeed it is but rarely that we find it profeffedly and fully recommended to us, in a fet and regular difcourfe, either from the pulpit or the prefs. This confideration, together with a full perfuafion of its great and extenfive usefulness, hath excited the prefent attempt, to render it more familiar to the minds of chriftians. Mr. Baxter, indeed, has a Treatife on this fubject, intitled, The Mifchief of SelfIgnorance, and the Benefit of Self-Acquaintance; and I freely acknowledge fome helps I received from him. But he handled it (according to his manner) in fo lax and diffufive away, introducing fo many things that are foreign from it; omitting others. that properly belong to it, and skimming over fome with a too fuperficial notice, that I own I found myfelf much difappointed in what I expected from him; and was convinced that fomething more correct, nervous, and methodical, was wanting on this fubject. I am far from having the vanity to think that this, which I now offer to the public, is entirely free from thofe faults which I have remarked in that pious and excellent author; and am fenfible that, if I do not fall under a much heavier cenfure myself, it must be owing to the great candour of my reader; which he will be convinced I have fome title to, if he but duly confider the nature and extent of the fubject. For it is almoft impoffible to let the thoughts run freely upon fo copious and comprehenfive a theme, in order to do justice to it, without taking too large a fcope in fome particulars that have a clofe connexion with it; as I fear I have done (Part I. chap. xiv.) concerning the knowledge, guard, and government of the thoughts. But there is a great difference between a fhort, occafional, and useful digreffion, and a wide rambling from the fubject, by following the impulfe of a luxuriant fancy. A judicious tafte can hardly excufe the latter, though it may be content the author fhould gather gather a few flowers out of the common road, provided he foon returns into it again. This brings to my mind another thing, for which I am fure I have great reafon to crave the reader's indulgence; and that is, the free use I have made of fome of the ancient heathen writers in my marginal quotations; which I own, looks like an oftentation of reading, shat I always abhorred. But it was converfing with thofe authors that firft turned my thoughts to this fubject. And the good fenfe I met with in most of their aphorifms and fentiments, gave me an efteem for them; and made it difficult for me to refift the temptation of transcribing feveral of them, which I thought pertinent to the matter in hand. But, after all, I am ashamed to fee what an old-fashioned figure they make in the margin. However, if the reader thinks they will too much interrupt the courfe of the subject, he may entirely omit them; tho' by that means he will perhaps lofe the benefit of fome of the fineft fentiments in the book. I remember a modern writer, I have very lately read, is grievously offended with Mr. Addison for fo much as mentioning the name of Plato, and prefuming, in one of his Spectators, to deliver his notions of humour in a kind of allegory, after the man |