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how to hide and color them, but not much to amend them; like an ill mower, that mows on still, and never whets his scythe. Whereas, with the learned man it fares otherwise, that he doth ever intermix the correction and amendment of his mind with the use and employment thereof. Nay, farther, in general and in sum, - certain it is that truth and goodness differ but as the seal and the print: for truth prints goodness; and they be the clouds of error which descend in the storms of passion and perturbations.

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The knowledge we acquire in this world, I am apt to think, extends not beyond the limits of this life. The beatific vision of the other life needs not the help of this dim twilight; but be that as it will, I am sure the principal end why we are to get knowledge here, is to make use of it for the benefit of ourselves and others in this world; but if, by gaining it we destroy our health, we labor for a thing that will be useless in our hands; and if by harassing our bodies, (though with a design to render ourselves more useful,) we deprive ourselves of the abilities and opportunities of doing that good we might have done with a meaner talent, which God thought sufficient for us, by having denied us the strength to improve it to that pitch which men of stronger constitutions can attain to, we rob God of so much service, and our neighbor of all that help which, in a state of health, with moderate knowledge, we might have been able to perform. He that sinks his vessel by overloading it, though it be

with gold and silver, and precious stones, will give his owner but an ill account of his voyage.

It being past doubt, then, that allowance is to be made for the temper and strength of our bodies, and that our health is to regulate the measure of our studies, the great secret is to find out the proportion; the difficulty whereof lies in this, that it must not only be varied according to the constitution and strength of every individual man, but it must also change with the temper, vigor, and circumstances and health of every particular man, in the different varieties of health, or indisposition of body, which every thing our bodies have any commerce with is able to alter: so that it is as hard to say how many hours a day a man shall study constantly, as to say how much meat he shall eat, every day, wherein his own prudence, governed by the present circumstances, can only judge. The regular proceeding of our watch not being the fit measure of time, but the secret motions of a much more curious engine, our bodies, being to limit out the proportion of time in this occasion; however, it may be so contrived that all the time may not be lost, for the conversation of an ingenious friend upon what one hath read in the morning, or any other profitable subject, may perhaps let into the mind as much improvement of knowledge, though with less prejudice to the health, as settled solemn poring over books, which we generally call study; which, though no necessary part, yet I am sure is not the only, and perhaps not the best, way of improving the understanding.

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As the body, so the mind, also, gives laws to our studies; I mean to the duration and continuance of them; let it be never so capacious, never so active, it is not capable of constant labor nor total rest. The labor of the mind is study, or intention of thought, and when we find it is weary, either in

pursuing other men's thoughts, as in reading, or tumbling or tossing its own, as in meditation, it is time to give off, and let it recover itself. Sometimes meditation gives a refreshment to the weariness of reading, and vice versû, sometimes the change of ground, i. e., going from one subject or science to another rouses the mind, and fills it with fresh vigor; oftentimes discourse enlivens it when it flags, and puts an end to the weariness without stopping it one jot, but rather forwarding it in its journey; and sometimes it is so tired, that nothing but a perfect relaxation will serve the turn. All these are to be made use of, according as every one finds most successful in himself, to the best husbandry of his time and thought.

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It is a duty we owe to God, as the fountain and author of all truth, who is truth itself; and it is a duty also we owe to our own selves, if we will deal candidly and sincerely with our own souls, to have our minds constantly disposed to entertain and receive truth wheresoever we meet with it, or under whatsoever appearance of plain or ordinary, strange, new, or, perhaps, displeasing, it may come in our way. Truth is the proper object, the proper riches and furniture of the mind; and according as his stock of this is, so is the difference and value of one man above another. He that fills his head with vain notions and false opinions, may have his mind perhaps puffed up, and seemingly much enlarged, but, in truth, it is narrow and empty; for all that it comprehends, all that it contains, amounts to nothing, or

less than nothing; for falsehood is below ignorance, and a lie worse than nothing.

Our first and great duty, then, is to bring to our studies and to our inquiries after knowledge, a mind covetous of truth; that seeks after nothing else, and after that impartially, and embraces it, how poor, how contemptible, how unfashionable soever it may seem. This is that which all studious men profess to do, and yet it is that where I think very many miscarry. Who is there, almost, that has not opinions planted in him by education, time out of mind; which by that means come to be as the municipal laws of the country, which must not be questioned, but are then looked on with reverence, as the standards of right and wrong, truth and falsehood; when, perhaps, these so sacred opinions were but the oracles of the nursery, or the traditional grave talk of those who pretend to inform our childhood; who received them from hand to hand, without ever examining them. This is the fate of our tender age, which being thus seasoned early, it grows by continuation of time, as it were into the very constitution of the mind, which afterwards very difficultly receives a different tincture. When we are grown up, we find the world divided into bands and companies; not only as congregated under several polities and governments, but united only upon account of opinions, and in that respect, combined strictly one with another, and distinguished from others, especially in matters of religion. If birth or chance have not thrown a man young into any of these, which yet seldom fails to happen, choice, when he is grown up, certainly puts him into some or other of them; often out of an opinion that that party is in the right, and, sometimes, because he finds it is not safe to stand alone, and therefore thinks it convenient to herd somewhere. Now, in every one of these parties of men there are a certain number of opin

ions which are received and owned as the doctrines and tenets of that society, with the profession and practice whereof all who are of their communion ought to give up themselves, or else they will be scarce looked on as of that society, or at best, be thought but lukewarm brothers, or in danger to apostatise.

It is plain, in the great difference and contrariety of opinions that are amongst these several parties, that there is much falsehood and abundance of mistakes in most of them. Cunning in some, and ignorance in others, first made them keep them up; and yet how seldom is it that implicit faith, fear of losing credit with the party or interest, (for all these operate in their turns,) suffers any one to question the tenet of his party; but altogether in a bundle he receives, embraces, and without examining, he professes, and sticks to them, and measures all other opinions by them. Worldly interest also insinuates into several men's minds divers opinions, which suiting with their temporal advantage, are kindly received, and, in time, so rivetted there, that it is not easy to remove them. By these, and, perhaps other means, opinions come to be settled and fixed in men's minds, which, whether true or false, there they remain in reputation, as substantial, material truths, and so are seldom questioned or examined by those who entertain them; and if they happen to be false, as, in most men, the greatest part must necessarily be, they put a man quite out of the way in the whole course of his studies; and, though in his reading and inquiries, he flatters himself that his design is to inform his understanding in the real knowledge of truth, yet in effect it tends and reaches to nothing but the confirming of his already received opinions, the things he meets with in other men's writings and discoveries being received or neglected as they hold proportion with those anticipations which before had taken possession of his mind.

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