to folve the difficult, who have neglected or flightly paft over the eafy questions. RuleIV. "Leave no part of your fubject unexamined:" It being as neceffary to confider all that can let in light, as to fhut out all that is foreign to it. We may ftop fhort of truth, as well as over-run it ; and though we look never fo attentively on our proper object, if we read but half of it, we may be as much mistaken, as if we extended our fight beyond it. Some objects agree very well when obferved on one fide, which upon turning the other shew a great disparity. Thus the right angle of a triangle may be like to one part of a fquare, but compare the whole, and you will find them very different figures. A moral action may, in fome circumftances, be not only fit but neceffary, which in others, where time, place, and the like, have made an alteration, would be most improper; and if we venture to act on the former judgment, we may easily do amifs; if we would act as we ought, we must view its new face, and fee with what afpect that looks on us. To this rule belongs that of “dividing the fubject of our meditations into as many parts as we can, and as "fhall be neceffary to understand it perfectly." This indeed is most neceffary in difficult queftions, which will fcarce be unravelled but in this manner by pieces; and let us take care to make exact reviews, and to fum up our evidence justly, before we pass sentence and fix our judgment. Rule V. "Always keep your fubject directly in your eye, and closely purfue it through all your progrefs;" there being no better fign of a good understanding, than thinking closely and pertinently, and reafoning dependently, fo as to make the former part of our difcourfe fupport the latter; and this an illustration of that, carrying light and evidence in every step we take. The neglect of this rule is the caufe, why our difcoveries of truth are feldom exact, that fo much is often faid to little purpofe, and many intelligent and induftrious readers, when when they have read over a book, are very little wifer than when they began it. That the two laft rules may be the better obferved, it will be fit very often to look over our procefs, fo far as we have gone, that fo, by rendring our fubject familiar, we may the fooner arrive to an exact knowledge of it. Rule VI." Judge no farther than you perceive, and take not any thing for truth, which you do not evidently know to be fo." Indeed in fome cafes we are forced to content ourfelves with probability, but it were well if we did fo only, where it is plainly neceflary; that is, when the fubject of our meditation is fach, as we cannot poffibly have a certain knowledge of it, becaufe we are not furnished with proofs, which have a conftant and immutable connection with the ideas we apply them to; or because we cannot perceive it, which is our cafe in fuch exigencies, as oblige us to act prefently on a curfery view of the arguments propoíed to us, where we want time to trace them to the bottom, and to make ufe of fuch means as would difcover truth. I cannot think we are often driven to fuch ftraits in any confiderable affair, though I believe that very many fubjects may be propofed to us, concerning which we cannot readily pafs our judgment, either because we never confidered them before, or because we are wanting in fome means that lead to the knowledge of them. In which cafe, reafon wills that we fufpend our judgment until we can be better informed; nor would it have us remit our fearch after certainty, even in thofe very cafes, in which we may fometimes be forced to act only on probable grounds. For reafon cannot reft fatisfied with probabilities where evidence is poffible; our pasfions and interests may, but that does not incline us to leave off enquiring, left we happen to mcet fomewhat contrary to our defires. No: reafon requires us to continue our enquiries with all the industry we can, until they have put us in poffeflion of truth, and when we have found her, enjoins us to follow her, how oppofite VOL. I. P fever foever fhe may cause our latter actions to be our former. But by this we may learn, and so we may by every thing, that fuch weak and fallible creatures as we are, be fure to think candidly of those whofe opinions and actions differ from our own; because we do not know the neceffity of their affairs, nor in what ill circumftances they are placed, in refpect of truth. The state of the question being distinctly known, and certain ideas fixed to the terms we make use of, we fhall find fometimes, that the difference which was fuppofed to be between the things themselves, is only in the words, in the feveral ways we make use of to exprefs the fame idea. 66 If, upon looking into ourselves, we difcern that these different terms have but one and the fame idea, when we have corrected our expreffions, the controversy is at an end, and we need inquire no farther. "Thus if we are asked, whether God is infinitely perfect?" there needs no intermediate idea, to compare the idea of God, with that of infinite perfection, fince we may difcern them, on the very first view, to be one and the fame idea differently expreffed; which to go about to explain or prove, were only to cumber it with needlefs words, and to make what is clear, obfcure: for we injure a cause inftead of defending it, by attempting an explanation or proof of things fo clear, that as they do not need, fo perhaps they are not capable of any. But if it be a queftion, "whether there is a God, or a being infinitely perfect?" We then are to examine the agreement between our idea of God, and that of existence. Now this may be discerned by intuition; for upon a view of our ideas, we find that existence is a perfection, and the foundation of all other perfections, fince that which has no being, cannot be fuppofed to have any perfection. And though the idea of existence is not adequate to that of perfection, yet the idea of perfection includes that of exiftence, and if that idea were divided into parts, one part of it would exactly agree with this. If therefore we we will allow, that any being is infinite in all perfections, we cannot deny that that being exists: existence itself being one perfection, and fuch a one as all the reft are built upon. If unreasonable men will farther demand, "why is it neceffary that all perfections fhould be centered in one being? It is not enough that it be parcelled out among many? And though it be true, that that being which is "all perfection, muft needs exift, yet where is the neceffity of an all-perfect being?" We must then look about for proofs and intermediate ideas, and the objection itfelf will furnish us with one. For those many whofe particular ideas it would have joined together, to make a compound one of all perfection, are no other than creatures, as will appear if we confider our idea of particular being, and of creature; which are fo far from having any thing to diftinguish them, that in all points they refemble each other. Now this idea naturally fuggests to us that of creation, or a power of giving being to that, which before the exerting of that power had none; which idea, if we ufe it as a medium, will ferve to difcover to us the neceffity of an all-perfect being. Whatever has any perfection or excellency, which is all we mean here by perfection, must either have it of itself, or derive it from fome other being. Now creatures cannot have their perfection, because they have not their being, from themfelves; for to fuppofe that they made themselves, is an abfurdity too ridiculous to be ferioufly refuted; it is to fuppofe them to be, and not to be, at the fame time, and that when they were nothing, they were able to do the greatest matter. Nor can they derive their being and perfection from any other creature: for though fome particular beings may feem to be the cause of the perfection of others, as the watch-maker may be faid to be the caufe of the regular motions of the watch; yet trace it a little farther, and you will find this very cause shall need another, and fo without end until you come to the fountain head, to that all-perfect Being, who is the laft refort of our thoughts, and in whom they naturally and neceffarily terminate. If to this it be objected, that we as good as affirm that this all-perfect Being is his own maker, by faying he is felf-exiftent, and fo we fall into the fame abfurdity which we imputed to that opinion which fuppofes that creatures were their own maker, the reply is eafy we do not fay he made himself, we only affirm that his nature is fuch, that though we cannot fufficiently explain it, becaufe we cannot comprehend it, yet thus much we can difcern, that if he did not exist of himself, no other being could ever have existed. Thus either all must be swallowed up in an infinite nothing, if nothing can properly have that epithet; and we must fuppofe that neither we ourselves, nor any of those creatures about us, ever had, or ever can have a being; which is too ridiculous to imagine, or elfe we must needs have recourse to a felf-exifting being, who is the maker and lord of all things. And fince felf-existence must of neceffity be placed fomewhere, is it not much more natural and reasonable to place it in infinite perfection, than among poor frail creatures, whose origin we may trace, and whofe end we fee daily hastening? Since there are innumerable beings in the world, which have each of them their feveral excellencies or perfections; fince thefe can no more derive their perfections than their being from themselves, or from any other creature; fince a felf-exifting being is the result of our thoughts, the first and only true caufe, without which it is impoffible that any thing fhould ever have exifted; fince creatures with their being receive all that depends on it, from him their maker; fince none can give what he has not, and therefore he who communicates an innumerable variety of perfections to his creatures, even all that they enjoy, must needs entertain in himself all thofe beauties and perfections he is pleased to communicate to inferior beings. Nothing can be more plain and evident than that there is a God, and |