The Truth is, that the Condition of our Present State is such, that we can’t do _any_ thing, much less what’s Great and Excellent without some Pain and Weariness of the Flesh; even our very Pleasures are accompanied with Pain, nor wou’d they relish without it, this is the Sauce that recommends them. And why then shall we be averse to the taking a little Pains in that Case only in which ’twill be worth our while? A Title, an Estate, or Place, can neither be got nor kept without some difficulty and trouble; an Amour, nay even a paltry Dress can’t be manag’d without some Thought and Concern, and are our Minds the only thing that do not need, or not deserve them? Has our Bountiful Lord set no limits to our Happiness but the Capacity of our Nature, and shall we set less, and not strive to extend our Capacities to their utmost reach? Has the obliging Son of GOD thought · no difficulties too mighty, no Pain too great to undergo for the Love of us, and shall we be so disingenuous and ungrateful as to think a few hours Solitude, a little Meditation and Watchfulness too much to return to his Love? No certainly, we cannot have such narrow groveling hearts; no we are all on Fire, and only want to know wherein to employ our Activity, and how to manage it to the best advantage, which if we wou’d do we must in the next place. §. II. Disengage our selves from all our former Prejudices, from our Opinion of Names, Authorities, Customs and the like, not give credit to any thing any longer because we have once believ’d it, but because it carries clear and uncontested Evidence along with it. I shou’d think there needed no more to persuade us to this, than a consideration of the mischiefs these Prejudices do us. These are the grand hindrance in our search after Truth; these dispose us for the reception of Error, and when we have imbib’d confirm us in it; Contract our Souls and shorten our views, hinder the free range of our Thoughts and confine them only to that particular track which these have taken; and in a word, erect a Tyranny over our free born Souls, whilst they suffer nothing to pass for True that has not been stampt at their own Mint. But this is not all their mischief, they are really the root of Scepticism; for when we have taken up an Opinion on weak Grounds and stifly adher’d to it, coming afterwards by some chance or other to be convinc’d of its falseness, the same disposition which induc’d us to receive the Premises without Reason, now inclines us to draw as false a Conclusion from them; and because we seem’d once well assur’d of what now appears to have nothing in’t to make us so, therefore we fancy there’s nothing certain, that all our Notions are but Probabilities, which stand or fall according to the Ingenuity of their Managers, and so from an unreasonable Obstinacy we pass on to as unreasonable a Levity; so smooth is the transition from believing too easily and too much, to the belief of just nothing at all.