Again Self-love, an excellent Principle when true, but the worst and most mischievous when mistaken, disposes us to be retentive of our Prejudices and Errors, especially when it is joyn’d as most commonly it is with Pride and Conceitedness. The Condition of our present State (as was said before) in which we feel the force of our Passions e’re we discern the strength of our Reason, necessitates us to take up with such Principles and Reasonings to direct and determine these Passions as we happen to meet with, tho probably they are far from being just ones, and are such as Education or Accident not right Reason disposes us to; and being inur’d and habituated to these, we at last take them for our own, for parts of our dear beloved selves, and are as unwilling to be divorced from them as we wou’d be to part with a Hand or an Eye or any the most useful Member. Whoever talks contrary to these receiv’d Notions seems to banter us, to persuade us out of our very Senses, and does that which our Pride cannot bear, he supposes we’ve been all along deceiv’d and must begin anew: We therefore instead of depositing our old Errors, fish about for Arguments to defend ’em, and do not raise Hypotheses on the Discoveries we have made of Truth, but search for Probabilities to maintain our Hypotheses. And what’s the result of all this? Having set out in a wrong way we’re resolv’d to persist in it, we grope in the dark and quarrel with those who wou’d lead us out of it! But is there no Remedy for this disorder, since we hope that All are not irrecoverably lost, tho too many are so invellop’d in Prejudice that there’s little probability of disengaging them? Why really the best that I can think of at present is, to Resolve to be Industrious, and to think no Pains too much to purchase Truth; to consider that our Fore-fathers were Men of like Passions with us, and are therefore not to be Credited on the score of Authority but of Reason; to remember likewise our own Infirmity, the shortness of our Views, and the bias which our Passions and secular Interests give us; generously to disengage our selves from the deceptions of sense, from all sinister and little Designs, and honestly to search after Truth for no other End but the Glory of GOD, by the accomplishing of our Own and our Neighbours Minds, and when we have humbly implor’d, as now we may very well hope for the Divine Assistance, that the Father of Lights will shine upon us, and that He who is _the Way, the Truth and the Life_ will lead us into all Truth; why then we shou’d do well to take notice, That it is of no great consequence to us what our old Opinions are any farther than as we persist in ’em; that there’s no necessity that they shou’d be true, but ’tis highly necessary we shou’d fix on what is so; therefore these also must be made to pass the Scrutiny, and be cashier’d if they stand not the Test of a severe Examination and sound Reason.