The right of private judgment involves the right of forming our opinions according to the best light we can obtain. After a man knows what others have said or written, and after he has thought and searched the Scriptures, upon any religious subject, he has a right to form his own judgment exactly according to evidence. He has no right to exercise prejudice or partiality; but he has a right to exercise impartiality, in spite of all the world. After all the evidence is collected from every quarter, then it is the proper business of the understanding or judgment to compare and balance evidence, and to form a decisive opinion or belief, according to apparent truth. We have no more right to judge without evidence than we have to judge contrary to evidence; and we have no more right to doubt without, or contrary to, evidence, than we have to believe without, or contrary to, evidence. We have no right to keep ourselves in a state of doubt or uncertainty, when we have sufficient evidence to come to a decision. The command is, "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." The meaning is, Examine all things; and after examination, decide what is right. [Footnote 1: A Congregational clergyman of Massachusetts, original in theology, and eminently lucid in style.] * * * * * HISTORICAL WRITERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. =_Cadwallader Colden,[2] 1688-1776._= From "The History of the Five Nations." =_6._= CONVICTION OF THEIR SUPERIORITY The _Five Nations_ think themselves by nature superior to the rest of mankind.... All the nations round them have, for many years, entirely submitted to them, and pay a yearly tribute to them in _wampum_; they dare neither make war nor peace without the consent of the _Mohawks_. Two old men commonly go, about every year or two, to receive this tribute; and I have often had opportunity to observe what anxiety the poor Indians were under while these two old men remained in that part of the country where I was. An old Mohawk Sachem, in a poor blanket and a dirty shirt, may be seen issuing his orders with as arbitrary an authority as a Roman dictator. It is not for the sake of tribute, however, that they make war, but from the notions of glory which they have ever most strongly imprinted on their minds; and the farther they go to seek an enemy, the greater glory they think they gain; there cannot, I think, be a greater or stronger instance than this, how much the sentiments impressed on a people's mind conduce to their grandeur.... The Five Nations, in their love of liberty and of their country, in their bravery in battle, and their constancy in enduring torments, equal the fortitude of the most renowned Romans. [Footnote 2: A native of Scotland, but for many years a resident of New York, where he was eminent in politics and science.] * * * * * =_William Stith, 1755._= (Manual, p. 490.) From "The History of Virginia."