this prayer, _Lord, I pray thee take away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly_; as if he could not have hoped otherwise to have his pardon granted except he petitioned for it under the covert and mitigation of Folly. The agreeable practice of our Saviour is yet more convincing, who, when he hung upon the cross, prayed for his enemies, saying, _Father, forgive them_, urging no other plea in their behalf than that of their ignorance, _for they know not what they do_. To the same effect St. Paul in his first epistle to Timothy acknowledges he had been a blasphemer and a persecutor, _But (saith he) _I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief_. Now what is the meaning of the phrase [_I did it ignorantly_] but only this? My fault was occasioned from a misinformed Folly, not from a deliberate malice. What signifies [_I obtained mercy_] but only that I should not otherwise have obtained it had not folly and ignorance been my vindication? To the same purpose is that other passage in the mysterious Psalmist, which I forgot to mention in its proper place, namely, _Oh remember not the sins and offences of my youth!_ the word which we render offences, is in Latin _ignorantias_, ignorances. Observe, the two things he alleges in his excuse are, first, his rawness of age, to which Folly and want of experience are constant attendants: and secondly, his ignorances, expressed in the plural number for an enhancement and aggravation of his foolishness. But that I may not wear out this subject too far, to draw now towards a conclusion, it is observable that the christian religion seems to have some relation to Folly, and no alliance at all with wisdom. Of the truth whereof, if you desire farther proof than my bare word you may please, first, to consider, that children, women, old men, and fools, led as it were by a secret impulse of nature, are always most constant in repairing to church, and most zealous, devout and attentive in the performance of the several parts of divine service; nay, the first promulgators of the gospel, and the first converts to Christianity, were men of plainness and simplicity, wholly unacquainted with secular policy or learning.