You also seem to perceive the necessity of some check, but in the very spirit which induces that necessity, your own standard is as visionary, and as fruitful a source of evil, as the propensity it is intended to correct; for yours is not that reason which proceeds from premises to consequences, but an actual illusion, which has persuaded you that there is a reason which can see all things immediately and by intuition;[43] and your bible, a book written in cypher,[44] the key of which is one of the most vigorous plants of the wilderness of fanaticism. Hence it follows, that your standard, so far from being a true test or corrector of your opinions, must always, when used, confirm you in error; for it is a magnifying mirror, reflecting the exaggerated image of the delusion it is intended to control. Footnote 43: Sermons, page 207. Footnote 44: Sermons, page 313. There is not a more prolific source of error, than assuming principles without a careful examination of their correctness, and drawing conclusions from them; and even when the principle is correct, and the inference fairly deducible, men in the ardour of their zeal, often push it to an extreme far beyond its just limits. It is not difficult to conceive, that a man whose mind is convinced by internal evidence of the truth of the christian religion, and who, under an awful impression of its incalculable importance, opens the sacred volume, finds more instruction and comfort in it, than he who only reads it as history, or from an indistinct sense of duty; because he has a greater degree of inward acquaintance with the same spirit and work in the heart. But this simple exposition is too plain to satisfy the lofty imaginations of the high professors of the present day: because the lukewarm and indifferent do not receive the same instruction and profit from the scriptures as the more serious and pious, the perusal can afford them no benefit; and even to the sincere inquirer it is a sealed book, until its contents are previously communicated by an especial revelation.[45] Footnote 45: Sermons, page 313. This is the doctrine you have preached, and yet your own practice proves that you have no reliance on it; and that it was only one of those inconsiderate excursions, in which the orator, when not under the strict control of duty or reason, too often indulges; for when, in your cooler moments, you wished to instruct your mind on the subject of our Saviour's birth, you sought it, not only by reading the scriptures, but also by consulting the traditions of the christian church, as recorded by one of its historians.[46] Footnote 46: Letter to Thomas Willis. These are the inconsistencies to which extravagance always leads; for when the mind, tired of its aerial flight, revisits the earth, and is again employed in its proper duties, it finds that practical objects can only be attained by practicable means.