SECTION IV. 41 SECT. IV..The Advantages of Humility with Regard tq Ourselves. Thus I have finished the second rank of advantages derived from a low esteem Of ourselves, viz. Those whichrelate to our fellow-creatures. I come now to consider in the last place, What are the advantages of this virtue with regard to ourselves, to our own improvement and happiness. I. We shall not be so positive and rooted in all our own opinions 'tor ,so incapable of discerning or rectifying our mis- takes. It is of'considérable importance to a fallible creature to know that he is liable to a mistake as well as' Ma fellows, that he may search out and correct his errors : But the man who is full of self is never mistaken He has no opinion to bé dropped or altered, no retraction to make : Rash as he is, yet he has no errors to be corrected in his own esteem, and therefore he lives and dies in full possession of many falsehoods and in the daily practice of many follies. Pride is one vice, but it supports a hundred. What is it but the over- weening conceit of our being wiser and better than others that renders us constantly so tena- cious of all our opinions, and deaf to all further enquiries and reasonings ? What is it makes us set up for dictators to the world`with so much frontless assurance, and fix our own senti- ments as a'test and standard of truth ? All the learned sciences and the affairs of common life trade and politics, mechanic arts, poesy andmorals, are the daily subjects of these infallible de- claimers, both at the table, and the coffee-house, and in private visits, and, yet more eminently at the tavern : There indeed the wine brightens every idea into truth, it raises the courage andthe voice together; and establishes every man triumphant in his own opinion. The vain creature knows all things. But one would think that the sacred and sublime topics of religion should be treatedwith a more doubtful and ingenuous modesty ; especially where the holy writers themselves are not very express and po- sitive in their determinations. One would think there should be some abatements to our confidence, and that we might sometimes speak with a holy fear and suspicion of our understandings in points óf the most abstruse and divine argument, 'where wise and good men have often been divided. Alas, for our pride and folly ! For our wretched ignorance and our shame- ful conceit ! Let Mr. Baxter, who was a man of great sagacity and a wise observer ofhuman nature, set it before us in this ad- mirable tetrastic, wherein the verses are superior to many of their neighbours. " We crowd about a littlespark, Learnedly striving in the 'dark, Never more bold than when most blind, And we run fastèst when the truth's behind."
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