274 A CAVEAT AGAINST INFIDELITY. among our associates, and those with whom we converse : And many a young person is turned aside from attending to the evidences of christianity, lest he should be made a jest among his profane company, if he profess himself a believer of the gospel. 4. There is sometimes a strong and unhappy prejudice against the religion of Christ, arising from the faults and follies of those who profess tobe christians : These disciples of infide- lity never consider thatfollies and faults of as heinous and crimi- nal a kind, are daily practised by their fellow-infidels : The old heathen philosophers who professed the religion of nature, were shamefully guilty of many vices contrary to the dictates of natural reason, and yet the religion of nature is true and good still, so far as it goes : And christianity may be divinely true notwithstanding the iniquity and madness of some that pretend to profess it. 5. Another set of prejudices arises from pride of mind and self-conceit, presuming thatthe reason of man is sufficient to di- rect itself in the paths of happiness, without receiving any dis- coveries from God. It is pride also that suffers us not to submit to receive the doctrines of revelation, when there is any thing in them that we know not presently how to reconcile and explain: And this spirit of pride and arrogance tempts some of the deists to abandon all their bible, because the word of God contains some deep things in it which are not fully understood by men. 6. Sometimesan affectation of novelty warps the mind aside, and leads it astray in its enquiries after truth, and for this very reason some men do hardly receive the doctrine which has been the ancient faith of their ancestors. New things have a strange and subtle influence to allure theheart away from old truths. 7. The pride of thinking freely for ourselves, and throwing offall the bonds and fetters of education, has had a licentious and unhappy influence on some minds, to lead them offto infi- delity. They scorn to follow the dictates of tutors, and renounce the best of religions, because they were born and bred in it. 8. There is another set of prejudices that arise from the lusts of theflesh. Christianity seems to,have too much strictness in it for those men who would give themselves a loose to sensual delights : And thus their own vicious inclinations darken their understandings : First, they secretlywish and desire that a doc-. trineso self-denying may not be true, and then they are easily led to fancy and pronounce there is no truth in it. Every slight turn of wit, and faint colour of reason, is sufficient to carry off their minds from the gospel, whose passions are carried off already. O. And it may be there are others who are under the influ- ence of this wicked prejudice, viz. " I have begun to cast off
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