458 LOGIC: OR, THE RIGHT USE OF REASON. wink your eyes fastagsinst the light, but part with any thing for the sake of truth : remember when you overcome an error you gain truth ; victory is on your side, and the advantage is all your own. I confess; those grand principles of belief and practice, which universally influence our conduct both with regard to this life and the life to come, should .be supposed to be well settled in the first years of our studies ; such as, the existence and provi, dente of God, the truth of Christianity, the authority of scrip- ture, the great rules of morality, &e. We should avoid a light fluttering genius, ever ready to change our foundations, and to be carried about with every wind of doctrine. To guard against which inconvenience, we should labour with earnest diligence and fervent prayer, that our most fundamental and important points of belief and practice, may be established upon just grounds of reason and scripture, when we come to years of discretion, and fit to judge for ourselves in such important points. Yet since it is possible that the folly or prejudices of younger years may have established persons in some mistaken sentiments, even in very important matters, we should always hold ourselves ready to receive any new advantage toward the correction or improve- ment even of our established principles, as well as opinions of lesser moment. CHAP. V. Special Rules to direct us in judging of parti- cular Objects. IT would be endless to run through all those particular ob- jects concerning which we have occasion to pass a judgment at one time or another. Things of the most frequent occurrence, or the widest extent, and of the greatest importance, are the objects and exercises of sense, of reason, and speculation : the matters of morality, religion and prudence ; of human and divine testimony, together with the essays of reasoning upon things past and fùture. Special rules relating to all these will be the subject of the following sections. SECT. I. Principles and Rules of Judgment concerning the Objects of Sense. THOUGH our senses are sometimes liable to be deceived, yet when they are rightly disposed, and fitly exercised about their proper objects, with the just assistance of reason, they give us sufficient evidence of truth. This may be proved by an argument drawn from the wis- dom, goodness, and faithfulness of God our Creator. It was he gave as our senses, and he would not make us of such -a constitution as to be liable to perpetual deception, and unavoid- able error in using these faculties of sense in the best manner we are capable of, about those very things which are the proper ob jects of them.
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