100 THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE MIND. Even our very enquiries and disputations about " vactfuns or space and atoms, about incommensurable quantities, and the infinite divisibility of matter and eternal duration," which seems to be purely speculative, will shew us some good practical lessons, will lead us to see the weakness of our nature, and should teach us humility in arguing upon divine subjects and matters of sacred revelation. This should guard us against rejecting any doctrine which is expressly and evidently revealed, though we cannot fully understand it. It is good sometimes to lose and bewil- der ourselves in such studies for this very reason, and to attain this practical advantage, this improvement in ,true modesty of spirit. XVI. Though we should always be ready to change our sentiments of things upon just conviction of their falsehood, yet there is not the same necessity of changing our accustomed me- thods of reading, or study and practice, even though we have not been led at first into the happiest method. Our thoughts may be true, though we may have hit upon an improper order of thinking. Truth does not always depend upon the most con- venient method. There may be a certain form and order in which we have long-accustomed ourselves to range our ideas and notions, which may be best for us now, though it was not origi- nally best in itself. The inconveniences of changing may be much greater than the conveniencies we could obtain by a new method. As for instance ; if a man in his younger days has ranged all his sentiments in theology in the method of Ames' Medulla Theologie, or Bishop Usher's Bodyof Divinity, it may be much more natural and easy for him to continue to dispose all his fur- ther acquirements in the same order, though perhaps neither of these treatises are in themselves written in the most perfect me- thod: So when we have long fired our cases of shelves in a library, and ranged our books in any particular order, viz. ac- cording to their languages, or according to their subjects, or ac- cording to the alphabetical names of the authors, &o. we are perfectly well acquainted with the order in which they now stand, and we can find any particular book which we seek, or add a new book which we have purchased with much greater ease than we do in finer cases of shelves where the books were ranged in any different manner whatsoever ; any different position of the volumes would be new, and strange, and troublesome to, us,. and would not countervail the inconveniences of a change. So if a man of forty years old has been taught to hold his pen awkwardly in his youth, and yet writes sufficiently well for all the purposes of his station, it is not worth while to teach him now the most accurate methods of handling that instrument ; for this would create. him more trouble without equal advantage, and
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