Ijg THE IMPROVEMENT DE THE MIND. Christianity shiningwith a transcendent and exemplary light. We learn there how deeply sensible great and good men have been of the ruins of human nature by the first apostacy from God, and how they have toiled and laboured, and turned them:, selves on all sides, to seek a recovery in vain, till they have found the gospel of Christ an all sufficient relief. We are there fur, nished with effectual and unanswerable evidences that the reli- gion of Jesus, with all its self-denials, virtues and devotions, is a very practicable thing, since it has been carried to such a de- greeof honour by some wise and holy men. We havebeen there assured, that the pleasures and satisfaction of the Christian life, in its present practice and its future hopes, are not the mere rap- tures of fancy and enthusiasm, when some of the strictest profes- sors of reason have added the the sanction of their testimony.. In short, the lives or memoirs of persons of piety well writ- ten, have been of infinite and unspeakable advantage to the disciples and professors of Christianity, and have given as ad- mirable instances and rules how to resist every temptation of a soothing or a frowning world, how to practise important and difficult duties, how to love God above all, and to love our neigh- bours as ourselves, to live by thefaith of the Son of God, and to die in the same faith, in sure and certain hope of a resurrection to eternal life. XV. Remember that logic and ontology or metaphysics, are necessary sciences, though they have been greatly abused by the scholastic writers who have professed to teach them in former ages. Not only all students, whetherthey design the pro- fession of theology, law, or physic, but all gentlemen should at least acquire a superficial knowledge of them. The introduction of so many subtleties, nice distinctions, and insignificant terms without clear ideas, has brought a great part of the logic or me- taphysics of the schools into just contempt. Their logic has ap- peared the mere art. of wrangling, and their metaphysics the skill of splitting an hair, of distinguishing without a difference, and of putting long hard names upon common things, and some- timesupon a confused jumble of things which have noclear ideas belongingto them. It is certain, that an unknown heap of trifle and impertinencieshave been intermingled with these useful parts of learning, upon which account many persons in this polite age have made it apart of their breeding to throw ajest upon them ; and to rally them well, has'been esteemed a more valuable talent than to understand them. But this is running into wide extremes ; nor ought these parts of science to beabandoned by the wise, because some wri- ters of former ages have played the fool with them. True logic teaches us to use our reason well, and brings light into the un- derstanding : true metaphysics or ontology, oasts a light upon all
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