CHAPTER V. 195 Therefore we are not to consider our arguments merely according to our own notions of theirforce, and from thence ex- pect the immediate conviction of others ; but we should regard how they are likely tobe received by the persons we converse with; and thus manage our reasoning, as the nurse gives a child drink by slow degrees, lest the infant should be choked or return it all back again if poured in too hastily. If your wine be ever so good, and you are ever so liberal in bestowing it on your neigh- bour, yet if his bottle into which you attempt to pour it with free- dom has a narrow mouth, you will sooner overset the bottle, than fill it with wine. Over-hastiness and vehemence in arguing is oftentimes the effect of pride ; it blunts the poignancy of the argument, breaks its force, and disappoints the end. If you were to convince a person of the falsehood of the doctrine of transubstantiation, andyou take up the consecrated bread before him and say, You may see, and taste, and feel, this is nothing but bread; there- fore whilst you assert that God commands you to believe it is not bread, you most wickedly accuse God of commanding you to tell a lie. This sort of language would only raise the indignation of the person against you, instead of making any impression upon him. He will not so much as think at all on the argument you have brought, but he rages at you as a profane wretch, setting up your own sense and reason above sacred authority ; so that though what you affirm is a truth of great evidence, yet you lose thebenefit of your whole argument by an ill management, and the unseasonable use of it. II. We may expressly allow and indulge those prejudices for a season, which seem to stand against the truth, and en- deavour to introduce the truth by degrees while those prejudices are expressly allowed, till by degrees the advancing truth may of itself wear out the prejudice. Thus God himself dealt with his own people the Jews after the resurrection of Christ ; for though from the following days of Pentecost when the gospel was proclaimed and confirmedat Jerusalem the Jewish cere- monies began to be void and ineffectual for any divine purpose, yet the Jews who received Christ the Messiah were permitted to circumcise their children, and to practise many Levitical forms, till that constitution which then waxed old should in time vanish away. Where the prejudices of mankind cannot be conquered it once, but they will rise up in arms against the evidence of truth, we must make some allowances, and yield to them for the present, as far as we can safely do it without real injury to truth ; and if we would have any success in our endeavoursto convince the world, we must practise this complaisance for the benefit of mankind. Take a student whohas deeply imbibed the principles of the
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=