in any of them find any of those virtues that I have mentioned condemned and forbidden-a clear evidence that mankind never took any exception against them, but are generally agreed about the goodness of them.

Evidence of a Creator in the Structure of the World.

How often might a man, after he hath jumbled a set of letters in a bag, fling them out upon the ground before they would fall into an exact poem, yea, or so much as make a good discourse in prose! And may not a little book be as easily made by chance, as this great volume of the world? How long night a man be in sprinkling colours upon a canvas with a careless hand, before they could happen to make the exact picture of a man? And is a man easier made by chance than his picture? How long might twenty thousand blind men, which should be sent out from the several remote parts of England, wander up and down before they would all meet upon Salisbury plains, and fall into rank and file in the exact order of an army? And yet this is much more easy to be managed, than how the innumerable blind parts of matter should rendezvous themselves into a world.

Sin and Holiness.

A state of sin and holiness are not like two ways that are just parted by a line, So as a man may step out of the one full into the other; but they are like two ways that lead to very distant places, and consequently are at a good distance from one another; and the further a man hath travelled in the one, the further he is from the other; so that it requires time and pains to pass from one to the other.

Resolution Necessary in forsaking Vice.

He that is deeply engaged in vice, is like a man laid fast in a bog, who, by a faint and lazy struggling to get out, does but spend his strength to no purpose, and sinks himself the deeper into it: the only way is, by a resolute and vigorous effort to spring out, if possible, at once. When men are sorely urged and pressed, they find a power in themselves which they thought they had not: like a coward driven up to a wall, who, in the extremity of distress and despair, will fight terribly, and perform wonders; or like a man lame of the gout, who, being assaulted by a present and terrible danger, forgets his disease, and will find his legs rather than lose his life.

The Moral Feelings Instinctive.

God hath discovered our duties to us by a kind of natural instinct, by which I mean a secret impression upon the minds of men, whereby they are naturally carried to approve some things as good and fit, and to dislike other things, as having a native evil and deformity in them. And this I call a natural instinct, because it does not seem to proceed so much from the exercise of our reason, as from a natural propension and inclination, like those instincts which are in brute creatures, of natural affection and care toward their young ones. And that these inclinations are precedent to all reason and discourse about them, evidently appears by this, that they do put forth themselves every whit as vigorously in young persons as in those of riper reason; in the rude and ignorant sort of people, as in those who are more polished and refined. For we see plainly that the young and ignorant have as strong impressions of piety and devotion, as true a sense of gratitude, and justice, and pity, as the wiser and more knowing part of mankind. A plain indication that the reason of mankind is prevented by a kind of natural instinct and anticipation concerning the good or evil, the comeliness or deformity, of these things. And though this do not equally extend to all the instances of our duty, yet as to the great lines and essential parts of it, mankind hardly need to consult any other oracle than the mere propensions and inclinations of their nature; as, whether we ought to reverence the divine nature, to be grateful to those who have conferred benefits upon us, to speak the truth, to be faithful to our promise, to restore that which is committed to us in t. et, to pity and relieve those that are in misery, and in all things to do to others 2 would have them do to us.

*The word 'prevented' is here used in the obsolete sense of anticipated '-Ea

408

CYCLOPÆDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [To 1689.

Spiritual Pride.

Nothing is more common, and more to be pitied, than to see with what a confident contempt and scornful pity some ill-instructed and ignorant people will lament the blindness and ignorance of those who have a thousand times more true knowledge and skill than themselves, not only in all other things, but even in the practice as well as knowledge of the Christian religion; believing those who do not relish their affected phrases and uncouth forms of speech to be ignorant of the mystery of the gospel, and utter strangers to the life and power of godliness.

END OF VOLUME IL