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ON MATTERS OP BELIEF, fi 



ftigh-prieft fo holy, as to prefume by virtue of his ma- 

 jefty or holinefs, to fpeak nonfenfe or to act folly in 

 the ears and eyes of the world, without its being al- 

 lowed — though perhaps it may not happen till after 

 his death — to fhew with all becoming courtefy, that 

 the follies he either faid or did, are follies. And if 

 this be true, as no man will have effrontery enough 

 to deny, why fhould only the wrong definitions, only 

 the groundlefs distinctions, only the fophifms and pa- 

 ralogifms, in one word, only the follies of the learned, 

 of authors, doctors, and magifters., however illumi- 

 nated, refolute, fubtile, irrefragable, angelic, and fe- 

 raphic, all or any of the gendemen may be, pretend to 

 a difpenfation againfr. trial and verdict ? 



Neither can it (at leaf! while it is ftill as neceffary 

 as formerly) be too often and too loudly repeated: 

 that the objects of fpeculative philofophy are not 

 things themfelves, but only our reprefentations, opi- 

 nions, imaginations, real or pretended experiences, 

 conclufions drawn from thence, or hypothefes and fyf- 

 tems invented for their elucidation. At the nature of 

 things themfelves we are not yet arrived. We live and 

 move in an ocean of phsenomena, of ideas and phan- 

 toms ; we are deceived by them in numberlefs forms 

 and ways; but it is our intereffc to be deceived as little 

 as poffible by them : and what have we, belides com- 

 mon fenfe and found reafon, that can teach us clearly 

 and certainly to decide between what is true to us, 

 what it is neceffary to our happinefs to know, and 

 error and deceit, which are detrimental and pernicious 

 to us ? 



7 



It 



