But yet these truths, being ever so
certain, ever so clear, he may be ignorant of either, or all of
them, who will never take the pains to employ his faculties, as he
should, to inform himself about them.
Chapter XIV
Of Judgment
1. Our knowledge being short, we want something else. The
understanding faculties being given to man, not barely for
speculation, but also for the conduct of his life, man would be at a
great loss if he had nothing to direct him but what has the
certainty of true knowledge. For that being very short and scanty,
as we have seen, he would be often utterly in the dark, and in most of
the actions of his life, perfectly at a stand, had he nothing to guide
him in the absence of clear and certain knowledge. He that will not
eat till he has demonstration that it will nourish him; he that will
not stir till he infallibly knows the business he goes about will
succeed, will have little else to do but to sit still and perish.
2. What use to be made of this twilight state. Therefore, as God has
set some things in broad daylight; as he has given us some certain
knowledge, though limited to a few things in comparison, probably as a
taste of what intellectual creatures are capable of to excite in us
a desire and endeavour after a better state: so, in the greatest
part of our concernments, he has afforded us only the twilight, as I
may so say, of probability; suitable, I presume, to that state of
mediocrity and probationership he has been pleased to place us in
here; wherein, to check our over-confidence and presumption, we might,
by every day's experience, be made sensible of our short-sightedness
and liableness to error; the sense whereof might be a constant
admonition to us, to spend the days of this our pilgrimage with
industry and care, in the search and following of that way which might
lead us to a state of greater perfection.
Pages:
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985