If they say, by
the light it brings with it, which shines bright in their minds, and
they cannot resist: I beseech them to consider whether this be any
more than what we have taken notice of already, viz. that it is a
revelation, because they strongly believe it to be true. For all the
light they speak of is but a strong, though ungrounded persuasion of
their own minds, that it is a truth. For rational grounds from
proofs that it is a truth, they must acknowledge to have none; for
then it is not received as a revelation, but upon the ordinary grounds
that other truths are received: and if they believe it to be true
because it is a revelation, and have no other reason for its being a
revelation, but because they are fully persuaded, without any other
reason, that it is true, then they believe it to be a revelation
only because they strongly believe it to be a revelation; which is a
very unsafe ground to proceed on, either in our tenets or actions. And
what readier way can there be to run ourselves into the most
extravagant errors and miscarriages, than thus to set up fancy for our
supreme and sole guide, and to believe any proposition to be true, any
action to be right, only because we believe it to be so? The
strength of our persuasions is no evidence at all of their own
rectitude: crooked things may be as stiff and inflexible as
straight: and men may be as positive and peremptory in error as in
truth.
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