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LETTER XXVI,

On Private Judgment.

AS you are intended for the church, it will be prudent to arm yourself with such considerations as may serve to keep your judgment clear and undisturbed; that you be easy may in your mind, as well as active and serviceable in your profession. In the course of your reading, some things will probably be thrown in your way to perplex you; and I can assure you, there is nothing more likely to corrupt and weaken your judgment, than some notions which have been circulated concerning judgment itself.

The case would be thought very strange, if a man were to see the worse for studying optics: but you would wonder the less at this, if he thought he had discovered, or that somebody else had discovered for him, that the eye has no need of any external aids for distinguishing the relations of objects, their colours, magnitudes, distances, and such like; but can see best by its own native light. Something of this kind has really befallen those, who, through vanity,

self

self-interest, or some other mistake, have attributed so much to their own minds, that they have impaired their judgment. You will seldom fail to find in such persons a great desire to draw you over to their party, by tempting you to attribute too much to yourself, as -they have done; and then they mean to take advantage of the consequences, which they understand well enough: that is, when you are grown conceited, they can lead you into their own opinions.

Every controversial writer against the doctrine or discipline of the church of England (of which the late times have unhappily produced a very great number), has much to of fer in favour of the liberty, the authority, and the rights of private judgment: a sort of flattery which easily finds its way to the hearts of the young and ignorant. Pride and indolence are always forward enough to believe, without being argued into it, that they have nothing to do upon questions of the utmost importance, but to look inwards, and ask their own opinions. This persuasion precludes the use of all those qualifications with which human judgment wants to be assisted: it is an error which breeds many others, and seldom admits of reformation: for how can he be brought to

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see his mistake, who has made it a rule to shut his eyes?

What we call private judgment is the judgment of a private person against the sense of the public, and in opposition to established laws and regulations in other words, it is the judgment of an individual against the judg ment of the society to which he belongs. They say, every individual must have a liberty to exercise this judgment and so I say likewise : for nothing can be enacted by public authority, which private judgment cannot arraign and condemn, if it is so disposed. When public authority has determined that two and two make four; thoughts are free; and an individual may deny that, or any other position whatever, and no law on earth can hinder him from so doing; for no society can make a law that shall hinder a man from being a fool. For himself, and within his own mind, where every man holds an oecumenical council, he will judge of things as they appear to him; and nobody alive can help it; and therefore we are obliged to allow that every individual has a liberty of private judgment, that is, he has an actual liberty of contradicting all mankind, and of judging in opposition to all the law and all the reason in the world,

But

But now I must inform you, that they who have so much to urge in favour of this natural liberty, have pushed the matter farther, and argued for its authority; first, with respect to a man's self; and, secondly, with respect to the public. It has been pleaded, that a man is justified in his sentiments, because they are his sentiments; and that one persuasion, so far as the man himself is concerned, is as good as another; because he is not justified by the goodness of the matter believed, but by the sincerity with which he believes it. On which principle, lies are as good as truth, and a chimera may answer the purpose of a sacrament.

Then, with respect to the public, it has been urged, that society must have regard, in all matters of conscience, to the judgment of every individual, and establish nothing of this kind till all the unreasonable and ignorant people in a country, (and such there will be in all countries) are first agreed as to the propriety of it. Here, it is pre-supposed, as you will immediately perceive, that society has no rule to go by, in matters of conscience, but their own judgment: if there is any rule which lays a common obligation on all parties, then this reasoning falls to the ground; for, by the authority of that rule, society may proceed to establish whatever is thence necessary for the cc 3 good

good of the whole, without suspending its judgment till individuals are satisfied.

Such are the claims of this redoubtable champion called Private Judgment; which protests against all creeds, and would newmodel all states: however, let us be of good courage, and take a nearer view of him.

The judgment of an individual will be weighty or insignificant, as it is the judgment of reason or the judgment of passion. Whatever judgment a man may have formed within himself on any particular question, it must have been formed either with the means of knowledge, or without them; if without them, it is the judgment of ignorànce; and is in fact not judgment, but a rash and groundless deci→ sion of the imagination: if with the means of knowledge, then we must consider what those

means are.

Knowledge is conveyed to the mind either through the bodily senses, or by conversation with men, or by reading of books. There are many great subjects in which a man's own apprehension and experience will carry him but a little way; and even where experience ought to guide us, few men have spirit and industry to gather up what they learn in that manner. As to books, the majority are ignorant of languages;

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