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it, when there are hopes of victory; and success does
more than recompence all the pains. For there is no
sort of joy more grateful to the mind of man, than
that which ariseth from the invention of Truth; especially when 'tis hard to come by. Every man hath
a delight suited to his Genius, and as there is pleasure
in the right exercise of any faculty, so especially in
that of Right-reasoning; which is still the greater by
how much the consequences are more clcar, and the
chains of them more long: There is no Chase so
pleasant, methinks, as to drive a Thought, by good
conduct, from one end of the World to the other;
and never to lose sight of it till it fall into Eternity,
where all things are lost as to our knowledge.
This Theory being chiefly Philosophical, Reason is
to be our first Guide; and where that falls short, or
any other just occasion offers it self, we may receive
further light and confirmation from the Sacred writings. Both these are to be lookt upon as of Divine
Original, God is the Author of both; He that made
the Scripture made also our Faculties, and 'twere a
reflection upon the Divine Veracity, for the one or
the other to be false when rightly us'd. We must
theresore be careful and tender of opposing these to
one another, because that is in effect to oppose God
to himself. As for Antiquity and the Testimonies of
the Ancients, we only make general reflections upon
them, for illustration rather than proof of what we
propose; not thinking it proper for an English Treatise to multiply citations out of Greek or Latin Authors.
I am very sensible it will be much our interest,
that the Reader of this Theory should be of an ingenuous and unprejudic'd temper; neither does it so
much require Book-learning and Scholarship, as
good natural sence to distinguish True and False, and
to discern what is well prov'd, and what is not. It
often happens that Scholastick Education, like a
Trade, does so fix a man in a particular way, that he
is not fit to judge of any thing that lies out of that
way; and so his Learning becomes a clog to his natural parts, and makes him more indocile, and
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