which would convince them that things are not brought about just after the same manner that they have decreed within themselves that they are.  Would it not be an insufferable thing for a learned professor, and that which his scarlet would blush at, to have his authority of forty years standing, wrought out of hard rock, Greek and Latin, with no small expense of time and candle, and confirmed by general tradition and a reverend beard, in an instant overturned by an upstart novelist?  Can any one expect that he should be made to confess, that what he taught his scholars thirty years ago was all error and mistake; and that he sold them hard words and ignorance at a very dear rate.  What probabilities, I say, are sufficient to prevail in such a case?  And who ever, by the most cogent arguments, will be prevailed with to disrobe himself at once of all his old opinions, and pretences to knowledge and learning, which with hard study he hath all this time been labouring for; and turn himself out stark naked, in quest afresh of new notions?  All the arguments that can be used will be as little able to prevail, as the wind did with the traveller to part with his cloak, which he held only the faster.  To this of wrong hypothesis may be reduced the errors that may be occasioned by a true hypothesis, or right principles, but not rightly understood.  There is nothing more familiar than this.  The instances of men contending for different opinions, which they all derive from the infallible truth of the Scripture, are an undeniable proof of it.  All that call themselves Christians, allow the text that says,[word in Greek], to carry in it the obligation to a very weighty duty.  But yet how very erroneous will one of their practices be, who, understanding nothing but the French, take this rule with one translation to be, REPENTEZ-VOUS, repent; or with the other, FATIEZ penitence, do penance.

12.  III.  Predominant Passions.

Probabilities which cross men’s appetites and prevailing passions run the same fate.  Let ever so much probability hang on one side of a covetous man’s reasoning, and money on the other; it is easy to foresee which will outweigh.  Earthly minds, like mud walls, resist the strongest batteries:  and though, perhaps, sometimes the force of a clear argument may make some impression, yet they nevertheless stand firm, and keep out the enemy, truth, that would captivate or disturb them.  Tell a man passionately in love, that he is jilted; bring a score of witnesses of the falsehood of his mistress, it is ten to one but three kind words of hers shall invalidate all their testimonies.  Quod VOLUMUS, facile CREDIMUS; what suits our wishes, is forwardly believed, is, I suppose, what every one hath more than once experimented:  and though men cannot always openly gainsay or resist the force of manifest probabilities that make against them, yet yield they not to the argument.  Not but that it is the nature of the understanding constantly to close with the more probable side; but yet a man hath a power to suspend and restrain its inquiries, and not permit a full and satisfactory examination, as far as the matter in question is capable, and will bear it to be made.  Until that be done, there will be always these two ways left of evading the most apparent probabilities: