II. THe Practice I would recommend, accustoms a man to make Reflections upon the things he takes notice of, and so, by exercising, improves his reasoning Faculty. For, as most men have much more strength and Agility in the right hand than in the left, and, generally speaking, those Limbs of the body that are most exercis’d, are stronger than the rest of the same kind, so the faculties of the mind are improv’d by Exercise, and those that we frequently employ, grow thereby the more vigorous and nimble. And, for my part, I have been often inclin’d to think, that the chief advantage that the reasoning faculty derives from the Institution received in Logick-Scholes, comes not so much from the Precepts themselves, which are pretended to make up an Art of reasoning, as from the frequent exercises that, by occasion of such Precepts, the Students are put upon; and perhaps, if men were oblig’d to read the controversies of subtle Wits, and to engage in frequent Disputations, both premeditated and extemporary, it would add little less of readiness and acuteness to their wits, though they disputed of other matters than such as properly belong to Logick, and were not before imbu’d with the Precepts of that Art; as we see, that the use of singing with those that can sing well, does much improve ones Voice, both as to strength and clearness, whatever the Tunes or Songs be that are sung, and how little soever those with whom one sings make it their Business to teach him the art of Musick.
But this is only Conjecture; and whether it be true or no, yet this I am confident is so, That the bringing of a man to be a thinking and a reflecting Person, is to procure him so great an Advantage, as though it were the only one may justly endear to him the custom of making Occasional Meditations; and he that could bring this practice into the Request it deserves, would do a greater piece of service, not only to the particular Persons he perswades, but to mankind in general, than the greater part of good men themselves seem to be aware of. For though God having been pleased to make Reason the chief part of our Nature, among the various Objects that daily occur to us, it can scarce be but that some or other will in a manner obtrude some Notions ev’n upon the unattentive; yet certainly, all that has been found worthy of Mankind in Mathematicks, Philosophy, and other kinds of Learning, has been attain’d by thinking Men, or by a frequent and regular Practice of imploying the thoughts: And lest it should be objected, that these various, and Elaborate effects of assiduous meditation were the productions only of Philosophers or other men of speculative heads; Let us but consider, that though Gallants and Courtiers do seldom love to tire themselves with thinking, and are as seldom fond of writing Books, not to add, fit to write them, and though love be not the fruitfulest Theme that may be pitch’d on, yet that Passion, and some Particulars relating to it, frequently busying their thoughts, and being several wayes consider’d by them, has been display’d and contriv’d ev’n by such writers as I have been just now mentioning, into those numerous Play’s that daily imploy the Stage, and those Voluminous Romances that are too often the only Books which make up the Libraries of Gallants, and fill the Closets of Lady’s. He that most truly called himself, the Truth, tells us, that the Devil is not only a Liar, (Jo. 8. 44) but the Father of Lies, that is, the great Patron and Promoter of falshood, and, as such, he studiously opposes all useful Truths; not only those for which we must be beholden to Revelation, but those also which may be attain’d by Ratiocination, and the well regulated exercise of our natural Faculty’s; And he were much less an Adversary and an Old Serpent than he is, if his Enmity to God and Man, did not justly make him think that scarce any thing is more his interest than sollicitously to divert men from thinking, and discourage them in it, there being few things whereby he could more effectually oppose at once, both the Glory of God and the good of Men. And sure, if so subtile an Adversary did not think it very much his Interest to be sollicitous about this matter, it could not be that men should choose for a Priviledge, the laying aside that faculty of Meditating which is indeed so much their Priviledge, that, if Experience did not convince the contrary, I could never suspect that the Non-employing of their thoughts could be their Choice rather than their Punishment, and that rational Creatures, especially professing Christianity, should either keep idle, or confine to Employments worse than Idleness; so noble and improvable a Faculty, that enables an Ingenious Man to pry into the innermost Recesses of mysterious Nature, and discover there so much of the Wisdom; Power, and Goodness, of the Author, as are most fit to give the Discoverer a high and devout Veneration for those Excellencies. A Faculty, whereby an Inquisitive Soul may expatiate it self through the whole Immensity of the Universe, and be her own Teacher in a thousand cases, where the Book is no less delightful than the Lessons are Instructive. A Faculty (to conclude) by whose help the restless mind having div’d to the lowermost parts of the Earth, can thence in a trice take such a Flight, that having travers’d all the corporeal Heavens, and scorn’d to suffer her self to be confin’d with the very Limits of the World, she roves about in the ultra-mundane spaces, and considers how farr they reach.
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