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A29499 Christian prudence, or, Directions for the guidance and conduct of our selves in the case of judging one another being several discourses on Math. 7, 1 / by G. Bright. G. B. (George Bright), d. 1696. 1699 (1699) Wing B4671; ESTC R30249 74,034 228

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fear of any ones displeasure or seeking of their favour we must also despise and scorn which doth so much betray us oft-times to Judgments on the worst side of some that we might please others let us be sure to inform our selves as well as we can when we judg concerning others and not do it ignorantly And more particularly let us have a care we do not too generally conclude all Persons like our selves nor suffer our selves to be abused by publick Report or Testimony and judg all true what we so receive make always an allowance one way or another at least most generally suspect and doubt till further Examination if it be worth the while Let us have a care of that kind of Partiality whereby we observe and take notice but of one sort of Qualities or Actions in Men none but their Good or none but their Bad as they are our Friends or Foes as we are well or ill affected towards them but let us be free and indifferent to see both Faults and Imperfections in our Friends and Virtue and what 's good and laudable in our Enemies Let us stir up and maintain always in our Minds a strong habitual love of the Truth which will be by and by a more particular Instruction Hardly any thing of more good effect in this business than the government of our Passions to remove calm quiet them if you intend to pass any considerable Judgment as to Truth viz. Love Hatred Admiration Contempt Revenge Anger and the l●●e suffer we not our Minds and Memories to be Brib'd by these to admit only what can be said on one side and not of another nay more than can or onght to be said and to thrust upon us what is not true and thrust out again what is or may be true because against them suffer we not our Minds to be ruffled and confused by them and not to be able and willing not to attend to the evidence of what we would not have to be True or would have to be False though never so manifest For what can be expected from us of Truth and Justice in our judgments concerning others when we are so affected And lastly Let us seriously endeavour to Reform Correct Amend the Corruptions and bad Inclinations of our Nature that ultimate Selfishness seeking our own selves without any regard to the good of others nay with an express contempt thereof and by their mischief or hurt as if their good were not Good as well as mine hence consequently Hatred Malice Revenge Pride affectation of Superiority Envy Contempt causless Anger Flattery Seek we I say to cure our Nature by Observation Caution Endeavour and God's Assistance Thus if we take but heed to and remember these and all other which are the Causes of our too busie disadvantageous rash selfish false malicious proud enviours wrathful contemptuous flattering Judgments of others and remove them we shall certainly prevent the Effect But more particularly I shall recommend to you some Remedies which follow Sect. II. 2. And therefore secondly But more particularly possess we our Hearts and Minds throughly with an universal Charity and Benignity to all with a proneness and readiness to do Good any where but only where we see and therefore in some Circumstances as where the thing concerns many and is not so soon known to consider and deliberate it will be necessarily the cause of a greater Evil which will in general extraordinarily secure us Nor let us suffer our selves to be beaten from this temper of Mind by any ill carriage misdemeanor folly or injury of others Let us still retain a true love of Benevolence for the Person whatever our Keenness be against the Vice or Imperfection Say still with thy self what pity it is Persons should be so much their own and others Enemies as to be guilty of any voluntary Wickedness but if it be an Imperfection out of their power then more need still to be pitied and relieved by us if we be not employed in things of greater concernment This will dispose us to diminish abate or connive at and look off the Infirmities or Imperfections of others and therefore either judg favourably or not at all except where as I have oft said our mutual Christian common and universal Charity and Prudence obligeth and stirreth us up provoketh us to do otherwise Sect. III. 3. Rivet soundly into thy Mind the love of Truth let nothing whatsoever cause thee to be out of the Truth scorn to feign judg rashly or falsly concerning the worst disposed and affected Man towards thee i. e. Contemn this Quality but not out of a haughty Pride i. e. Ultimately because it is thine own Imperfection But out of an universal common Charity i. e. Because of all the Mischief it is the cause of both to thy self and others And indeed there is some reason why here thou shouldst less do this because if he be faulty and imperfect indeed there is but too much true already why shouldst thou make an addition Sect. IV. 4. And yet more particularly ask thy self again and again especially in Judgments of more Concern and Importance whether or no thou be sure that thy Judgment be true Stay not till another ask thee how thou knowest For then for thy Credit and Reputation lest thou shouldst seem to have said any thing rashly or untrue or out of bad Principles thou 'lt be tempted to invent somewhat falsly and to feign and alledg somewhat it may be true but insufficient and yet perswade thy self or at least seems to him that asks thee that it is good proof But do this privately or tacitly thy self when thy Credit may not prejudice thee against the Truth but engage thee to it And if it happen thou shouldst have overshot thy self be most ready to Retract it and acknowledg so much Ask thy self I say how thou provest it And when thou doest suppose thy self before the most impartial person who hath no particular respect to any person or persons that is inconsistent with Truth and Justice one that loves thee and the person thou judgest and every body else and some such it may be thou mayest have known in the World be sure God is so whether thou thinkest he would admit of the proof and evidence for what thou affirmest or sayest as sufficient Then again suppose thy self in the same case with the Person thou judgest and he in thine to judg thee Whether wouldst thou be content he should judg so of thee as thou dost of him now Whether dost thou think that if he had thy Proof only for what he said concerning thee thou wouldst think it sufficient and aquiesce and grant that he had good Reason for what he said If thou shouldst be afraid to remit the censure of thy Judgment to an impartial Person who neither hoped nor feared any thing from thee and was above that but thou shouldst suspect he would not judg as thou dost if it were but for a
consequently is well pleased to hear of his Faults or Imperfections A Man may use out of Flattery so often to tell his Judgment to the disadvantage of a Person that at last he may unawars come to believe it himself and partly that his Flattery may not at any time be discovered oblige himself to believe it and perswade himself that that is true which before he did but say was so though he thought the contrary And here it may be observed that as too great a proneness to judg on the worst side doth proceed from these Causes mentioned So it is a most ordinary thing for the passing and especially declaring ones Judgment and Opinion on the advantagious side i. e. That a Man hath more of some good thing than indeed he hath to proceed from some of the same Causes too viz. Hatred Envy Indignation For Example That a Man hath more Revenue Treasure Honour Power Ease Pleasure than indeed he hath only to expose him more to the Envy or Indignation of others And in general Men judg thus in a thing which they account a reward to him who they think doth not or they would not have him either to merit or receive it most commonly it is an easie thing from Circumstances to discern from what Principles such Judgment proceeds But some may be so cunning as to conceal or dissemble Sect. VII Seventhly For the Causes of rash Judgment and Censure they must be the same with those of the two former particulars The Causes of rash Judgment in general Idleness Busibodiness Activity Curiosity Pride and of rash Censure or Judgment without Reason but a Man 's own Will on the worst side as such are among others Hatred Revenge Pride Affectation of Superiority Envy Contempt Flattery To which we may add Anger and Wrath which if a Man be not very careful disposeth us to as much uncharitable and unreasonable Judging as the former and a Man is seldom or never to trust his Judgment of any Person after that fierce and confounding Passion but refer it to another time when calmness and freedom from Passion gives him more ability to see the Truth and more impartiality to judg And now all these Causes methinks are so Unreasonable Inhumane and Unchristian when thus nakedly represented that they cannot but stir up in Souls not quite degenerate or corrupted dead and sensless of what 's good many of these very Passions against themselves and seem the ugliest Objects that can be beheld These are those which compose a Devil more and are more essential to him than any other shape Sect. VIII IV. The Causes some of them of false Judging as false or of falsity errour of Judgment concerning Persons whether on the good or bad side may as in all other false Judgments be reduced to two within us in General 1. Defect in our Understanding which here in this case is but one viz. Ignorance in a large sense viz. the Absence or want of Apprehension or of the actual Knowledg of something which would influence our Judgments 2. In our Will a meer inclination to any certain false Judgment whether it be from Custom and Use or from the Love and for the sake of any certain Object In this particular case of false Judgments some of the most frequent Causes more or less remotely and some way or other reducible to these two are these Sect. IX 1. In general meer Ignorance of the truth of things where there is no defect of Will So a Man may judg an action in respect of the effect and principle of it to be well or ill done when it is the contrary and it was the case of the Jewish and Gentile Christians passing Judgment of one anothers Eating and abstaining from certain Meats and observing or not observing some certain Days and Times and consequently imposing them upon one another from their own private Opinions not as determined by their rightful Superiours or Governours Rom. 14. Some of them through Ignorance judged that those who took the Liberty to eat forbidden Meats contrary to the Mosaical Law which they thought was still even under the Messias to be observ'd did an evil Action and out of an evil Principle too possibly viz. Prophaneness or want of that respect for God's Commands which they ought And this probably too because they found in themselves that if they should do so it would proceed from such a Principle which will be a second Cause presently to be named The other Gentile Christians judged right concerning the action of abstaining from Meats that it was not right and the Non-observation of or Liberty from the Jewish Law was a Christian priviledg or it did not belong to the Christian Religion But possibly too they might if they did not judg wrong concerning the Principle of these Jewish Christians viz. That it was out of Superstition or Pride that the Gentiles might not be in all things equalized to themselves and that the Ancient Constitutions of their Religion might seem more considerable From hence also more particularly it proceeds that even very Honest and Just Persons though much oftner in the World it proceeds from ultimate Self-love or a mixture of it judg themselves Comparatively more Superiour to others in good qualities and truly more valuable than they are viz. They know and observe more their own Perfections and good Qualities their Number their Nature the degrees of their worth and excellency from their effects than they do those of others They can tell better all the Good qualities they have in themselves than what are in others many of which or but few they may ever have had occasion to observe They may also and do see and take notice of all the uses and good effects of any Perfection which is in themselves having frequent occasion to observe them but hardly of any of that which is in another when he possibly could quote as many more of his And hence a little further it comes to pass that every one extols and crys up his own Art though never so trivial and prefers it before others really believing what he saith Hence also it is together with some Rashness and Precipitancy in inferring that Men judg others too generally and too confidently to be Ill or Good qualified Persons to have more of Defects or Perfection comparatively each with other than they really have that they have for such or such ill qualities and imperfections which may be true but none or much fewer good quallities to balance them than indeed they have and than they themselves would have known if they had had some other opportunities of knowing them They have had only occasion or means to know the defects and Ill qualities and not the Good and so perhaps on the contrary and yet they do not observe so much nor reflect upon it nor attend unto this Caution Now Men ought to pass Judgment first distinctly that at such or such a time in such or such a