The stars, that in their courses roll, Have much instruction given; But Thy good Word informs my soul How I may climb to Heaven.

Some persons believe everything that their kindred, their parents, and their tutors believe. The veneration and the love which they have for their ancestors incline them to swallow down all their opinions at once, without examining what truth or falsehood there is in them. Men take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates, because they are born heirs to them.

Acquaint yourself with your own ignorance.

A dogmatical spirit inclines a man to be censorious of his neighbors. Every one of his opinions appears to him written, as it were, with sunbeams, and he grows angry that his neighbors do not see it in the same light. He is tempted to disdain his correspondents as men of low and dark understandings because they do not believe what he does.

Tis the voice of the sluggard I heard him complain,You have wak'd me too soon, I must slumber again.

Abandon the secret chamber and the spiritual life will decay.

Academical disputation gives vigor and briskness to the mind thus exercised, and relieves the languor of private study and meditation.