to Charles II. I note:
1. The overcoming the habit of deriving your whole pleasure passively
from the book itself, which can only be effected by excitement of
curiosity or of some passion. Force yourself to reflect on what you read
paragraph by paragraph, and in a short time you will derive your
pleasure, an ample portion of it, at least, from the activity of your
own mind. All else is picture sunshine.
2. The conquest of party and sectarian prejudices, when you have on the
same table before you the works of a Hammond and a Baxter, and reflect
how many and momentous their points of agreement, how few and almost
childish the differences, which estranged and irritated these good men.
Let us but imagine what their blessed spirits now feel at the retrospect
of their earthly frailties, and can we do other than strive to feel as
they now feel, not as they once felt? So will it be with the disputes
between good men of the present day; and if you have no other reason to
doubt your opponent's goodness than the point in dispute, think of
Baxter and Hammond, of Milton and Taylor, and let it be no reason at
all.
3. It will secure you from the idolatry of the present times and
fashions, and create the noblest kind of imaginative power in your soul,
that of living in past ages; wholly devoid of which power, a man can
neither anticipate the future, nor even live a truly human life, a life
of reason in the present.
4. In this particular work we may derive a most instructive lesson, that
in certain points, as of religion in relation to law, the 'medio
tutissimus ibis' is inapplicable.
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