I Can Well Conceive A

Those Who Write Against Vanity Want The Glory Of Having Written Well, And Their Readers The Glory Of Reading Well, And I Who Write This Have The Same Desire, As Perhaps Those Who Read This Have Also.

What Matters It That Man Should Have A Little More Knowledge Of The Universe? If He Has It, He Gets Little Higher. Is He Not Always Infinitely Removed From The End, And Is Not The Duration Of Our Life Equally Removed From Eternity, Even If It Lasts Ten Years Longer?

Man Is Clearly Made To Think. It Is His Whole Dignity And His Whole Merit; And His Whole Duty Is To Think As He Ought. And The Order Of Thought Is To Begin With Ourselves, And With Our Author And Our End.

Man Is Nothing But Insincerity, Falsehood, And Hypocrisy, Both In Regard To Himself And In Regard To Others. He Does Not Wish That He Should Be Told The Truth, He Shuns Saying It To Others; And All These Moods, So Inconsistent With Justice And Reason, Have Their Roots In His Heart.

There Is A Virtuous Fear, Which Is The Effect Of Faith; And There Is A Vicious Fear, Which Is The Product Of Doubt. The Former Leads To Hope, As Relying On God, In Whom We Believe; The Latter Inclines To Despair, As Not Relying On God, In Whom We Do Not Believe. Persons Of The One Character Fear To Lose God; Persons Of The Other Character Fear To Find Him.