And yet, that I may not say worse than it deserveth of my former measure of Understanding, I shall truly tell you what change I find now, in the perusal of my own Writings. Those Points which then I throughly studied, my Judgment is the same of now, as it was then; and therefore in the Substance of my Religion, and in those Controversies which I then searched into, with some extraordinary Diligence, I find not my mind disposed to a Change: But in divers Points that I studied slightly and by the halves, and in many things which I took upon trust from others, I have found since that my Apprehensions were either erroneous, or very lame. And those things which I was Orthodox in, I had either insufficient Reasons for, or a mixture of some sound and some insufficient ones, or else an insufficient Apprehension of those Reasons; so that I scarcely knew what I seemed to know: And though in my Writings I found little in substance which my present Judgment differeth from, yet in my Aphorisms and Saints Rest; (which were my first Writings) I find some raw unmeet Expressions; and one common Infirmity I perceive, that I put off Matters with some kind of Confidence, as if I had done something new or more than ordinary in them, when upon my more mature Reviews, I find that I said not half that which the Subject did require: As E. g. in the Doctrine of the Covenants, and of Justification, but especially about the Divine Authority of the Scripture in the second part of the Saints Rest; where I have not said half that should have been said; and the Reason was, because that I had not read any of the fuller sort of Books that are written on those Subjects, nor conversed with those that knew more than my self, and so all those things were either new or great to me, which were common and small perhaps to others; and because they all came in by the way of my own Study of the naked matter, and not from Books, they were apt to affect my mind the more, and to seem greater than they were. And this Token of my Weakness accompanied those my younger Studies, that I was very apt to start up Controversies in the way of my Practical Writings, and also more desirous to acquaint the World with all that I took to be the Truth, and to assault those Books by Name which I thought did tend to deceive them, and did contain unsound and dangerous Doctrine;
And yet, that I may not say worse than it deserveth of my former measure of Understanding, I shall truly tell you what change I find now, in the perusal of my own Writings. Those Points which then I throughly studied, my Judgment is the same of now, as it was then; and therefore in the Substance of my Religion, and in those Controversies which I then searcht into, with some extraordinary Diligence, I find not my mind disposed to a Change: But in divers Points that I studied slightly and by the halves, and in many things which I took upon trust from others, I have found since that my Apprehensions were either erroneous, or very lame. And those things which I was Orthodox in, I had either insufficient Reasons for, or a mixture of some sound and some insufficient ones, or else an insufficient Apprehension of those Reasons; so that I scarcely knew what I seemed to know: And though in my Writings I found little in substance which my present Judgment differeth from, yet in my Aphorisms and Saints Rest; (which were my first Writings) I find some raw unmeet Expressions; and one common Infirmity I perceive, that I put off Matters with some kind of Confidence, as if I had done something new or more than ordinary in them, when upon my more mature Reviews, I find that I said not half that which the Subject did require: As E. g. in the Doctrine of the Covenants, and of Justification, but especially about the Divine Authority of the Scripture in the second part of the Saints Rest; where I have not said half that should have been said; and the Reason was, because that I had not read any of the fuller sort of Books that are written on those Subjects, nor conversed with those that knew more than my self, and so all those things were either new or great to me, which were common and small perhaps to others; and because they all came in by the way of my own Study of the naked matter, and not from Books, they were apt to affect my mind the more, and to seem greater than they were. And this Token of my Weakness accompanied those my younger Studies, that I was very apt to start up Controversies in the way of my Practical Writings, and also more desirous to acquaint the World with all that I took to be the Truth, and to assault those Books by Name which I thought did tend to deceive them, and did contain unsound and dangerous Doctrine;
