Truth

"None are so constant in the profession of any truth as they that are convinced and assured of the grounds of it. When we are but half convinced, we are usually unstable. I remember the apostle speaketh of a thing which he calleth idion stèrigmon, ‘Our own steadfastness,' 2 Peter iii. 17, 'Lest ye fall from your own steadfastness into the error of the wicked.' Every believer hath, or should have, a proper ballast in his own spirit, some solid, rational grounds that may stay and support him; otherwise, when the chain of consent is broken, we shall soon be scattered. So elsewhere a believer is bidden to render logon, 'a reason of the hope that is in him,' 1 Peter iii. 15; that is, those inward motives that constrained his assent to the truth. Thus also the apostle Paul chargeth us, 1 Thes. v. 21, first to 'prove all things,' and then to 'hold fast that which is good.' It is unsafe to engage till a full conviction, or to resolve without evidence, for there is no likelihood of holding fast till we have proved. Well, then, labour to understand the grounds of your religion. If you love a truth ignorantly, you cannot love it constantly. There is still a party left in the soul to betray it into the hands of the opposite error. To take up ways without any trial is but a simple credulity, which will soon be abused and misled; and to take up ways upon half conviction is hypocrisy, which by that other part of the mind not yet gained will be soon discovered. Look upon it, then, as brutish to follow the track, and base to profess before you are ascertained."

Thomas Manton