A NEW

METHOD

OF A

COMMON-PLACE-BOO K.

TRANSLATED OUT OF THE FRENCH FROM THE SECOND VOLUME OF THE BIBLIOTHEQUE UNIVERSELLE.

EPISTOLA.] A Letter from Mr. Locke to Mr. 2. Toignard, containing a new and easy Method of a Common-place-book, to which an Index of two Pages is sufficient.

Ar length, sir, in obedience to you, I publish my "method of a common-place-book." I am ashamed that I deferred so long complying with your request; but I esteemed it so mean a thing, as not to deserve publishing, in an age so full of useful inventions as ours is. You may remember, that I freely communicated it to you and several others, to whom I imagined it would not be unacceptable: so that it was not to reserve the sole use of it to myself that I declined publishing it. But the regard I had to the public discouraged me from presenting it with such a trifle. Yet my obligations to you, and the friendship between us, compel me now to follow your advice. Your last letter has perfectly determined me to it, and I am convinced that I ought not to delay publishing it, when you tell me, that an experience of several years has showed its usefulness, and several of your friends, to whom you have communicated it. There is no need I should tell you how useful it has been to me, after five-and-twenty years' experience, as I told you eight years since, when I had the honour to wait on you at Paris, and when I might have been instructed by your learned and agreeable discourse. What I aim at now, by this letter, is to testify publicly the esteem and respect I have for you, and to convince how much I am, sir, your, you

&c.

Before I enter on my subject, it is fit to acquaint the reader, that this Tract is disposed in the same manner that the Common-place

3. book ought to be disposed. It will be understood by reading what follows, what is the meaning of the Latin titles on the top of the backside of each leaf, and at the bottom [a little below the top] of this page.

EBIONITE.] In eorum evangelio, quod secundum Hebræos dicebatur, historia quæ habetur Matth. xix. 16. et alia quædam, erat interpolata in hunc modum: "Dixit ad eum alter divitum, magister, quid bonum faciens vivam? Dixit ei Dominus, legem et prophetas, fac. Respondit ad eum, feci. Dixit ei: vade, vende omnia quæ possides et divide pauperibus, et veni, sequere me. Cœpit autem dives scalpere caput suum, et non placuit ei. Et dixit ad eum Dominus: quomodo dicis, legem feci et prophetas? cùm scriptum sit in lege, diliges proximum tuum sicut teipsum: et ecce multi fratres tui filii Abrahæ amicti sunt stercore, morientes præ fame, et domus tua plena est bonis multis, et non egreditur omnino aliquid ex eâ ad eos. Et conversus, dixit Simoni, discipulo suo, sedenti apud se: Simon, fili Johannæ, facilius est camelum intrare per foramen acûs, quam divitem in regnum cœlorum." Nimirum hæc ideo immutavit Ebion, quia Christum nec Dei filium, nec voμoléry, sed nudum interpretem legis per Mosem datæ agnoscebat.

In the Gospel of the Ebionites, which they called the Gospel according to the Hebrews, the story, that is in the xixth of St. Matth. and in the 16th and following verses, was changed after this manner: "One of the rich men said to him: Master, what shall I do that I may have life? Jesus said to him: Obey the law and the prophets. He answered, I have done so. Jesus said unto him, Go, sell what thou hast, divide it among the poor, and then come and follow me. Upon which the rich