and celebrate the Lords Supper provoking one another to Love and to good works 3. Be it known to you that these three Summaries come to us with fuller Evidence of Certain Tradition from God than the rest of the Holy Scriptures Though they are equally true they are not equally Evident to us And this I thus prove 1. The Body of the Scriptures were delivered but one way but the Covenant Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue are delivered two ways They are in the Scripture and so have all the Evidence of Tradition which the Scriptures have And they were besides that delivered to the memories of all Christians If you say that the Creed is not in the Scripture or that the Scripture is not altered as it is I answer 1. That it is in the Scripture as to the matter signified in as plain words even of the same signification 2. There is no alteration made but a small addition which is no disparagement to it because the ancient substance of it is still known and the additions are not new made things but taken out of Scripture And if yet any Heretick should deny that God is Wise and Good and Just and Merciful it were no dishonour to the Creed nor weakening of its certainty to have these attributes yet added to it 2. These Summaries as is said were far ancienter than the rest of the New Testament as written and known and used long before them 3. These Summaries being in every Christians mind and memory were faster held than the rest of the Scriptures Therefore Parents could and did teach them more to their Children You never read that the Catechizers of the people did teach them all the Bible nor equally ask them who Jared or Mehaleel or Lamech was as they did who Christ was Nor put every History into the Catechism but only the Historical Articles of the Creed 4. Therefore it was far easier to preserve the purity of these Summaries than of the whole Body of the Scriptures For that which is in every mans memory cannot be altered without a multitude of reprovers Which makes the Greeks since Photius keep such a stir about Filioque as to think that the Latines have changed Religion and deserved to be separated from for changing that word But no wonder that many hundred various Readings are crept into the Bible and whole Verses and Histories as that of the Adulterous Woman are out in some that are in others For it is harder to keep such a Volume uncorrupt than a few words Though writing as such is a surer way than memory and the whole Bible could never have been preserved by memory Yet a few words might especially when they had those words in writings also 5. Add to this that the Catechistical Summaries aforesaid were more frequently repeated to the people at least every Lords day Whereas in the reading of the Scriptures one passage will be read but seldom perhaps once or twice in a year And so a corruption not so easily observed 6. And if among an hundred Copies of the Scripture ten or twenty only should by the Carelesness of the Scribes be corrupted all the rest who saw not these Copies would not know it and so they might fall into the hands of Posterity when many of the sounder might be lost 7. And Lastly The danger of depravation had no end For in every age the Scripture must be written over anew for every Church and person that would use it And who that knoweth what writing is could expect that one Copy could be written without errors and that the second should not add to the errors of the 1st as Printers now do who print by faulty Copies And though this danger is much less since Printing came up that is but lately And the mischiefs of Wars and Heretical Tyrants burning the truest Copies hath been some disadvantage to us Obj. Thus you seem to weaken the Certain incorruption of the Scriptures Ans No such thing I do but tell you the case truly as it is The wonderful Providence of God and care of Christians hath so preserved them that there is nothing corrupted which should make one Article of faith the more doubtful I assert no more depravation in them than all confess but only tell you how it came to pass and tell you the greater certainty that we have of the Essentials of Religion than of the rest And whereas every man of brains confesseth that many hundred words in Scripture by Variety of Copies are uncertain I only say that it is not so in the Essentials And I do not wonder that Virgil Ovid Horace Cicero c. Have not suffered such depravations For 1. It is not so easy for a Scribes error to pass unseen in oratione ligata as in oratione soluta in verse as in prose 2. And Cicero with the rest was almost only in the hands of Learned men whereas the Scriptures were in the hands of all the Vulgar Women and Children 3. And the Copies of these Authors were comparatively but few Whereas every one almost got Copies of the Scripture that was able And it 's liker that some depravation should be found among ten thousand Copies than among a hundred So that I have proved to you that the Creed Lords Prayer Commandments and Covenant of Baptism are not to be believed only because they are in the Scripture but also because they have been delivered to us by Tradition and so we have them from two hands as it were or ways of Conveyance and the rest of the Scriptures but by one for the most part I will say yet more because it is true and needful If any live among Papists that keep the Scripture from the people or among the poor Greeks Armenians or Abassines where the people neither have Bibles commonly nor can read or if any among us that cannot read know not what is in the Bible yea if through the fault of the Priest any should be kept from knowing that ever there was a Bible in the world Yet if those persons by Tradition receive the baptismal Covenant the Creed Lords Prayer and Commandments as Gods Word and truly believe and Love and Practice them those persons shall be saved For they have Christs promise for it And the very Covenant itself is the Gift of Christ and Life to consenters Whereas he that knoweth all the Scripture can be saved only by consenting to and performing this same Covenant But having greater helps to understand it and so to Believe it and Consent he hath a great advantage of them that have not the Scripture And so the Scripture is an unspeakable mercy to the Church And it is so far from being too little without the supplement of the Papists Traditions and Councils as that the hundredth part of it as to the bulk of words is not absolutely it self of necessity to Salvation Yet I say more If a man that hath the Scripture should doubt of some Books of it whether
their writings And for want of other words to supply our needs what abundance of distinctions of Actus and Potentiae are the Scotists and other Schoolmen fain to use What abundance of disputes are kept up by the ambiguity of the word Cause while it is applyed to things so different as Efficience Constitution and Finality The like may be said of many more And then when it cometh to a dispute of the Divine Nature of the Soul of the most weighty things these confounding notions must over-rule the Case We must not have an argument for the Souls Immortality but what these notions check or vitiate no nor scarce for an Attribute of God. XXV And it is so hard a thing to bring men to that self-denial and labour as at Age throughly and impartially to revise their juvenile conceptions and for them that learnt words before things to proceed to learn things now as appearing in their proper evidence and to come back and cancel all their old notions which were not found and to build up a new frame that not one of a multitude is ever Master of so much virtue as to attempt it and go through with it Was it not labour enough to study so many years to know what others say but they must now undo much of it and begin a new and harder labour who will do it XXVI And indeed none but men of extraordinary Acuteness and Love of truth and Self-denial and Patience are fit to do it For 1. The Common dullards will fall into the ditch when they leave their Crutches And will multiply Sects in Philosophy and Religion while they are unable to see the truth in itself And indeed this hath made the Protestant Churches so liable to the derision and reproach of their adversaries And how can it be avoided while all men must pretend to know and judge what indeed they are unable to understand 2. Yea the half-witted men that think themselves acute and wise fall into the same Calamity 3. And the proud will not endure to be thought to err when they plague the world with error 4. And the Impatient will not endure so long and difficult studies 5. And when all is done as Seneca saith they must be content with a very few approvers and must bear the scorn of the ignorant-learned crowd Who have no way to maintain the reputation of their own Wisdom Orthodoxness and Goodness but by calling him Proud or Self-conceited or Erroneous that differeth from them by knowing more than they And who but the truly self-denying can be at so much cost and labour for such reproach when they foreknow that he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow XXVII By these means mens minds that should be taken up with God and his Service are abused and vilified and filled with the dust and smoak of vain and false and confused notions And mans life is spent as David saith in a vain shew And men dream waking with as great industry as if they were about a serious work Alas how pitifully is much of the learned world employed XXVIII By this means also mens precious time is lost And he that had time little enough to learn and do things necessary for the common good and his own salvation doth waste half of it on he knoweth not what And Satan that findeth him more ingenious than to play it away at Cards and Dice or than to Drink and Revel it away doth cast another bait before him and get him learnedly to dream it away about unprofitable words and notions XXIX And by this means the Practice of goodness is hindred in the world yea and Holy Affections quenched While these arbitrary Notions and Speculations being mans own are his more pleasant game And Studies and Pulpits must be thus employed and heart and life thus stoln from God. Yea it 's well if Godliness grow not to be taken by such dreamers for a low a dull and an unlearned thing yea if they be not tempted by it to Infidelity and to think not only the zealous Ministers and Christians but even Christ and his Apostles to be unlearned men below their estimation XXX And by the same means the devilish sin of Pride will be kept up even among the Learned yea and the Preachers of Humility For what is that in the world almost that men are prouder of than that Learning which consisteth in such notions and words as are afore described And the proudest man I think is the worst XXXI And by this means the sacred Chairs and Pulpits will be possessed by such men whose spirits are most contrary to a Crucified Christ and to that Cross and Doctrine which they must preach And when Christ's greatest Enemies are the Pastors of his Churches all things will be ordered and managed accordingly and the faithful hated and abused accordingly Though I must add that it is not this Cause alone but many more concurring to constitute a worldly wicked mind which use to procure these effects XXXII And by false and vain Learning Contentions are bred and propagated in the Churches None are instruments so apt and none have been so successful as all Church History recordeth and the Voluminous contentions of many such learned parties testify XXXIII And this is an increasing malady for new Books are yearly written containing the said arbitrary notions of the several Authors And whereas real and organical Learning should be orderly and conjunctly propagated and Things studied for themselves and Words for Things the systems of of Arts and Sciences grow more and more corrupted our Logicks are too full of unapt notions our Metaphysicks are a meer confused mixture of Pneumatology and Logick and What part hath totally escaped XXXIV And the number of such Books doth grow so great that they become a great impediment and snare and how many years precious time must be lost to know what men say and who saith amiss or how they differ XXXV And the great diversity of Writers and Sects increaseth the danger trouble especially in Physicks by that time a man hath well studied the several sects the Epicureans and Somatists the Cartesians with the by-parties Regius Berigardus c. the Platonists the Peripateticks the Hermeticks Lullius Patricius Telesius Campanella White Digby Glisson and other Novelists and hath read the most learned improvers of the curranter sort of Philosophy Scheggius Wendeline Sennertus Hoffman Honorat Faber Got c. how much of his life will be thus spent And perhaps he will be as far to seek in all points saving those common evident certainties which he might have learned more cheaply in a shorter time than he was before he read them And will wish that Antonine Epictetus or Plutarch had served instead of the greater part of them And will perceive that Physicks are much fuller of uncertainties and emptier of satisfying usefulness than Morality and true Theology XXXVI By such false methods and notions men are often led to utter Scepticism and when they
it thus with extraordinary diligence but with different successes And Lyra with other old ones turn all quite another way And then come Grotius and Dr. Hammond and contradict both sides and make it all saving a few Verses to have been fulfilled many Ages since And can the unlearned or the unstudied part of Ministers then with any modesty pretend a certainty where so many and such men differ I know it is said Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this Prophecy and keep those things which are written therein But that proveth no more than 1. That some of it as ch 1 2 3. is plain and commonly intelligible 2. That it is a desirable thing to understand the rest and worthy mens endeavour in due time and rank and he that can attain to certainty may be glad of it I pass by the darkness of many Types and Prophecies of Christ in the Old Testament and how little the Jews or the Apostles themselves till after Christs Resurrection understood them With very many other obscurities which yet are not written in vain nay which make up the true perfection of the whole IX There are very many proverbial Speeches in the Scripture which are not to be understood as the words properly signifie but as the sense of those Proverbs then was among the Jews But disuse hath so totally obliterated the knowledge of the sense of many of them that no man living can certainly understand them X. There are many Texts which have words adapted to the Places the Animals the Utensils the Customs the Coins the Measures the Vegetables c. of that place and time which are some hard and some impossible now to be certainly understood And therefore such as Bochart Salmasius Casaubone Scaliger c. have done well to add new Light to our conjectures but leaving great uncertainty still XI Because the Jewish Law is by Paul plainly said to be ceased or done away it remaineth very difficult to be certain of abundance of passages in the Old Testament how far they are obligatory to us For when they now bind no otherwise than as the continued Law of nature or as reassumed by Christ into his special Law where the latter is not found in the former there is often insuperable difficulty For most lyeth upon the proof of a parity of Reason which puts us upon trying cases hardly tryed unless we knew more of the reason of all those Laws As about Vows and Dispensations Num. 30. about prohibited degrees of Marriage and such like which makes Divines so much differ about the obligation of the Judicials of which see Junius vol. 1. p. 1861 c. de Polit. Mos observ and about Usury Priesthood Magistrates power in Religion and many such XII There are abundance of Texts which only open the substance of the matter in hand to us and say nothing about abundance of difficulties of the manner and many circumstances as the manner of the Divine influx and the Spirits operation on the Soul c. And here all that which is unrevealed must needs be unknown XIII There are many Precepts which were local personal particular and so temporary and bind not universally all Persons at all times afterwards Such as the Rechabites Precepts from their Father and such as the Love Feasts the Kiss of Love Womens Veil and long Hair Mens being uncovered c. Now it is very hard to know in all instances whether the Precepts were thus temporary or universal and durable which makes Divines differ about the Anointing of the Sick the Office of Deacons and Deaconesses the Power of Bishops and Extent of their Diocesses the Eating things strangled and Blood against which Chr. Beckman in his Exercit. hath abundance of shrewd Arguments though few are of his mind In these cases few reach a Certainty and none so full a Certainty as in plainer things XIV It is very hard to be Certain when and how far Examples of holy men in Scripture bind us Though I have elsewhere proved that wherever the Apostles practice was the Execution of their Commission for setling Church Orders in which Christ promised them the help of his Spirit their Practice was obligatory Yet in many instances the obligation of Examples is very doubtful Which occasioneth the Controversies about imitating John Baptist's Life in the Wilderness and Anna and about Lent and about Baptizing by dipping over Head and about the Lords Supper whether it should be Administred to a Family or at Evening only or after Supper or Sitting or in a private House c. And about washing Feet and many Church Orders and Affairs XV. There are many things in Scripture that are spoken but once or twice and that but as on the by and not very plainly And we cannot be so Certain of any Doctrine founded on these as on passages frequently and plainly written XVI There are so many seeming differences in Scripture especially about Numbers as that if they be reconcileable few or none in the World have yet found out the way If we mention them not our selves such paultry Fellows will do it as Bened. Spinosa in his Tractatus Theolog. Polit. I will not cite any but desire the Learned Reader to consider well of what that Learned and Godly man Ludov. Capellus saith in his Critic Sacr. l. c. 10. and l. 6. c. 7 8. I own not his supposition of a better Hebrew Copy used by the Sept. I think an impartial considerer of his instances will confess that as God never promised all or any of the Scribes or Printers of the Bible any infallible Spirit that they should never write or print a word falsly and as it is certain by the various Lections that many such there have been in many and most Books so there is no one Scribe that had a promise above the rest nor any one Hebrew or Greek Copy which any man is sure is absolutely free from such miswritings For how should we be sure of that one above all the rest And I wish the Learned Reader to consider Bibliander's Preface to his Hebr. Grammar and Casaubone's Exercit. 1. § 28. and Pellicanus his Preface to his Coment on the Bible Hierom on Mic. 5.2 is too gross de Matth. 2. Quod Testimonium nec Haebraico nec 70 Interpretibus convenire c. Let him read the rest that will which is harsher he that will not confess miswritings of numbers and some names and words heretofore as well as some misprintings now doth but by his pretended Certainty tempt men to question the rest for the sake of that and injureth the Sacred Word XVII We have not the same degree of Certainty of the Canonicalness or Divineness of every Book of Scripture Though they are all Gods Word they have not all the same Evidence that they are so The New Testament had a fuller Attestation from Heaven for its Evidence to man than most of the Old had And of the
By doing thus the Church notoriously declared that they took not all the Scripture to be equally necessary to be understood but that the Govenant of Grace and the Catechism explaining it is the Gospel it self that is the Essence of it and of the Christian Religion and that all the rest of the Scriptures contain but partly the Integrals and partly the Accidents of that Religion He is the wisest man that knoweth Most and Best and every man should know as much of the Scriptures as he can But if you knew all the rest without this the Covenant of Grace and its explication it would not make you Christians or save you But if you know this truly without all the rest it will. The whole Scripture is of great use and benefit to the Church It is like the body of a man which hath its Head and Heart and Stomach c. And hath also Fingers and Toes and flesh yea Nails and Hair. And yet the Brain and Heart it self fare the better for the rest and would not be so well Seated separate from them Though a man may be a man that loseth even a Leg or Arm. So is it here But it is the Covenant that is our Christianity and the duly Baptized are Christians whatever else they do not understand These are the things that all must know and daily live upon The Creed is but the Exposition of the three Articles of the Baptismal Covenant I believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Though the Jews that had been bred up to a preparing knowledge were quickly baptized by the Apostles upon their Conversion Acts 2. Yet no man can imagine that either the Apostles or other Ministers did use to admit the Ignorant Gentiles into the Covenant of God without opening the meaning of it to them or Baptize them as Christians without teaching them what Christianity is Therefore Reason and the whole Churches subsequent Custom assure us that the Apostles used to expound the three great Articles to their Catechumens And thence it is called The Apostles Creed Marcus Bishop of Ephesus told them in the Florentine Council as you may see Sgyropilus that we have none of the Apostles Creed And Vossius de Symbolis besides many others hath many Arguments to prove that this so called was not formally made by the Apostles Bishop Usher hath opened the changes that have been in it Sandford and Parker have largely de Descensu shewed how it came in as an Exposition of the Baptismal Articles Others stifly maintain that the Apostles made it But the case seemeth plain The Apostles used to call the Baptized to the profession of the same Articles which Paul hath in 1. Cor. 15.1 2 3 c. and varied not the matter All this was but more particularly to profess Faith in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Two or three further Expository Articles are put into the Creed since Otherwise it is the same which the Apostles used not in the very syllables or forms of words but in the same sense and the words indeed being left free but seldom much altered because of the danger of altering the matter Of all the Antientest Writers not one repeateth the Creed in the same words that we have it nor any two of them in the same with one another Irenaeus once Tertullian twice hath it all in various words but the same sense That of Marcellus in Epiphanius cometh nearest ours called the Apostles and is almost it Afterward in Ruffinus and others we have more of it Yet no doubt but the Western Churches at least used it with little variation still The Nicene Creed is called by some Antients the Apostles Creed too And both were so for both are the same in sense and substance For it is not the very words that are truly fathered on the Apostles About 30â— years a go Mr. Ashwel having published a Book for the Necessity and Honour of the Creed I wrote in the Postscript to my Reformed Pastor Ed. 2. a Corrective of some passages in which he seemeth to say too much for it or at least to depress the Scripture too much in comparison of it But long experience now telleth me that I have more need to acquaint men with the Reasons and Necessity of the Creed Seeing I find a great part of ignorant Religious people much to slight the use of it and say It is not Scripture but the work of man Especially taking offence at the harsh translatiâ—n of that Article He descended into Hell. which from the beginning it 's like was not in It is the Kernel of the Scripture and it is that for which the rest of the Scripture is given us even to afford us sufficient help to understand and consent to the Covenant of Grace that our Belief our Desires and our Practice may be conformed principally to these Summaries It is not every Child or Woman that could have gathered the Essential Articles by themselves out of the whole Scripture if it had not been done to their hands Nor that could have rightly methodized the Rule of our desires or gathered the just heads of natural duty if Christ had not done the first in the Lords Prayer and God the second in the Decalogue Obj. But I believe these only because the Matter of the Creed and the words also of the other two are in the Scripture and not on any other Authority Ans If you speak of the Authority of the Author which giveth them their truth it is neither Scripture nor Tradition but God for whose Authority we must believe both Scripture and them But if you speak of the Authority of the Deliverers and the Evidence of the Delivery be it known to you 1. That the Creed Lords Prayer Decalogue and the Baptismal Covenant have been delivered down to the Church from the Apostles by a distinct Tradition besides the Scripture Tradition Even to all the Christians one by one that were Baptized and admitted to the Lords Table and to every particular Church So that there was not a Christian or Church that was not even Constituted by them 2. Be it known to you that the Church was long in possession of them before it had the Scriptures of the New Testament It 's supposed to be about eight years after Christ's Ascension before Matthew wrote the first Book of the New Testament and near the year of our Lord one hundred before the Revelation was written And do you think that there were no Christians or Churches all that while Or that there was no Baptism Or no Profession of the Christian Faith in distinct Articles No Knowledge of the Lords Prayer and Commandements No Gospel daily preached and practised What did the Church-assemblies think you do all those years No doubt those that had Inspiration used it by extraordinary gifts But that was not all Those that had not did preach the Substance of the Christian Religion contained in these forms and did Pray and Praise God
and as proud self-seeking men that will approve of none but those that flatter them and are of their way Some such there may be But sure all are not such Why do you not desire the Judgment of the wisest most impartial men but take up with the applause of unlearned persons that are of your own mind and way and magnify you for humouring them So you shall hear Empyricks and She-Physicians vilify Doctors of Physick as men that have less knowledge than they and are so Proud and Covetous and Dishonest that there is no trusting them When Pretended Knowledge must have so base a Cloak it is the greater sin 6. And it is the heinouser sin when they venture to do heinous mischief by it As a Papist a Quaker or a Separatist will in his confidence be a perverter of others and a Condemner of the Just and a defamer of those that are against him and a troubler of the Church and World. He that in his self-conceitedness dare resist the wisest and his Teachers and Rulers and set Countries on Fire is wickedly presumptuous So in the practice of Physick when people will be self-conceited when the Lives of others lie upon it and a silly Fellow or Woman will venture to purge to let blood to give this or that who know neither the disease nor proper cure 7. It is therefore a heinous sin in Rulers who must judge for the life and death of others or for the peace or misery of thousands about them I mean Pastors and Commanders in Armies and Navies and other Governours on whom the publick welfare of the Church or Army or Navy or Countrey doth depend O how wise should that person be whose errours may cost thousands so dear as their destruction Or if their understandings be not extraordinary how cautelous should they be in judging upon hearing the wisest and hearing dissenters and not only Flatterers or Consenters and hearing men of several minds and hearing all Witnesses and Evidence and hearing every man speak for himself and after all considering throughly of it Specially of Laws and Wars and Impositions in Religion where thousands of Conscience say what you can will expect Satisfaction When a Woman called to Antigonus to hear her cause and do her Justice he told her that he could not have leisure She answered you should not have while to be King then Whereupon he heard her and did her right Had it been to an inferior Judge she had spoken reason 8. Lastly Pretended Certainty is the greater sin when it is falsly fathered on God. But the Pope and Council dare pretend that God hath promised them Infallibility and God hath certified them that the consecrated Bread is no Bread and that our senses are all deceived and God hath made the Pope the universal Ruler of the World or Church and made him and his Council the only Judges by which all men must know what is the word of God. So when Fanaticks will pretend that by Revelation Visions or Inspirations of the Spirit God hath assured them that this or that is the meaning of a Text which they understand not or the truth in such or such a controversy Alas among too many well meaning persons God is pretended for a multitude of sinful errors And they that preach false Doctrine will do it as the old Prophet spake to the young as from the Lord And they that rail at godliness and they that censure backbite cast out or persecute their Brethren will do it as Rabshakeh Hath not God sent me c. Men will not make any snares for the Church or their Brethrens Consciences but in the name of God They will not divide the Church nor cast out Infants nor refuse Communion with their Brethren but in the name of God. One man saith God forbiddeth him all Book Prayers or all Imposed Forms of Prayer And another saith God forbiddeth him all but such And all bely God and add this heinous abuse of his holy word and name unto their sin Chap. 15. Some special aggravations more of this sin in Students and Pastors which should deter them from pretended Knowledge or prefidence TO such I will suppose that to name the Evils may suffice on my part without sharp amplifications Though I have spoken to you first in what is said I will briefly add 1. That this sin will make you slothful students Few study hard who are quickly confident of their first conceptions 2. While you do study it keepeth out Knowledge You are too full of your selves to receive easily from others 3. It is the Common Parent of Errour and Heresy Ignorance is the Mother and Pride the Father of them all And Prefidence and Pretended Knowledge is but Proud Ignorance in another name 4. What a life of precious time will you waste in following the erroneous thoughts of your bewildred minds 5. As food altereth the temperament of the body which it nourisheth so the very temperament of your minds and wills and affections will become vain and frothy and shadowy or malignant and perverse according to the quality of your Errour 6. It is the common Parent of Superstition It defileth God's Worship with Humane Inventions with duties and sins of our own making All such mens dreams will seem to them to be the Laws of God. 7. It will entail a corrupt Education of Youth upon us and consequently a corrupt degenerate kind of Learning and so a degenerate Ministry on the Churches When Youths are possessed with abundance of Uncertainties under the name of Learning and Religion it will grow the custom to Teach and Talk and Live accordingly Do I say It will do If the Schoolmens Errour in this deserve but half as much as Faber Valla Hutten Erasmus charge upon them you should hear and take warning Not to avoid the most accurate knowledge by the hardest studies but to avoid pretending that you know what you do not 8. And you will make vain strife and contention about vanity your very trade and business when you come abroad in the world They that make Uncertainties or Errours to be their studies and honourable Learning must keep up the honour of it by Living as they Learnt and talking vainly for the vanities of their minds 9. And you are like hereby to become the chiefest Instruments of Satan to trouble the Church either with Heresies Schisms or Persecutions 10. And truly it should much turn your hearts against it to know that it is a continual habit or exercise of Pride And Pride the Devil's sin is one of the most heinous and odious to God. If you hate any sin you should hate Pride And it is one of the worst sorts of Pride too As Nature hath three Principles active Power Intellect and Will and Man three Excellencies Greatness Wisdom and Goodness so Pride hath these three Great Objects Men are proud that they are Greater or Wiser or Better than others That is They think themselves Greater or Wiser
and whether the Episcopi Gregis or eorum Praesides or true Evangelists or Apostolical General Bishops disarmed and duely chosen be any injury to the Church And whether the Jews had not been a National Christian Church under the Twelve Apostles and Seventy if they had not rejected him that would have gathered them as the Hen gathereth her Chickens under her Wings They that cannot deny that Christ setled a Superior Rank of Ministers appointing them besides their Extraordinaries the work of Gathering and Over-seeing many Churches promising therein to be with them to the end of the World and that only Matthias must make up the National number of such though Justus had been with Christ as well as he must be the Provers that this Rank and Imparity was reversed by him that did Institute it if they affirm it And not without proof charge Christ with seeming levity and mutability as setling a Form of Ministry and Government which he would have continue but one Age Much less must they impose such an unproved affirmation as the terms of Church Concord Woe woe woe how effectually hath Satan almost undone the Christian World by getting in naughty Ministers and Magistrates where he could not utterly Extirpate Christianity by Arms Thereby making Rulers and Preachers the Captains of the malignant Enemies of seriousness in that Religion which they Profess and Preach themselves And if in such Hypocrisie they Convert a Soul they hate him as an Enemy for believing them And thereby tempt Religious Men to mistake the Crime of the naughty Preacher as the fault of the Office and to oppose the Office for the Persons sake and so Ministry and Christianity is despised by too many The shutting of their Church Doors and condemning to Scorn and Beggery and Jails those that were as wise and faithful as themselves unless fearing heinous sin made them worse should have been by the Persecutors long and deeply thought on twenty eight years ago and ever since by them that believe that Christ will judge them And so should all Doctrines and Practices that tend to unwarrantable separations and divisions by others Things of this moment should not be ventured on nor Papists made both Lords and Executioners by our distracted Combates with each other and the miserable Nation and undone Church left to no better a remedy than a non putaremus and to hear the worldly Tyrants and the tempted Sufferers accusing each other and disputing when the House is burnt who was in the fault I think he was most faulty that could most easily have helped it and would not But if Great and Rich Men will be the strength of the Factious as they have most to lose they may be the greatest losers All this hath been said to tell you how nearly the Doctrine of this Book for necessary Doubting and a humble Understanding and for Christian Love and against pretended Knowledge and rash Judging doth concern the duty and safety of this Nation Church and State. My late Book of the English Nonconformity fully evinceth this and more but blinding Prejudice Worldliness and Faction give leave to few of the guilty to read it I rest your much obliged Servant Rich. Baxter July 31. 1689. TO THE READER Reader UPon the Review of this Book written long ago I find 1. That it is a Subject as necessary now as ever Experience telling us that the Disease is so far from being Cured that it is become our publick shame and danger and if the wonderful Mercy of God prevent it not is like to be the speedy confusion and ruine of the Land. 2. As to the manner of this writing I find the effects of the failing of my Memory in the oft repeating of the same things with little diversification But I will not for that cast it away considering 1. That perhaps oft repeating may make the matter the better remembered and if it do the work intended no matter though the Author be not applauded 2. And men may think justly that what is oft repeated dropt not from the Author inconsiderately nor is taken by him to be small and useless but is that digested Truth which he would most inculcate 3. And those who blame their weakness who accuse the Church Liturgy of too much repetition I suppose will not be much offended with it in our Writings while the dulness and forgetfulness of many Readers maketh it needful Aug. 3. 1689. Rich. Baxter THE CONTENTS The First Part. 1 Cor. 8.2 3. CHap. 1. The Text opened What Philosophy Paul depresseth and why Ch. 2. What Wisdom and Esteem of it are not here condemned Ch. 3. What Pretended Knowledge is condemned and what Learning or Philosophy it is which Paul disliked further opened with thirty Reasons Ch. 4. What are the Certainties which must be known and held fast and why where Certainty is distinctly described Ch. 5. Of the various Degrees of Certainty Ch. 6. What are the unknown things or Uncertainties which we must not pretend a certain Knowledge of even Scripture Truths Ch. 7. The first Inference The True Reason and Usefulness of the Christian simplicity in differencing the Covenant and the Principles of Religion from the rest of the holy Scriptures Ch. 8. Infer 2. Of the Use of Catechizing Ch. 9. Infer 3. The true Preservative of puzzled Christians from the Errours of false Teachers who draw them to their several Parties Ch. 10. Infer 4. What is the great Plague and Divider of the Christian World. Ch. 11. The common discoveries of Mens proud self-conceited understanding and of pretended Knowledge Ch. 12. Of the mischievous effects of this proud pretence of more Knowledge than men have Ch. 13. The Commodities of a suspended Judgment and humble understanding which pretendeth to no more Knowledge or Certainty than it hath Ch. 14. The Aggravations of the Sin of Prefidence Ch. 15. Special Aggravations of it in Students and Pastors Ch. 16. Twenty clear proofs of the little Knowledge that is in the World to move us to a due distrust of our understandings Ch. 17. Infer 5. It is not the dishonour but the praise of Christ and his Apostles and the Gospel that they speak in a plain style and manner of the certain necessary things without the Vanity of School Uncertainty and unprofitable Notions Ch. 18. Infer 6. The true and false ways of restoring the Churches and healing our Divisions hence opened and made plain Ch. 19. Of the causes of Prefidence or proud pretended Knowledge in order to the Cure. Ch. 20. Objections Answered Ch. 21. Directions for the Cure. The Second Part. CHap. 1. Knowledge is a means to a higher End according to which it is to be estimated Ch. 2. The End of Knowledge is to make us Lovers of God and so to be known of him Ch. 3. Therefore Knowledge is to be sought valued and used as it tendeth to our Love of God. Ch. 4. Therefore they are the wisest and best knowing Men that Love God best and not
this Doctrine I. What wisdom and what esteem of our wisdom is not here condemned Ans 1. Not any real useful knowledg at all whilst every thing keepeth its proper place and due esteem as is said 2. That which of it self primarily is of so small use as that it falleth under the contempt of the Apostles yet by accident through the subtilty of Satan and the viciousness of the World may become to some men in some measure necessary And here cometh in the calamity of Divines Of how little use is it to me in it self to know what is written in many a hundred Books which yet by accident it much concerneth me to know And if God restrain him not the Devil hath us here at so great an advantage that he can make our work almost endless and hath almost done it already yea can at any time divert us from greatest Truth and Works by making another at that time more necessary If he raise up Socinians our task is increased we must read their Books that we may be able to confute them so must we when he raiseth up Libertines Familists Seekers Quakers and such other Sects If he stir up controversies in the Church about Government Worship Ceremonies Circumstances Words Methods c we must read so much as to understand all that we may defend the truth against them If Papists will lay the stress of all their controversies on Church History and the words of Ancients we must read and understand all or they will triumph If School-men will build their Theology on Aristotle all men have not the wit with the Iberian Legate at the Florentine Council in Sagyrophilus to cry against the Preacher What have we to do with Aristotle But if we cannot deal with them at their own weapons they will triumph If Cavillers will dispute only in mood and figure we must be able there to over-top them or they will insult If the Plica Pox Scurvey or other new diseases do arise the Physician must know them all if he will cure them And hence it is that we say that a Lawyer must know the Law and a Physician must know Physicks and Medicine c. But a Divine should know all things that are to be known because the diseased world hath turned pretended knowledg into the great malady which must be cured but is the thing it self of any great worth Is it any great honour to know the vanity of Philosophical Pedantry And to be able to overdo such gamesters any more than to beat one at a game at Chess or for a Physician to know the Pox or Leprosie 3. Yet indeed as all things are sanctified to the holy and pure to the pure a wise man may and must make great use of common inferiour kinds of knowledge especially the true Grammatical sense of Scripture words the true precepts of Logick the certain parts of real Physicks and Pneumatology For God is seen in his Works as in a Glass and there to search after him and behold him is a noble pleasant Work and Knowledg And I would that no Israelite may have need to go down to the Philistines for instruments of this sort 4. It is not forbidden to any man to know that measure of wisdom which he truly hath God bindeth us not to err nor to call Light Darkness or Truth Error or to belie our selves or deny his gifts 1. It is desireable for a man absolutely to know as much as he can preferring still the greatest things and to know that he knoweth them and not to be sceptical and doubt of all 2. It is a duty for a converted sinner comparatively to know that he is wiser than he was in his sinful state and to give God thanks for it 3. It is his duty who groweth in wisdom and receiveth new accessions of Light to know that he so groweth and to give God thanks and to welcome each useful truth with joy 4. It is the duty of a good and wise man comparatively to know that he is not as foolish as the ungodly nor to think that every wicked man or ignorant person whom he should pity and instruct is already wiser than he every Teacher is not to be so foolish as to think that all his flock are more judicious than himself In a word it is not a true estimate of the thing or of our selves that is forbidden us but a false It is not belying our selves nor ingratitude to God nor a contradiction to know a thing and not to know that I know it nor an ignorance of our own minds which is commanded us under the pretence of humility But it is a Proud conceit that we know what we do not know that is condemned Chap. 3. What pretended knowledge is condemned and what Philosophy and Learning it is that Paul disliked II. MOre distinctly 1. It is condemnable for any man to think himself Absolutely or Highly wise because our knowledg here is so poor and dark and low that compared with our Ignorance it is little we know not what or how many or how great the things are which we do not know but in general we may know that they are incomparably more and greater than what we do know we know now but as Children and Darkly and in a Glass or Riddle 1 Cor. 13.11 12. In the sence that Christ faith none is good but God we may say that none is wise but God. For a man that must know unless he be a very sot that he knoweth nothing perfectly in the World that he knoweth but little of any Worm or Fly or pile of Grass which he seeth or of himself his Soul or Body or any Creature for this man to assume the Title of a Wise man is arrogant unless comparatively understood when he is ignorant of ten thousand fold more than he knoweth and the predominant part denominateth The old enquirers had so much modesty as to arrogate no higher name than Philosophers 2. It is very condemnable for any man to be proud of his understanding while it is so low and poor and dark and hath still so much matter to abase us He knoweth not what a Dungeon poor mortals are in nor what a darkened thing a sinful mind is nor what a deplorable state we are in so far from the Heavenly light no nor what it is to be a man in Flesh who findeth not much more cause of humiliation than of pride in his understanding O how much ado have I to keep up from utter despondency under the consciousness of so great ignorance which no study no means no time doth overcome How long Lord shall this Dungeon be our dwelling And how long shall our foolish Souls be loth to come into the Celestial light 3. It is sinful folly to pretend to know things unrevealed and impossible to be known Deut. 29.29 The secret things belong unto the Lord our God but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our Children
have several significations So that when Tutors read the same books to their Schollars and teach them the same notions it is not the same conceptions always that they thus communicate VIII And when all is done Recipitur ad modum recipientis It 's two to one but the Learner receiveth their notions with a conception somewhat different from them all And when he thinks that he hath learnt what was taught him and is of his Teachers mind he is mistaken and hath received another apprehension IX And the narrowness of mans mind and thoughts is such that usually there must go many partial conceptions to one thing or Object really indivisible So that few things or nothing rather in the world is known by us with one conception nor with a simplicity of apprehensions answerable to the simplicity of the things And hereby it cometh to pass that Inadequate conceptions make up a great part of our Learning and knowledge And yet worse our words being narrower than our Thoughts we are fain to multiply words more than conceptions so that we must have ten conceptions perhaps of one thing and twenty words perhaps for those ten conceptions And then we grow to imagine the things to be as various as our conceptions yea and our words And so Learning is become confused error and the great and noble Actions of the Phantastical world are a pitiful confused agitation of Phantasms and whether fortuitous or artificial a congress of Atoms sometimes digladiating and sometimes seeming by amicable embraces to compose some excellent piece of Art. And things seem to us to be multiplyed and ordered as our conceptions of them are And the Scotists may yet write as many more Treatises de formalitatibus before men will understand indeed what a conceptus formalis with them is and whether diverse formalities be diverse realities or only ejusdem conceptus inadequati But thus Learning is become like a poppet play or the raising of the dust X. The Entia Rationis being thus exceeding numerous are already confounded with objective Realities and have compounded our common Systems of Logick Metaphysicks and too much of Physicks So that Students must at first see through false Spectacles and Learn by seducing notions and receive abundance of false conceptions as the way to Wisdom and Shadows and Rubbish must furnish their minds under the name of truth though mixt with many real Verities For young men must have Teachers They cannot begin at the foundation and every one learn of himself as if none had ever learnt before him He is like to make but a slow proficient that maketh no use of the Studies and Experience of any that ever learnt before him And he that will learn of others must receive their notions and words as the means of his information XI And when they grow up to be capable of real wisdom O! what a labour is it to cleanse out this rubbish and to unlearn all the errors that we have learnt so that it is much of the happiest Progress of extraordinary successful Studies to find out our old mistakes and set our conceptions in better order one by one Perhaps in one year we find out and reform some two or three and in another year one or two more and so on Even as when at my removal of my Library my Servant sets up all my books and I must take them half down again to set them in their right places XII And the difficulty of the matter is our great Impediment when we come to study things For 1. Their Matter 2. Their Composure 3. Their Numbers 4. Their Order and Relations 5. And their Action and Operation are much unknown to us XIII 1. The substance of Spirits is so little known as tempteth Sadduces to dream that there are none The notion of a Spirit to some through ignorance is taken to be meerly negative as if it signified no more but not corporeal The notion of Immateriality is lubricous and he that knoweth not the true bounds of the signification of Materia knoweth not what it is to be Immaterial The purest Spirit is known only by many inadequate conceptions One must answer the similitude of Matter in fundamental substantiality Another must be answerable to that of Forms of simple Elements and another answerable to Accidents And though nothing be so notorious of Spirits as their Operations and from the Acts we know the Virtues or Powers yet that these Virtues are not Accidents but the very Essential Form and that they are in all Spirits One in Three and many other things concerning their Essentiality are quite overlookt by the greater part of Philosophers and those few that open it do either with Campanella lose it again in a wood of mistaken ill gathered consequences or with Lullius drown it in a multitude of irregular arbitrary notions or with Commenius give us a little undigested with the mixture of crudities and mistakes or with our Learned Dr. Glisson de vitâ Naturae confound Spirits and Bodies and make those Spirits which are the Vital constitutive principle of Compounds to be but the inadequate conception of Bodies as if they were all simply and formally Vital of themselves and for a Body to be inanimate were a contradiction or impossible And they that treat more nobly of Spirits as Mr. Got and many Platonists do it so immethodically and confusedly as greatly disadvantageth the Learner And yet to treat of Bodies without treating of the Spirits that animate or actuate them is a lame deluding unedifying thing As it is to treat of a Kingdom an Army a School without mentioning a King a Captain or a Schoolmaster or as to describe a Gun without any mention of Gunpowder or shooting Or a Clock or Watch without the Poise or Spring or Motion or a Book or words without the sense and so of a Man without a Soul or Reason or a Brute without any Life or Sense I mean when we speak of Compound Beings and not meerly of Corporeity in the notion as abstracted from all Vital moving principles XIV 2. And what the true notion of Matter or Corporeity it self is it is but darkly and uncertainly known how confidently soever some decantate their moles or quantity divisibility or discerptibility and impenetrability Whether Fire be material and divisible and impenetrable and how far Fire and Spirits herein differ and so Spirits and Bodies and how far sensible must enter the definition of Corpus is not easily known XV. 3. Nor do we well know the Nature of the simple Corporeal Elements whether they agree only in materiality quantity and divisibility and impenetrability and whether they differ only in magnitude shape sight and contexture of parts or by any essentiating Formal Virtues or both or as Mr. Got thought by a differencing proper spirit XVI 4. How little of the Divine Artifice is known in the composition of mixt Bodies And we know of no existent Simples in the world that are not found only
A man of credit or an impudent Liar Both may be equal in confident asserting and in the plausibility of the narrative Meer humane belief therefore must be uncertain From whence we see the pitiful case of the subjects of the King of Rome for so I must rather call him than a Bishop Why doth a Lay-man believe Transubstantiation or any other Article of their Faith Because the Church faith it is Gods Word What is the Church that saith so It is a faction of the Popes perhaps at Laterane or forty of his Prelates at the Conventicle of Trent How doth he know that these men do not lie Because God promised that Peters Faith should not fail and the Gates of Hell should not prevail against the Church and the Spirit should lead the Apostles into all truth But how shall he know that this Scripture is Gods Word And also that it was not a total failing rather than a failing in some degree that Peter was by that promise freed from Or that the Spirit was promised to these Prelates which was promised to the Apostles Why because these Prelates say so And how know they that they say true Why from Scripture as before But let all the rest go How knoweth the Lay-man that ever the Church made such a decree That ever the Bishops of that Council were lawfully called That they truely represented all Christs Church on Earth That this or that Doctrine is the decree of a Council or the sence of the Church indeed Why because the Priest tells him so But how knoweth he that this Priest saith true or a few more that the man speaketh with there I leave you I can answer no further but must leave the credit of Scripture Council and each particular Doctrine on the credit of that poor single Priest or the few that are his companions The Lay-man knoweth it no otherwise Q. But is not the Scripture it self then shaken by this seeing the History of the Canon and incorruption of the Books c. dependeth on the word of Man Ans No. 1. I have elsewhere fully shewed how the Spirit hath sealed the substance of the Gospel 2. And even the matters of fact are not of meer humane Faith. For meer humane Faith depends on the meer honesty of the reporter but this Historical Faith dependeth partly on Gods attestation and partly on Natural proofs 1. God did by Miracles attest the reports of the Apostles and first Churches 2. The consent of all History since that these are the same writings which the Apostles wrote hath a Natural Evidence above bare humane Faith. For I have elsewhere shewed that there is a concurrence of humane report or a consent of history which amounteth to a true Natural Evidence the Will having its Nature and some necessary acts and nothing but necessary ascertaining causes could cause such concurrence Such Evidence we have that K. James Q. Elizabeth Q. Mary lived in England that our Statute books contain the true Laws which those Kings and Parliaments made whom they are ascribed to For they could not possibly rule the Land and over-rule all mens interests and be pleaded at the Bar c. without contradiction and detection of the fraud if they were forgeries though it 's possible that some words in a Statute Book may be misprinted There is in this a Physical Certainty in the consent of men and it depends not as humane Faith upon the honesty of the reporter but Knaves and Liars have so consented whose interests and occasions are cross and so is it in the case of the history of the Scripture Books which were read in all the Churches through the World every Lords day and contenders of various opinions took their Salvation to be concerned in them VIII Those things must needs be uncertain to any man as to a particular Faith or Knowledge which are more in number than he may possibly have a distinct understanding of or can examine their Evidence whether they be certain or not For instance the Roman Faith containeth all the Doctrinal decrees and their Religion also all the Practical decrees of all the approved General Councils that is of so much as pleased the Pope such power hath he to make his own Religion But these General Councils added to all the Bible with all the Apocrypha are so large that it is not possible for most men to know what is in them So that if the question be whether this or that Doctrine be the Word of God and the proof of the affirmative is because it is decreed by a General Council this must be uncertain to almost all men who cannot tell whether it be so decreed or no Few Priests themselves knowing all that is in all those Councils So that if they knew that all that is in the Councils is Gods Word they know never the more whether this or that Doctrine e. g. the immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary c. be the Word of God. And if a Heathen knew that all that is in the Bible is the Word of God and knew not a word what is in it would this make him a Christian or Saint him You may object that most Protestants also know not all that is in the Scripture Ans True nor any one And therefore Protestants say not that all that is in the Scripture is necessary to be known to Salvation but they take their Religion to have essential parts and integral parts and accidents And so they know how far each is necessary But the Papists deride this distinction and because all truths are equally true they would make men believe that all are equally Fundamental or Essential to Christianity But this is only when they dispute against us at other times they say otherwise themselves when some other interest leads to it and so cureth this impudency It were worthy the enquiry whether a Papist take all the Bible to be Gods Word and de fide or only so much of it as is contained particularly in the decrees of Councils If the latter then none of the Scripture was de fide or to be particularly believed for above 300 years before the Council of Nice If the former then is it as necessary to Salvation to know how old Henoch was as to know that Jesus Christ is our Saviour IX Those things must needs be uncertain which depend upon such a number of various circumstances as cannot be certainly known themselves For instance the common rule by which the Papist Doctors do determine what particular Knowledge and Faith are necessary to Salvation is that so many truths are necessary as are sufficiently propounded to that person to be known and believed But no man living learned nor unlearned can tell what is necessary to the sufficiency of this proposal Whether it be sufficient if he be told it in his Childhood only and at what Age Or if he be told it but once or twice or thrice or how oft whether by a Parent or
retractations of some youthful Errours and he that changeth not and retracteth nothing it seems is in his childish Ignorance and Errour still but when natural frailty exposeth us all to much of this disgrace we should not expose our selves to so much more A hasty judger or prefident man must be a very Weathercock or be defiled with a Leprosie of Errour Whereas if men would but be humble and modest and self-suspicious and suspend their presumption and not take on them to know before they know indeed how safely might they walk and how seldom would they need to change their minds or either stick in the sink of Errour or make many shameful Retractations 9. Prefidence and false judging engageth a man in a very life of sin For when falshood goeth for truth with him it will infect his affections and pollute his conversation and all that he doth in the obedience and prosecution of that Errour will be sin Yea the greatest sin that he can but think no sin may be committed as was the Persecution of Christ and Christians by the Jews and Paul and others like them and the Papists bloodiness for their Religion throughout Christendom 10. It disturbeth the Peace of all Societies This is the vice that disquieteth Families Every one is wisest in his own Eyes The Servant thinketh his own way better than his Masters What are all the contentions between Husband and Wife or any in the Family but that in all their differences every one thinketh himself to be in the right His own Opinion is right his own Words and Ways are right and when every one is wise and just and every one is in the right the effects are such as if no one were wise or in the right And in Civil Societies Seditions Rebellions Oppressions Tyranny and all Confusions come from this that men pretend to be sure of what they are not Rulers take up with false reports from idle malicious whisperers and accusers against their inferiours and have not the Justice and Patience to suspend their Judgments till they have searcht out the matter and fully heard men speak for themselves Subjects make themselves Judges of the secrets of â—overnment and of the Councils and Actions of their Rulers of which they have no certain notice but venture to conclude upon deceitful suspicions And the Contentions and Factions amongst Nobles and other Subjects come from misunderstandings through hasty and ungrounded judgings But the wofullest effects are in the Churches where alas whilst every Pastor will be wiser than another and the People wiser than all their Pastors and every Sect and Party much wiser than all that differ from them their divisions their separations their alienations and bitter censurings of each other their obtruding their own Opinions and Rules and â—eremonies upon each other their bitter envyings strife and persecutions of each other do make sober standers-by to ask as Paul Is there not a wise man among you O happy the World happy Kingdoms but most happy the Churches of Christ if we could possibly bring men but to know their Ignorance If the Pastors themselves were not prefident and presumptuous over-valuers of their own apprehensions And if the People knew how little they know But now alas men rage against each other in their dreams and few of them have the grace to awake before death and find to repentance that they were themselves in errour Hear me with that remnant of meekness and humility which thou hast left thou confident bitter censorious man Why must that man needs be taken for a Heretick a Schismatick a refractory stubborn self-willed person an Antichristian carnal formal man who is not of thy Opinion in point of a Controversie of a Form of an Order of a Circumstance or Subscription or such like It 's possible it may be so And its possible thou maist be more so thy self But hast thou so patiently heard all that he hath to say and so clearly discerned the truth on thy own side and that this truth is made so evident to him as that nothing but wilful obstinacy can resist it as will warrant all thy censure and contempt Or is it not an over-valuing of thy own understanding which makes thee so easily condemn all as unsufferable that differ from it Hath not pride made thy silly wit to be as an Idol to which all must bow down on pain of the heat of thy displeasure Do not some of those men whom thou so Magisterially condemnest study as hard and as impartially as thy self Do they not pray as hard for Gods assistance Have they not the same Books and as good Teachers Do they not live as well and shew as much tenderness of Conscience and fear of erring and sinning as thy self why then art thou so hasty in condemning them that are as fair for the reputation of wisdom as thou art But suppose them mistaken hast thou tryed that they are unwilling to be instructed It may be you have wrangled with them by disputes which have but engaged each other to defend his own Opinion But call them to thee in Love and tell them you are ignorant and I am wise I will teach you what you know not and open to them all the Evidence which causeth your own confident apprehensions Wish them to study it and hear patiently what they have to say and I am perswaded that many or most sober men that differ from you will not refuse thus to become as your Scholars so far as to consider all that you have to offer to convince them and thankfully receive as much of the truth as they can discern But alas no men rage so much against others as erroneous and blind as the blind and erroneous and no men so furiously brand others with the marks of Obstinacy Factiousness and Schism as the Obstinate Factious and Schismatical The prouder the Obtruder of his own conceits is the more he condemneth all Dissenters as proud for presuming to differ from such as he and all for want of a humble mind 11. Moreover it is this pretended knowledge which is the cause of all our false Reformations Men are so over-wise that they presently see a Beam in their Brothers Eye which is but a Mote and they magnifie all the imperfections of others Pastors and Churches into Mountains of iniquity Every mis-expression or disorder or inconvenient phrase in a Prayer or a Sermon or a Book is an odious damning intolerable evil O! say such what Idolaters are they that use a Form of Prayer which God did not command What large Consciences have they that can join with a Parish Church that can communicate Kneeling and among bad men or those whose Conversion is not tryed What abundance of intolerable evils do such men find in the Words and Forms and Orders and Circumstances of other mens Worship which God mercifully accepteth through Christ taking all these but for such pardonable imperfections as he mercifully beareth with in all And then
he hath set up to them they are half as long in Learning for all that as if he had never given them such a help And therefore it is that we cannot leave our Learning to Posterity Because still the stop is in the Receivers incapacity And he cannot be capable of the plainest precepts but by much time and study 2. Pride maketh men hasty in concluding because they are not humbled to a just Suspicion of their own apprehensions And men stay not to prove and try things before they judge 3. Pride maketh men insensible how much they are ignorant of in all their Knowledge 4. And it causeth men to slight the Reasons and Judgments of other men by which they might learn or at least might be taught to Judge considerately and suspend their own If over-valuing a mans own apprehensions be Pride as it is then certainly Pride is one of the commonest sins in the world and particularly among men professing godliness who upon every poor surmise or report are condemning those that they do not throughly know and in every petty controversy they are all still in the right though of never so many minds III Another cause of Pretended Knowledge is the want of a truly tender Conscience Which should make men fear lest they should err lest they should deserve the curse of putting light for darkness darkness for light evil for good good for evil should make them afraid lest they should defile their minds resist the truth blaspheme God or Dishonour him by fathering Errors on him and lest they should prove snares to mens Souls and a Scandal and Trouble to the Church of God. A tender Conscience would not have espoused such opinions under a year or two or manies deliberation which an Antinomian or other Sectary will take up in a few days if they were true O saith the tender Conscience what if I should Err and prove a Snare to Souls and a Scandal and Dishonour to the Church of God c. IV. Another cause of Pretended Knowledge is a blind Zeal for Knowledge and Godliness in the General while men know not what it is that they are zealous of They think that it is a necessary part of sincerity to receive the Truth speedily without delay And therefore they take a present concluding for a true Receiving it And he that soonest taketh up that which is offered him probably as a part of Godliness is taken for the most resolved down-right convert Which is true in case of Evident Truths where it is the will that by vice suspendeth the mind But not in dark and doubtful cases V. Another cause is an inordinate trust in man When some admire the learned too much and some the Religious and some this or that particular person and therefore build too confidently on their words Some on great men some on the Multitude but most on men of fame for great Learning or great Piety A credit is to be given by every learner to his Teacher But the confounding this with oâ— Belief of God and making it a part of our Religion and not trusting man as man only that is as a fallible Wight doth cause this Vice of Pretended Knowledge to pass with millions for Divine Faith. Especially when men embody themselves into a Sect as the only Orthodox or Godly party or as the only true Church as the Papists do then it emboldeneth them to believe any thing which their Sect or Church believeth For they think that this is the Churches Faith which cannot err or is the safest And that God would not let so many good men err And thus they that should be made their Teachers and the Helpers of their Faith become the Lords of it and almost their Gods. VI. And it much increaseth this sin that men are not sufficiently acquainted with the Original and Additional Corruption of mans nature and know not how Blind all Mankind is Alas man is a dark Creature What error may he not hold What villany may he not do Yea and maintain Truly said David All men are Liars Pitifully do many expound this as an effect of his unbelief and passion because he saith I said it my haste When it is no more than Paul saith Let God be true and every man a Liar Rom. 3. And than Solomon and Isaiah say All men are Vanity And Jeremy cursed be he that trusteth in man All men are untrusty in a great degree Weak False and Bad. And his haste was either as Dr. Hammond translateth it his Flight or else that his Tryal and distress made him more passionately sensible of the Vanity or Untrustiness of man than he was at other times For Vanity and a Lie to the Hebrews were words of the same importance signifying Deceivableness and untrustiness And indeed among mankind there is so great a degree of Impotency Selfishness Timorousness Ignorance Errour and Viciousness as that few wicked men are to be believed where there is any strong Temptation to lying And the Devil is seldom unprovided of Temptations And abundance of Hypocrites are as untrusty as open wicked men And abundance of sincere Godly persons especially Women have loose Tongues and hasty passions and a stretching Conscience but specially injudicious heads so that frequently they know not truth from falshood nor have the tenderness of Conscience to be silent till they know So that if one say it another will say it till a hundred say it and then it goeth for currant truth Good-mens over-much credulity of one another hath filled the Church with Lies and Fables Many of the Papists Sâ—â—â—rstitions Purgatory praying to Saints and Angels prayâ—â— for the dead c. were bred by this credulity It is so visible in Venerable Beda Gregory the first yea before them in Sulpitius Severus of Martius Life and abundance more that to help up Christianity among the Pagans they laid hold of any old Womans or Ignorant Mans Dreams and Visions and stories of pretended Miracles Revelations that it made even Melchior Canus cry out of the shameful Ridiculous filth that hence had filled their Legends Even Baronius upon Tryal retaineth no small number of them and with his Brethren the Oratorians on their Prophesying days told them to the people I am ashamed that I recited one out of him before my Treatise of Crucifying the World though I did it not as perswading any that it was true For I quickly saw that Sophronious on whom he fathered it was none of the reporters of it that Book being spurious and none of Sophronius his work Indeed I know of such impudent false History lately Printed of matters of publick fact in these times yea divers concerning my own Words and Actions by persons that are far from Contemptible that Strangers and Posterity will scarce believe that humane nature could be guilty of it in the open light And I know it to be so customary a thing for the Zealots professing the fear of God on one
that he will love me who hath loved me while I was his Enemy and called me home when I went astray and mercifully received me when I returned Who hath given me a life full of precious mercies and so many experiences of his love as I have had Who hath so often signified his love to my Conscience So often heard my prayers in distress and hath made all my life notwithstanding my sins a continual wonder of his mercies O unthankful Soul if all this will not persuade thee of the love of him that gave it I that can do little good to any one yet have abundance of friends and hearers who very easily believe that I would do them good were it in my power and never fear that I should do them harm And shall it be harder to me to think well of Infinite Love and Goodness than for my neighbours to trust me and think well of such a wretch as I What abundance of love-tokens have I yet to shew which were sent me from Heaven to perswade me of my Fathers love and care 7. Shall I not easily believe and trust his love who hath promised me eternal glory with his Son with all his holy ones in Heaven Who hath given me there a great Intercessor to prepare Heaven for me and me for it and there appeareth for me before God Who hath already brought many millions of blessed Souls to that glory who were once as bad and low as I am And who hath given me already the Seal the Pledge the Earnest and the First-fruits of that Felicity Therefore O my Soul if men will not know thee if thou were hated of all men for the cause of Christ and Righteousness If thine uprightness be imputed to thee as an odious crime If thou be judged by the blind malignant World according to its gall and interest If friends misunderstand thee If Faction and every evil cause which thou disownest do revile thee and rise up against thee It is enough it is absolutely enough that thou art known of God God is All and All is nothing that is against him or without him If God be for thee who shall be against thee How long hath he kept thee safe in the midst of dangers and given thee peace in the midst of furious Rage and Wars He hath known how to bring thee out of trouble and to give thee tolerable ease while thou hast carried about thee night and day the usual causes of continual torment His loving kindness is better than life Psal 63.3 but thou hast had a long unexpected life through his loving kindness In his favour is life Psal 30. And life thou hast had by and with his favour Notwithstanding thy sin while thou canst truly say thou lovest him he hath promised that all shall work together for thy good Rom. 8.28 And he hath long made good that promise Only ask thy self again and again as Christ did Peter whether indeed thou love him And then take his love as thy full and sure and everlasting portion which will never fail thee though flesh and Heart do fail For thou shalt dwell in God and God in thee for evermore 1 Joh. 4.12 15 16. Amen FINIS A Catalogue of Books Printed for and Sold by Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chapel A Christian Directory or Body of practical Divinity 1. Christian Ethicks 2. Oeconomicks 3. Ecclesiasticks 4. Politicks Resolving multitudes of Cases on each Subject By Rich. Baxter Folio Mr. Baxters Catholick Theology Folio Mr. Baxters Methodus Theologiae Christianae Folio A Third Volume of Sermons Preached by the late Reverend and Learned Tho. Manton D.D. In two parts Folio A Hundred Select Sermons on several Texts of Fifty on the Old Testament and Fifty on the New. Folio Choice and Practical Expositions on four Select Psalms Folio Both by the Reverend and Learned Tho. Horion D.D. late Minister of St. Hellens London The true Prophecies and Prognostications of Michael Nostrodamus Physician to Henry the Second Francis the Second and Charles the Ninth Kings of France and one of the Best Astronomers that ever were Folio Sixty one Sermons Preached mostly on publick occasions whereof five formerly Printed by Adam Littleton D.D. Rector of Chelsea in Middlesex Folio The Novels and Tales of the Renowned John Boccasio the first Refiner of Italian Prose containing a hundred curious Novels Folio A Key to open Scripture Metaphors in two Volumes By Benjamin Keach and Tho. Delawn Folio The Saints Everlasting Rest or a Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints in their Enjoyment of God in Glory 4 to The English Nonconformity as under King Charles II. and King James II. Truly Stated and Argued By Richard Baxter 4to A discourse concerning Liturgies By the Late Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. David Clarkson 8vo A discourse of the saving Grace of God. By the late Reverend and Learned David Clarkson Minister of the Gospel 8vo The Vision of the Wheels seen by the Prophet Ezekiel Opened and Applyed Partly at the Merchants Lecture in Broad-street and partly at Stepney on January 31. 1689. being the Day of Solemn Thanksgiving to God for the great Deliverance of this Kingdom from Popery and Slavery By his then Highness the most Illustrious Prince of Orange Whom God raised up to be the glorious Instrument thereof By Matthew Mead Pastor of a Church of Christ at Stepney 4to A Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live. 12mo The right Method for settled Peace of Conscience and Spiritual Comfort 8vo The Life of Faith in every State. 4to Alderman Ashursts Funeral Sermon 4to A Key for Catholicks to open the juglings of the Jesuits The first part of answering all their common Sophisms The second against the Soveraignty and necessity of General Councils 4to The certainty of Christianity without Popery 8vo Full and easy satisfaction which is the true Religion Transubstantiation shamed 8vo Naked Popery Answering Mr. Hutchinson 4to Which is the true Church A full Answer to his Reply proving that the General Councils and the Popes Primacy were but in one Empire 4to The History of Bishops and their Councils abridged and of the Popes 4to The Cure of Church Divisions 8to A full Treatise of Episcopacy shewing what Episcopacy we own and what is in the English Diocesan frame for which we dare not swear never to endeavour any alteration of it in our places 4to A search for the English Schismatick comparing the Canoneers and Nonconformists 4to An Answer to Mr. Dodwell and Dr. Sherlock confuting an Universal-humane Church Soveraignty Aristocratical and Monarchical as Church Tyranny and Popery and defending Dr. Iz. Barrows excellent Treatise 4to FINIS Had I been supposed to have written this Book to hide my sloth and ignorance men would not have neglected my Methodus Theologie and Catholick Theology thro' meer sloth and saying That it 's too high and hard for them A Country-man having sent his Son
to the University when he came home askt him what he had learned He told him he had learnt Logick He askt him what that Logick was and what he could do with it And it being Supper-time and the poor people having but two Eggs for Supper he told them that he could prove that those Eggs were three This is one saith he and that is Two and One and Two are three The Father gave him the better and told him that his art was useful for he had thought himself to have gone without his Supper but now saith he I will take one Egg and your Mother the other and take you the third Such kind of Logick the World hath gloried in as learning M. Antomine l. 1. §. 17. Doth thank God that he made no greater progress in Rhetorick Poetry and such like Studies which might have hindered him from better things if he had perceived himself to have profited in them And in fine quod cum Philosophandi cupiditas incessisset noâ— in sophistam aliquem incidelin nec 〈◊〉 evolvendis vel syllogismis resolvendis vel Mettorologicis disâ—â—â—iendiâ— temâ—â—â— desâ—s contriverim 1 Cor. 11. 1 Pet. 1.8 Heb. 11.1 Rom. 4. See a book written long since this called the Samaritan of excellent use by Mr. Jones of Suffolk It is most probable that Christ and the Apostles then spake in the Chaldee called Hebrew and so that the four Gospels are but translations of Christs words and so not the the words but the sence was Christs And what wonder then if the translating Evangelists use divers words Rev. 1.3 It is very hard to be sure what the Apostles setled as an Universal perpetual Law in Church matters and what they setled only as suited to that time and place by the common rule of doing all to Edification I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice being a standing Rule it 's hard to plead their use of any Rites against common good Perhaps more is mutable than most think Without approving all that is in it I may wish the Reader to peruse Father Simon 's second Book now newly Printed in London As Antonine saith in greater darkness li. 2. § 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Vides quam pauca sint quae siquis tenuerit prosperam ac divinam propemodum vitam degere detur Siquidem Dii ipsi nihil amplius exigent ab eo qui ista observaverit Rom. 14.1 Since this I have published a Book called the Catechizing of Housholds ☞ ☞ Fathering Errours on God and saying that he saith what he never said and forbade or commanded what he doth not is the most direct breach of the third Commandment To father lies on God is the taking of his Name in vain * And yet saith Zaga-Zabo in Damnian a Goâ—s pag. 226. Nec Patriarcha nec Episcopi nostri per se nec in Conciliis putant aut opinantur ulâ—as leges se condere posse quibus ad mortale peccatum obligari quis posset And pag. 231. Indignum est peregrinos Christianos tam acriter hostiliter reprehendi ut ego de hac re de delectu ciborum de aliis quae minimè ad fidem veram spectabant reprehensus fui sed multo Consultius fuerit hujusmodi Christianos homines sive Graecos sive Armenos sive Aethiopes sive ex quavis Septem Christianarum Ecclesiarum in Charitate Christi amplexibus sustinere eos sine contumeliis permittere inter alios fratres Christianos vivere ac versari quoniam omnes filii baptismi sumus de vera fide unanimiter sentimus Nec est causa cur tam acriter de caeremoniis disceptetur nisi ut unusquisque suas observet sine odio insectatione aliorum nec commerciis Ecclesiae ob id excludendus est c. Learn of a ceremonious Abassine †Since done in Catholick Theology ☜ * Now it is above 22 years that they have been ejected 1684. James 3.17 Yea now it is also young ignorant Novices that are sick of the same feaverish temerity Of this oft before Concil Carth. 4. Can. 16. ☞ Psal 111 Isa 5.20 ☜ * Of which see Smiglicius Logicks and Albertinus in his Philosoph Disputat at large Because I must not oft repeat the same things I must refer the Reader to what I have more fully said of this in 27 Directions for certainty of Knowledge in my Christian Directory Part 3. Chap. 7. 1 Cor. 13. 1 Thes 5. Act. 16. 1 John. 2. ☞ Of all this I have discoursed more largely in my Cath. Theology and the applyed Epitome * Read Maâ— 1.14 with all the old Translations in the Polyglot Bible and consider it Rom. 5.2 3. 2 Cor. 4.16 17 18. and 5.1 2 3 c. 1 Cor. 2.14 Joh. 9.40
New Testament it was long before many Churches received the Epist to the Hebrews the second of Peter Jude Revel c. Even in Eusebius days in his Praepar Evangel he sheweth that they were not received by all And of the Old Testament Moses and the Psalms and Prophets have fuller Attestation than the rest And indeed as it is probable that the Chronicles were written in or after Ezra's time at soonest so they do in so many places differ in numbers from the Book of Kings where all would agree with the rest of the History if those numbers were but reduced to those in the Kings that if any man should doubt of the Divine Authority of that Book that thereby he may be the less tempted to question any others I should not think his Error inconsistent with Salvation Put but that man to prove what he saith who asserteth that we have equal Evidence of the Divinity of the Chronicles Canticles Esther as we have of Moses the Prophets the Psalms and the New Testament and you shall quickly find that he did but pretend an equal degree of Certainty which indeed he had not The Papists pretend that they are as certain of the Divinity of the Apocrypha as we are of the rest But they do but pretend a Certainty for Interest and Custom sake XVIII Though it be to be held that Certainly the Holy Writers had no falshoods in Doctrine or History but delivered us the Truth alone yet no one of them delivereth us all the Truth no not of many particular Histories and Speeches of Christ which they mention And therefore we must set them altogether for the understanding of them As in the instance of Christs appearing and the Angels Speeches after his Resurrection And when all 's done we have not all that Christ said and did but all that was necessary to our Faith and Salvation For as Paul citeth Christ saying It is more honourable to give than to receive so John tells us that the World could not contain the Books that should be written we must take heed therefore how far we go with Negatives of such unmentioned things XIX Though all that the Holy Writers have recorded is true and no falshood in the Scripture but what is from the error of Scribes and Translators yet we are not certain that the Writers had not human infirmites in the Phrase Method and Manner of expression It is apparent that their style yea their Gifts were various as Paul oft openeth them 1 Cor. 12. c. Therefore Paul rather than Barnabas was the Chief Speaker And Apollo was more eloquent than others Hence some were of Paul and some of Apollo and some of Cephas And Paul is put to vindicate his ministerial abilities to the Corinthians Therefore though weaker mens gifts put no sinful imperfection into the Scriptures yet a humane natural imperfection of style and order might be more in some than others It is certain that they were not all perfect in Knowledge and Holiness And how far every Sermon which they Preached was free from all that Imperfection any more than Peters carriage Gal. 2. we are uncertain And how far their Writings had a promise of being free from Natural modal imperfections more than their Preachings we know not fully And yet God turned this weakness of theirs to the confirmation of our Faith shewing us that Heavenly power and not human wisdom and ability did his work As Davids sling in conquering Goliath shewed Gods power And out of the mouths of Babes doth God ordain strength and the weak things of the World are used to confound the strong XX. Lastly though all be certainly true which they have recorded yet we have not the same degree of Certainty that no Writer erred through lapse of memory in some less material passage as we have that they infallibly delivered us the Gospel But this I have said so much of already in a small Book called More Reasons for the Christian Religion that I must now refer you thither for the rest Q. But if there be so many things either uncertain or less-certain what is it that we are or may be fully certain of Ans 1. What you are or are not certain of your self you should know if you know your self without my telling you 2. I deny not but you may come to a Certainty of all those things which are never so difficult that have any ascertaining evidence if you live long enough study hard enough and have an extraordinary measure of Divine illumination I do not measure others by my self You may know that which I know not God may bless your studies more as being better men and fitter for his blessing he may give you extraordinary Inspirations or Revelations if he please But I am thankful for my low degree and confess my ignorance 3. But I have told you before what Certainties we have 1. We are certain of things sensible 2. And of our Elicite and Imperate acts 3. And of Natural principles 4. And of clear inferences thence 5. And of the Truth of all the Certain holy Scriptures which are Evidently the Word of God 6. And particularly therein of the plain Historical parts 7. And of all that which is the main design and scope of the Text in any Book or Chapter 8. And of all that which is purposely and often repeated and not only obscurely once spoken on the by 9. Therefore we may be Certain of all that is necessary to Salvation of every Article of the Creed of every Petition in the Lords Prayer and every necessary common duty We may be Certain of the Truth and Sense of all the Covenant of Grace concerning the Father Son and Holy Ghost his Relation to us and our Relation and Duty to him and of the benefits of the Covenant of the necessity and nature of Faith Repentance Hope Love Obedience Patience c. It 's tedious to recite all in a word all that is of common necessity and all how small soever which is plainly revealed and expressed 10. And you may be certain of the fulfilling of much of this Holy Word already by sufficient History and Experience Chap. 7. Inference 1. The true Reason and usefulness of the Christian Simplicity in differencing the Covenant and Principles of Religion from the rest of the holy Scriptures IT hath ever been the use of the Church of God to Catechise men before they were Baptized and therein to teach them the true meaning of the Baptismal Covenant by opening to them the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Decalogue And when they understood this Covenant they were admitted upon consent by Baptism into the Church and accounted Christians and members of Christ without staying to teach them any other part of the Bible no not so much as the Sacrament of the Lords Supper Though indeed the opening of Baptism was the opening of the Life of that Because it is the same Covenant which is Solemnized in both
they be the Word of God as of Ruth Judges Joshua Chronicles c. Yea if he doubted of all the Old Testament and much of the New yet if he believe so much as containeth all the Covenant of Grace and the foresaid Summaries though he sin and lose much of his helps yet he may and will be saved if he sincerely receive but this much The reason is before given Though no man can believe any thing truly who believeth not all that he knoweth to be Gods Word yet a man may doubt whether one thing be Gods Word who doubteth not of another by several occasions And here you see the Reason why a particular or explicite Belief of all the Scripture it self was never required of all that are baptized nor of all or any man that entered into the Ministry For the wisest Doctor in the world doth not attain so high For no man hath a particular explicite Belief of that which he doth not understand For it is the matter or sence that we believe and we must first know what that sence is before we can believe it to be true And no man in the World understandeth all the Scripture Yea more it is too much to require as necessary to his Ministry a subscription in General that he implicitely believeth all that is in that Bible which you shall shew him For 1. Many faults may be in the Translation if it be a Translation 2. Many errors may be in the Copy as aforesaid Nay such a subscription should not as absolutely necessary be required of him as to all the real Word of God. For if the man by error should doubt whether Job or the Chronicles or Esther were Canonical and none of the rest I would not be he that should therefore forbid him to Preach Christs Gospel I am sure the ancient Church imposed no such terms on their Pastors when part of the new Testament was so long doubted of and when some were chosen Bishops before they were Baptized and when Synesius was chosen a Bishop before he believed the Resurrection I would not have silenced Luther Althamer or others that questioned the Epistle of James What then shall we say of the Roman insolence which thinketh not all the Scripture big enough but Ministers must also subscribe to many additions of their own yea and swear to Traditions and the Expositions of the Fathers and take whole Volumes of Councils for their Religion No wonder if such men do tear the Churches of Christ in pieces 1. By this time I hope you see to what use Baptism and the Summaries of Religion are 2. And of how great use Catechizing is 3. And that Christianity hath its essential parts 4. And how plain and simple a thing true Christianity is which constituteth the Church of Christ And how few things as to knowledge are necessary to make a man a Christian or to Salvation Multitudes of opinions have been the means of turning Pastors and People from the holy and diligent improvement of these few truths in our practice where we have much to do which might take up all our minds and time Chap. VIII Inference 2. Of the use of Catechizing THough it be spoken to in what is said I would have you more distinctly here note the use of Catechizing 1. It collecteth those few things out of many which the Ignorant could not themselves collect 2. It collecteth those necessary things which all must know and believe that will be saved 3. It containeth those Great practical things which we have daily use for and must still live upon which are as Bread and Drink for our food Other things may be well added the more the better which God hath revealed But our Life and our comfort and our Hope is in these 4. And it giveth us the true method or order of holy truths which is a great advantage to understand them Not but that the things themselves have the same orderly respect to one another in the Scripture but they are not delivered in the same order of words Therefore 1. Catechisms should be very skilfully and carefully made The true fundamental Catechism is nothing else but the Baptismal Sacramental Covenant the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Commandments the Summaries of our Belief Desires and Practice And our secondary Catechism must be nothing else but the plain expositions of these the first is a Divine Catechism the second is a Ministerial Expository Catechism And here 1. O that Ministers would be wiser at last than to put their superfluities their controversies and private opinions into their Catechisms and would fit them to the true end and not to the interest of their several sects But the Roman-Trent Catechism and many more of theirs must needs be defiled with their trash and every sect else must put their singularities into their Catechisms so hard is it for the aged decrepit body of the diseased Church for want of a better concoction of the common essentials of Christianity to be free from these heaps of inconcocted crudities and excrementitious superfluities and the many maladies bred thereby I deny not but a useful controversie may be opened by way of Question and Answer But pretend it not then to be what it is not Milk for Babes Him that is weak in the Faith receive but not to doubtful disputations The Servant of the Lord must be apt to teach but must not strive 2. And it is not commonly believed how great skill is needful to make a Catechism that the method may be true and that it may neither be too long for the memory nor too short for the understanding for my part it is the hardest work save one which is the full methodizing and explaining the whole body of Divinity that ever I put my hand to And when all 's done I cannot satisfy my self in it II. Why is not Catechizing more used both by Pastors and Parents I mean not the bare words unexplained without the sence nor the sence in a meer rambling way without a form of words But the words explained O how much fruit would poor Souls and all the Church receive by the faithful performance of this work would God but cure the prophaneness and sloth of unfaithful Pastors and Parents which should do it But I have said so much of this in my Reformed Pastor that I may well forbear more here Chap. IX Inference 3. The true Preservative of puzled Christians from the Errours of false Teachers who vehemently sollicite them to their several parties IT is the common out-cry of the World. How shall we know which side to be on And who is in the right among so many who all with confidence pretend to be in the right Ans Your Preservative is obvious and easie but men usually bestow more labour and cost for Error and Hell than for Truth and Heaven Pretend not to Faith or knowledge before you have it and you are the more safe SUSPEND your judgments