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A27051 A treatise of knowledge and love compared in two parts: I. of falsely pretended knowledge, II. of true saving knowledge and love ... / by Richard Baxter ... Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. 1689 (1689) Wing B1429; ESTC R19222 247,456 366

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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 ●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 ●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
all that are of late discovery in the West-Indies or elsewhere are found to be so rude and barbarous some little differing from subtile Brutes When the vast Regions of Africk of Tartary and other parts of Asia are no wiser to this day When the Roman Eastern Empire so easily parted with Christianity and is turned to so much barbarous ignorance this sheweth what we are For these men are all Born as capable as we VII Especially the sottish Opinions which the Heathen and Mahometan World do generally entertain do tell us how dark a Creature man is That four parts of the whole World if not much more that is unknown should receive all the sottish Opinions as they do both against the light of Nature knowing so little of God and by such vain conceits of their Prophets and petty Deities That above the fifth part of the known World should receive and so long and quietly retain so sottish an Opinion as Mahometanism is and Build upon it the hopes of their Salvation If the Greek Church can be corrupted into so gross a foolery why may not the Latine and the English if they had the same temptations O what a sad proof is here of humane folly VIII But in the Latine Church be it spoken without any comparing Mahometanism with Christianity the wonder is yet greater and the discovery of the fallaciousness of mans understanding is yet more clear Were there no proof of it but the very being of Popery in the World and the reception of it by such and so many it affordeth the strongest temptation that ever I thought of in the World to the Brutist to question whether Instinct advance not Brutes above man The Brutes distrust not their right disposed senses but the Papists not only distrust them but renounce them Bread is no Bread and Wine is no Wine with them All mens senses are deceived that think otherwise It is necessary to Salvation to believe that Gods natural Revelations to sense here are false and not to be believed Every man that will be saved must believe that Bread is no Bread that Quantity Locality Colour Weight Figure are the Quantity Locality Colour Weight Figure of nothing And God worketh Grand Miracles by every Priest as frequently as he Consecrateth in the Mass And if any man refuse to Swear to this Renunciation of Humane Sense and the Truth of these Miracles he must be no Priest but a combustible Heretick And if any Temporal Lord refuse to exterminate all those from their Dominions who will believe their Senses and not think it necessary to renounce them as deceived he must be Excommunicated and Dispossest himself his Subjects absolved from their Oaths and Allegiance and his Dominions given to another And this is their very Religion being the Decree of a great General Council questioned indeed by some few Protestants but not at all by them but largely vindicated Later sub Innoc. 3. Can. 1 3. The sum is No man that will not renounce not only his Humanity but his Animality must be suffered to live in any ones Dominions and he that will suffer men in his Dominions must be himself turned out this is plain truth And yet this is the Religion of Popes and Emperors and Kings of Lords and Councellors of Prelates and Doctors Universities Churches and famous Kingdoms and such as men all these wise men dare lay their Salvation upon and dare Massacre men by Thousands and Hundred Thousands upon and Burn their Neighbours to Ashes upon and what greater confidence of certainty can be exprest And yet shall man be proud of Wit O what is man How dark how sottish and mad a thing All these great Princes Doctors Cardinals Universities and Kingdoms are Born with Natures as capacious as ours They are in other things as wise They pity us as Hereticks because we will not cease to be men The Infidel that denieth mans Reason and Immortality would but level us with the Brutes and allow us the pre-eminence among them in subtlety But all these Papists Forswear or Renounce that Sense which is common to Brutes and us and sentence us either below the Brutes or unto Hell. Pretend no more poor man to great knowledge as the sight of a Grave and a rotten Carcass may humble the Fool that is proud of Beauty so the thought of the Popish Mahometan and Heathen World may humble him that is proud of his understanding I tell thee man thou art capable of that madness as to believe that an Ox or an Onion is a God or to believe that a bit of Bread is God yea more to believe as necessary to Salvation that thy own and all mens senses about their proper objects are deceived and the Bread which thou seest and eatest is no Bread yea though it be three times in the three next verses 1 Cor. 11. Called Bread after Consecration by an inspired Expositor of Christs words IX Moreover the poverty of mans understanding appeareth by the great time and labour that must be bestowed for Knowledge We must be Learning as soon as we have the use of reason and all our Life must be bestowed in it I know by experience Knowledge will not be got without long hard and patient studies O what abundance of Books must we read What abundance of deep Meditations must we use What help of Teachers do we need And when all 's done how little do we obtain Is this an Intellect to be proud of X. And it is observable how every man slighteth anothers Reasons while he would have all to magnify his own All the Arguments that in disputation are used against him how frivolous and foolish are they All the Books that are written against him are little better than Nonsence or Heresie or Blasphemy Contempt is answer enough to most that is said against them And yet the men in other mens Eyes are perhaps wiser and better than themselves Most men are fools in the judgment of others Whatever side or party you are of there are many parties against you who all pity your ignorance and judge you silly deceived Souls So that if one man be to be believed of another and if the most of mankind be not deceived we are all poor silly cheated Souls But if most be deceived mankind is a very deceivable creature How know I that I must believe you when you befool twenty other Sects any more than I should believe those twenty Sects when they as confidently befool you if no other Evidence turn the Scales XI And verily I think that the Wars and Contentions and Distractions of the Kingdoms of the World do shew us that man is a pitiful silly deceiveable thing I am not at all so sharp against Wars and Souldiers as Erasmus was But I should think that if men were wise they might keep their peace and save the lives of thousands which must be dearly answered for Were all the Princes of Christendom as wise as proud wits conceit