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
men and their own Opinions which go under these names One turneth an Anabaptist and another a Separatist and another an Antinomian and another a Pelagian and another a Papist when if you try them you shall find that they neither understand what they turn to nor what they are against They do but turn to his side who hath the best advantage to perswade them either by insinuating into their affections or by plausible reasonings they talk for one Doctrine and against another when they understand neither much less discern true Evidence of their truth And as for the Papists what wonder is it when their Religion is to believe as the Church believeth And what the Church believeth they know not perhaps but by believing a Priest And then though they know not what the Church believeth some say they are Catholicks and others that this Implicite Faith is that in the virtue of which all the Explicite must proceed And if God may but be allowed to be equal herein with their Church and so that all should be saved who Implicitely believe that all that he saith is true though they know not what he saith at all then I think few Infidels would perish that believe there is a God. Reader I advise thee therefore as thou lovest thy Soul 1. Not to neglect or delay any true knowledge that thou canst attain 2. But not to be rash and hasty in judging 3. Nor to take shews and mens opinions or any thing below a certifying or notifying Evidence of Truth to make up thy Christian Faith and Knowledge 4. And till thou see such Certain Evidence suspend and tell them that sollicite thee that thou understandest not the matter and that thou art neither for them nor against them but wilt yield as soon as Truth doth certainly appear to thee If an Anabaptist perswade thee yield to him as soon as thou art sure that God would not have Believers Children now to be Infant-Members of his Church as well as they were before Christs coming and that the Infants of believing Jews were cut off from their Church State and that there is any way besides Baptism appointed by Christ for the solemn initiating of Church-Members with the rest which in my Treat of Baptism I have produced If thou art sollicited to renounce Communion with other Churches of Christ as unlawful either because they use the Common Prayer and Ceremonies or because that Ministers are faulty if tolerable or the People undisciplined before thou venture thy Soul upon an uncharitable and dividing principle make sure first that Christ hath Commanded it Try whether thou art sure that Christ sinned by Communicating ordinarily with the Jewish Church and Synagogues when the corruption of Priests People and worship was so much worse than ours Or whether that be now a sin to us which in the General Christ did then And whether Pauls compliance and his precept Rom. 14. and 15. was an error And Peters separation Gal. 2. was not rather to be blamed With much more the like Are you sure that notwithstanding all this God would have you avoid Communion with the Churches that in such Forms and Orders differ from you So if a Papist sollicite you yield to him as soon as you are Certain that the Church is the body or Church of the Pope and that none are Christians that are not subject to him and that therefore three or two parts of all the Christian world are unchristened and that when the Roman Emperor made Patriarchs in his own dominion only and there only called General Councils all the world must now take such as the Churches Heads and must be their Subjects When you can be sure that all the senses of all the sound men in the world are by a constant Miracle deceived in taking the consecrated Bread and Wine to be Bread and Wine indeed and that it is none And that the Bread only without the Cup must be used though Christs Command be equal for both when you are Certain truly Certain of these and many other such things then turn Papist If you do it sooner you betray your Souls by Pretending to know and believe Gods word when you do but believe and imbody with a faction Chap. X. Inference 4. What is the Great Plague and Divider of the Christian World. FALSELY PRETENDED KNOWLEDGE and FAITH are the great Plague and Dividers of the Christian world I. As to the Number of Articles and Opinions and Precepts what abundance of things go with many for Certain Truth of which no mortal man hath certainty And abundance which some few rare wits may know must go for Evident certainties to all It is not only our Philosophy books nor only our Philosophical Schoolmens Books which are guilty of this There is some modesty in their Videtur's And indeed if they would not pretend to certainty but profess only to write for the sport and exercise of wit without condemning those that differ from them a man might fetch many a pleasant vagari if not in an over subtile Cajetane who so oft feigneth notions and distinctions yet in a Scotus Ockam Ariminensis with abundance of their disciples and in Thomas and many of his learned followers But their Successors can hardly forbear hereticating one another How many such a wound hath poor Durandus suffered From many for his doctrine of concurse And by others for his pretty device to save the credit of our senses in Transubstantiation that there is still the Matter of Bread but not the Form as being informed by the Soul of Christ as digested bread in us is turned to flesh Which saith Bellarmine is an Heresy but Durandus no Heretick because he was ready to be taught of the Church But no where do these Stinging Hornets so swarm as in the Councils and the Canon Law So that saith the Preface to the Reformatio Legum Ecclesiast Edw. 6. John Fox In quo ipso jure neque ullum modum tenet illius impudentia quin Leges Legibus decreta decretis aciis insuper decretalia aliis alia atque item alia accumulet nec ullum pene statuit cumulandi finem donec tandem suis Clementinis Sixtinis Intra Extravagantibus Constitutionibus Provincialibus Synodalibus Paleis Glossulis Sententiis Capitulis Summariis Rescriptis Breviculis Casibus longis brevibus ac infinitis Rhapsodiis adeo orbem confarcinavit ut Atlas mons quo sustineri coelum dicitur huic si imponeretur oneri vix ferendo sufficeret Which made these two Kings H. 8. and Edw. 6. Appoint that Compendium of Ecclesiastical Laws as their own K. H. first abolishing the Popes Laws whatever some say to the contrary his words being Hajus Potestatem huic cum divino munere sublatam esse manifestum est ut quid superesset quo non plane fractam illius Vim esse constaret Leges omnes decreta atque instituta quae ab authore Episcopo Romano profecta sunt Prorsus abroganda
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
what it is good for and how to get and use it or he that can only tell you whether it be Copper or Silver or Gold not knowing well what any of these are and knoweth nothing of the Impress or Value or Use I tell you the humble holy person that seeth God in all and knoweth all things to be Of Him and By Him and To Him and Loveth Him in and for all and serveth Him by all is the best Philosopher and hath the greatest most excellent and profitable Knowledge In comparison of which the unholy Learning of the world is well called Foolishness with God. For I believe not that Paraphraser who would perswade us that it is but the Phanatick conceits and pretensions of the Gnosticks that the Apostle here and elsewhere speaketh of But I rest satisfied that it is primarily the unholy Arts and Sciences of the Philosophical Heathens and secondarily the Platonick Hereticks pretensions to extraordinary Wisdom because of their speculations about Angels Spirits and other invisible and mysterious things which they thought were peculiarly opened unto them Doting about questions that engender strife and not edification and do increase to more ungodliness is the true description of unholy Learning 6. The Lovers of God are wise for perpetuity They see before them They know what is to come even as far as to Eternity They know what will be best at last and what will be valued and serve our turn in the hour of our extremity They judge of things as all will judge of them and as they shall constantly judge of them for ever But others are wise but for a few hours or a present job They see not before them They are preparing for repentance They are shamefully mutable in their Judgments magnifying those pleasures wealth and honours to day which they vilifie and cry out against at death and to eternity A pang of sickness the sight of a grave the sentence of death the awakening of Conscience can change their Judgments and make them speak in other Language and confess a thousand times over that they were fools And if they come to any thing like Wisdom 't is too late when time is past and hope is gone But the godly know the day of their visitation and are wise in time as knowing the season of all duties and the duties of every season And as some Schoolmen say that All things are known to the Glorified in speculo Trinitatis so I may say that All things are morally and savingly known to him that knoweth and Loveth God as the Efficient Governour and End of all Yet to avoid mistakes and cavils remember that I take no true Knowledge as contemptible And when I truly say that he knoweth nothing as he ought to know that doth not know and Love his God and is not wise to his duty and salvation yet if this Fundamental Knowledge be presupposed we should build all other useful Knowledge on it to the utmost of our capacity And from this one stock may spring and spread a thousand branches which may all bear fruit I would put no limits to a Christian's desires and endeavours to know but that he desire only to know useful and revealed things Every degree of knowledge tendeth to more And every known Truth befriendeth others and like Fire tendeth to the spreading of our knowledge to all neighbour Truths that are intelligible And the want of acquaintance with some one Truth among an hundred may hinder us from knowing rightly most of the rest or may breed an hundred Errours in us As the absence of one wheel or particle in a Watch or the ignorance of it may put all the rest into an useless disorder What if I say that Wisdom lieth more in knowing the things that belong to salvation to publick good to life health and solid comfort than in knowing how to sing or play on the Lute or to speak or carry our selves with commendable decency c. It doth not follow that all these are of no worth at all and that in their places these little matters may not be allowed and desired For even Hair and Nails are appurtenances of a man which a wise man would not be without though they are small matters in comparison of the animal vital and nobler parts And indeed he that can see God in all things and hath all this sanctified by the Love of God should above all men value each particle of Knowledge of which so holy an use may be made As we value every grain of Gold. Chap. V. The first Inference By what measures to estimate mens Knowledge FRom hence then we may learn how to value the understandings of our selves and others That is Good which doth good Would God but give me one beam more of the heavenly light and a little clearer knowledge of himself how joyfully could I exchange a thousand lower notions for it I feel not my self at all miserable for want of knowing the number and order of the Stars the nature of the Meteors the causes of the ebbing and flowing of the Sea with many hundred other questions in Physicks Metaphysicks Mathematicks Nor do I feel it any great addition to my happiness when I think I know somewhat of such things which others know not But I feel it is my misery to be ignorant of God and ignorant of my state and duty and ignorant of the world where I must live for ever This is the Dungeon where my wretched Soul doth lie in captivity night and day groaning and crying out O when shall I know more of God! and more of the Coelestial Habitations and more of that which I was made to know O when shall I be delivered from this darkness and captivity Had I not one beam that pierceth through this Lanthorn of flesh this Dungeon were a Hell even the outer darkness I find Books that help me to names and notions But O for that Spirit that must give me Light to know the Things the spiritual great and excellent things which these names import O how ignorant am I of those same things which I can truly and methodically speak and write of O that God would have mercy on my dark understanding that I be not as a Clock to tell others that which it self understandeth not O how gladly would I consent to be a fool in all common Arts and Sciences if I might but be ever the wiser in the Knowledge of God! Did I know better Him by whom I live who upholdeth all things before whom my Soul must shortly appear whose favour is my life whom I hope to love and praise for ever what were all other things to me O for one beam more of his Light For one tast of his Love for one clear conception of the heavenly glory I should then scarce have leisure to think of a thousand inferiour speculations which are now magnified and agitated in the world But much more miserable do I find my self for want of more
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
in Compositions All men confess that every Plant every Worm or Fly every sensitive yea every sensible Being is so little known to us as that the unknown part far exceedeth the known XVII 5. And we are not agreed of late of the number of the very Elements themselves much less of Compounds of which while we know so few that which we do know is the more defectively known because as in knowing of Letters and Syllables the knowledge of one thing is needful to the true and useful knowledge of another XVIII But the Order and Relations of things to one another is so wonderfully unsearchable and innumerably various as quite surpasseth all humane understanding Yea though ORDER and Relation constitute all Morality Policy Literature c. so that it is as it were that World which humane Intellects converse in and the business of all humane Wills and Actions yet few men know so much as what ORDER and RELATION is Nay nor whether it be Any thing or nothing And though health and sickness harmony and discord beauty and ugliness virtue and vice consist in it and Heaven and Hell depend upon it and Law and Judgment do make and determine it yet is it not easie to know what it is by an Universal Notion nor whether it be truly to be called Any thing at all We doubt not but ORDER should be a most observable Predicament in the Series of humane Notions or nominanda But yet I doubt not much but that Gassendus who would make tempus and spatium two of his Predicaments doth ascribe to them that Entity which they have not XIX And though undoubtedly Action is a noble Predicament and whatever the Cartesians say requireth more causation than non agere doth yea is it self the causation of the mutations in the World yet men scarce know what to call it Some say it is res others it is but accidens rei and others modus rei some say It is in passo Some say it is in agente Some say it is neither but is agentis Some say immanent acts are Qualities as Scotus c. XX. And which is yet worse the very name Accident Mode and Quality are but general unapt notions not well understood by any that use them nor suited meetly to the severals contained under them And when we call a thing or nothing a Quality Accident or Mode we are little the wiser and know not well what we have said Sure I am that they are exceedingly heterogenea which Aristotle comprizeth in the very predicament of Quality And Gassendus thought all Accidents may be as well called Qualities or Modes XXI And which is yet worse all humane language is so wofully Ambiguous that there is scarce a word in the World that hath not many senses and the learned world never came to agreement about the meaning of their common words so that ambiguity drowneth all in uncertainty and confusion XXII And which is yet worse the certain apprehension of Sense and Reason is commonly by men called Learned reduced to and tryed by these dreaming ambiguous names and universal notions and men are drawn to deny their certain knowledge because they know not by what universal term to call it e. g. I know as far as is useful to me by seeing what Light is but whether it be Substantia Accidens Modus c. or what to call it universally few know And no wonder for their universal notions are their own works or Entia rationis fabricated by the imperfect comparing of things with things by ignorant understandings but the sensibility of objects the sensitive faculty the Intellect are the works of God. I know much better what Light is by seeing it than I know what an Accident or a Quality is So I know by feeling what Heat is I know what Motion or Action is I know what pain and pleasure is I know what love and hatred is I know partly what it is to think to know to will choose and refuse but what is the right universal notion of these what true definition to give of any one of them the Learnedst man doth not well know Insomuch as I dare boldly say that the vulgar ordinarily know all these better without definitions than the most Learned man living can know them by definitions alone And here I will presume to step aside to say as in the Ears of our over-doing Separatists who can take none into Christian Communion that cannot tell you how they were Converted or at least give them a fair account of their understanding all the Articles of the Faith in words that are adapted to the matter I tell you 1. That the knowledge of Words and second Notions and Definitions is one thing and the knowledge of Matters or Things is another 2. And it is the knowledge of the Things and not of the Words that is primarily and absolutely necessary to Salvation 3. And that many an illiterate ill bred person understand things long before they can utter their understandings in any intelligible words 4. And therefore if any man do but these two things 1. By Yea or Nay do signifie to me that he understandeth the Truth when I put the matter of nothing but the Baptismal Covenant into my Questions 2. And do manifest serious willingness accordingly by avoiding evil and using Gods means I dare not I will not refuse that person from the Communion of the Church Though I would do as much as the rigidest censurer to bring such up to greater knowledge XXIII And on the other side men are made to think that they know the things because they know the Names and Definitions And so that they are learned and Wise when they know little the more by all their learning For to be able to talk over all the Critical Books and Lexicons and Grammars all the Logical Notions and Definitions is nothing but Organical Knowledge Like the Shoemaker that hath a Shop full of Lasts and that most of them unmeet for any mans foot but never made a Shoe by any of them And false and confused and idle names and notions fill the learned world with False Confused and Vain Conceptions which Common-Countrey people scape so that it costeth many a man twenty years study to be made more erroneous than he would have been by following an honest trade of life XXIV Nay our very Articles of Faith and Practice which Salvation lyeth on are commonly tryed by these arbitrary Organical notions whole loads of School Volumes are witnesses of this Though the School-men where our Grammarians deride them as Barbarians have often done well in fitting words to things and making the Key meet for the Lock Yet old terms and notions and axioms too often go for current and over-rule disputes when they are not understood nor are proper or univocal What work doth Aristotle make with Actus and Potentia and the School-men after him What abundance of darkness do these two words contain in all
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
certain Conditions all sound mens Senses and Intellects are Infallible V. Certainty of Evidence consisteth in such a Position of the thing evident as maketh it an Object perceptible to the faculty perceiving to which many Conditions are required As 1. That the Thing it self have such intrinsick qualifications as make it fit to be an Object 2. That it have the due extrinsick conditions concomitant 1. To the Nature of an Object of perception it is necessary 1. That it be a thing which in its Nature is within the reach of the perceiving faculty And not as Spirits are to sense so above us or alien to us as to be out of the Orb of our perception 2. That they have a perceptible Quantity Magnitude or Degree 3. That if it be an Incomplex term and object and not an Universal of the highest notion it be hoc aliquid and have its proper Individuation 4. That it have some special distinct conformity to the distinct perceiving faculty In sum that it be Ens Unum Verum Bonum vel hisce contraria reductivè per accidens cognita 2. To the extrinsick Conditions it is necessary 1. That the Object have a due site or position 2. And a due distance neither too near nor too far off 3. And that it have a due medium fitted to it and to the faculty 4. And that it have a due abode or stay and be not like a Bullet out of a Gun imperceptible through the celerity of its motion VI. That the perception of sense be certain it is necessary 1. That the Organ be sound in such a measure as that no prevalent Distemper undispose it 2. That it be not oppressed by any disturbing adjunct 3. That the sensitive Soul do operate on and by these Organs For else its alienation will leave the Organ useless As some intense meditations make us not hear the Clock 4. That it be the due Sense and Organ which meeteth with the Object as sounds with the Ear light with the Eye c. besides the foresaid necessaries VII Common Notitiae or Principles are not so called because men are born with the Actual Knowledge of them But because they are truths which mans mind is naturally so disposed to receive as that upon the first exercises of Sense and Reason some of them are understood without any other humane teacher VIII Even self-evident Principles are not equal but some of them are more and some less evident And therefore some sooner and some later known And some of them are more commonly known than others IX The self evidence of these Principles ariseth from the very nature of the Intellect which inclineth to Truth and the Nature of the Will which essentially inclineth to Good and the Nature and Posture of the Objects which are Truth and Goodness in the most evident position compared together or Conjunct some call it Instinct X. It is not necessary to the certainty of a Principle that it be commonly known of all or most For Intellects have great Variety of Capacities Excitation Helps Improvements and even Principles have various degrees of evidence and appearances to men XI Mans mind is so conscious of its own darkness and imperfections that it is distrustful of its own Inferences unless they be very Near and Clear. When by a long Series of Ergo's any thing is far fetcht the mind is afraid there may be some unperceived error XII He therefore that holdeth a true Principle as such and at once a false inference which contradicteth it is to be supposed to hold the principle first and fastest and that if he saw the Contradiction he would let go the consequent and not the principle XIII He that denieth the certainty of Sense Imagination and Intellective perception of things sensed as such doth make it impossible to have any certainty of Science or Faith about those same Objects but by miracle And therefore the Papists denying and renouncing all these Sense Imagination and Intellective perception when they say that there is no Bread nor Wine in the Sacrament do make their pretended contrary Faith impossible For we are men before we are Christians and we have Sense and Intellects before we have faith And as there is no Christianity but on supposition of humanity so there is no Faith but on supposition of sense and understanding How know you that here is no Bread and Wine Is it because Scripture or Councils say so How know you that By Hearing or Reading But how know you that ever you did hear or read or see a Book or Man By sense or no way If sense be fallible here why not there You 'l say that sense may be fallible in one case and not in others I answer either you prove it infallible from Nature even by Sense and Intellective perception of and by sense or else by supernatural Revelation If only by this Revelation how know you that Revelation How know you that ever you heard read or saw any thing which you call Revelation If by a former Revelation I ask you the same question in infinitum But if you know the certainty of Sense by Sense and Intellective perception then where there is the same evidence and perception there is the same certainty But here is as full Evidence and Perception as any other Object can have 1. We see Bread and Wine 2. We tast it 3. We smell the Wine 4. We hear it poured out 5. We feel it 6. We find the effects of it It refresheth and nourisheth as other Bread and Wine 7. It doth so by any other creature as well as by a man. 8. It corrupteth 9. It becometh true flesh and blood in us and a part of our bodies Even in the worst Yea part of the body of a Mouse or Dog. 10. It 's possible for a Mouse or Dog to live only upon consecrated Bread and Wine Is his body then nothing but Christ 11. In all this perception the Objects are not rare but commonly exhibited in all ages They have all the Conditions that other sensible evident objects have as to site magnitude distance medium 12. And it is not one or two but all men in the World of the soundest senses who sense and perceive them to be Bread and Wine So that here is as full evidence as the words which you read or hear can have to ascertain us Obj. But if God deny sense in this case and not in others we must believe sense in others and not in this Ans But again I ask you How you know that God biddeth or forbiddeth you any thing if sense be not first to be believed Obj. But is it not possible for sense to be deceived Cannot God do it Ans 1. It is possible for sense to be annihilated and made no sense and it is possible that the Faculty or Organ or Medium or Object be depraved or want its due conditions and so to be deceived But to retain all these due Conditions and yet to
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
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
And the popular croud are usually or oft as self-conceited in their way And if they never so unreasonably oppose their Teachers how hard is it to make them know or once suspect that they are mistaken O what mutinies in Christs Armies what Schisms what Confusions what Scandals what persecutions in the Church what false accusations what groundless censures do proud self-conceited understandings cause But scarce any where is it more lamentably seen than among injudicious unexperienced Ministers What work is made in the Christian world by Sect against Sect and Party against Party in cases of controversy by most mens bold and confident judging of what they never truly studied tried or understood Papists against Protestants Protestants against Papists Lutherans or Arminians and Calvinists c. usually charge one another by bare hear-say or by a few sentences or scraps Collected out of their writings by their adversaries contrary to the very Scope of the whole discourse or context And men cannot have leisure to peruse the books and to know before they judge And then they think that seeing their Reverend Doctors have so reported their adversaries before them it is arrogance or injury to think that they knew not what they said or else belied them And on such supposition the false judging doth go on Of all the Pulpits that oft trouble the people with Invectives against this side or that especially in the Controversies of Predestination Grace and Free-will how few do we hear that know what they talk against Yea those young or unstudied men who might easily be conscious how little they know are ready to oppose and contemn the most ancient studied Divines When if ever they would be wise men they should continue Scholars to such even while they are teachers of the people I will not presume to open the Calamities of the World for want of Rulers true knowing their Subjects case but judging hastily by the reports of Adversaries But that Rebellions ordinarily hence arise I may boldly say When Subjects that know not the reasons of their Rulers actions are so over wise as to make themselves Judges of that which concerneth them not And how few be they that think not themselves wiser than all their Guides and Governours And Lastly by this sin it is that the wisdom of the wisest is as lost to the world For let a man know never so much more than others after the longest hardest studies the self-conceitedness of the ignorant riseth up against it or maketh them uncapable of receiving it so that he can do little good to others I conclude again that this is the Plague and misery of mankind and the cause of all Sin and Shame and Ruines that Ignorant unhumbled understandings will be still judging rashly before they have throughly tried the case and will not suspend till they are capable of Judging nor be convinced that they know not what they know not but be confident in their first or ungrounded apprehensions Chap. 11. The Signs and Common discoveries of a proud self-conceited understanding and of pretended knowledge BY such effects as these the most of men do shew their guilt of overvaluing their own appprehensions 1. When they will be confident of things that are quite above their understandings or else which they never throughly studied some are confident of that which no man knoweth And most are confident of that which I think they are unlike to be certain of themselves without miraculous inspiration which they give us no reason to believe that they have Things that cannot ordinarily be known 1. Without the preparation of many other Sciences 2. Or without reading many books 3. Or without reading or hearing what is said against it 4. Or at least without long and serious studies we have abundance that will talk most peremptorily of them upon the trust of their teachers or party without any of this necessary means of Knowledge 2. The hastiness of mens conclusions discovereth this Presumption and Self-conceit When at the first hearing or reading or after a few thoughts they are as confident as if they had grown old in studies the best understandings must have a long time to discern the Evidence of things difficult and a longer time to try that Evidence by comparing it with what is brought against it and yet a longer time to digest truths into that Order and Clearness of Apprehension which is necessary to distinct and solid Knowledge when without all this ado most at the first lay hold of that which cometh in their way And there they stick at least till a more esteemed teacher or party tell them somewhat that is contrary to it It is but few of our first apprehensions that are sound and need not reformation but none that are well digested and need not much consideration to perfect them 3. Is it not a plain discovery of a presumptuous understanding when men will confidently conclude of things which their own tongues are forced to confess that they do not understand I mean not only so as to give an accurate definition of them but really not to know what it is that they talk of Many a zealous Anabaptist I have known that knoweth not what Baptism is And many a one that hath disputed confidently for or against Free-will that knew not at all what Free-will is And many a one that hath disputed about the Lords Supper and Separated from almost all Churches for want of sufficient strictness in it and especially for giving it to the ignorant who upon examination have not known the true Nature of a Sacrament nor of the Sacred Covenant which it sealeth Many a one forsaketh most Churches as no Churches that they may be of a right constituted Church who know not what a Church is What abundance will talk against an Arminian a Calvinist a Prelatist a Presbyterian an Independent that really know not what any of them are Like a Gentleman the other day that after long talk of the Presbyterians being urged to tell what a Presbyterian was could tell no more but that he was one that is not so merry and sociable as other men but stricter against sports or taking a Cup. And if I should tell you how few that can judge the controversies about Predestination do know what they talk of it were easy to evince it 4. May I not discern their Prefidence when men that hold contraries five men of five inconsistent opinions are yet every one confident that his own is right When at best it is but one that can be right When six men confidently expound a text in the Revelation six ways When five men are so confident of five several ways of Church Government that they embody themselves into several Policies or parties to enjoy them Is not here Self-conceitedness in all at least save one 5. When men themselves by turning from opinion to opinion shall confess their former opinion was false and yet made a Religion of it while they held
must needs err by confusion 2. Lest you take the Names for Things most disputes using to carry Controversies de nomine as if they were de re or slide from this into that Dir. III. Therefore also trust not too far to the artificial forms of Argument without or instead of the Evidence of the truth of the thing it self For there are many things supposed to the infallibility of your Art which may not themselves be infallibly true And mans wit is conscious of its own Fallibility and therefore is doubtful lest it should be deceived in its collections and ratiocinations Especially when the Engine hath many tacklings and the Chain many links we are still in doubt lest some one should break But the Evidence of the thing in its own reality which is not wholly laid on the form of an artificial argument which is of great use doth satisfy more Direct IV. Take truths in Order the Principles first and the rest in their true Exurgence and Dependance upon them And take nothing to be well known which is not known not only in a Method but in a Method clearly suitable to the things As Words and Notions so Rules and Methods must be fetcht from the Things and fitted to the Things or they are vain Sense and Intellect must first perceive the things themselves and be your first Tutors in Somatology and Pneumatology And then these must do much in making your Logick The Foot must be the measure of the Shoe. And remember that you have but a half fallacious Knowledge till you know the True Place and Order and Respects of the thing as well as the nature and quality of it in it self and till you can draw up a True Scheme of the things which you know It is dreams that are incoherent Direct V. Let the great Radical Verities have your greatest confidence and not only so but the most of your thoughts and Estimation and time and proportionably let the lesser things have but that share of your Esteem and Time and Studies which they deserve which comparatively will be little And make them the test of what is further offered to you And believe nothing which is certainly contrary to them Argue always à notioribus and reduce not certainties to uncertainties but contrarily Direct VI. Keep all your perceptions distinct according to the distinction of their natures Let both your Books and your Intellects be like an Apothecaries Shop where there are different Boxes with different Titles for different things Let sensible perceptions be by themselves And the Intellective perception of things sensate be by themselves And the Intellective perception of its own and the wills Acts be by themselves And the collection of the nature of Spirits and Intellective Agents thence be by themselves the knowledge of Principles Physical and Moral be by themselves And the certainty of Conclusions be ranked according to the Variety of their degrees The confusion of these different things causeth so confused a kind of Knowledge as is next to no Knowledge and fitter to trouble than to satisfy Direct VII Look to all things or as many as is possible When half is unknown the other half is not half known Respicere ad omnia is proper to God Respicere ad plurima is necessary to the competent wisdom of a man To be of a narrow mind and prospect is the property of the Ignorant and Erroneous He that seeth only a hand or foot knoweth not what a man is by it And he that seeth only a word knoweth not by that what a Sentence is Gods works are all one I know not what we shall see in Commenius his Pansophy which they say is yet to see the Light how far he hath reduced all Sciences to one But I little doubt but they may and should be all reduced to two which are as the Soul and Body that yet make up one man though not one nature viz. 1. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Real part distinguished into that of Substances and of Modes where Morality cometh in c. 2. The Organical part which fitteth words and Notions to Things And I am sure that as the Knowledge of one thing or of many much conduceth to further Knowledge so the Ignorance of one thing conduceth to ignorance and error about others It is here as in the Knowledge of a Clock or Watch or Musical Instrument Know all or you know little and next to none No man is a fit Judge of Church affairs who hath not the State of the World in some good measure in his Eye else he will be like most Sectaries who Judge and Talk and Live as if the World were no bigger than their Synagogues or Sects He must have all the Scripture in his Eye and all the Body of Divinity and all the World in his Eye and God himself who is more than all who will not by a narrow mind be cheated into a multitude of Errours There are abundance of truths unknown to you which were they known would rectify your other Errours D. VIII Conclude not hastily of Negatives You may easilier know that you do know what you do know than know what it is that you do not know It doth not follow that there is no more because you know no more St. John tells you that if all that Christ did should be written the World could not contain the Books You cannot therefore conclude from what is recorded that he said and did no more than is recorded Though I am sure against Popery by my sense and intellect that there is real Bread and Wine in the Sacrament I am not sure by sense that there is no spiritual Body of Christ The Negative must be otherwise proved I am sure by my five senses as they are commonly distinguished and numbred that there are existent all the sensible qualities which are their objects But whether the World may not have more sensible qualities suited to many other sort of senses which we have no conception notion or name of is a thing that no mortal man can know You hear many things and know many things by another man which make his cause seem bad But do you know how many more things may be existent unknown to you which if you knew would change your Judgment Allow still room and supposition for abundance of unknown things which may come hereafter to your knowledge and make things seem to you quite other than they do How can you possibly know how much more may be unknown to you If I have a Servant that stayeth out much longer than I expected I may conjecture that he could have no business to stay him but his negligence But there may be many accidents to cause it which I cannot judge of till I hear him speak D. IX Be sure that you suspect your first apprehensions of things and take few conceptions conclusive for certain that are not digested Fasten not over tenaciously upon Opinions in the beginning
he is considered as Active and his Love as an Act and Man as the Object But yet not as an Object of Efficiency but of Approbation and a Pleased Will or Delight Here then the great difficulty is in resolving which of these is the highest perfective notion of man's felicity perfection or ultimate end Our Love to God or God's Love to us Ans It is mutual Love and Union which is the true and compleat notion of our End And to compare God's Love and ours as the parts and tell which is the final principal part or notion is not easy nor absolutely necessary But I conceive 1. That our Love to God is Objectively or as to the Object of it infinitely more excellent than Gods Love to us as to the Object Which is but to say that God is Infinitely better than man God loveth man who is a worm But we Love God who is perfect goodness 2. Gods Love to us as to the Agent and the Act ex parte Agentis is Infinitely more excellent than our Love to him For it is Gods Essential will which loveth us and it is the will of a worm that loveth God. 3. That mans Felicity as such is not the chief notion of his ultimate end But he must Love God as God better than his own Felicity as such or better than God as our Felicity 4. That mans true ultimate end containeth these five inadequate conceptions 1. The lowest notion or part of it is our own holiness and felicity 2. The next notion of it is the perfection of the Church and Universe to which we contribute and which we must value above our own Including the Glory of Christs Humanity 3. The third notion is the Glory or Lustre of Gods perfections as they shine forth in us and all his perfected glorious works 4. The fourth notion is Gods own Essential goodness as the Object of our Knowledge Love and Praise 5. The fifth and highest notion is the Active Love or Complacency of Gods fulfilled Will in us and in the whole Creation So that the Pleasing of Gods will is the highest notion of mans ultimate end Though all these five are necessarily contained in it Chap. III. Doct. 3. Therefore Knowledge is to be valued sought and used as it tendeth to our Love of God. THis third Doctrine is much of the Scope of the Text All means are for their end So far as Knowledge is a means of love it must needs hence have the measure of its worth and we the motives of our desires of it and the direction for our using of it 1. All knowledge that kindleth not the love of God in us is so narrow and small that it deserveth not indeed the name of Knowledge For the necessary things that such a person is Ignorant of are a thousand times more or greater than that little which he knoweth For 1. What is it that he is Ignorant of 1. He hath no sound and real Knowledge of God. For if he knew God truly he could not but love him Goodness is so naturally the Object of the will that if men well knew the infinite Good they must needs love him However there is a partial knowledge that is separable from sincere Love. 2. He that knoweth not and loveth not God neither knoweth nor loveth any creature truly and effectually either as it is of God or Through him or To him Either as it beareth the Impress of the Glorious Efficient or as it is ordered to its end by the most wise Director or as it is a means to lead up Souls to God or to Glorify and please him no nor to make man truly happy And can he be said indeed to know any Creature that knoweth it not in any of these respects that knoweth neither its Original Order or Use Doth a Dog or a Goose know a Book of Philosophy because he looketh on it and seeth the bulk Doth he know a Clock or Watch who knoweth no more of it but that it hath such Parts and Shapes made of Iron and Brass It is most evident that an unholy person knoweth nothing that is no one Being though he may know aliquid de re aliqua something of some Being For he that knoweth not the Nature Order or Use and End of a Being cannot properly be said to know that Being but only secundum quid or some Accidents of it or to have a general Knowledge that it is a Substance or a something he knoweth not what As an Epicurean can call all things compacted Atomes or Matter and Motion An ungodly man is just like one that studieth the art of a Scrivener or Printer to make the Letters and place them by art but never learnt to read or know the signification of the Letters which he maketh or composeth Or if any may be said to have a Speculative knowledge of all this in the Creature the Nature Order and Use yet he is without the true Practical Knowledge which is it that only is Knowledge indeed and of use and benefit to man. For to be able to speak or write a true Proposition about God or the Creature is not properly to know God or the Creature but to know names and words concerning them It is but a Logical Knowledge of Notions and not the knowledge of the Thing it self to be able to say and know that this or that concerning it is true or false Nothing more deceiveth mankind both in point of Learning and of Religion and Salvation than mistaking the Organical or Logical Knowledge of second Notions Words Propositions Inferences and Methods for the Real Knowledge of the Things themselves And thinking that they know a thing because they know what to say of it He knoweth not a Countrey who is only able by the Map or hear-say to describe it He knoweth not Motion Light Heat Cold Sweet Bitter that knoweth no more than to give a true definition of it And as this is true of things sensible which must themselves be perceived first by sense so is it of things spiritual which must themselves be perceived first by Intellection and not only the notions and definitions of them He that doth not intuitively or by internal immediate perception know what it is to Understand to Remember to Will and Nill to Love and Hate and consequently to be able to do these acts doth not know what a man is or what a Reasonable Soul is and what an Intellectual Spirit is though he could were it possible without these learn the Definition of a Man a Soul a Spirit A definition or word of art spoken by a Parrot or a madman proveth not that he knoweth the thing Practical objects are not truly known without a Practical Knowledge of them He knoweth not what meat is that knoweth not that it must be eaten and how to eat it He only knoweth his clothing that knoweth how to put it on He only knoweth a Pen a Gun or other instrument that knoweth how
But let that holy knowledge and love be mine which God most loveth and the World most hateth and costeth us dearest upon Earth but hath the blessed end of a Heavenly Reward Chap. XII The eighth Inference What is the work of a faithful Preacher and how it is to be done IF that Knowledge which kindleth in us the Love of God be the only saving Knowledge then this is it that Ministers must principally preach up and promote Could we make all our hearers never so learned that will not save their Souls But if we could make them holy and kindle in them the love of God and goodness they should certainly be saved The holy practical Preacher therefore is the best Preacher because the holy practical Christian is the best and only true Christian We work under Christ and therefore must carry on the same work on Souls which Christ came into the World to carry on All our Sermons must be fitted to change mens Hearts from Carnal into Spiritual and to kindle in them the love of God. When this is well done they have learnt what we were sent to teach them and when this is perfect they are in Heaven Those Preachers that are Enemies to the godliest of the people and would make their Hearers take them all for Hypocrites that go any further than obedience to their Pastors in Church-forms and Orders Observances and Ceremonies and a civil Life are the great Enemies of Christ his Spirit his Gospel and the Peoples Souls and the Eminent Servants of the Devil in his malignant War against them all All that Knowledge and all those Formalities which are set up instead of divine Love and holy Living are but so many cheats to deceive poor Souls till time be past and their convictions come to late I confess that ignorance is the calamity of our times and people perish for lack of Knowledge And that the Heart be without Knowledge it is not good And lamentable ignorance is too visible in a great degree among the religious sort themselves as their manifold differences and errours too openly proclaim And therefore to Build up men in Knowledge is much of the Ministerial work But what Knowledge must it be Not dead Opinions or uneffectual Notions or such Knowledge as tendeth but to teach men to talk and make them pass for men of parts But it is the Knowledge of God and our Redeemer the Knowledge of Christ Crucified by which we Crucifie the Flesh with all its Affections and Lusts And by which the World is Crucified to us and we to it If the Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost in whom the God of this World hath blinded their Eyes when there is no truth and mercy and knowledge of God in the Land no wonder if such a Land be clad in mourning When men have not so much Knowledge of the evil of sin and their own sin and misery and of the need and worth of Christ of the truth of Gods Word of the vanity of the World of the greatness wisdom and goodness of God and of certain most desirable Glory of Heaven as shall humble their Souls and turn them from the World to God and absolutely deliver them up to Christ and mortifie fleshly Lusts and overcome temptations and renew them unto the Love of God and goodness and set their Hearts and Hopes on Heaven This is the ignorance that is mens damnation And the contrary effectual Knowledge is it which saveth Souls Chap. XIII The ninth Inference Those that Know God so far as to Love him above all may have comfort notwithstanding their remaining ignorance A Great number of upright hearted Christians who Love God sincerely and obey him faithfully are yet under so great want of further knowledge as is indeed a great dishonour to them and a hinderance of them in their duty and comfort and to many a great discouragement And O that we knew how to cure this imperfection that Ignorance might not feed so many Errours and cause so many fractions and disturbances in the Church and so many sinful miscarriages in its members But yet we must conclude that the person that hath knowledge enough to renew his Soul to the Love of God shall be loved by him and shall never perish and therefore may have just comfort under all the imperfections of his knowledge More wisdom might make him a better and more useful Christian But while he is a Christian indeed he may rejoyce in God. I blame not such for complaining of the dulness of their Understandings the badness of their Memories their little profiting by the means of Grace I should blame them if they did not complain of these And I think their case far more dangerous to the Church and to themselves who have as much ignorance and know it not but proudly glory in the wisdom which they have not But many a thousand Christians that have little of the Notional and Organical part of Knowledge have powerful apprehensions of the Power Wisdom and Love of God and of the great Mercy of Redemption and of the Evil of Sin the Worth of Holiness and the Certainty and Weight of the Heavenly Glory And by how much these men love God and Holiness more than the more Learned that have less Grace by so much they are more beloved of God and accounted wiser by the God of wisdom and therefore may rejoice in the greatness of their felicity I would have none so weak as to under-value any real useful Learning But if Pharisees will cry out against unlearned godly Christians These people know not the Law and are accursed Remember the Thanksgiving of your Lord I thank thee Father Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to Babes And as the reputed foolishness of God that is of Gods Evangelical Mysteries will shortly prove wiser than all the reputed wisdom of men so he that hath wisdom enough to love God and be saved shall quickly be in that World of light where he shall know more than all the Doctors and subtile disputers upon Earth and more in a moment than all the Books of men can teach him or all their Authors did ever here know Jer. 9.23 24. Thus saith the Lord Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom neither let the mighty man glory in his might let not the rich man glory in his riches But let him that glorieth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness and righteousness in the Earth For in these things do I delight saith the Lord. Chap. XIV Questions and Objections answered Quest 1. IF so much knowledge will save a man as helpeth him to love God as God may not Heathens or Infidels at least be saved For they know that there is one God who is Infinitely Good and Perfect and more amiable than all the World and the
would not have been cheated diverted and undone by the grosser way of brutish pleasures But holy Souls have a Sanctified use of all their common knowledge making it serve their high and holy ends But O that some Learned men would in time as well understand the difference between common Learning which serveth fancy pride or worldly hopes and the Love of God and a heavenly life as they must know it when they come to die Chap. XV. Use Exhort Not to deceive our selves by over-valuing a dead or an unholy Knowledge IT grieveth my Soul to observe how powerfully and how commonly Satan still playeth his first deceiving game of calling off man from Love Trust and Obedience to an ensnaring and troublesome or unprofitable sort of Knowledge And how the Lust of knowing carryeth away many unsuspected to misery who escape the more dishonourable sort of lust And especially what abundance in several ways take Notional Knowledge which is but an Art of thinking and talking for real Knowledge which is our acquaintance with God and Grace and which changed the Soul into the Image of him that we seek and know and filleth us with Love and Trust and Joy. Two sorts are especially here guilty I. The Learned Students before described II. The superficial sort of people accounted Religious I. I have already shewed how pitiful a thing it is that so many Academical Wits and so many Preachers to say nothing of the grosly proud tyrannical and worldly Clergy do spend so many years in studies that are used but in the service of the flesh to their own condemnation and never bend their minds to kindle in themselves the Love of God nor a heavenly Desire or Hope nor to live in the comfortable prospect of Glory How many preach up that Love and Holiness as the Trade that they must live by which they never fervently preached to themselves nor practised sincerely one hour in their lives How many use to preach Funeral Sermons and bury the dead that are unprepared for death themselves and hardened in their security and unholy state by those sights those studies those words which should awaken and convince them and which they plead themselves for the conviction of their hearers O miserable Scholars Miserable Preachers Miserable Doctors and Prelates who study and preach to their own condemnation and have not knowledge enough to teach them to Love God nor to set more by the heavenly Glory than this World but by spiritual words do both hide and cherish a fleshly and a worldly mind You will find at Death that all your Learning was but a Dream and one of the Vanities that entangle fools and you will die as sadly as the unlearned and be beaten with more stripes than they that knew not their Masters will. 1. Unholy Knowledge is but a carkass a shadow the activity of a vain mind or a means without the end and unfit to attain it A Map is not a Kingdom nor doth it much enrich the owner The names of meats and drinks will not nourish you And to know names and notions giveth you no title to the things so named You may as well think to be saved for being good Musicians Physicians or Astronomers as for being Learned Divines if your Knowledge cause not holy Love It may help others to Heaven but it will be but vanity to you and you will be a sounding Brass or a tinkling Cymbal 1 Cor. 13.1 You glory in a lifeless picture of Wisdom and Hell may shortly tell you that you had better have chosen any thing to play the fools with than with the notions and words of Wisdom mortified 2. Nay such prophanation of holy things is a heinous sin Who is liker the Devil than he that knoweth most and loveth God least To know that you should love and seek God most and not to do it is wilfully to despise him in the open light As the privation of God's Love is the chief part of Hell so the privation of our Love to God is the chief part of ungodliness or sin yea and much of Hell it self Knowledge puffeth up but Charity edifieth Unholy Knowledge is a powerful Instrument of Satan's service in the service of Pride and Ambition and Heresie one Learned and witty ungodly man will merit more of the Devil by mischieving Mankind than many of the common unlearned sort And none are so like impenitently to glory in this sin They will be proud of such adorned Fetters that they can sin Philosophically and Metaphysically in Greek and Hebrew and with Logical subtilty or Oratorical fluency prove against unlearned men that they do well in damning their own Souls and that God and Heaven are not worthy of their chiefest love and diligence such men will offend God more judiciously than the ignorant and will more discreetly and honourably fool away their hopes of Heaven and more successfully deceive the simple Their Wisdom like Achitophel's will serve turn to bring them to destroy themselves And is it any wonder if this be foolishness with God 1 Cor. 3.19 The understanding of a man is a faculty unfit to be abused and prostituted to the slavery of the Flesh The abuse of the senses is bad but of the understanding worse because it is a nobler faculty When they that knew God glorified him not as God but became vain in their imagination their foolish heart was darkened and professing themselves wise Philosophers or Gnosticks they became fools Rom. 1.21 28. And as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge God gave them up to vile affections And yet many are proud of this mortal Tympanite as if it were a sound and healthful Constitution And think they have the surest right to Heaven for neglecting it knowingly and going learnedly in the way to Hell. 3. You lose the chiefest delight of knowledge O that you knew what holy quietness and peace what solid pleasure that knowledge bringeth which kindleth and cherisheth holy love and leadeth the Soul to Communion with God and how much sweeter it is to have a powerful and experimental knowledge than your trifling dreams The Learnedst of you all have but the Husks or Shells of knowledge and what great sweetness is in Shells when the poorest holy experienced Christian hath the Kernel which is far more pleasant O try a more serious practical Religion and I dare assure you it will afford you a more solid kind of nourishment and delight The pleasure of the speculative Divine in knowing is but like the pleasure of a Mathematician or other Speculator of Nature yea below that of the Moral Philosopher It is but like my pleasure in reading a Book of Travels or Geography in comparison of the true practical Christians which is like their pleasure that live in those Countreys and possess the Lands and Houses which I read of 4. Nay yet worse this unholy knowledge doth often make men the Devils most powerful and mischievous Instruments For though Christ
your Religion and the work of your whole lives to possess your minds with the liveliest sense of the infinite goodness and amiableness of God and hereby to live in the constant exercise of Love. II. And though some men hinder love by an over fearful questioning whether they have it or not and spend that time in doubting and complaining that they have it not which they should spend in exciting and exercising it yet reason requireth us to take heed lest a carnal mind deceive us with any counterfeits of holy love Of which having written more in my Christian Directory I shall here give you but these brief instructions following It is here of grand importance I. To have a true conception of God as he must be loved II. And then to know practically how it is that love must be exercised towards him I. GOD must be conceived of at once both 1. As in his essence 2. And as in his relations to the world and to our selves 3. And as in his works And those that will separate these and while they fix only on one of them leave out the other do not indeed love God as God as he must be loved 1. To think in general that there is an infinite eternal Spirit of Life Light and Love and not to think of him as related to the world as its Creator Preserver and Governor nor as related to us and to mankind as our Owner Ruler and Benefactor is not to think of him as a God to us or to any but himself And a love thus exercised cannot be true saving love 2. And because his relations to us result from his works either which he hath done already or which he will do hereafter therefore without the knowledge of his works and their goodness we cannot truly know and love God in his relations to us 3. And yet when we know his works we know but the medium or that in which he himself is made known to us And if by them we come not to know him and love him in his perfect Essence it is not God that we know and love And if we knew him only as Related to us and the World as that he is our Creator Owner Mover Ruler and Benefactor and yet know not what he is in his essence that is thus related viz that he is the Perfect First Being Life Wisdom and Love this were not truly to know and love him as he is God. These conceptions therefore must be conjunct God is not here known to us but by the revelation of his works and word nor can we conceive of him but by the similitude of some of his works not that we must think that he is just such as they or picture him like a creature for he is infinitely above them all but yet it is certain that he hath made some impressions of his perfections upon his works and on some of them so clear as that they are called his Image Nothing is known to us but either 1. By sense immediately perceiving things external and representing them to the phantasie and intellect or 2. By the Intellects own conceiving of other things by the similitude of things sensed 3. Or by immediate internal Intuition or Sensation of the acts of the Soul in it self 4. Or by reasons collection of the nature of other things from the similitude and effect of such perceived operations I. By the external Senses we perceive all external sensed things and we imagine and know them as so perceived II. By the Intellection of these we conceive of other things as like them forming Universal conceptions and applying them to such individuals as are beyond the reach of our Senses As we think of Men Trees Beasts Fishes c. in the Indies as like those which we have seen and of sounds there as like those which we have heard and of the taste of Fruits by the similitude of such as we have tasted c. III. How Sense it self Intellection it self Volition it self and internal Affections are perceived is no small controversie among Philosophers That we do perceive them by the great wisdom and goodness of our Creator we are sure but how we do it we can scarce describe as knowing it better by the experience of that perception it self than by a knowledge of the Causes and Nature of the acts It is most commonly said that the Intellect knoweth its own acts by Reflection or as Ockam by Intuition and that it knoweth what Sense is and what Volition by some Species or Image of them in the phantasie which it beholdeth But such words give no man a true knowledge of the thing enquired of unless withal he read the solution experimentally in his own Soul. I know not what the meaning of a Reflect act is Is it the same act which is called Direct and Reflect And doth the Intellect know that it knoweth by the very same act by which it knoweth other things If so why is it called Reflect and what is that reflection But the contrary is commonly said that divers objects make divers acts and therefore to know e.g. that this is Paper and to know that I know this are two acts and the latter is a reflecting of the former But the former act is gone and nothing in the instant that it is done and therefore is in it self no intelligible object of a reflecting act But as remembred it may be known or rather that remembring is knowing what is past by a marvellous retention of some impress of it which no man can well comprehend so as to give an account of it And why may not the same memory which retaineth the unexpressible Record of an Act past an hour or many years ago be also the Book where the Intellect readeth its own Act as past immediately in the foregoing instant But sure this is not the first knowing that we know Before the act of memory the Intellect immediately perceiveth its own particular acts And so doth the sense By one and the same act we see and perceive that we see and by one and the same act I think we know and know that we know and this by a consciousness or internal sense which is the immediate act of the Essence of the faculty And chuse whether you will say that such two objects may constitute one act Or whether you will say that the latter the act it self is not properly to be called an object For the various senses of the word object must be considered in the decision of that Mans Soul is Gods Image When God knoweth himself and his own knowledge and when he willeth or loveth himself and his own will or love here we must either say that himself his knowledge and will is not properly to be called an Object or else that the Object and the Act are purely the same without the least real difference but we name them differently as inadequate conceptions of one Being And why may it not be so
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