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
By doing thus the Church notoriously declared that they took not all the Scripture to be equally necessary to be understood but that the Govenant of Grace and the Catechism explaining it is the Gospel it self that is the Essence of it and of the Christian Religion and that all the rest of the Scriptures contain but partly the Integrals and partly the Accidents of that Religion He is the wisest man that knoweth Most and Best and every man should know as much of the Scriptures as he can But if you knew all the rest without this the Covenant of Grace and its explication it would not make you Christians or save you But if you know this truly without all the rest it will. The whole Scripture is of great use and benefit to the Church It is like the body of a man which hath its Head and Heart and Stomach c. And hath also Fingers and Toes and flesh yea Nails and Hair. And yet the Brain and Heart it self fare the better for the rest and would not be so well Seated separate from them Though a man may be a man that loseth even a Leg or Arm. So is it here But it is the Covenant that is our Christianity and the duly Baptized are Christians whatever else they do not understand These are the things that all must know and daily live upon The Creed is but the Exposition of the three Articles of the Baptismal Covenant I believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Though the Jews that had been bred up to a preparing knowledge were quickly baptized by the Apostles upon their Conversion Acts 2. Yet no man can imagine that either the Apostles or other Ministers did use to admit the Ignorant Gentiles into the Covenant of God without opening the meaning of it to them or Baptize them as Christians without teaching them what Christianity is Therefore Reason and the whole Churches subsequent Custom assure us that the Apostles used to expound the three great Articles to their Catechumens And thence it is called The Apostles Creed Marcus Bishop of Ephesus told them in the Florentine Council as you may see Sgyropilus that we have none of the Apostles Creed And Vossius de Symbolis besides many others hath many Arguments to prove that this so called was not formally made by the Apostles Bishop Usher hath opened the changes that have been in it Sandford and Parker have largely de Descensu shewed how it came in as an Exposition of the Baptismal Articles Others stifly maintain that the Apostles made it But the case seemeth plain The Apostles used to call the Baptized to the profession of the same Articles which Paul hath in 1. Cor. 15.1 2 3 c. and varied not the matter All this was but more particularly to profess Faith in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Two or three further Expository Articles are put into the Creed since Otherwise it is the same which the Apostles used not in the very syllables or forms of words but in the same sense and the words indeed being left free but seldom much altered because of the danger of altering the matter Of all the Antientest Writers not one repeateth the Creed in the same words that we have it nor any two of them in the same with one another Irenaeus once Tertullian twice hath it all in various words but the same sense That of Marcellus in Epiphanius cometh nearest ours called the Apostles and is almost it Afterward in Ruffinus and others we have more of it Yet no doubt but the Western Churches at least used it with little variation still The Nicene Creed is called by some Antients the Apostles Creed too And both were so for both are the same in sense and substance For it is not the very words that are truly fathered on the Apostles About 30â— years a go Mr. Ashwel having published a Book for the Necessity and Honour of the Creed I wrote in the Postscript to my Reformed Pastor Ed. 2. a Corrective of some passages in which he seemeth to say too much for it or at least to depress the Scripture too much in comparison of it But long experience now telleth me that I have more need to acquaint men with the Reasons and Necessity of the Creed Seeing I find a great part of ignorant Religious people much to slight the use of it and say It is not Scripture but the work of man Especially taking offence at the harsh translatiâ—n of that Article He descended into Hell. which from the beginning it 's like was not in It is the Kernel of the Scripture and it is that for which the rest of the Scripture is given us even to afford us sufficient help to understand and consent to the Covenant of Grace that our Belief our Desires and our Practice may be conformed principally to these Summaries It is not every Child or Woman that could have gathered the Essential Articles by themselves out of the whole Scripture if it had not been done to their hands Nor that could have rightly methodized the Rule of our desires or gathered the just heads of natural duty if Christ had not done the first in the Lords Prayer and God the second in the Decalogue Obj. But I believe these only because the Matter of the Creed and the words also of the other two are in the Scripture and not on any other Authority Ans If you speak of the Authority of the Author which giveth them their truth it is neither Scripture nor Tradition but God for whose Authority we must believe both Scripture and them But if you speak of the Authority of the Deliverers and the Evidence of the Delivery be it known to you 1. That the Creed Lords Prayer Decalogue and the Baptismal Covenant have been delivered down to the Church from the Apostles by a distinct Tradition besides the Scripture Tradition Even to all the Christians one by one that were Baptized and admitted to the Lords Table and to every particular Church So that there was not a Christian or Church that was not even Constituted by them 2. Be it known to you that the Church was long in possession of them before it had the Scriptures of the New Testament It 's supposed to be about eight years after Christ's Ascension before Matthew wrote the first Book of the New Testament and near the year of our Lord one hundred before the Revelation was written And do you think that there were no Christians or Churches all that while Or that there was no Baptism Or no Profession of the Christian Faith in distinct Articles No Knowledge of the Lords Prayer and Commandements No Gospel daily preached and practised What did the Church-assemblies think you do all those years No doubt those that had Inspiration used it by extraordinary gifts But that was not all Those that had not did preach the Substance of the Christian Religion contained in these forms and did Pray and Praise God
and 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
have several significations So that when Tutors read the same books to their Schollars and teach them the same notions it is not the same conceptions always that they thus communicate VIII And when all is done Recipitur ad modum recipientis It 's two to one but the Learner receiveth their notions with a conception somewhat different from them all And when he thinks that he hath learnt what was taught him and is of his Teachers mind he is mistaken and hath received another apprehension IX And the narrowness of mans mind and thoughts is such that usually there must go many partial conceptions to one thing or Object really indivisible So that few things or nothing rather in the world is known by us with one conception nor with a simplicity of apprehensions answerable to the simplicity of the things And hereby it cometh to pass that Inadequate conceptions make up a great part of our Learning and knowledge And yet worse our words being narrower than our Thoughts we are fain to multiply words more than conceptions so that we must have ten conceptions perhaps of one thing and twenty words perhaps for those ten conceptions And then we grow to imagine the things to be as various as our conceptions yea and our words And so Learning is become confused error and the great and noble Actions of the Phantastical world are a pitiful confused agitation of Phantasms and whether fortuitous or artificial a congress of Atoms sometimes digladiating and sometimes seeming by amicable embraces to compose some excellent piece of Art. And things seem to us to be multiplyed and ordered as our conceptions of them are And the Scotists may yet write as many more Treatises de formalitatibus before men will understand indeed what a conceptus formalis with them is and whether diverse formalities be diverse realities or only ejusdem conceptus inadequati But thus Learning is become like a poppet play or the raising of the dust X. The Entia Rationis being thus exceeding numerous are already confounded with objective Realities and have compounded our common Systems of Logick Metaphysicks and too much of Physicks So that Students must at first see through false Spectacles and Learn by seducing notions and receive abundance of false conceptions as the way to Wisdom and Shadows and Rubbish must furnish their minds under the name of truth though mixt with many real Verities For young men must have Teachers They cannot begin at the foundation and every one learn of himself as if none had ever learnt before him He is like to make but a slow proficient that maketh no use of the Studies and Experience of any that ever learnt before him And he that will learn of others must receive their notions and words as the means of his information XI And when they grow up to be capable of real wisdom O! what a labour is it to cleanse out this rubbish and to unlearn all the errors that we have learnt so that it is much of the happiest Progress of extraordinary successful Studies to find out our old mistakes and set our conceptions in better order one by one Perhaps in one year we find out and reform some two or three and in another year one or two more and so on Even as when at my removal of my Library my Servant sets up all my books and I must take them half down again to set them in their right places XII And the difficulty of the matter is our great Impediment when we come to study things For 1. Their Matter 2. Their Composure 3. Their Numbers 4. Their Order and Relations 5. And their Action and Operation are much unknown to us XIII 1. The substance of Spirits is so little known as tempteth Sadduces to dream that there are none The notion of a Spirit to some through ignorance is taken to be meerly negative as if it signified no more but not corporeal The notion of Immateriality is lubricous and he that knoweth not the true bounds of the signification of Materia knoweth not what it is to be Immaterial The purest Spirit is known only by many inadequate conceptions One must answer the similitude of Matter in fundamental substantiality Another must be answerable to that of Forms of simple Elements and another answerable to Accidents And though nothing be so notorious of Spirits as their Operations and from the Acts we know the Virtues or Powers yet that these Virtues are not Accidents but the very Essential Form and that they are in all Spirits One in Three and many other things concerning their Essentiality are quite overlookt by the greater part of Philosophers and those few that open it do either with Campanella lose it again in a wood of mistaken ill gathered consequences or with Lullius drown it in a multitude of irregular arbitrary notions or with Commenius give us a little undigested with the mixture of crudities and mistakes or with our Learned Dr. Glisson de vitâ Naturae confound Spirits and Bodies and make those Spirits which are the Vital constitutive principle of Compounds to be but the inadequate conception of Bodies as if they were all simply and formally Vital of themselves and for a Body to be inanimate were a contradiction or impossible And they that treat more nobly of Spirits as Mr. Got and many Platonists do it so immethodically and confusedly as greatly disadvantageth the Learner And yet to treat of Bodies without treating of the Spirits that animate or actuate them is a lame deluding unedifying thing As it is to treat of a Kingdom an Army a School without mentioning a King a Captain or a Schoolmaster or as to describe a Gun without any mention of Gunpowder or shooting Or a Clock or Watch without the Poise or Spring or Motion or a Book or words without the sense and so of a Man without a Soul or Reason or a Brute without any Life or Sense I mean when we speak of Compound Beings and not meerly of Corporeity in the notion as abstracted from all Vital moving principles XIV 2. And what the true notion of Matter or Corporeity it self is it is but darkly and uncertainly known how confidently soever some decantate their moles or quantity divisibility or discerptibility and impenetrability Whether Fire be material and divisible and impenetrable and how far Fire and Spirits herein differ and so Spirits and Bodies and how far sensible must enter the definition of Corpus is not easily known XV. 3. Nor do we well know the Nature of the simple Corporeal Elements whether they agree only in materiality quantity and divisibility and impenetrability and whether they differ only in magnitude shape sight and contexture of parts or by any essentiating Formal Virtues or both or as Mr. Got thought by a differencing proper spirit XVI 4. How little of the Divine Artifice is known in the composition of mixt Bodies And we know of no existent Simples in the world that are not found only
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
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
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