more accurate than any Logical Author doth prescribe And the Lords Prayer and Decalogue especially will prove this when truly opened And the Doctrine of of the Trinity and the Baptismal Covenant is the Foundation of all true method of Physicks and Morality in the World. What if a novice cannot Anatomize Cicero or Demosthenes doth it follow that they are immethodical Brand-miller and Flaccher upon the Scripture Text and Steph. Tzegedine Sohnius Gomarus Dudley Fenner and many others upon the Body of Theology have gone far in opening the Scripture Method But more may be yet done VI. Consider also that the Eternal Wisdom Word and Son of God our Redeemer is the Fountain and giver of all Knowledge Nature to be restored and Grace to restore it are in his hands He is that true Light that lighteneth every one that cometh into the World The Light of Nature and Arts and Sciences are from his Spirit and Teaching as well as the Gospel Whether Clemens Alexandrinus and some other Ancients were in the right or not when they taught that Philosophy is one way by which men come to Salvation it is certain that they are in the right that say it is now the gift of Christ And that as the Light which goeth before Sun-rising yea which in the night is reflected from the Moon is from the Sun as well as its more glorious Beams So the Knowledge of Socrates Plato Zeno Cicero Antonine Epictetus Seneca Plutarch were from the Wisdom and Word of God the Redeemer of the World even by a lower gift of his Spirit as well as the Gospel and higher illumination And shall Christ be thought void of what he giveth to so many in the World VII Lastly Let it be considered above all that the grand difference between the teaching of Christ and other men is that he teacheth effectively as God spake when he Created and as he said to Lazarus Arise He giveth wisdom by giving the Holy Ghost All other Teachers speak but to the Ears but he only speaketh to the Heart Were it not for this he would have no Church I should never have else believed in him my self nor would any other seriously and savingly Aristotle and Plato speak but words but Christ speaketh LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE in all Countreys through all Ages to this day This above all is his witness in the World. He will not do his work on Souls by ludicrous enticing words of the Pedantick wisdom of the World but by illuminating Minds and changing Hearts and Lives by his effectual operations on the Heart God used not more Rhetorick nor Logick than a Philosopher when he said only Let there be Light but he used more Power Indeed the first Chapter of Genesis though abused by Ignorants and Cabalists hath more true Philosophy in it than the presumptuous will understand as my worthy Friend Mr. Samuel Gott lately gone to God hath manifested in his excellent Philosophy excepting the style and some few presumptions But operations are the glorious Oratory of God and his wisdom shineth in his works and in things beseeming the Heavenly Majesty and not in childish Laces and Toys of Wit. Let us therefore cease quarrelling and learn wisdom of God instead of teaching and reprehending him Let us magnifie the mercy and wisdom of our Redeemer who hath brought Life and Immortality to light and certified us of the matters of the World above as beseemed a Messenger sent from God and hath taught us according to the matter and our capacity and not with trifling childish notions Chap. XVIII Inference VI. The true and false ways of restoring the Churches and healing our Divisions hence opened and made plain HAving opened to you our Disease it is easie were not the Disease it self against it to discern the Cure. Pretended knowledge hath corrupted and divided the Christian World. Therefore it must be CERTAIN VERITIES which must Restore us and Unite us And these must be Things PLAIN and NECESSARY and such as God hath designed to this very use or else they will never do the work One would think that it should be enough to satisfie men of this 1. To read Scripture 2. To peruse the terms of Concord in the Primitive Church 3. To peruse the sad Histories of the Churches Discord and Divisions and the Causes 4. To peruse the state of the World at this day and make use of Universal Experience 5. To know what a Christian is what Baptism is and what a Church is 6. To know what Man is and that they themselves and the Churches are but Men. But penal and sinful Infatuation hath many Ages been upon the minds of those in the Christian World who were most concerned in the Cure and our sin is our misery as I think to the damned it will be the chief part of their Hell. But this subject is so great and needful and that which the Wounds and Blood of the Christian World do cry for a skilful Cure of that I will not thrust it into this corner but design to write a Treatise of it by it self as a second part of this This Book is since Printed with some Alteration and called The true and Only way of the Concord of the Churches Chap. XIX Of the Causes of this Disease of Prefidence or Proud Pretended Knowledge in order to the Cure. THE Cure of Prefidence and pretended knowledge could it be wrought would be the Cure of Souls Families Churches and Kingdoms But alas how low are our hopes yet that may be done on some which will not be done on all or most And to know the causes and oppugn them is the chief part of the Cure so far as it may be hoped for 1. The first and grand cause is the very Nature of ignorance it self which many ways disableth men from knowing that which should abate their groundless confidence For 1. An ignorant man knoweth but little parcels and scraps of things And all the rest is unknown to him Therefore he fixeth upon that little which he knoweth and having no knowledge of the rest he cannot regulate his narrow apprehensions by any conceptions of them And all things visible to us not light it self excepted which as seen by us is Fire incorporated in Air being Compounds the very Nature or Being of them is not known where any Constitutive part is unknown And in all Compounds each part hath such relation and usefulness to others that one part which seemeth known is it self but half known for want of the knowledge of others Such a kind of knowledge is theirs that knowing only what they see do take a Clock or Watch to be only the Index moving by the Hours being ignorant of all the causal parts within Or that know no more of a Tree or other Plant than the Magnitude Site Colour Odour c. Or that take a man to be only a Body without a Soul or the Body to be only the Skin and Parts discerned by the Eye in converse
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
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
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
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
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
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
he hath set up to them they are half as long in Learning for all that as if he had never given them such a help And therefore it is that we cannot leave our Learning to Posterity Because still the stop is in the Receivers incapacity And he cannot be capable of the plainest precepts but by much time and study 2. Pride maketh men hasty in concluding because they are not humbled to a just Suspicion of their own apprehensions And men stay not to prove and try things before they judge 3. Pride maketh men insensible how much they are ignorant of in all their Knowledge 4. And it causeth men to slight the Reasons and Judgments of other men by which they might learn or at least might be taught to Judge considerately and suspend their own If over-valuing a mans own apprehensions be Pride as it is then certainly Pride is one of the commonest sins in the world and particularly among men professing godliness who upon every poor surmise or report are condemning those that they do not throughly know and in every petty controversy they are all still in the right though of never so many minds III Another cause of Pretended Knowledge is the want of a truly tender Conscience Which should make men fear lest they should err lest they should deserve the curse of putting light for darkness darkness for light evil for good good for evil should make them afraid lest they should defile their minds resist the truth blaspheme God or Dishonour him by fathering Errors on him and lest they should prove snares to mens Souls and a Scandal and Trouble to the Church of God. A tender Conscience would not have espoused such opinions under a year or two or manies deliberation which an Antinomian or other Sectary will take up in a few days if they were true O saith the tender Conscience what if I should Err and prove a Snare to Souls and a Scandal and Dishonour to the Church of God c. IV. Another cause of Pretended Knowledge is a blind Zeal for Knowledge and Godliness in the General while men know not what it is that they are zealous of They think that it is a necessary part of sincerity to receive the Truth speedily without delay And therefore they take a present concluding for a true Receiving it And he that soonest taketh up that which is offered him probably as a part of Godliness is taken for the most resolved down-right convert Which is true in case of Evident Truths where it is the will that by vice suspendeth the mind But not in dark and doubtful cases V. Another cause is an inordinate trust in man When some admire the learned too much and some the Religious and some this or that particular person and therefore build too confidently on their words Some on great men some on the Multitude but most on men of fame for great Learning or great Piety A credit is to be given by every learner to his Teacher But the confounding this with oâ— Belief of God and making it a part of our Religion and not trusting man as man only that is as a fallible Wight doth cause this Vice of Pretended Knowledge to pass with millions for Divine Faith. Especially when men embody themselves into a Sect as the only Orthodox or Godly party or as the only true Church as the Papists do then it emboldeneth them to believe any thing which their Sect or Church believeth For they think that this is the Churches Faith which cannot err or is the safest And that God would not let so many good men err And thus they that should be made their Teachers and the Helpers of their Faith become the Lords of it and almost their Gods. VI. And it much increaseth this sin that men are not sufficiently acquainted with the Original and Additional Corruption of mans nature and know not how Blind all Mankind is Alas man is a dark Creature What error may he not hold What villany may he not do Yea and maintain Truly said David All men are Liars Pitifully do many expound this as an effect of his unbelief and passion because he saith I said it my haste When it is no more than Paul saith Let God be true and every man a Liar Rom. 3. And than Solomon and Isaiah say All men are Vanity And Jeremy cursed be he that trusteth in man All men are untrusty in a great degree Weak False and Bad. And his haste was either as Dr. Hammond translateth it his Flight or else that his Tryal and distress made him more passionately sensible of the Vanity or Untrustiness of man than he was at other times For Vanity and a Lie to the Hebrews were words of the same importance signifying Deceivableness and untrustiness And indeed among mankind there is so great a degree of Impotency Selfishness Timorousness Ignorance Errour and Viciousness as that few wicked men are to be believed where there is any strong Temptation to lying And the Devil is seldom unprovided of Temptations And abundance of Hypocrites are as untrusty as open wicked men And abundance of sincere Godly persons especially Women have loose Tongues and hasty passions and a stretching Conscience but specially injudicious heads so that frequently they know not truth from falshood nor have the tenderness of Conscience to be silent till they know So that if one say it another will say it till a hundred say it and then it goeth for currant truth Good-mens over-much credulity of one another hath filled the Church with Lies and Fables Many of the Papists Sâ—â—â—rstitions Purgatory praying to Saints and Angels prayâ—â— for the dead c. were bred by this credulity It is so visible in Venerable Beda Gregory the first yea before them in Sulpitius Severus of Martius Life and abundance more that to help up Christianity among the Pagans they laid hold of any old Womans or Ignorant Mans Dreams and Visions and stories of pretended Miracles Revelations that it made even Melchior Canus cry out of the shameful Ridiculous filth that hence had filled their Legends Even Baronius upon Tryal retaineth no small number of them and with his Brethren the Oratorians on their Prophesying days told them to the people I am ashamed that I recited one out of him before my Treatise of Crucifying the World though I did it not as perswading any that it was true For I quickly saw that Sophronious on whom he fathered it was none of the reporters of it that Book being spurious and none of Sophronius his work Indeed I know of such impudent false History lately Printed of matters of publick fact in these times yea divers concerning my own Words and Actions by persons that are far from Contemptible that Strangers and Posterity will scarce believe that humane nature could be guilty of it in the open light And I know it to be so customary a thing for the Zealots professing the fear of God on one
is conversing only with those of our own mind and side and interest and not seeking familiar loving acquaintance with those that differ from us Whereby men deprive themselves of hearing half that is to be heard and of knowing much that is to be known And their proud Vice hardeneth them in this way to say I have read and I have heard enough of them I know all that they can say And if a man soberly speak to them their Vices of Pride Presumption and Passion will scarce patiently bear him to go on without interruption to the end but the Wizzard saith I know already what you will say and you are tedious and do you think that so wise a man as I hath nothing to do but hear such a Fool as you talk Thus proud men are ordinarily so full of themselves that they can scarce endure to hear or at least learn any thing from others nor restrain their violent list to speak so long as either just information or humane civility requireth XV. Another Cause is Malignity and want of Christian Love whereby men are brought if not to a hatred yet to a proud contempt of others who are not of their mind and side and way O they are all as foolish and bad as any one hath list to call them and he that raileth at them most ingeniously and impudently giveth them but their due And will a man full of Himself and his Own be moved from his presumptions by any thing that such a hated or scorned people can say Nay will he not be hardened in his self-conceit because it is such as these that contradict him Many such Causes of this Vice there be but PRIDE and IGNORANCE are the proper Parents of it whatever else be the Nurse or Friend Chap. XX. Objections answered I Easily foresee that besides the foresaid impediments all these following Objections will hinder the Cure of false pretended knowledge and self-conceitedness and false Belief if they be not answered Obj. I. You move men to an Impossibility To see without light and for an erring man to believe that he erreth He that hath not light to see the truth hath not light to see his ignorance of it This is no more than to perswade all men to be wise and not to err which you may do long enough to little purpose Ans It is impossible indeed for an erring man while such to know that he erreth but it is not impossible 1. For an ignorant man to know that he is ignorant nor for a man without light or sight to know that he seeth not though he cannot see that he seeth not For though Nescience be Nothing and Nothing is not properly and directly an Object of our Knowledge no more than of our Sight Yet as we see the limited quantity of substances and so know little from big by concluding that it hath no more quantity than we see so we know our own knowledge both as to Object and Act and we know the degree of it and to what it doth extend And so can conclude I know no more And though Nescience be nothing yet this Proposition I know no more is not nothing And so nothing is usually said to be known Reductively but indeed it is not properly known at all but this proposition de nihilo is known which is something I will not here meddle with the question whether God know non-entities 2. To think and to know are not all one For I may think that I may know that is I study to know Now I can know that I study or think and I can perceive that my studies reach not what I desire to reach but fall short of satisfaction And so as in the Body though emptiness be nothing and therefore not felt as nothing yet a hungry man feeleth it in the consequents by accident that is feeleth that by which he knoweth that he is empty And so it is with a Student as to knowledge 3. And a man that hath so much experience as we all have of the stated darkness of our understandings and frequent errors may well know that this understanding is to be suspected and so blind a Guide not over-confidently and rashly to be trusted 4. And a man that knoweth the danger of Errour may know that it is a thing that he should fear And fear should make him cautelous 5. And though an erring man while such cannot know that he erreth yet by the aforesaid means he may cease to err and know that he hath erred 6. And lastly It is a shame for a man to be unacquainted with himself and especially with his understanding and not to know the measure of his knowledge it self Obj. II. You talk like a Cartesian that must have all that would know suppose first that they know nothing no not that he feeleth and liveth Ans No such matter Some things we know necessarily and cannot chuse but know For the Intellect is not free of it self but only as quoad exercitium actus it is sub imperio voluntatis And it is vain to bid men not to know what they cannot chuse but know And it is as vain to tell them that they must suppose falsly that they know not what they know as a means to know For ignorance is no means to knowledge but knowledge is One act of knowledge being necessary to more and therefore not to be denied I have told you before what certainties are which must be known and never forsaken Obj. III. But your discourse plainly tendeth to draw men to Scepticism and to doubt of all things Ans 1. I tell you I describe to you many certainties not to be doubted of 2. And it is indeed your prefidence that tendeth to Scepticism as is shewed For men that believe hastily and falsly find themselves so oft deceived that at last they begin to doubt of all things It is Scepticism which I prevent 3. But I confess to you that I am less afraid of Scepticism in the World than ever I was as finding corrupt nature so universally disposed the contrary way As when I first saw the Books of Jacob Behmen and some such others I adventured to Prognosticate that the Church would never be much indangered by that Sect or any other which a man cannot understand and join in without great study and acuteness because few men will be at so much labour even so I say of Scepticism here and there a hard-impatient half-knowing Student may turn Sceptick but never any great number For Pride and Ignorance and other causes of self-conceitedness are Born in all men and every man that apprehendeth any thing is naturally apt to be too confident of his apprehensions and few will have the humility to suspect themselves or the patience and diligence to find out difficulties I must say in my Experience that except the Congregation which I long instructed and some few-such I meet with few Women Boys or unlearned men when they are past 18 or
20 years old but they are in conceit wiser than I and are still in the right and I am in the wrong in things Natural Civil Religious or almost any thing we talk of if I say not as they say and it is so hard to abate their confidence or convince them that I have half ceased to endeavour it but let every one believe and say what he will so it be not to the dishonour of God the wrong of others and the hazard of his Salvation For I take it for granted before-hand that contradiction ofter causeth strife than instruction and when they take not themselves for Scholars they seldom learn much of any but themselves And their own thoughts and experience must teach them that in many years which from an Experienced man they might have cheaplier learnt in a few days Obj. IV. You speak against taking things on trust and so would keep Children from Believing and Learning of their Parents and Masters and from growing wise Ans I oft tell you that humane faith is a necessary help to Divine Faith But it must not be mistaken for Divine Faith. Men are to be believed as fallible men But in some things with diffidence and in some things with confidence and in some things where it is not the speakers credit that we rely upon but a Concurrence of Testimonies which make up a natural certainty Belief and Knowledge go together and the thing is sure But man is not God. Obj. V. May not a man more safely and Confidently believe by the Churches Faith than his own That is take that for more certain which all men believe than that which I think I see a Divine word for my self Ans This is a Popish Objection thus confusedly and fallaciously often made 1. Properly No man can believe by any faith but his own any more than understand with any understanding but his own But the meaning being that we may better trust to the Churches Judgment that this or that is Gods word than to our own perswasion that it is Gods word from the Evidence of the Revelation I further answer 2. That the Churches Judgment is one part of our subordinate motive and therefore not to be put in competition with that Divine Evidence which it is always put in Conjunction with And the Churches Teaching is the means of my coming to know the true Evidences of Divinity in the word And the Churches real Holiness caused by that word is one of the Evidences themselves and not the least Now to put the question Whether I must know the Scripture to be Gods word because I discern the Evidences of its Divinity or rather because the Church Teacheth me that it is Gods word or because the Church saith it is Gods word or because the Church is Sanctified by it are all vain questions setting things conjunct and co-ordinate as opposite 1. By the Churches Judgment or Belief I am moved to a high Reverence of Gods word by a very high Humane Faith supposing it credible that it may be Gods word indeed 2. Next by the Churches or Ministers Teaching the Evidences of Divinity are made known to me 3. The Effect of it in the Churches Holiness is one of these Evidences 4. And by that and all other Evidences I know that it is Gods word 5. And therefore believe it to be true This is the true Order and Resolution of our Faith. 3. But because the Popish Method is barely to believe the Scripture to be Gods word because a Pope and his Council judgeth so I add 1. That we have even of that humane sort of Testimony far more than such For theirs is the Testimony of a self exalting Sect of Christians about the third part of the Christian world But we have also the Testimony of them and of all other Christians and in most or much of the matter of Fact that the Scriptures were delivered down from the Apostles the Testimony of some Heathens and abundance of Hereticks 2. And with these we have the Evidences of Divinity themselves 3. But if we had their Churches or Pope and Councils Decrees for it alone we should take it but for a humane Fallible Testimony For 1. They cannot plead Gods word here as the proof of their Infallibility For it is the supposed question what is Gods word which they say cannot be known but by their Infallible Judgment 2. And they cannot plead number for 1. The Mahometans are more than the Christians in the world Brierwood reckoneth that they are six parts of thirty we but five And yet not therefore Infallible nor Credible 2. And the Heathens are more than the Mahometans and Christians being four sixth parts of the world and yet not infallible But of this I have the last week wrote a Book of the certainty of Christianity without Popery and heretofore my safe Religion and others Obj. VI. At least this way of Believing and Knowing things by proper Evidences of Truth will loosen the common sort of Christians even the godly from their Faith and Religion For whereas now they quietly go on without doubting as receiving the Scriptures from the Church or their Teachers as the word of God when they fall on searching after proofs they will be in danger of being overcome by difficulties and filled with doubts if not apostatizing to Infidelity or turning Papists Ans Either these persons have already the Knowledge of Certain Evidence of the Divinity of the Scripture or Christianity or they have none If they have any the way of studying it more will not take it from them but increase it Else you dishonour Christianity to think that he that knoweth it to be of God will think otherwise if he do but better try it Upon search he will not know less but more But if he have no such certainty already 2. I further answer that I take away from him none of that humane belief which he had before If the belief of his Parents Teachers or the Church only did satisfy him before which was but a strong probability I leave with him the same help and probability and only perswade him to add more and surer arguments And therefore that should not weaken but confirm his Faith. Obj. But you tell him that the Churches or his Teachers Judgment or word is uncertain and that sets him on doubting Ans 1. I tell him of all the Strength and Credibility that is in it which I would have him make use of 2. And it is not alone but by his Teachers help that I would have him seek for certainty 3. But if he did take that Testimony for certain which was not certain If he took man for God or took his Teachers or Pope for inspired Prophets and a humane Testimony for Divine do you think that this errour should be cherished or cured I think that God nor Man have no true need of a lie in this case and that lies seldom further mens Salvation And that
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
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
Salvation even for all the Poor and Vulgar wits which is so much too hard for our most subtile Students 2. And Christianity is as suitable to us in the Benefit and Sweetness of it What a happy Religion is it that employeth men in nothing but receiving good to themselves and in doing good to themselves and others Whose work is only the Receiving and Improving of Gods Mercies and Loving and Delighting in all that is good rejoycing in the tasts of Gods Love on Earth and in the Hopes of perfect Felicity Love and Joy for ever Is not this a sweeter life than tiresom unprofitable Speculations O then how unexcuseable are our contemners of Religion that live in wilful Ignorance and ungodliness and think this easy and sweet Religion to be a tedious and intolerable thing What impudent Calumniators and Blasphemers are they of Christ and Holiness who deride and revile this sweet and easy way to life as if it were a slavery and an irksom toil unnecessary to our Salvation and unfit for a freeman or at least a Gentleman or a Servant of the flesh and world to practise If Christ had set you but such a task as Aristotle or Plato did to their disciples so many notions and so many Curiosities to learn If he had written for you as many Books as Chrysippus did If he had made necessary to your Salvation all the arbitrary notions of Lullius all the Fanatick conceits of Campanella and all the dreaming Hypotheses of Cartesius and all the Astronomical Cosmographical difficulties of Ptolomy Tycho-Brache Copernicus and Galilaeus and all the Chronological difficulties handled by Eusebius Scaliger Functius Capellus Petavius c. And all the curiosities in Philosophy and Theology of Cajetane Scotus Ockam Gabriel c. Then you might have had some excuse for your aversation But to accuse and refuse and reproach so Compendious so Easie so Sweet so Necessary a Doctrine and Religion as that which is brought and taught by Christ this is an ingratitude that hath no excuse unless Sensuality and Malignant enmity may pass for an excuse Doth Christ deliver you from the maze of Imaginary Curiosities and from the burdens of worldly wisdom called Philosophy and of Pharisaical Traditions and Jewish Ceremonies and make you a light burden an easy Yoak and Commandments that are not grievous and after all this must he be requited with Rejection and Reproach and your Burdens and Snares be taken for more tolerable than your deliverance You make a double forfeiture of Salvation who are so unwilling to be saved Be thankful O Christians to your heavenly Master for tracing you out so plain and sweet a way Be thankful that he hath cut short those tiresom studies by which your task-masters would confound you under pretence of making you like Gods in some more subtile and sublime Speculations than Vulgar wits can reach Now all that are willing may be Religious and be saved It is not confined to men of learning The way is so sweet as sheweth it suitable to the end It is but Believe Gods Love and Promises of Salvation by Christ till you are filled with Love and its delights and live in the pleasures of Gratitude and Holiness and in the Joyful hopes of endless Glory And is not this an easy Yoak Saith our Heavenly Poet Mr. G. Herbert in his Poem called Divinity p. 127. As men for fear the Stars should Sleep and Nod And trip at night have Spheres supply'd As if a Star were duller than a clod Which knows his way without a guide Just so the other Heaven they also serve Divinities transcendent Sky Which with the Edge of wit they Cut and Carve Reason Triumphs and Faith lies by But all his Doctrine which he taught and gave Was clear as heav'n from whence it came At least those Beams of truth which only save Surpass in Brightness any Flame Love God and Love your Neighbours watch and pray Do as you would be done unto O dark instructions even as dark as day Who can these Gordian Knots undo Chap. 10. The sixth Inference How little reason ungodly men have to be proud of their Learning or of any sort of Knowledge or Wisdom whatsoever AS the ancient Gnosticks being puffed up with their corrupt Platonick Speculations lookt down with contempt upon ordinary Christians as silly ignorants in comparison of them and yet had not wisdom enough to preserve them from the Lusts and Pollutions of the world Even so is it with abundance of the worldly Clergy and ungodly Scholars in this age They think their Learning setteth them many degrees above the Vulgar and giveth them right to be Reverenced as the Oracles or Rabbies of the World When yet poor Souls They have not learned by all their Reading Studies and Disputings to Love God and Holiness better than the Riches and Preferments of the World. And some of them not better than a Cup of strong drink or than the brutish pleasures of Sense and Flesh It is a pitiful thing to see the Pulpit made a Stage for the ostentation of this self-shaming self-condemning Pride and Folly For a man under pretence of serving God and helping other men to Heaven to make it his errand to tell the hearers that he is a very Wise and Learned man who hath not wit enough to choose a holy humble life nor to make sure of Heaven or to save his Soul nor perhaps to keep out of the Tavern or Ale-house the next week nor the same day to forbear the venting of his worldly carnal mind What is such Learning but a Game of Imagination in which the Phantasie sports it self with names and notions or worse the materials which are used in the service of sin the fuel of pride the blinder and deceiver of such as were too ignorant before being a meer shadow and name of Knowledge What good will it do a man tormented with the Gout or Stone or by miserable poverty to know the names of various herbs or to read the titles of the Apothecaries boxes or to read on a sign-post Here is a good ordinary And what good will it do a carnal unsanctified Soul that must be in Hell for ever to know the Hebrew roots or points or to discourse of Cartesius his materia subtilis globuli aetherei c. Or of Epicurus and Gassendus Atomes or to look on the Planets in Galileus Glasses while he casteth away all his hopes of Heaven by his unbelief and his preferring the pleasures of the flesh Will it comfort a man that is cast out of Gods presence and condemned to utter darkness to remember that he was once a good Mathematician or Logician or Musician or that he had wit to get riches and preferments in the world and to climb up to the heighth of honour and dominion It is a pitiful thing to hear a man boast of his wit while he is madly rejecting the only felicity forsaking God esteeming vanity and damning his Soul
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
in unskilful men consist with a Sound Belief of the Things which must necessarily be believed And that Christ and Grace may be thankfully received by many that have false Names and Notions and Sayings about Christ and Grace And I know the great Power of Education and Converse and what advantage an opinion hath even with the upright which is commonly extolled by Learned Godly Religious men especially if by almost all Therefore I make no doubt but God hath many among the Papists and the Antinomians to name no others who are truly Godly though they Logically or Notionally hold such errours as if Practically held would be their damnation and if the consequents were known and held Much more when thousands of the Common People hold not the errours of the Church which they abide in And it shall not be my way of perswading my own Soul or others to Love God by first perswading them that he Loveth but few besides them And when such have narrowed Gods Love and mercy to all save their own party and made themselves easily believe that he will damn the rest of the world even such as are desirous to please God as they are they have but prepared a Snare for their own Consciences which may perhaps when it is awakened as easily believe that he will damn themselves Let us give all diligence to make our own calling and election sure and leave others to the righteous God to whose Judgment they and we must stand or fall Who art thou that judgest anothers Servant As the Covenant of Peculiarity was made only with the Israelites though the Common Law of grace made to Adam and Noe was in force to other Nations of the World So the more excellent Covenant of Peculiarity is since Christs Incarnation made only with the Christian Church though the foresaid Common Law of Grace be not repealed to all others Nor can it be said that they sin not against a Law of Grace or mercy leading to repentance And as the Covenant of Peculiarity was not repealed to the ten tribes though the benefitâ—s were much forfeited by their violation but God had still Thousands among them in Elias time that bowed not the knee to Baal and such as Obadiah to hide the Prophets though yet the Jews were the more Orthodox Even so though the Reformed Churches as the two Tribes stick closer to the truth the Kingdoms where Popery prevaileth have yet many thousands that God will save and notwithstanding their errours and corrupt additions they have the same Articles of Faith and Baptismal Covenant as we And if any man think himself the wiser or the happier man than I for holding the contrary and thinking so many are hated of God more than I do and consequently rendering him less lovely to them I envy not such the honour nor comfort of their wisdom Obj. III. You will thus confirm our Ignorant people in their presumption that tell Professors of Godliness I Love God above all and my Neighbour as my self though I do not know and talk and pray so much as you do Ans Either they do so Love God and Man or they do not If they do they are good and happy men though you call them ignorant Yea he is far from being an Ignorant man that knoweth God and Christ and Heaven and Holiness so well as to be unfeignedly in Love with them But if he do not what say I to his encouragement in presumption But you must take another course to cure him than by calling him to a barren sort of Knowledge You must shew him that the Love of God is an operative principle and where it is will have dominion and be highest in the Soul and that telling God that we Love him while we love not his Law his Service or his Children yea while we love our Appetite our Wealth our Credit and every beastly lust above him and while we cannot abide much to think or hear talk of him this is but odious Hypocrisie which deceiveth the sinner and maketh him more abominable to God. But if really you see a poor Neighbour whom you count ignorant live as one that loveth God and Goodness take heed that you proudly despise not Christs little ones but Love and Cherish those sparks that are kindled and Loved by Christ The least are called by Christ his Brethren and their interest made as his own Mat. 25. And the least have their Angels which see the face of God in Heaven Qu. IV. How then are Infants saved that neither have knowledge nor Love. Ans 1. While they have no Wills of their own which are capable of holy duties they are as members of their Parents whose Wills are theirs and who know God and Love him for themselves and their Infants As the Hand and Foot doth not know or Love God in itself and yet is holy in that it is the Hand or Foot of one that doth know and Love him 2. Sanctified Infants have that Grace which is the seed of holy Love though they have not yet the Act nor proper habit of Love. I call it as seed because it is a holy disposition of the Soul by which it is not only Physically as all are but Morally able to Love God when they come to the use of reason or at least mediately to do that which shall conduce to holy Love. 3. And in this state being Loved of God and known of him as the Children of his Grace and Promise they are happy in his Love to them For he will give their natures their due capacity in his way which we are not yet fit to be fully acquainted with and he will fill up that Capacity with his Love and Glory Obj. V. If this hold away with universities and all our Volumes and Studies of Physicks Mathematicks and other Sciences for they must needs divert our thoughts from the Love of God! And then Turks Muscovites and other contemners of Learning are in the right Ans There is a right and a wrong use of all these As there is of Arts and business of the world One man so followeth his trade and worldly business as to divert distract or corrupt his mind and drown all holy thoughts and Love and leave no due place for holy diligence And another man so followeth his calling as that Heaven hath still his heart and hope and his labour is made but part of his obedience to God and his way to life eternal and all is Sanctified by holy Principles End and Manner And so it is about common Learning Sciences or Arts And I have proved to you that among too many called great Scholars in the world many books and much reading and acquaintance with all the arts of speaking with Grammar Logick Oratory Metaphysicks Physicks History Laws c. is but one of Satans Last and Subtlest means of wasting precious time deceiving Souls and keeping such persons from pursuing the ends of their excellent wit and of life itself that
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