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
concern only the Interests of the body in this life or as Knowledge is but the delight of the natural phantasie or mind doth seem a little finer and sublime and manly but it is of the same nature and vanity as the rest For all Knowledge is for the guidance of the Will and Practice and therefore meer knowing matters that tend to Pride Sensuality Wealth or Domination is less than the enjoyment of sensual pleasures in the things themselves And the contemplation of superiour Creatures which hath no other end than the delight of knowing is but a more refined sort of vanity and like the minds activity in a dream But whether it be the Knowledge or the love of God that man should place his highest felicity in is become among the Schoolmen and some other Divines a controversy that seemeth somewhat hard But indeed to a considering man the seeming difficulty may be easily overcome The Understanding and Will and Executive activity are not several Souls but several faculties of one Soul And their Objects and Order of operation easily tell us which is the first and which the last which tendeth to the other as its end and which object is the most delightful and most felicitating to the man viz. That Truth is for Goodness and that Good as Good is the amiable delectable and felicitating object And therefore that the Intellect is the guide of the Will and Faith and Knowledge are for Love and its Delight And yet that mans felicity is in both and not in one alone as one faculty alone is not the whole Soul though it be the whole Soul that acteth by that faculty Therefore the later Schoolmen have many of them well confuted Aquinas in this point And it is of great importance in our Christian practice As the desire of more Knowledge first corrupted our nature so corrupted nature is much more easily drawn to seek after knowledge than after love Many men are bookish that cannot endure to be Saints Many can spend their lives in the studies of Nature and Theology and Delight to find increase of Knowledge who are Strangers to the Sanctifying Uniting delightful exercise of holy love Appetite is the pondus or first Spring of our moral actions yea and of our natural though the sense and intellect intromit or illuminate the Object And the first act of natural Appetite Sensitive and Intellectual is necessitated And accordingly the Appetite as pleased is as much the end of our Acts and Objects as the Appetite as Desiring is the beginning Even as si parvis magna c. Gods Will as Efficient is the absolutely first cause and his will as done and pleased is the ultimate end of all things It is Love by which man cleaveth unto God as Good and as our ultimate end Love ever supposeth knowledge and is its end and perfection Neither alone but both together are mans highest State Knowledge as discerning what is to be Loved and Love as our uniting and Delighting adherence to it I. Labour therefore with all your industry to know God that you may love him It is that love that must be your comforting grace both by signification and by its proper Effective Exercise 1. True love will prove that your Knowledge and Faith are true and saving which you will never be sure of without the Evidence of this and the consequent Effects If your expressive art or gifts be never so low so that you scarce know what to say to God or man yet if you so far know God as sincerely to love him it is certainly true saving knowledge and that which is the beginning of eternal life Knowledge Belief Repentance Humility Meekness Patience Zeal Diligence c. are so far and no further sure marks of Salvation as they cause or prove true love to God and Man Predominant It is a hard thing any otherwise to know whether our Knowledge Repentance Patience Zeal or any of the rest be any better than what an unjustifyed person may attain But if you can find that they cause or come from or accompany a sincere Love of God you may be sure that they all partake of sincerity and are certain signs of a Justified Soul. It is hard to know what sins for number or nature or magnitude are such as may or may not consist with a State of saving grace He that considereth of the sins of Lot David Solomon and Peter will find the case exceeding difficult But this much is sure that so much sin may consist with a Justified State as may consist with sincere love to God and Goodness While a man truly loveth God above all his sin may cause Correction but not DAMNATION unless it could extinguish or overcome this Love. Some question whether that the sin of Lot or David for the present stood with justification If it excussed not predominant habitual love it intercepteth not justification If we could tell whether any or many heathens that hear not of Christ have the true love of God and Holiness we might know whether they are saved The reason is because that the will is the man in Gods account And as Voluntariness is essential to sin so a Holy Will doth prove a Holy person God hath the heart of him that loveth him He that loveth him would fain please him glorify him and enjoy him And he that loveth holiness would fain live a holy life Therefore it is that Divines say here that desire of grace is a certain sign of grace because it is an act of Will and Love. And it is true if that desire be greater or more powerful than our Averseness and than our desire after contrary things that so it may put us on necessary duty and overcome the lusts and temptations which oppose them Though cold wishes which are conquered by greater unwillingness and prevailing lusts will never save men 2. And as love is our more comforting Evidence so it is our most comforting Exercise Those acts of religion which come short of this come short of the proper life and sweetness of true religion They are but either lightnings in the brain that have no heat or a feaverish zeal which destroyeth or troubleth but doth not perform the acts of life or else even where love is true but little and opprest by fears and grief and trouble it is like Fire in green Wood or like young green Fruits which is not come to mellow ripeness Love of Vanity is disappointing unsatisfactory and tormenting Most of the Calamities of this life proceed from creature-love The greatest tormentor in this world is the inordinate love of life and the next is the love of the pleasures and accommodations of life which cause so much care to get and keep and so much fear of losing and grief for our losses especially fear of dying that were it not for this our lives would be much easier to us as they are to the fearless sort of brutes And the next tormenting affection is the
they that have much unholy Knowledge Ch. 5. The first Inference By what measures to estimate Knowledge Ch. 6. The second Inference To abate our censures and contempt of the less-learned Christians and Churches Ch. 7. The third Inference How to judge of the Knowledge necessary to Church Communion Ch. 8. The fourth Inference The aptness of the Teaching of Christ to ingenerate the Love of God and Holiness Ch. 9. The fifth Inference What great cause of thankfulness men have for the Constitution of the Christian Religion And how unexcusable they are that will not learn so short and sweet and safe a Lesson Ch. 10. The sixth Inference How little reason ungodly men have to be proud of their Learning or any of their Knowledge Ch. 11. The seventh Inference Why the ungodly World hateth Holiness and not Knowledge Ch. 12. The eighth Inference What is the work of a faithful Preacher and how it is to be done Ch. 13. The ninth Inference Those that know God so far as to Love him truely may have comfort notwithstanding their remaining ignorance Ch. 14. Questions and Objections Answered Qu. 1. If so much Knowledge will save Men as causeth them To Love God may not Heathens be saved who know God to be good and therefore may Love him Qu. 2. May not a Papist or Heretick Love God and be saved Qu. 3. At least you make Ignorant Persons happy that can but Love God though they know not their Catechism Qu. 4. How are Infants saved that have neither Knowledge nor Love Qu. 5. If this hold true Universities and most humane Learning should be cast out as the Turks and Moscovites do and the Armenians Abassines Greeks and Ignorant sort of Papists are the wisest Because multitudes of other Notions must needs divert mens thoughts from God. Ch. 15. Use Exhort I. Deceive not your selves by over-valuing an unholy sort of Knowledge or common Gifts Ch. 16. Exhort II. Love best those Christians that Love God best and live in Love and Peace with others Ch. 17. Exhort III Pretend not your Knowledge against the Love of God or Man or against the Interest of the Church and Souls Ch. 18. Exhort IV. Bend all your Studies to a life of Increased and Exercised Love. How the Love of God must be Exercised and Increased The benefit hereof Ch. 19. Exhort V. Place your Comfort in Health and Sickness in Mutual Divine Love. 1. See that you Love God. How known Doubts Answered Ch. 20.2 But let it be the chief part of your Comfort that you are known of God. What comfort this affordeth What frame of Soul it bespeaketh in us in Life and at our Death PART I. 1 Cor. 8.2 3. And if any man think that he knoweth any thing he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know But if any man Love God the same is known of Him. Chap. I. The Scope and Text opened what Philosophy or worldly Wisdom Paul depresseth and why THE Calamitous Divisions of the Churches of Christ and the Miscarriages and Contentions of too many particular Brethren having been sad upon my thoughts above forty years by this time without imputation of hastiness and rash judging I may take leave to tell the World what I have discovered to be the principal cause which is falsly PRETENDED KNOWLEDGE or IGNORANCE OF IGNORANCE or a proud unhumbled understanding confident that it knoweth that which it knoweth not And consequently what must be the cure if our calamity be here cureable viz. To know as much as we can but withal to know how little we know and to take on us to know no more than we do know nor to be certain of our uncertainties The Text which I have chosen to be the ground of my discourse is so plain notwithstanding some little difficulties that did not the nature of the Disease resist the clearest Remedy so many good people had never here often read their sin described as insensibly as if they read it not The Chapter hath so much difficulty as will not stand with my intended brevity to open it I refer you to Expositors for that whether they were the Nicolaitans or any other sort of Hereticks that the Apostle dealeth with I determine not It is plain that they were Licentious Professors of Christianity who thought that it was the ignorance of others that made them judge it unlawful to eat things offered to Idols and that their own greater knowledge set them above that scruple A mixture of Platonick Philosophy with Christianity made up most of the Primitive Hereticks and for want of a due digestion of each too much corrupted many of the Greek Doctors of the Church The unlearned sort of Christians were so much despised by some of the Philosophical Hereticks that they were not thought worthy of their Communion for as Jude saith they separated themselves being sensual having not the Spirit but more affected Philosophical fancies which made Paul warn men to take heed lest any seduced them by vain Philosophy not using the name of Philosophy for that solid knowledge of Gods works which is desireable but for the Systemes of vain Conceits and Precepts which the Word was then used to signifie as every Sect derived them from their Masters And so the Apostle taketh knowledge in this Text not for solid knowledge indeed but for Gnosticism or Philosophical presumptions such as even yet most Philosophers are guilty of who take a multitude of Precepts some useful some useless some true and some false and all but notionally or to little purpose and joining these do call them Philosophy And Paul tells them that opinionative and notional knowledge were it true like the Devils Faith is of no such excellency as to cause them to shelter their sins under the confidence and honour of it and despise unlearned conscionable Christians for such knowledge by inflation oft destroyeth the Possessors or becomes the Fuel of the Devilish sin of Pride when Love buildeth up our selves and others to Salvation And to conceit that a man is wise because of such knowledge and so to over-value his own understanding is a certain sign that he is destitute of that knowledge in which true wisdom doth consist and knoweth nothing with a wise and saving knowledge as every thing should be known And indeed a mans excellency is so far from lying in vain Philosophical Speculations that the use of all true knowledge is but to bring us up to the Love of God as the highest felicity to be approved and beloved by God And those unlearned Christians that have the Spirit of Sanctification without your vain Philosophy have knowledge enough to bring them to this Love of God which is a thing that passeth all your knowledge or rather to be known of God as his own and loved by him For our felicity lyeth in receiving from God and in his loving us more than in our loving him but both set together to love God and so to be loved of him are the
he said how hard it was for a rich man to be saved did not make Riches absolutely unlawful nor to have no goodness nor usefulness at all but teacheth men if they are wise not to overvalue them and to be too eager for them so is Paul to be interpreted about Philosophy or the wisdom of this world For it is not only craftiness for worldly ends that he so calls And as God when he denyeth his Servants Riches and worldly fulness doth it not because he taketh it to be too good for them but because it is not good enough and therefore he will give them better even the Heavenly Riches and Honour and Delights Even so when Paul comparatively vilifieth Philosophy it is not as being really a wisdom too high for Christians but too low Nor doth he depress Reason or extol Ignorance but would lead men to the truest Learning the highest Knowledge and Improvement of Reason the only Wisdom from trifling Pedantick unprofitable Notions and Ludicrous loss of Time and Studies It is not therefore for want of wisdom that the Scripture is not written according to the Philosophers art Though Erasmus overvalued his Grammaticisms it was not for want of Learning in Philosophy that he so much despised the Philosophical Schoolmen so that Speaking of the Bishop of London who maligned Dr. Colet and was a subtile Scotist he saith of such That he had known some of them whom he would not call Knaves but he never knew one of them whom he could call a Christian Vid. Mr Smiths Life of Dr. Colet By Erasmus A smart charge I suppose he meant it of them rather as Scotists than as Bishops And therefore the Apostle aptly joyneth both together 1 Cor. 1.26 Not many wise men after the flesh not many mighty not many noble are called Seeming to equal worldly Wealth and Greatness with worldly wisdom or Philosophy as to the interest of Religion and Salvation And the foolish wits that think he spake against Learning because he had it not may as truly say that he spake against worldly wealth and greatness because he had it not For the Possession Use and Knowledge of worldly things are near of Kin. But they knew not Paul so well as Festus who thought him not unlearned though he thought him mad Nor was it the way of worldly wealth and greatness which he chose Doubtless neither Christ nor Paul did speak against any Real Knowledge but 1. Against nominal pretended Knowledge which was set up to divert men from Real Knowledge and was full of Vanities and Falshoods 2. And against the overvaluing of that Learning which is of little use in comparison of the Knowledge of Great and Excellent and Necessary things For knowledge is valuable according to its Object and its use The Knowledge of trifles for trivial ends is it self a trifle The Knowledge of things great and necessary for great and necessary ends is the great and necessary Knowledge And therefore how unmeasureably must the knowledge of God and our eternal happiness excel the Pedantick Philosophy of the Gentiles However Christians may Sanctify and Ennoble this by making it a help to higher knowledge And therefore the Platonists and the Stoicks were the noblest Philosophers because the former studied the highest things and the other the necessary means of felicity amending of mens hearts and lives But in the present Text the thing which the Apostle reprehendeth is the esteeming of a mans self to be wiser than he is and taking himself to be a wise man because of his trifling Philosophical knowledge And he would have them know that till they knew nobler things than those were guided by a nobler light they were very fools I have lookt over Hutten Vives Erasmus Scaliger Salmasius Casaubone and many other Critical Grammarians and all Gruterus his Critical Volumes I have read almost all the Physicks and Metaphysicks I could hear of I have wasted much of my time among whole loads of Historians Chronologers and Antiquaries I despise none of their learning All truth is useful Mathematicks which I have least of I find a pretty manlike sport But if I had no other kind of knowledge than these what were my understanding worth what a dreaming dotard should I be Yea had I also all the Codes and Pandects all Cujacius Wesenbechius and their tribe at my fingers ends and all other Volumes of Civil National and Canon Laws with the rest in the Encyclopaedia what a poppet play would my life be if I had no more I have higher thoughts of the School-men than Erasmus and our other Grammarians had I much value the method and sobriety of Aquinas the subtility of Scotus and Ockam the plainness of Durandus the solidity of Ariminensis the profundity of Bradwardine the excellent acuteness of many of their followers of Aureolus Capreolus Bannes Alvarez Zumel c. Of Mayro Lychetus Trombeta Faber Meurisse Rada c. Of Ruiz Pennattus Suarez Vasquez c. Of Hurtado of Albertinus of Lud. Ã Dola and many others But how loth should I be to take such sawce for my food and such recreations for my business The jingling of too much and too false Philosophy among them oft drowns the noise of Aarons Bells I feel my self much better in Herberts Temple Or in a heavenly Treatise of faith and Love. And though I do not with Dr. Colet distast Augustine above the plainer Fathers yet I am more taken with his Confessions than with his Grammatical and Scholastick treatises And tho' I know no man whose genius more abhorreth Confusion instead of necessary distinction and method yet I loath impertinent useless art and pretended precepts and distinctions which have not a foundation in the matter In a word There is a Divine knowledge which is part of mans felicity as it promoteth Love and Union and there is a solid Knowledge of Gods Word and Works a valuable Grammatical knowledge and a true Philosophy which none but ignorant persons will despise But the vain Philosophy and pretended Wisdom or Learning of the World hath been and is the cheat of Souls and the hinderer of wisdom and a troubler of the Church and World. Chap. 2. What wisdom and esteem of it are not here condemned THE order which I shall observe in handling the first Doctrine shall be this I. I will tell you Negatively what wisdom and esteem of our own wisdom is not here condemned II. What it is that is here condemned III. What are the certainties which we must hold fast and make our Religion of IV. What degrees of these certainties there are V. What are the uncertainties which we must not pretend to be certain of and the unknown things which we must not pretend to know VI. What are the mischiefs of falsly pretended knowledg VII What are the degrees or aggravations of this sin VIII What are the causes of it IX What are the remedies X. What are the uses which we should make of
Brother odious as a Schismatick and a Fanatick and worse than words can describe him and another to reproach others as Antichristian and Carnal whom he never understood Nothing but Pride could make men so ready and bold and fearless in their most foolish censures 13. And it further sheweth their proud presumption when they dare do all this upon bare rumors and hear-say and ungrounded suspicions Were they not proud and presumptuous they would think Alas my understanding is not so clear and sure nor my Charity so safe and strong as that I should in reason venture to condemn my Brother upon uncertain rumors and so slight reports Have I heard him speak for himself Or is it Charity or common Justice to condemn a man unheard What though they are godly men that report it So was David that committed Adultery and Murder and hastily received a Lie against Mephibosheth and perhaps many of those Corinthians against whose false censures Paul was put so largely to vindicate himself 14. Yea when they dare proceed to vend these false reports and censures upon hear-say to the destruction of the Charity of those that hear them And so entangle them all in sin As if it were not enough to quench their own Love to their Brother by false Surmises but they must quench as many others also as they can 15. Yea when they dare venture so far as to unchurch many Churches yea most in the World and degrade most Ministers if not unchristen most Christians or at least themselves withdraw from the Communion of such Churches and all for something which they never understood about a Doctrine a Form a Circumstance where self-opinion or self-interest draweth them to all this bold adventure To say nothing of Condemnations of whole Churches and Countreys the tyrannical proud Impositions the cruel Persecutions which the Papal Faction hath been guilty of by this Vice judge now whether it be not too common a case to be guilty of an unhumbled understanding and of pretended knowledge Obj. If it be so is it not best do as the Papists and keep men from reading the Scriptures or medling with divine things which they cannot master any further than to believe what the Church believeth Ans 1. It is best no doubt to teach men to know the difference between Teachers and Learners and to keep in a humble learning state and in that state to grow as much in knowledge as they can But not to cast away knowledge for fear of over-valuing it nor renounce their reason for fear of errour No more than to put out their Eyes for fear of mistaking by them or chusing madness lest they abuse their wits Else we might wish to be Brutes because abused Reason is the cause of all the errours and mischiefs in the World. 2. The Popish Clergy who give this counsel for the blinding of the vulgar are worse themselves and by their proud Contendings Censures and Cruelties shew more self-conceitedness than the vulgar do 3. The truth is the cause is the common frailty of man and the common pravity of corrupted nature and it is to be found in Persons of all Ranks Religions and Conditions of which more after in due place Chap. 12. Of the mischievous effects of this proud pretence of more knowledge than men have IF the mischiefs of this sin had not been very great I had not chosen this subject to treat of 1. It is no small mischief to involve mens Souls in the guilt of all the sins which I named in the last Chapter as the discovery of this Vice. Sure all those disorders censures slanders and presumptions should not seem small in the Eyes of any man that feareth God and loveth holiness and hateth sin 2. Pretended knowledge wasteth men some time in getting it and much more in abusing it All the time that you study for it preach for it talk for it write for it is sinfully lost and cast away 3. It kindleth a corrupt and sinful Zeal such as James describeth Jam. 3.1 15. which is envious and striving and is but Earthly Sensual and Devilish A Zeal against Love and against good Works and against the Interest of our Brother and against the Peace and Concord of the Church a hurting burning devouring excommunicating persecuting Zeal And a Feaver in the Body is not so pernicious as such a sinful Zeal in the Soul. Such a Zeal the Jews had as Paul bears them witness Rom. 11.1 Such a Zeal alas is so common among persecuting Papists on one side and censorious Sectaries and Separatists on the other that we must all bear the sad effects of it And self-conceited knowledge is the fuel of this Zeal as James 3. fully manifesteth 4. This pretended knowledge is the fixing of false Opinions in the minds of men by which the truth is most powerfully kept out A Child will not wrangle against his Teacher and therefore will learn but these over-wise Fools do presently set their wits against what you say to keep out knowledge You must beat down the Garrison of his pride before you come within hearing to instruct him He is hardlier untaught the errours which he hath received than an unprejudiced man is taught to understand most excellent truths 5. By this the gifts of the most wise and excellent Teachers are half lost It is full Bottles that are cast into these Seas of knowledge which have no room for more but come out as they went in If an Augustine or an Aquinas or Scotus were among them yea a Peter or Paul what can he put into these Persons that are full of their own conceits already Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit there is more hope of a Fool than of him 6. Yea they are usually the perverters of the Souls of others Before they can come to themselves and know that they were mistaken what pains have they taken to make others of their own erroneous minds whom they are not able afterward to undeceive again 7. It is a vice that blemisheth many excellent qualifications To hear of a man that valueth his own Judgment but according to its worth and pretendeth to know but so much as he knoweth indeed is no shame to him though knowledge is a thing fitter to be Used than Boasted of But if a man know never so much and can never so well express it if he think that he is wiser than he is and excelleth others more than indeed he doth and over-valueth that knowledge which he hath it is a shame which his greatest parts cannot excuse or hide 8. It exposeth a man to base and shameful mutability He that will be hasty and confident in his apprehensions is so oft mistaken that he must as oft change his mind and recant or do much worse I know that it cannot be expected that any man should have as sound apprehensions in his youth as in his age and that the wisest should not have need of mutations for the better and
retractations of some youthful Errours and he that changeth not and retracteth nothing it seems is in his childish Ignorance and Errour still but when natural frailty exposeth us all to much of this disgrace we should not expose our selves to so much more A hasty judger or prefident man must be a very Weathercock or be defiled with a Leprosie of Errour Whereas if men would but be humble and modest and self-suspicious and suspend their presumption and not take on them to know before they know indeed how safely might they walk and how seldom would they need to change their minds or either stick in the sink of Errour or make many shameful Retractations 9. Prefidence and false judging engageth a man in a very life of sin For when falshood goeth for truth with him it will infect his affections and pollute his conversation and all that he doth in the obedience and prosecution of that Errour will be sin Yea the greatest sin that he can but think no sin may be committed as was the Persecution of Christ and Christians by the Jews and Paul and others like them and the Papists bloodiness for their Religion throughout Christendom 10. It disturbeth the Peace of all Societies This is the vice that disquieteth Families Every one is wisest in his own Eyes The Servant thinketh his own way better than his Masters What are all the contentions between Husband and Wife or any in the Family but that in all their differences every one thinketh himself to be in the right His own Opinion is right his own Words and Ways are right and when every one is wise and just and every one is in the right the effects are such as if no one were wise or in the right And in Civil Societies Seditions Rebellions Oppressions Tyranny and all Confusions come from this that men pretend to be sure of what they are not Rulers take up with false reports from idle malicious whisperers and accusers against their inferiours and have not the Justice and Patience to suspend their Judgments till they have searcht out the matter and fully heard men speak for themselves Subjects make themselves Judges of the secrets of â—overnment and of the Councils and Actions of their Rulers of which they have no certain notice but venture to conclude upon deceitful suspicions And the Contentions and Factions amongst Nobles and other Subjects come from misunderstandings through hasty and ungrounded judgings But the wofullest effects are in the Churches where alas whilst every Pastor will be wiser than another and the People wiser than all their Pastors and every Sect and Party much wiser than all that differ from them their divisions their separations their alienations and bitter censurings of each other their obtruding their own Opinions and Rules and â—eremonies upon each other their bitter envyings strife and persecutions of each other do make sober standers-by to ask as Paul Is there not a wise man among you O happy the World happy Kingdoms but most happy the Churches of Christ if we could possibly bring men but to know their Ignorance If the Pastors themselves were not prefident and presumptuous over-valuers of their own apprehensions And if the People knew how little they know But now alas men rage against each other in their dreams and few of them have the grace to awake before death and find to repentance that they were themselves in errour Hear me with that remnant of meekness and humility which thou hast left thou confident bitter censorious man Why must that man needs be taken for a Heretick a Schismatick a refractory stubborn self-willed person an Antichristian carnal formal man who is not of thy Opinion in point of a Controversie of a Form of an Order of a Circumstance or Subscription or such like It 's possible it may be so And its possible thou maist be more so thy self But hast thou so patiently heard all that he hath to say and so clearly discerned the truth on thy own side and that this truth is made so evident to him as that nothing but wilful obstinacy can resist it as will warrant all thy censure and contempt Or is it not an over-valuing of thy own understanding which makes thee so easily condemn all as unsufferable that differ from it Hath not pride made thy silly wit to be as an Idol to which all must bow down on pain of the heat of thy displeasure Do not some of those men whom thou so Magisterially condemnest study as hard and as impartially as thy self Do they not pray as hard for Gods assistance Have they not the same Books and as good Teachers Do they not live as well and shew as much tenderness of Conscience and fear of erring and sinning as thy self why then art thou so hasty in condemning them that are as fair for the reputation of wisdom as thou art But suppose them mistaken hast thou tryed that they are unwilling to be instructed It may be you have wrangled with them by disputes which have but engaged each other to defend his own Opinion But call them to thee in Love and tell them you are ignorant and I am wise I will teach you what you know not and open to them all the Evidence which causeth your own confident apprehensions Wish them to study it and hear patiently what they have to say and I am perswaded that many or most sober men that differ from you will not refuse thus to become as your Scholars so far as to consider all that you have to offer to convince them and thankfully receive as much of the truth as they can discern But alas no men rage so much against others as erroneous and blind as the blind and erroneous and no men so furiously brand others with the marks of Obstinacy Factiousness and Schism as the Obstinate Factious and Schismatical The prouder the Obtruder of his own conceits is the more he condemneth all Dissenters as proud for presuming to differ from such as he and all for want of a humble mind 11. Moreover it is this pretended knowledge which is the cause of all our false Reformations Men are so over-wise that they presently see a Beam in their Brothers Eye which is but a Mote and they magnifie all the imperfections of others Pastors and Churches into Mountains of iniquity Every mis-expression or disorder or inconvenient phrase in a Prayer or a Sermon or a Book is an odious damning intolerable evil O! say such what Idolaters are they that use a Form of Prayer which God did not command What large Consciences have they that can join with a Parish Church that can communicate Kneeling and among bad men or those whose Conversion is not tryed What abundance of intolerable evils do such men find in the Words and Forms and Orders and Circumstances of other mens Worship which God mercifully accepteth through Christ taking all these but for such pardonable imperfections as he mercifully beareth with in all And then
or Better than they are and they would have others think so too As for Pride of Beauty or Clothing or such like corporeal things and appurtenances it is the Vice of Children and the more shallow and foolish sort of Women But Greater things make up a Greater sort of Pride O what a number of all Ranks and Ages do live in this great sin of Pride of Wisdom or an Over-valued Understanding who never feel or lament it 11. Moreover your Prefidence prepareth you for Scepticism or doubting of the most certain necessary Truths Like some of our Sectaries who have been falsly confident of so many Religions till at last they doubt of all Religion He that finds that he was deceived while he was an Anabaptist and deceived when he was a Separatist and deceived while he was an Antinomian or Libertine and deceived when he was a Quaker is prepared to think also that he was deceived when he was a Christian and when he believed the Immortality of the Soul and the Life to come When you have found your Understandings oft deceive you you will grow so distrustful of them as hardly ever to believe them when it is most necessary He that often lyeth will hardly be believed when he speaketh truth And all this cometh from believing your first and slight apprehensions too easily and too soon and so filling up your minds with lyes which when they are discovered make the Truth to be suspected Like some fanciful lustful Youths who hastily grow fond of some unsuitable unlovely person and when they know them cannot so much as allow them the conjugal affection which they are bound to 12. Lastly Consider what a shame it is to your Understandings and how it contradicteth your pretence of Knowledge For how little knoweth that man who knoweth not his own Ignorance How can it be thought that you are like to know great matters at a distance the profundities sublimities and subtilties of Sciences who know not yet how little you know Chap. 16. Proofs of the Little Knowledge that is in the world to move us to a due distrust of our understandings IF you think this sin of a Proud Understanding and Pretended Knowledge doth need for the cure a fuller discovery of its vanity I know not how to do it more convincingly than by shewing you How little True Knowledge is in the world and consequently that all Mankind have cause to think meanly of their Understandings I. The great Imperfection of all the Sciences is a plain discovery of it When Mankind hath had above 5000 years already to have grown to more perfection yet how much is still dark and controverted and how much unknown in comparison of what we know But above all though nothing is perfectly known which is not methodically known yet how few have a true methodical knowledge He that seeth but some parcels of Truth or seeth them but confusedly or in a false method not agreeable to the things doth know but little because he knoweth not the place and order and respects of Truths to one another and consequently neither their composition harmony strength or use Like a Philosopher that knew nothing but Elements and not mixt bodies or animate beings Or like an Anatomist that is but an Atomist and can say no more of the body of a man but that it is made up of Atoms or at most can only enumerate the similar parts Or like a man that knoweth no more of his Clock and Watch but as the pieces of it lie on a heap or at best setteth some one part out of its place which disableth the whole Engine Or like one that knoweth the Chess-men only as they are in the Bag or at best in some disorder Who will make me so happy as to shew me one true Scheme of Physicks of Metaphysicks of Logick yea of Theology which I cannot presently prove guilty of such mistake confusion misorder as tendeth to great errour in the subsequent parts I know of no small number that have been offered to the world but never saw one that satisfied my understanding And I think I scarce know any thing to purpose till I can draw a true Scheme of it and set each compounding notion in its place II. And the great Diversity and Contrariety of Opinions of Notions and of Methods proveth that our Knowledge indeed is yet but small How many Methods of Logick have we How many Hypotheses in Physicks yea how many contentious Volumes written against one another in Philosophy and Theology it self What loads of Videtur's in the Schoolmen How many Sects and Opinions in Religion Physicians agree not about mens Lives Lawyers agree not about mens Estates no nor about the very fundamental Laws If there be a Civil War where both sides appeal to the Law there will be Lawyers on both sides And doth not this prove that we know but little III. But mens rage and confidence in these Contrarieties doth discover it yet more Read their contentious writings of Philosophy and Theology observe their usage of one another what contempt what reproach what cruelties they can proceed to The Papist silenceth and burneth the Protestant the Lutheran silenceth and revileth the Calvinist the Calvinist sharply judgeth the Arminians and so round And may I not judge that this wisest part of the world is low in Knowledge when not the vulgar only but the Leaders and Doctors are so commonly mistaken in their greatest Zeal And that Solomon erred not in saying The fool rageth and is confident IV. If our knowledge were not very low the long experience of the World would have long ago reconciled our Controversies The strivings and distractions about them both in Philosophy Politicks and Theology have torn Churches and raised Wars and set Kingdoms on Fire and should in reason be to us as a Bone out of Joint which by the pain should force us all to seek out for a cure And sure in so many thousand years many Remedies have been tryed The issues of such disingenuous-ingenious Wars do furnish men with such experience as should teach them the cure And yet after so many years War of wits to be so witless as to find no End no Remedy no Peace doth shew that the wit of man is not a thing to be proud of V. The great mutability of our apprehensions doth shew that they are not many things that we are certain of Do we not feel in our selves how new thoughts and new reasons are ready to breed new conjectures in us and that looketh doubtful to us upon further thoughts of which long before we had no doubt Besides the multitudes that change their very Religion every studious Person so oft changeth his conceptions as may testifie the shallowness of our minds VI. The general barbarousness of the World the few Countreys that have polite Learning or true Civility or Christianity do tell us that knowledge in the World is low When besides the vast unknown Regions of the World
Of such as are able judiciously to resolve a difficulty to answer Cases of Conscience to defend the Truth to stop the mouths of all gainsayers and to Teach holy Doctrine clearly and in true Method without confusion or running into any extreams We bless God this Land and the other Reformed Churches have had a laudable degree of this mercy The Lord restore it to them and us and continue the comfortable measure that we possess XVII And it is a notorious discovery of the common Ignorance that a wise man is so hardly known And men that have not wisdom to imitate them have not wit enough to value them So that as Seneca saith He that will have the pleasure of wisdom must be content with it for it self without Applause Two or three approvers must suffice him The Blind know not who hath the best Eye-sight Swine trample upon Pearls Nay it is well if when they have increased knowledge they increase not sorrow And become not the mark of Envy and Hatred and of the venom of malignant Tongues and Hands yea and that meerly for their knowledge sake All the Learning of Socrates Demosthenes Cicero Seneca Lucane and many more and all the Learning and Piety of Cyprian and all the Martyrs of those ages of Boetius of the African Bishops that perished by Hunnerichus of Peter Ramus Marlorate Cranmer Ridley Philpot Bradford and abundance such could not keep them from a cruel Death All the excellency of Greg. Nazianzene Chrysostome and many others could not keep them from suffering by Orthodox Bishops no nor all the Holiness and Miracles of Martin Insomuch that Nazianzene leaveth it to his People as a mark of the man whom he would have them value and choose when he was dead This one thing I require that he be one of those that are envyed not pitied by others who obey not all men in all things but for the love of Truth in some things incurreth mens offence And of himself he professeth that Though most thought otherwise than he did that this was nothing to him who cared only for the truth as that which must condemn him or absolve him and make him happy or miserable But what other men thought was nothing to him any more than what another dreameth Orat. 27. page 468. And therefore he saith Orat. 26. p. 443. As for me I am a small and poor Pastor and to speak sparingly not yet grateful and accepted with other Pastors which whether it be done by right judgment and reason or by malevolence of mind and study of contention I know not And Orat. 32. p. 523. I am tired while I fight both with Speech and Envy with Enemies and with those that are our own Those strike at the Breast and obtain not their desire For an open Enemy is easily taken heed of But these come behind my back and are more troublesome Such obloquy had Hierome such had Augustine himself and who knoweth not that Envy is Virtues Shadow And what talk I of others when all godly men are hated by the world and the Apostles and Christ himself were used as they were and Christ saith Which of the Prophets did not your Fathers Kill and Persecute Math. 23. If Hating Persecuting Slandering Silencing Killing men that know more than the rest be a sign of wisdom the world hath been wise since Cains Age until this Even a Galilaeus a Savonarola a Campanella c. Shall feel it if they will be wiser than the rest So that Solomons warning Eccl. 7.16 concerneth them that will save heir Skin Be not Righteous over-much neither make thy self over wise Why wilt thou destroy thy self But again I may Prognosticate with Antisthenes in Laert. Then Cities are perishing when they are not wise enough to know the good from the bad And with Cicero Rhet. 1. That mans safety is desperate whose Ears are shut against the truth so that even from a Friend he cannot hear it XVIII And this leadeth me to the next discovery How rare wisdom is in the world in that the wisest men and Learnedst Teachers have so small Success How few are much the wiser for them If they praise them they will not Learn of them till they reach to their degree Men may delight in the sweetness of truth themselves but it is a Feast where few will strive for part with them A very few men that have first sprung up in obscure times have had great Success So had Origine at Alexandria and Chrysostom at Constantinople but with bitter sauce Pythagoras Plato and Aristotle at Athens and Augustine at Hippo had the most that History maketh mention of with Demosthenes and Cicero in Oratory Melanchthon at Wittenberge with Luther and Zwinglius in Helvetia and Calvin at Geneva prevailed much And now and then an age hath been fruitful of Learned Wise and Godly men And when we are ready to expect that each of these should have a multitude of Scholars like themselves suddenly all declineth and Ignorance and Sensuality get uppermost again And all this is because that all men are born Ignorant and Sensual But no man attaineth to any excellency of Wisdom without so long and laborious studies as the flesh will give leave to few men to perform So that he that hath most laboriously searcht for knowledge all his days knoweth not how to make others partakers of it No not his own Children of whom he hath the education Unless it be here and there one Scaliger one Paraeus one Tossanus one Trelcatius one Vossius c. how few excellent men do leave one excellent Son behind them O what would a wise man give that he could but bequeath all his wisdom to others when he dieth XIX And it 's evident that great Knowledge is more rare than Prefidence in that the hardest Students and most knowing men complain more than others of Difficulties and Ignorance When certainly other men have more cause They that study a little know little and think they know much They that study very hard but not to maturity oft become Sceptick and think nothing certain But they that follow it till they have digested their studies do find a certainty in the great and necessary things but confess their ignorance in abundance of things which the presumptuous are confident in I will not leave this out to escape the carping of those that will say that by this Character I proclaim my self one of the wisest as long as it is but the confession of my Ignorance which is their occasion But I will say as Augustine to Hierome Epist 29. Adversus eos qui sibi videntur scire quod nesciunt hoc tutiores sumus quod hanc ignorantiam nostram non ignoramus XX. Lastly Every mans nature in the midst of his pride is conscious of the Fallibility and Frailty of his own understanding And thence it is that men are so fearful in great matters of being over-reacht And where ever any conclusion dependeth upon a
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
side and the other to receive and rashly tell about lies of one another that I confess I am grown to take little heed of what such say in such a case unless the report continue a year uncontrolled For it 's common for them to tell those things as unquestionable which a few months prove false And yet never to manifest any repentance but to go on with the like one month disproving what the former hatcht and vended And indeed the very wisest and best of men are guilty of so much Ignorance Temerity Suspiciousness of others partiality c. That we must believe them though far sooner than others yet still with a reservâ—â—o change our minds if we find them mistaken 〈◊〉 still on supposition that they are fallible persons and that all men are Liars VII Another great cause of pretended false Knowledge and Confidence is the unhappy prejudices which our minds contract even in our Childhood before we have time and wit and Conscience to try things by true deliberation Children and Youth must receive much upon trust or else they can learn nothing But then they have not wit to proportion their apprehensions to the Evidence whether of Credibility or Certainty And so fame and tradition and education and the Countreys Vote do become the ordinary Parents of many Lies and folly maketh us to fasten so fearlesly in our fâ—rst apprehensions that they keep open the door to abundance of more falshoods And it must be clear Teachers or great impartial studies of a self-denying mind with a great blessing of God that must deliver us from prejudice and undeceive us And therefore all the World seeth that almost all men are of the Religion of their Country or their Parents be it never so absurd Though with the Mahometans they believe the Nonsence of a very sot once reading a quarter of whose Alcoran one would think should cure a man of Common reason of any inclination to his belief And among the Japonians even the eloquent Bonzii believe in Amida and Xaca To mention the belief of the Chinenses the People of Pegu Siam and many other such yea the Americans the Brasilians Lappians c. that correspond with Devils would be a sad instance of the unhappiness of mens first apprehensions and education And what doth the foresaid instance of Popery come short herein which tells us how Prejudice and Education and Company can make men deny all mens common sence and believe common unseen Miracles pretended in the stead VIII Another cause is the mistaking of the nature of the duty of submitting our judgment to our Superiours and Teachers especially to the Multitude or the Church or Antiquity No doubt but much reverence and a humane belief is due to the Judgment of our Teachers credibly made known But this is another thing quite different 1. From knowing by Evidence 2. And from believing God of which before and after IX Another cause is base slothfulness which makes men take up with the judgment of those in most reputation for Power Wisdom or Number to save them the labour of searching after the scientifical Evidence of things or the certain Evidence of Divine Revelations X. Another frequent cause is an appearance of something in the Truth which frighteneth men from it either for want of a clear methodical advantageous representation or by some difficult objection or some miscarriage in the utterance carriage or life of them that seem most zealous for it such little things deceive dark man And when he is turned from the Truth he thinks that the contrary Errour may be embraced without fear XI Another great cause of Confidence in false Conceits is the byass of some personal Interest prevailing with a corrupted Will and the mixture of Sense and Passion in the Judgment For as interested men hardly believe what seemeth against them and easily believe that which they would have to be true so Sense and Passion or Affections usually so bear down Reason that they think it their right to possess the Throne Not but that Sense is the only discerner of its own sensible Object as such and Reason by Sense as it is intelligible But that 's not the matter in hand But the Sensualist forceth his Reason to call that Best for him which his Sense is most delighted with and that Worst which most offendeth Sense The Drunkard will easily judge that his drinking is good for him and the Glutton that his pleasant meats are lawful and the Time-waster that his Plays are lawful and the Fornicator the wrathful revenger c. that their lusts and passions are lawful because they think that they have Feeling on their side It 's hard to carry an upright Judgment against Sense and Passion XII Sometimes a strong deluded Imagination maketh men exceeding confident in Errour some by Melancholy and some by a natural weakness of Reason and strength of Phantasie and some by misapprehensions in Religion grow to think that every strong conceit which doth but come in suddenly at reading or hearing or thinking on such a Text or in time of earnest prayer especially if it deeply affect themselves is certainly some suggestion or inspiration of God's Spirit And hence many Errours have troubled poor Souls and the Church of God which afterward they have themselves retracted Hence are the confidence of some ignorant Christians in expounding difficult Scriptures Prophecies and the boldness of others in expounding dark Providences and also in foretelling by their own surmises things to come XIII And not a few run into this mischief in some extreams by seeing others run into Errour on the other side Some are so offended at the credulity of the weak that they will grow confident against plain certainties themselves As because there are many feigned Miracles Apparitions Possessions and Witchcrafts in the World divulged by the Credulity of the injudicious therefore they will more foolishly be confident that there are no such things at all And because they see some weak persons impute more of their opinions performances and affections to God's Spirit than they ought therefore they grow mad against the true operations of the Spirit and confident that there is no such thing Some deride Praying by the Spirit and Preaching by the Spirit and Living by the Spirit when as they may as well deride understanding willing working by a Reasonable Soul no holy thing being holily done without God's Spirit any more than any act of life and reason without the Soul And they may on the same grounds deride all that Live not after the flesh and that are Christians Rom. 8.5 6 7 8 9 13. or that Love God or that seek Salvation Yea some run so far from spiritual Fanaticisms that they deny the very Being of Spirits and many confidently set up a dead Image of true Religion in bitter hatred and opposition of all that hath Life and serious Holiness So mad are some made by seeing some feverish persons dote XIV Another Cause
at the first hearing Take it for granted that your first conceptions of things must alter either as to the Truth or the Evidence or the Order or the Degree Few men are so happy in youth as to receive at first such right impressions which need not after to be much altered When we are Children we know as Children but when we become Men childish things are done away Where we change not our Judgment of the matter yet we come to have very different apprehensions of it I would not have Boys to be meer Scepticks for they must be Godly and Christians But I would have them leave room for increase of knowledge and not be too peremptory with their juvenile conceptions but suppose that a further light will give them another prospect of the same things D. X. Chuse such Teachers if possible as have themselves attained the things you seek even that most substantial Wisdom which leadeth to Salvation For how else shall they teach others what they have not learnt themselves O the difference between Teachers and Teachers between a rash flashy unexperienced proud wit and clear headed well studied much experienced and godly man Happy is he that hath such a Teacher that is long exercised in the ways of Truth and Holiness and Peace and hath a heart to value him D. XI Value Truth for Goodness and Goodness above Truth and estimate all Truths and Knowledge by their usefulness to higher Ends. That is Good as a Means which doth Good. There is nothing besides God that is simply Good in of and for it self all else is only Good derivatively from God the Efficient and as a Means to God the final Cause As a pound of Gold more enricheth than many loads of Dirt so a little Knowledge of great and necessary matters maketh one wiser than a great deal of pedantick toyish Learning No man hath time and capacity for all things He is but a proud fool that would seem to know all and deny his ignorance in many things Even he that with Alstedius c. can write an Encyclopaedia is still unacquainted with abundance that is intelligible For my own part I humbly thank God that by placing my dwelling still as in the Church-yard he hath led me to chuse still the studies which I thought were fittest for a man that is posting to another world He that must needs be ignorant of many things should chuse to omit those which he can best spare Distinguish well between studying and knowing for Use and for Lust For the True Ends of Knowledge and for the bare delight of Knowing One thing is necessary Luke 10.42 And all others but as they are necessary to that one Mortifie the Lust of useless Knowledge as well as other lusts of flesh and fantasie Dying men commonly call it Vanity Remember what a deal of precious Time it wasteth and from how many greater and more necessary things it doth divert the mind and with what wind it puffs men up as is aforesaid How justly did the rude Tartarians think the great Libraries and multitudes of Doctors and idle Priests among the Chinenses to be a foolery and call them away from their Books to Arms as Palafox tells us when all their Learning was to so little purpose as it was and led them to no more high and necessary things D. XII Yet because many smaller parts of Knowledge are necessary to Kingdoms Academies and Churches which are not necessary nor greatly valuable to individual persons let some few particular persons be bred up to an eminency in those studies and let not the generality of Students waste their time therein There is scarce any part of Knowledge so small and useless but it is necessary to great Societies that some be Masters of it which yet the generality may well spare And all are to be valued and honoured according to their several excellencies But yet I cannot have while to study as long as Politian how Virgil should be spelt nor to decide the quarrels between Phil. Pareus and Gruter nor to digest all his Grammatical Collections nor to read all over abundance of Books which I allow house room to Nor to learn all the Languages and Arts which I could wish to know if I could know them without neglecting greater things But yet the excellent Professors of them all I honour D. XIII Above all Value Digest and seriously Live upon the most Great and Necessary Certain Truths O that we knew what Work inward and outward the great Truths of Salvation call for from us all If you do not faithfully value and improve these you prepare for delusion You forget your Premises and Principles God may justly leave you in the dark and give you up to believe a lie Did you live according to the importance of your certain Principles your lives would be filled with fruit and business and delight and all this Great So that you would have little mind or leisure for little and unnecessary things It is the neglect of things necessary which fills the World with the trouble of things unnecessary D. XIV Study hard and search diligently and deeply and that with unwearied patience and delight Unpleasant studies tire and seldom prosper Slight running thoughts accomplish little If any man think that the Spirit is given to save us the labour of hard and long studies Solomon hath spent so many Chapters in calling them to dig search cry labour wait for Wisdom that if that will not undeceive them I cannot They may as well say that God's blessing is to save the Husbandman the labour of plowing and sowing And that the Spirit is given to save men the labour of learning to read the Bible or to hear it or think of it or to pray to God. Whereas the Spirit is given us to provoke and enable us to study hard and read and hear and pray hard and to prosper us herein And as vain are our idle Lads that think that their natural Wits or their Abode and Degrees in the Universities will serve the turn instead of hard studies And so they come out almost as ignorant and yet more proud than they went thither to be Plagues in all Countreys where they come to teach others by example the idleness and sensuality which they learnt themselves and being ignorant yet the honour of their Functions must be maintained and therefore their ignorance must be hid which yet themselves do weekly make ostentation of in the Pulpit where they should be shining lights and when their own Tongues have proclaimed it those of understanding that observe and loath it must be maligned and railed at for knowing how little their Teachers know Nothing without long and hard studies furnisheth the mind with such a stock of truth as may be called real wisdom That God is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him and not of the lazy neglecters of him is the second Principle in Religion Heb. 11.6 They that cannot be at
that Love or Complacency of the Will which is the more completive part 3. But there is a Knowledge even of God which being separated from Love is sin and misery As the Devils and damned that believe and tremble and hate and suffer are not without all knowledge of God. So much for the first proof fetcht from the order of the faculties of the Soul. II. The second proof is fetcht from the Objects It is not meer Intelligibility that blesseth a man but Goodness which as such is the formal Object of the Will though the material Object of the Understanding It is a pleasant thing for the Eyes to behold the Sun And as pleasant it is good and also as useful to further pleasure of our selves or others Nothing maketh a man Good or Happy but as it is Good. Therefore the Goodness of God his transcendent perfection by which he is first Essentially Good in himself and amiable to himself and then Good and Amiable to us all is the ultimately ultimate object of mans Soul to which his Intelligibility is supposed III. The third proof is from the Constitution of these several 〈◊〉 a Knowledge being but an introductive act supposeth not Love as to its Essence though it produce it as an Effect But Love included knowledge in it as the number of two includeth one when one doth not include two Therefore 〈◊〉 â—ogether must needs be perfecter than one alone IV. The fourth proof is from express Scripture I will only cite some plain ones which need no tedious comment 1. For Love it 's said 1 Joh. 4.16 17 18. We have known and believed the Love that God hath to us God is Love and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him Herein is our Love made perfect or in this the Love with us is perfected that we have boldness in the day of Judgment Because as he is so are we in this world There is no fear in Love but perfect Love casteth out fear He that feareth is not made perfect in Love. So that Love is the perfection of man. 1 Cor. 12.31 and 13.2 c. Yet shew I unto you a more excellent way Though I understand all mysteries and all knowledge and have not Charity I am nothing Charity never faileth 13. The greatest of these is Charity Rom. 8.35 Who shall separate us from the Love of God c. Rom. 13.10 Love is the fulfilling of the Law. Rom. 5.5 The Love of God is poured out on our hearts by the Holy-Ghost which is given to us Gal. 5.6 Faith which worketh by Love. Mat. 22.37 The first and great Commandment is Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart c. Luk. 10.27 Deut. 10.12 and 11.1.13.22 and 19.9 and 13.3 and 30.6.16.20 Josh 22.5 and 23.11 Psal 5.11 and 31.23 and 69.36 and 119.165 and 145.20 Jam. 1.12 He shall receive the Crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that Love him So 2.5 Prov. 8.17 I love them that love me See Joh. 14.21 and 16.27 1 Joh. 4.19 Joh. 21.15 16 17. 1 Joh. 3.22 Heb. 11.6 c. And of Knowledge it is said Joh. 13.17 If ye knew these things happy are ye if ye do them See Jam. 2.14 to the end Joh. 15.24 But now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father Luk. 12.47 Knowing Gods will and not doing it prepareth men for many stripes See Rom. 2. And as barren knowledge is oft made the aggravation of sin so true knowledge is usually made the cause or means of Love and Obedience 1 Joh. 4.8 He that loveth not knoweth not God. 2 Pet. 1.2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God. 2 Pet. 2.20 and many such like I conclude therefore that the knowledge of Creatures is not desirable ultimately for itself but as it leadeth up the Soul to God. And the knowledge of God though desirable ultimately for it self yet not as the perfect but the initial part of our ultimate act or end and as the means or cause of that love of God which is the more perfect part of that ultimate Perfection Chap. II. The End of Knowledge is to make us Lovers of God and so to be known with Love by Him. THis is the second Doctrine contained in the meaning of the Text. Where is included 1. That all knowledge of Creatures called Learning must be valued and used but as a means to the knowledge and love of God Which is most evident in that the whole Creation is the work of God bearing the Image or Impress of his Perfections to reveal him to the Intellectual Creature and to be the means of provoking us to his love and helping us in his service To deny this therefore is to subvert the use of the whole Creation and to set up Gods works as an useless shadow or as an Idol in his place 2. It is included as was afore-proved that all our knowledge of God himself is given us to kindle in us the Love of God. It is the Bellows to blow up this holy Fire If it do not this it is unsound and dead If it do this it hath attained its end which is much of the meaning of James in that Chap. 2. which prejudice hindereth many from understanding 3. This love of God hath its degrees and effects Knowledge first kindleth but some weak initial act of love which through mixtures of fear and of carnal affections is hardly known to be sincere by him that hath it But afterward it produceth both stronger acts and the Holy Ghost still working as the principal cause infuseth or operateth a radicated Habit. So that this holy love becometh like a nature in the Soul even a divine nature And it becometh in a sort natural to us to love God and goodness though not as the brutish nature which is exercised by necessity and without reason And this new nature of holy love is called the new Creature and the Holy Ghost dwelling in us and the Spirit of Adoption and is our New-name the White-stone the Witness in our selves that Christ is the Saviour and that we are the Regenerate Children of God the Pledge the Earnest the First-fruits and the Fore-taste of Life Eternal And all the works of a Christian are so far truly holy as they are the Effects of holy love For 1. Holy love is but a holy will and the will is the man in point of Morality 2. And the love of God is our final act upon the final object and all other gracious acts are some way means subservient to this end And the end is it that informeth all the means they being such only as they are adapted to the end And in this sense it is true which is said in the Schools though many Protestants misunderstanding it have contradicted it that love is the form of all other Graces That is It is the heart of the new Creature or it is that by which the
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
our Enemies conquered our fears removed our wants supplied our Bodies and all that is ours under the protection of Almighty love and we are secured by Promise that all our Sufferings shall work together for our good And what will cause love if all this will not When we perceive with what love the Father hath loved us that of Enemies we should be made the Sons of God and of condemned Sinners we should be made the Heirs of endless Glory and this so freely and by so strange a means we may conclude that this is the Doctrine of Love which is taught us from Heaven by love it self 3. And especially this work of love is promoted by opening the Kingdom of Heaven to the foresight of our Faith and shewing us what we shall enjoy for ever and assuring us of the Fruition of our Creators Everlasting Love yea by making us fore-know that Heaven consisteth in perfect mutual endless love This will both of it self draw up our Hearts and engage all our Reason and Endeavours in beginning that work which we must do for ever and to learn on Earth to love in Heaven 4. And besides all these objective helps Christ giveth to Believers the Spirit of Love and maketh it become as a nature in us which no other Teacher in the World could do Others can speak reason to our Ears but it is Christ that sendeth the warming Beams of holy Love into our Hearts If the love of God and holiness were no better than common Philosophical Speculations then Aristotle or Plato or such other Masters of names and notions might compare with Christ and his Apostles and Athens with the Primitive Church and the Schoolmen might be thought the best Improvers of Theology But if thousands of dreaming Disputers wrangle the World into misery and themselves into Hell and are ingenious Artificers of their own damnation and if the love of God and Goodness be the healthful constitution of the Soul its natural content and pleasure the business and end of life and all its helps and blessings the Soder of just Societies the Union of Man with God in Christ and with all the Blessed and the Fore-taste and First-fruits of endless Glory then Christ the Messenger of Love the Teacher of Love the Giver of Love the Lord and Commander of Love is the best Promoter of Knowledge in the World. And as Nicodemus knew that he was a Teacher come from God because no man could do such works unless God were with him so may we conclude the same because no man could so reveal so cause and communicate Love the holy Love of God and Goodness unless the God of Love had sent him Love is the very end and work of Christ and of his Word and Spirit Chap. IX The fifth Inference What great cause men have to be thankful to God for the Constitution of the Christian Religion And how unexcusable they are that will not learn so short and sweet and safe a Lesson SO excellent and every way suitable to our case is the Religion taught and instituted by Christ as should render it very acceptable to Mankind And that on several accounts 1. The brevity and plainness of Christian Precepts greatly accommodateth the necessity of Mankind I say his necessity lest you think it is but his sloth Ars longa Vita brevis is the true and sad complaint of Students Had our Salvation been laid upon our Learning a Body of true Philosophy how desperate would our case have been For 1. Mans great Intellectual weakness 2. His want of leisure would not have allowed him a knowledge that requireth a subtile wit and tedious studies 1. Most men have wits of the duller sort Such quickness subtilty and solidity as is necessary to great and difficult studies are very rare So rare as that few such are found even amongst the Preachers of the Gospel Of a multitude who by hard Studies and honest Hearts are fit to Preach the Doctrine of Salvation scarce one or two are found of so fine and exact a wit as to be fit judiciously to manage the curious Controversies of the Schools What a case then had Mankind been in if none could have been wise and happy indeed but these few of extraordinary capacity The most publick and common good is the best God is more merciful than to confine Salvation to subtilty of wit Nor indeed is it a thing it self so pleasing to him as a Holy Heavenly Heart and Life 2. And we have Bodies that must have Provision and Employment We have Families and Kindred that must be maintained We live in Neighbourhoods and publick Societies which call for much Duty and take up much time And our sufferings and crosses will take up some thoughts Were it but Poverty alone how much of our time will it alienate from contemplation whilst great necessities call for great care and continual labour Can our common poor Labourers especially Husbandmen have leisure to inform their minds with Philosophy or curious Speculations Nay we see by experience that the more subtile and most vacant wits that wholly addict themselves to Philosophy can bring it to no considerable certainty and consistency to this day except in the few Rudiments or common Principles that all are agreed in Insomuch that those do now take themselves to be the chief or only wits who are pulling down that which through so many Ages from the beginning of the World hath with so great wit and study been concluded on before them and are now themselves no higher than new Experimenters who are beginning all anew again to try whether they can retrieve the errours of Mankind and make any thing of that which they think the World hath been so long unacquainted with And they are yet but beginning at the Skin or Superficies of the World and are got no further with all their wit than Matter and Motion with Figure Site Contexture c. But if they could live as long as Methusalem it is hoped they might come to know that besides Matter and Motion there are Essential Virtues called substantial Forms or active Natures and that there is a Vis Motiva which is the cause of Motion and a Virtus Intellectiva and Wisdom which is the cause of the Order of Motion and a Vital Will and Love which is the perfection and end of all In a word they may live to know that there is such a thing in the World as Life and such a thing as Active Nature and such a thing as Sense and Soul besides Corporeal Matter and Motion and consequently that man is indeed man. But alas they must die sooner perhaps before they attain so far and their Successors must begin all anew again as if none of all these great attempts had been made by their Predecessours and so by their method we shall never reach deeper than the Skin nor learn more than our A B C And would we have such a task made necessary to the Common
But let that holy knowledge and love be mine which God most loveth and the World most hateth and costeth us dearest upon Earth but hath the blessed end of a Heavenly Reward Chap. XII The eighth Inference What is the work of a faithful Preacher and how it is to be done IF that Knowledge which kindleth in us the Love of God be the only saving Knowledge then this is it that Ministers must principally preach up and promote Could we make all our hearers never so learned that will not save their Souls But if we could make them holy and kindle in them the love of God and goodness they should certainly be saved The holy practical Preacher therefore is the best Preacher because the holy practical Christian is the best and only true Christian We work under Christ and therefore must carry on the same work on Souls which Christ came into the World to carry on All our Sermons must be fitted to change mens Hearts from Carnal into Spiritual and to kindle in them the love of God. When this is well done they have learnt what we were sent to teach them and when this is perfect they are in Heaven Those Preachers that are Enemies to the godliest of the people and would make their Hearers take them all for Hypocrites that go any further than obedience to their Pastors in Church-forms and Orders Observances and Ceremonies and a civil Life are the great Enemies of Christ his Spirit his Gospel and the Peoples Souls and the Eminent Servants of the Devil in his malignant War against them all All that Knowledge and all those Formalities which are set up instead of divine Love and holy Living are but so many cheats to deceive poor Souls till time be past and their convictions come to late I confess that ignorance is the calamity of our times and people perish for lack of Knowledge And that the Heart be without Knowledge it is not good And lamentable ignorance is too visible in a great degree among the religious sort themselves as their manifold differences and errours too openly proclaim And therefore to Build up men in Knowledge is much of the Ministerial work But what Knowledge must it be Not dead Opinions or uneffectual Notions or such Knowledge as tendeth but to teach men to talk and make them pass for men of parts But it is the Knowledge of God and our Redeemer the Knowledge of Christ Crucified by which we Crucifie the Flesh with all its Affections and Lusts And by which the World is Crucified to us and we to it If the Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost in whom the God of this World hath blinded their Eyes when there is no truth and mercy and knowledge of God in the Land no wonder if such a Land be clad in mourning When men have not so much Knowledge of the evil of sin and their own sin and misery and of the need and worth of Christ of the truth of Gods Word of the vanity of the World of the greatness wisdom and goodness of God and of certain most desirable Glory of Heaven as shall humble their Souls and turn them from the World to God and absolutely deliver them up to Christ and mortifie fleshly Lusts and overcome temptations and renew them unto the Love of God and goodness and set their Hearts and Hopes on Heaven This is the ignorance that is mens damnation And the contrary effectual Knowledge is it which saveth Souls Chap. XIII The ninth Inference Those that Know God so far as to Love him above all may have comfort notwithstanding their remaining ignorance A Great number of upright hearted Christians who Love God sincerely and obey him faithfully are yet under so great want of further knowledge as is indeed a great dishonour to them and a hinderance of them in their duty and comfort and to many a great discouragement And O that we knew how to cure this imperfection that Ignorance might not feed so many Errours and cause so many fractions and disturbances in the Church and so many sinful miscarriages in its members But yet we must conclude that the person that hath knowledge enough to renew his Soul to the Love of God shall be loved by him and shall never perish and therefore may have just comfort under all the imperfections of his knowledge More wisdom might make him a better and more useful Christian But while he is a Christian indeed he may rejoyce in God. I blame not such for complaining of the dulness of their Understandings the badness of their Memories their little profiting by the means of Grace I should blame them if they did not complain of these And I think their case far more dangerous to the Church and to themselves who have as much ignorance and know it not but proudly glory in the wisdom which they have not But many a thousand Christians that have little of the Notional and Organical part of Knowledge have powerful apprehensions of the Power Wisdom and Love of God and of the great Mercy of Redemption and of the Evil of Sin the Worth of Holiness and the Certainty and Weight of the Heavenly Glory And by how much these men love God and Holiness more than the more Learned that have less Grace by so much they are more beloved of God and accounted wiser by the God of wisdom and therefore may rejoice in the greatness of their felicity I would have none so weak as to under-value any real useful Learning But if Pharisees will cry out against unlearned godly Christians These people know not the Law and are accursed Remember the Thanksgiving of your Lord I thank thee Father Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to Babes And as the reputed foolishness of God that is of Gods Evangelical Mysteries will shortly prove wiser than all the reputed wisdom of men so he that hath wisdom enough to love God and be saved shall quickly be in that World of light where he shall know more than all the Doctors and subtile disputers upon Earth and more in a moment than all the Books of men can teach him or all their Authors did ever here know Jer. 9.23 24. Thus saith the Lord Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom neither let the mighty man glory in his might let not the rich man glory in his riches But let him that glorieth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness and righteousness in the Earth For in these things do I delight saith the Lord. Chap. XIV Questions and Objections answered Quest 1. IF so much knowledge will save a man as helpeth him to love God as God may not Heathens or Infidels at least be saved For they know that there is one God who is Infinitely Good and Perfect and more amiable than all the World and the
would not have been cheated diverted and undone by the grosser way of brutish pleasures But holy Souls have a Sanctified use of all their common knowledge making it serve their high and holy ends But O that some Learned men would in time as well understand the difference between common Learning which serveth fancy pride or worldly hopes and the Love of God and a heavenly life as they must know it when they come to die Chap. XV. Use Exhort Not to deceive our selves by over-valuing a dead or an unholy Knowledge IT grieveth my Soul to observe how powerfully and how commonly Satan still playeth his first deceiving game of calling off man from Love Trust and Obedience to an ensnaring and troublesome or unprofitable sort of Knowledge And how the Lust of knowing carryeth away many unsuspected to misery who escape the more dishonourable sort of lust And especially what abundance in several ways take Notional Knowledge which is but an Art of thinking and talking for real Knowledge which is our acquaintance with God and Grace and which changed the Soul into the Image of him that we seek and know and filleth us with Love and Trust and Joy. Two sorts are especially here guilty I. The Learned Students before described II. The superficial sort of people accounted Religious I. I have already shewed how pitiful a thing it is that so many Academical Wits and so many Preachers to say nothing of the grosly proud tyrannical and worldly Clergy do spend so many years in studies that are used but in the service of the flesh to their own condemnation and never bend their minds to kindle in themselves the Love of God nor a heavenly Desire or Hope nor to live in the comfortable prospect of Glory How many preach up that Love and Holiness as the Trade that they must live by which they never fervently preached to themselves nor practised sincerely one hour in their lives How many use to preach Funeral Sermons and bury the dead that are unprepared for death themselves and hardened in their security and unholy state by those sights those studies those words which should awaken and convince them and which they plead themselves for the conviction of their hearers O miserable Scholars Miserable Preachers Miserable Doctors and Prelates who study and preach to their own condemnation and have not knowledge enough to teach them to Love God nor to set more by the heavenly Glory than this World but by spiritual words do both hide and cherish a fleshly and a worldly mind You will find at Death that all your Learning was but a Dream and one of the Vanities that entangle fools and you will die as sadly as the unlearned and be beaten with more stripes than they that knew not their Masters will. 1. Unholy Knowledge is but a carkass a shadow the activity of a vain mind or a means without the end and unfit to attain it A Map is not a Kingdom nor doth it much enrich the owner The names of meats and drinks will not nourish you And to know names and notions giveth you no title to the things so named You may as well think to be saved for being good Musicians Physicians or Astronomers as for being Learned Divines if your Knowledge cause not holy Love It may help others to Heaven but it will be but vanity to you and you will be a sounding Brass or a tinkling Cymbal 1 Cor. 13.1 You glory in a lifeless picture of Wisdom and Hell may shortly tell you that you had better have chosen any thing to play the fools with than with the notions and words of Wisdom mortified 2. Nay such prophanation of holy things is a heinous sin Who is liker the Devil than he that knoweth most and loveth God least To know that you should love and seek God most and not to do it is wilfully to despise him in the open light As the privation of God's Love is the chief part of Hell so the privation of our Love to God is the chief part of ungodliness or sin yea and much of Hell it self Knowledge puffeth up but Charity edifieth Unholy Knowledge is a powerful Instrument of Satan's service in the service of Pride and Ambition and Heresie one Learned and witty ungodly man will merit more of the Devil by mischieving Mankind than many of the common unlearned sort And none are so like impenitently to glory in this sin They will be proud of such adorned Fetters that they can sin Philosophically and Metaphysically in Greek and Hebrew and with Logical subtilty or Oratorical fluency prove against unlearned men that they do well in damning their own Souls and that God and Heaven are not worthy of their chiefest love and diligence such men will offend God more judiciously than the ignorant and will more discreetly and honourably fool away their hopes of Heaven and more successfully deceive the simple Their Wisdom like Achitophel's will serve turn to bring them to destroy themselves And is it any wonder if this be foolishness with God 1 Cor. 3.19 The understanding of a man is a faculty unfit to be abused and prostituted to the slavery of the Flesh The abuse of the senses is bad but of the understanding worse because it is a nobler faculty When they that knew God glorified him not as God but became vain in their imagination their foolish heart was darkened and professing themselves wise Philosophers or Gnosticks they became fools Rom. 1.21 28. And as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge God gave them up to vile affections And yet many are proud of this mortal Tympanite as if it were a sound and healthful Constitution And think they have the surest right to Heaven for neglecting it knowingly and going learnedly in the way to Hell. 3. You lose the chiefest delight of knowledge O that you knew what holy quietness and peace what solid pleasure that knowledge bringeth which kindleth and cherisheth holy love and leadeth the Soul to Communion with God and how much sweeter it is to have a powerful and experimental knowledge than your trifling dreams The Learnedst of you all have but the Husks or Shells of knowledge and what great sweetness is in Shells when the poorest holy experienced Christian hath the Kernel which is far more pleasant O try a more serious practical Religion and I dare assure you it will afford you a more solid kind of nourishment and delight The pleasure of the speculative Divine in knowing is but like the pleasure of a Mathematician or other Speculator of Nature yea below that of the Moral Philosopher It is but like my pleasure in reading a Book of Travels or Geography in comparison of the true practical Christians which is like their pleasure that live in those Countreys and possess the Lands and Houses which I read of 4. Nay yet worse this unholy knowledge doth often make men the Devils most powerful and mischievous Instruments For though Christ
oft also so over-rule the Hearts of Men and the Course of the World as to make the knowledge and gifts of bad Men serviceable to his Church as wicked Souldiers oft fight in a good Cause and save the lives of better men yet a worldly mind is likest to follow the way of worldly interest and it is but seldom that worldly interest doth suite with and serve the interest of truth and holiness but more commonly is its greatest adversary Therefore most usually it must be expected that such worldly men should be adversaries to the same truth and holiness which their worldly interest is adverse to And hence hath arisen that Proud and Worldly and Tyrannical Clergy which hath set up and maintained the Roman Kingdom under the Name of the Holy Catholick Church and which hath by their Pope and pretended General Councils usurped a Legislative and Executive Power over the whole Christian World and made great numbers of Laws without Authority and contrary to the Laws of Christ multiplying Schisms on pretence of suppressing them and making so many things necessary to the Concord of Christians as hath made such Concord become impossible presumptuously voting other men to be Hereticks while their own Errours are of as odious a kind yea when holy Truth is sometime branded by them as Heresie And when they cannot carry the Judgments Consciences and Wills of all men along in obedience to their Tyrannical Pride and Lust and Interest they stir up Princes and States to serve them by the Sword and Murder and Persecute their own Subjects and raise bloody Wars against their Neighbours to force them to obey these proud Seducers Yea and if Kings and States be wiser than thus to be made their Hangmen or bloody Executioners to the ruine of their best Subjects and their own Everlasting Infamy and Damnation they stir up the foolish part of the Subjects against such Rulers and in a word they will give the World no peace So that I am past all doubt that the Ten Heathen Persecutions so much cryed out of was but a small matter as against the Christians Blood in comparison of what hath been done by this Tyrannical Clergy And the cruelest Magistrates still seem to come short of them in cruelty and seldom are very bloody or persecuting but when a worldly or proud Clergy stirs them up to it And all the Heresies that ever sprang up in the Church do seem to have done less harm on one side than by pretences of Unity Order and Government they have done on the other O how unspeakably have been and still are the Churches Sufferings by a proud and worldly Clergy and by mens abuse of pretended Learning and Authority 5. I will add yet one more considerable mischief that is that your unholiness and carnal minds for all your Learning corrupteth your judgments and greatly hindereth you from receiving many excellent truths and inclineth you to many mortal errours To instance in some particulars 1. About the Attributes and Government of God a bad man is inclined to doubt of Gods particular Providence his holy Truth and Justice and to think God is such a one as he would have him to be Whereas they that have the love of God and goodness have his Attributes as it were written on their Hearts that he is Good and Wise and Holy and Just and True they know by an Experimental certain knowledge which is to them like Nature and Life it self Joh. 17.3 Hos 2.20 Psal 34.8 c. 2. The very truth of the Gospel and Mystery of Redemption is far hardlier believed by a man that never felt his need of Christ nor ever had the operations of that Spirit on his Soul which are its Seal than by them that have the witness in themselves and have found Christ actually save them from their sins Who are regenerated by this holy Seed and nourished by this Milk. 1 Joh. 5.10 11 12. 1 Pet. 1.22 23. and 1 Pet. 2.2 3. Yea the very truth of our Souls Immortality and the Life and Glory to come is far hardlier believed by them who feel no inclination to sucâ— a future Glory but only a propensity to this present Life and the interest and pleasures of it than by them that have a Treasure a Home a Heart and a Conversation in Heaven and that long for nearer Communion with God and that have the Earnest and First-fruits of Heaven within them Math. 6.20 21. Phil. 3.20 21. Col. 4.1 2 3 4. Rom. 8.17 18 19 20. 4. The evil of sin in general and consequently what is sin in particular is hardlier known by a man that loveth it and would not have it to be sin than by one that hateth it and loveth God and holiness above all They that love the Lord hate evil 5. Most Controversies about the Nature of Grace are hardlier understood by them that have it not than by them that have it as a new Nature in them And consequently what kind of Persons are to be well thought of as the Children of God The Pharisees were strict and yet haters of Christ and Christians Many Preach and Write for godliness that yet when it cometh to a particular judgment deride the godly as Hypocrites or Superstitious 6. In cases about the worship of God a carnal Mind how Learned soever is apt to relish most an outside carnal ceremonious way and to be all for a dead formality or else for a proud ostentation of their own Wits Opinions and Parts or some odd singularity that sets them up to be admired as some extraordinary Persons or teacheth their own Consciences so to flatter them When a Spiritual Man is for worshipping God though with all decent Externals yet in Spirit and in Truth and in the most understanding sincere and humble manner and yet with the greatest joy and praise Rom. 8.16 26 c. 7. Specially in the work of self-judging how hard a work have the most Learned that are ungodly truely to know themselves When Learning doth but help their Pride to blind them And yet none so apt to say as the Pharisees John 9.10 Are we blind also And to hate those that honour them not as erroneously as they do themselves And therefore Augustine so lamenteth the misery of the Clergy and saith that the unlearned take Heaven by violence when the Learned are thrust down to Hell with all their learning who are prouder and more self-ignorant Hypocrites in the World expecting that all should bow to them and reverence them and cry them up as wise and excellent men than the Unholy Worldly Fleshly Clergy 8. And in every case that themselves are much concerned in their Learning will not keep them from the most blind in Justice Let the case be but such as their honour or profit or relations and friends are much concerned in and they presently take all Right to be on their side and all these to be honest men that are for them and
your Religion and the work of your whole lives to possess your minds with the liveliest sense of the infinite goodness and amiableness of God and hereby to live in the constant exercise of Love. II. And though some men hinder love by an over fearful questioning whether they have it or not and spend that time in doubting and complaining that they have it not which they should spend in exciting and exercising it yet reason requireth us to take heed lest a carnal mind deceive us with any counterfeits of holy love Of which having written more in my Christian Directory I shall here give you but these brief instructions following It is here of grand importance I. To have a true conception of God as he must be loved II. And then to know practically how it is that love must be exercised towards him I. GOD must be conceived of at once both 1. As in his essence 2. And as in his relations to the world and to our selves 3. And as in his works And those that will separate these and while they fix only on one of them leave out the other do not indeed love God as God as he must be loved 1. To think in general that there is an infinite eternal Spirit of Life Light and Love and not to think of him as related to the world as its Creator Preserver and Governor nor as related to us and to mankind as our Owner Ruler and Benefactor is not to think of him as a God to us or to any but himself And a love thus exercised cannot be true saving love 2. And because his relations to us result from his works either which he hath done already or which he will do hereafter therefore without the knowledge of his works and their goodness we cannot truly know and love God in his relations to us 3. And yet when we know his works we know but the medium or that in which he himself is made known to us And if by them we come not to know him and love him in his perfect Essence it is not God that we know and love And if we knew him only as Related to us and the World as that he is our Creator Owner Mover Ruler and Benefactor and yet know not what he is in his essence that is thus related viz that he is the Perfect First Being Life Wisdom and Love this were not truly to know and love him as he is God. These conceptions therefore must be conjunct God is not here known to us but by the revelation of his works and word nor can we conceive of him but by the similitude of some of his works not that we must think that he is just such as they or picture him like a creature for he is infinitely above them all but yet it is certain that he hath made some impressions of his perfections upon his works and on some of them so clear as that they are called his Image Nothing is known to us but either 1. By sense immediately perceiving things external and representing them to the phantasie and intellect or 2. By the Intellects own conceiving of other things by the similitude of things sensed 3. Or by immediate internal Intuition or Sensation of the acts of the Soul in it self 4. Or by reasons collection of the nature of other things from the similitude and effect of such perceived operations I. By the external Senses we perceive all external sensed things and we imagine and know them as so perceived II. By the Intellection of these we conceive of other things as like them forming Universal conceptions and applying them to such individuals as are beyond the reach of our Senses As we think of Men Trees Beasts Fishes c. in the Indies as like those which we have seen and of sounds there as like those which we have heard and of the taste of Fruits by the similitude of such as we have tasted c. III. How Sense it self Intellection it self Volition it self and internal Affections are perceived is no small controversie among Philosophers That we do perceive them by the great wisdom and goodness of our Creator we are sure but how we do it we can scarce describe as knowing it better by the experience of that perception it self than by a knowledge of the Causes and Nature of the acts It is most commonly said that the Intellect knoweth its own acts by Reflection or as Ockam by Intuition and that it knoweth what Sense is and what Volition by some Species or Image of them in the phantasie which it beholdeth But such words give no man a true knowledge of the thing enquired of unless withal he read the solution experimentally in his own Soul. I know not what the meaning of a Reflect act is Is it the same act which is called Direct and Reflect And doth the Intellect know that it knoweth by the very same act by which it knoweth other things If so why is it called Reflect and what is that reflection But the contrary is commonly said that divers objects make divers acts and therefore to know e.g. that this is Paper and to know that I know this are two acts and the latter is a reflecting of the former But the former act is gone and nothing in the instant that it is done and therefore is in it self no intelligible object of a reflecting act But as remembred it may be known or rather that remembring is knowing what is past by a marvellous retention of some impress of it which no man can well comprehend so as to give an account of it And why may not the same memory which retaineth the unexpressible Record of an Act past an hour or many years ago be also the Book where the Intellect readeth its own Act as past immediately in the foregoing instant But sure this is not the first knowing that we know Before the act of memory the Intellect immediately perceiveth its own particular acts And so doth the sense By one and the same act we see and perceive that we see and by one and the same act I think we know and know that we know and this by a consciousness or internal sense which is the immediate act of the Essence of the faculty And chuse whether you will say that such two objects may constitute one act Or whether you will say that the latter the act it self is not properly to be called an object For the various senses of the word object must be considered in the decision of that Mans Soul is Gods Image When God knoweth himself and his own knowledge and when he willeth or loveth himself and his own will or love here we must either say that himself his knowledge and will is not properly to be called an Object or else that the Object and the Act are purely the same without the least real difference but we name them differently as inadequate conceptions of one Being And why may it not be so