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
a wary humble man should offend but few and better keep both his own and the Churches peace than others Can Persecutors for shame Hang and Burn men for meer Ignorance who are willing to learn and will thankfully from any man receive information What if in Queen Marys days the poor Men and Women had told my Lords of Winchester and London We are not persons of so good understandings as to know what a spiritual body is as Paul describeth it 1 Cor. 15. And seeing most say that the Sun it self is a body and not a spirit and late Philosophers say that Light is a substance or body which yet from the Sun in a moment diffuseth it self through all the surface of the Earth and Air we know not how far locality limitations extension impenetrability divisibility c. belong to the body of Christ and consequently how far it may be really present we can say nothing but that we know not Would my good Lord Bishops have burnt them for I know not Perhaps they would have said You must believe the Church But which is the Church my Lord Why it is the Pope and a General Council But alas my Lord I have never seen or heard either Pope or Council Why but we have and you must believe us Must we believe you my Lords to be Infallible or only as we do other men that may deceive and be deceived Is any Infallible besides the Pope and his Council Truly my Lords we are ignorant people and we know not what the Pope and Councils have said and we are uncertain whether you report them truly and uncertain whether they are Fallible or not but we are willing to hear any thing which may make us wiser Would their Lordships have burnt such modest persons Suppose in a Church where men are put to profess or subscribe to or against the Opinions of Free-will or Reprobation or Predetermination or such like a humble man should say These are things above my understanding I cannot reach to know what Free-will is nor whether all Causes natural and free be predetermined by Divine Premotion c. I can say neither It is so nor It is not They are above my reach would they silence and cast out such an humble person and forbid him to preach the Gospel of Christ Perhaps they would But there are not so many hardened to such inhumanity as there are men that would deal sharply with one that is as confident as they are on the other side And those few that were thus silenced would have the more peace that they procured it not by self-conceited singularities and the silencers of them would be the more ashamed before all sober persons that shall hear it Other Instances I pass by Chap. 14. The Aggravations of this sin of Prefidence THough there be so much evil in this sin of Presumption as I have noted yet is it not in all alike culpable or unhappy But differeth in both respects as I shall tell you I. For culpability it is worst in these sorts and cases following 1. It is a great sin in those who have least reason to think highly of their own understandings and greatest reason to distrust themselves As. 1. In those that are young and unexperienced and must be miraculously wise if they are wiser than old experienced persons caeteris paribus 2. In the unlearned or half-learned who have had but little time or helps for study or at least have made but little use of them 3. In duller wits and persons that in other matters are known to be no wiser than others 4. In those that take up their prefidence upon the slightest grounds as bare surmises and reports from others that were uncertain 5. In those that have been oft deceived already and should by their sad experience have been brought to humble self-suspicion 2. And it is an aggravated sin in those whose place and condition obligeth them to learn from others As for the Wife to be self-conâ—eited of all her apprehensions against her Husband unless he be a fool For the Servant to set his wit against his Masters where he should obey him For Children to think that their wits are righter than their Parents or Masters and Apprentices and Learners to think that they know more than their teachers And for the ignorant people to censure over-hastily the Doctrine and Practice of their Pastors as if they were wiser than they Perhaps they are But it must be some rare person who is fit to be a Teacher himself or the Teacher some sot that hath intruded into the Office or else it must be a wonder For God usually giveth men Knowledge according to the Time and Means and Pains that they have had to get it and not by miraculous infusions without means Doth not the Apostle expresly tell you this Heb. 5.11 12. When for the Time you ought to have been Teachers c. Men should be wise according to Time and Means of Wisdom which they have had 3. It is the greater crime when men will seem wisest in other mens matters and concernments When the Subject will know best what belongeth to a King or Governor and the people will know best how the Pastor should teach them and when he faileth and whom he should receive into the Church or exclude When the Servant will know best his Masters duty and every man his Neighbours and least his own 4. It is the greater crime when men will be the Judges of their own understandings and think highly of them in cases where they should be tryed by others As if an Empyrick or Woman do think that they know better how to cure a disease than the ablest Physicians why do they not offer themselves to the Tryal and before them make good their Skill by reason If an unexperienced young student think himself able to be a Physician he is not to be Judge but must be Tryed and Judged by Physicians If a self-conceited Professor or a young Student think himself fit for the Ministry he must not presently contrive how to get in and how to shift off Examination but freely offer himself to be tried by able Godly Ministers and then by the ordainers who are to judge But when such Persons can think themselves sufficient if no body else do or if but a few ignorant persons do that are unfit to judge this proves their Pride and Presumption to be a great and heinous sin 5. And it is yet more heinously aggravated when to keep up the reputation of their own understandings they use to depress and vilify the wiser even those whom they never knew As he that affecteth to be a Preacher and dare not pass the Examination hath no way to hide his shame but 1. By crying down the Learning which he wanteth as a humane carnal thing And 2. By reproaching those that should judge of him and ordain him as poor carnal persons who understand not the things of the Spirit as he doth
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
this labour must be content to know but little and not take on them to know much For they are not able to discern truth from falshood But while they sleep the Tares are sowed Or while they open the Door all croud in that can come first and they cannot make a just separation Ignorant Persons will swarm with errors and he that erreth will think that he is in the right And if he think that it is a divine and necessary truth which he embraceth how zealously may he pursue it D. XV. Take heed of a byas of Carnal Interest and of the disturbing Passions which selfish partiality will be apt to raise Men may verily think that they sincerely love the truth when the secret power of a carnal interest their honour their profit or pleasure is it that turneth about their judgment and furnisheth them with Arguments and whets their Wits and maketh them passionately confident and they are not aware of it Is your worldly interest on that side that your opinion is for Though that prove it not false it proveth that you should be very suspicious of your selves D. XVI Keep up unfeigned fervent love to others even as to your selves And then you will not contemn their Persons and their Arguments beyond certain cause You will not turn to passionate contentions and reproaches of them when you differ and the reverence of your Elders Teachers Superiors will make you more ready to suspect your selves than them Most of our self-conceited pretenders to knowledge have lost their love and reverence of Dissenters and are bold despisers of the Persons reasons and writings of all that contradict their errour And most that venture to cast the Churches into flames and their Brethren into silence and sufferings that they may plant their own opinions are great despisers of those that they afflict and either hate them or would make them hateful lest they should be thought to be unjust in using them like hateful Persons Love that thinketh not evil of others is not apt to vaunt it self D. XVII Reverence the Church of God but give not up your understandings absolutely to any men but take heed of taking any Church Sect or Party instead of the Infallible God. With the Universal Church you must Embody and hold Concord It is certain that it erreth not from the Essentials of Christianity Otherwise the Church were no Church no Christians and could not be saved If a Papist say and which is this Church I answer him It is the Universality of Christians or all that hold these Essentials and when I say that this Church cannot fall from these Essentials I do but say it cannot cease to be a Church The Church is constituted of and known by the Essentials of Faith and not the Essentials of Faith constituted by the Church nor so known by it though it be known by it as the Teacher of it He that deserteth the Christian Universality in deed though not in words and cleaveth too close to any Sect whether Papal or any other will be carried down the stream by that Sect and will fill his understanding with all their errors and uncertainties and confound them with the certain truths of God to make up a mixt Religion with and the reverence of his Party Church or Sect will blind his mind and make him think all this his duty D. XVIII Fear Error and ungrounded Confidence Consider all the mischiefs of it which the World hath long felt and the Churches in East and West are distracted by unto this day and which I have opened to you before He that feareth not a sin and mischief is most unlikely to escape it A tender Conscience cannot be bold and rash where the interest of God the Church and his own and others Souls is so much concerned When you are invited to turn Papist or Quaker or Anabaptist or Antinomian or Separatist think What if it should prove an Errour and as great an Errour as many godly learned men affirm it to be Alas what a gulf should I plunge my Soul in What injury should I do the Truth What wrong to Souls And shall I rashly venture on such a danger any more than I would do on Fornication Drunkenness or other sin And doth not the sad example of this Age as well as all former Ages warn you to be fearful of what you entertain O what promising what hopeful what confident Persons have dreadfully miscarried and when they once began to roll down the Hill have not stopt till some of them arrived at Infidelity and Prophaneness and others involved us all in confusions And yet shall we not fear but rage and be confident And to see on the other side what darkness and delusion hath faln upon thousands of the Papal Clergy and what their Errour hath cost the World should make those that are that way inclined also fear Direct XIX Above all pray and labour for a truely humble mind that is well acquainted with its own defects and fear and fly from a proud overvaluing of your own understanding Be thankful for any Knowledge that you have but take heed of thinking it greater than it is The Devils Sin and the imitation of Adam are not the way to have the illumination of Gods Spirit It is not more usual with God to bring low those that are Proud of Greatness than to leave to folly deceit and errour those that are proud of Wisdom and to leave to Sin and Wickedness those that are proud of Goodness A Proud understanding cannot be brought to suspect it self but is confident of its first undigested apprehensions It either feeleth no need of the Spirits light but despiseth it as a fancy or else it groweth conceited that all its conceptions are of the Spirit and is proud of that Spirit which he hath not Nothing maketh this peremptory confidence in false conceits so common as Pride of a knowledge which men have not Would the Lord but humble these persons throughly they would think Alas What a dark deceitful mind have I how unfit to despise the judgment of them that have laboured for knowledge far more than I have done and how unfit to be confident against such as know much more than I But so deep and common is this Pride that they that go in rags and they that think themselves unworthy to live and are ready to despair in the sense of Sin do yet ordinarily so overvalue their own apprehensions that even these will stifly hold their vain and unpeaceable opinions and stifly reject the judgment and arguments of the wisest and best that will not be as envious as they Direct XX. Lastly Keep in a Child-like teachable learning resolution with a sober and suspended judgment where you have not sure evidence to turn the scales When Christ saith Mat. 18.3 Except ye be converted and become as little Children ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven As he hath respect to the humility