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
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
advantaged by the help of other mens experiments 2. And others rush on Practice in their youth partly because they have not yet knowledge enough to discern uncertainties and difficulties in the Art or to see what is further necessary to be known And partly because they think that seeing Skill must be got by experience use must help them to that experience and all men must have a beginning 3. And when they do their best they say God requireth no more 4. And they hope if they kill one they cure many But O that they had the Sobriety to consider 1. That the Physician is but One man And will his maintenance or livelyhood excuse him for killing many 2. That even one mans Life is more precious than one mans maintenance or fuller supply Is it not honester to beg your bread 3. That killing men by virtue of your trade without danger to you doth but hinder your Repentance but not so much extenuate your sin as many think Which is aggravated in that you kill your friends that trust you and not Enemies that oppose you or avoid you 4. Your experience must not be got by killing men but by accompanying experienced Physicians till you are fit to practice And if you cannot stay so long for want of maintenance beg rather than kill men or betake you to some other trade But if you be too Proud or Confident to take such Counsel I still advise all that love their lives that they choose not a Physician under fourty years old at least and if it may be not under sixty unless it be for some little disease or remedy which hath no danger and where they can do no harm if they do no good Old men may be ignorant but Young men must needs be so for want of experience though some few rare persons are sooner ripe than others And whereas they say that they Cure more than they Kill I wish that I had reason to believe them I suppose that if more of their patients did not live than die they would soon lose their practice But it 's like the far greatest part of those that live would have lived without them and perhaps have been sooner and easier cured if nature had not by them been disturbed And what calling is there in which hasty judging and conceits of more knowledge than men have doth not make great confusion and disappointment If a Fool that rageth and is confident be a Pilot woe to the poor Seamen and Passengers in the Ship. If such a one be Commander in an Army his own and other mens Blood or Captivity must cure his confidence and stay his rage For such will learn at no cheaper a rate How oft hear we such Workmen Carpenters Masons c. raging confident that their way is right and their work well done till the ruin of it confute and shame them If this disease take hold of Governours who will not stay to hear all parties and know the Truth but take up reports on trust from those that please or flatter them or judge presently before impartial tryal and hearing all woe to the land that is so governed The wisest and the best man must have due information and time patience and consideration to receive it or else he may do as David between Mephibosheth and Ziba and cannot be just What an odious thing is a partial blind rash hasty and impatient judge that cannot hear think and know before he judgeth Such the old Christians had to do with among their Persecutors who knew not what they held or what they were and yet could judge them and cruelly execute them And such were Tacitus and other old Historians that from common prejudice spake words of contempt or reproach of them The Christians were glad when they had a Trajan an Antonine an Alexander Severus c. to speak to that had Reason and Sobriety to hear their cause Among the Papists the old Reformers and Martyrs took him for a very commendable judge or Magistrate that would but allow them a Patient hearing and give them leave to speak for themselves Truth and Godliness have so much evidence and such a testimony for themselves in the Conscience of Mankind as that the Devil could never get them so odiously thought of and so hardly used in the World but only by keeping them unknown which is much by expelling and silencing their defenders who speed well sometime if an Obadiah hide them by fifties in a Cave and by tempting their Judges to hear but some superficial narrative of their cause and to have but a glimpse of the outside as in transitu and to see only the back-parts of it yea but the clothing which is commonly such as are made by its Enemies Good men and causes are too oft brought to them and set out by them as Christ with his Scarlet Robe his Reed and Crown of Thorns and then they say Behold the man and when they have cryed out Blasphemy and an Enemy to Caesar they write over his cross in scorn The King of the Jews Cain had not Patience to hear his own Brother and weigh the Case no not after that God had admonished him But he must first hate and murder and afterward consider why when it is too late Judas must know his Masters Innocency and what he had done in despair to hang himself And so wise Achitophel cometh to his end If David would have pondred his usage of Uriah as much in time as he did when Nathan had awakened his reason O what had he prevented If Paul had weighed before the case of Christians as he did when Christ did stop his rage he had not incurred the guilt of Persecution and the Martyrs Blood But he tells us that he was exceedingly mad against them And it is madness indeed to venture on Cruelty and Persecution and not stay first to understand the cause and consider why and what is like to be the end How ordinarily in the world are the excellentest men on Earth for Wisdom and Holiness such as Ignatius Cyprian and the rest of the Antient Martyrs and such as Athanasius Chrysostom c. reviled and used as if they were the basest Rogues on Earth laid in Jails banished silenced murdered and all this by men that know not what they are and have no true understanding of their cause Men of whom the world was not worthy wandred up and down in Dens and Caves and suffered joyfully the spoiling of their goods yea and death it self Heb. 11. from men that Judged before they knew Many a Great Man and Judge that hath condemned Christ's Ministers as Hereticks false Teachers unworthy to preach the Gospel have been such as understand not their Baptism Creed or Catechism and have need of many years teaching to make them know truly but those Principles that every Child should know There needs no great learning wisdom sobriety or honesty to teach them to cry out You are a Rogue a Seducer a
Heretick a Schismatick disobedient seditious or Away with such a fellow from the Earth it is not fit that he should live Act. 22.22 and 21.26 Or Away with him Crucifie him give us Barabbas or to say We have found this man a pestilent fellow a mover of Sedition a Leader of a Sect that teacheth contrary to the Decrees of Caesar c. But patience till the Cause were fully tryed and all things heard and equally weighed would prevent most of this I know that ignorance and weakness of Judgment is the common calamity of mankind and there is no hope of curing us by unity in high degrees of knowledge And though Teachers are and must be a great stay to ignorant Learners yet alas how can they tell which are the wisest Teachers and whom to chuse When all pretend to Wisdom and no man can judge of that which he neither hath nor knoweth and even the Roman Sect who pretend most to Infallibility have so exceeded all men in their Errour as to make it a part of Religion necessary to our possessions communion dominion and salvation to maintain the falshood of God's Natural Revelations to the senses of all sound men in the world How shall one that would learn Philosophy know in this Age what Sect to follow or what Guide to chuse Hence is our Calamity and the Remedy will be but imperfect till the time of perfection come But yet we are not remediless 1 If men would but well lay in hold fast love and faithfully improve the few necessary Essential Principles 2. If they would make them a Rule in trying what is built upon them and receive nothing that certainly contradicteth them 3. If they would stay think and try till their thoughts are well digested and all is heard before they take in doubtful things 4. If they will carry themselves as humble Learners to those whose wisdom is conspicuous by its proper light especially the concordant Pastors of the Churches 5. And if they will not quarrel with Truth for every difficulty which they understand not but humbly as Learners suspect their own wit till their Teachers have helpt them in a leisurely and faithful tryal by such means the mischief of Errour and Rashness might be much avoided In common matters necessity and undeniable experience doth somewhat rebuke and restrain this vice If Children should set their wits against their Parents or Scholars presently dispute it with their Masters Nature and the Rod would rebuke their pride and folly If they that never used a Trade should presently take themselves to be as wise as the longest practicers who would be Apprentices And if an unskilful Musician Painter Poet or other such like shall be confident that he is as good at his work as any standers by will not easily cherish his folly as being not blinded by his self-love A good workman shall have most praise and practice Buyers will convince the ignorant boasters by forsaking such mens shops As it is with self-conceited ignorant Writers who are restrained by the people who will not buy and read their Books And usually Good and Bad Judges Magistrates Lawyers Souldiers Pilots Artificers are discerned by most that are capable of judging because 1. These are matters where the common sense and experience of mankind doth render them somewhat capable of judging and save them from deceit 2. And here is not usually such deep and long Plots and endeavours to deceive as in matters of Speculation and specially Religion and Policy there is 3. And the Devil is not so concerned and industrious to deceive men in matters of so low importance 4. And if one be deceived many are ready to rectifie him 5. And Mens Interest here is better understood in bodily matters and they are not so willing to be deceived A poor man can easily discern between a charitable man and an uncharitable between a merciful and an oppressing Landlord We discern between diligent and slothful Servants but in matters that are above our reach which we must take on trust and know not whom to trust the difficulty is greater Where the Errour and Haste of either party will breed mischief but much more of both If the Physician or other Undertaker be Confident in his Errour and precipitant he will impose ruine on mens health as I have said And if the Patient be self-conceited and rash in his choice he is like to suffer for it But when both Physician and Patient are so what hope of escape And especially when through the great imperfection of mans understanding not one of a multitude is clear and skilful in things that are beyond the reach of sense And if one man after great experience come to be wiser than the rest the hearer knoweth it not and he must cast out his Notions among as many assailing Warriours as there are ignorant self-conceited hearers present and that is usually as there are persons And when every one hath poured out his confidence against it and perhaps reproached the Author as erroneous because he will know more than they and will not reverence their known mistakes alas how shall the person that we would instruct be it for Health or Soul be able to know which of all these to trust as wisest But the saddest work is that forementioned in Churches Kingdoms Families and Souls I must expect that opening the Crime will exasperate the Guilty But what remedy 1. Should I largely open what work this maketh in Families I have too much matter for the complaint If the Wife differ from the Husband she seemeth always in the right If the Servant differ from the Master and the Child from the Parent if a little past infancy they are always in the right What is the Contention in Families and in all the World but who shall have his way and will If they are of several Parties in Religion or if any be against Religion it self if they be foolish erroneous or live in any sin that can without utter impudence be defended still they are able to make it good And except Children at School or others that professedly go to be taught whom can we meet with so ignorant or mistaken that will not still think when even Superiours differ from them and reprove them that they are in the right 2. And what mischiefs doth it cause in Churches When the Papal Tyrannical part are so confident that they are in the right that when they silence Preachers and Imprison and burn Christians they think it not their duty so much as to hear what they have to say for themselves Or if they hear a few words they have not the patience to hear all or impartially to try the cause But they are so full of themselves and over wise that it must seem without any more ado a crime to dissent from them or contradict them And thus proud self-conceitedness smiteth the Shepherds scattereth the flocks and will allow the Church of Christ no Unity or Peace
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
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
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
it so wisely and so well as they Men will compass Sea and Land to make a Proselyte and Tares and Weeds are as much inclined to propagation as the Wheat There is a marvellous desire in the Nature of man to make others of their own Opinion and when it is governed by Gods Laws it is greatly beneficial to the World. And even in Affections as well as Knowledge it is so We would have others love those that we love and hate what we hate Though where by the insufficiency of the narrow Creature Men must lose and want that themselves which they Communicate to others selfishness forbiddeth such Communication And doubtless all the Creatures in their several Ranks have some such Impresses from the Creator by which his transcendent perfections may be somewhat observed That God is now so Communicative as to give to all Creatures in the World whatever Being Motion Life Order Beauty Harmony Reason Grace Glory any of them possess is past all question to considering sober reason Which tempted Aristotle to think that the World was Eternal and some Christians to think that though this present Heaven and Earth were Created as in Gen. 1. is said yet that from Eternity some Intellectual World at least if not also Corporeal did flow from the Creator as an Eternal Effect of an Eternal Cause or an Eternal Accident of the Deity Because they could not receive it that a God so unspeakably Communicative now who hath made the Sun to be an Emblem of his Communicativeness should from all Eternity be solitary and not communicative when yet to all Eternity he will be so But these are questions which uncapable Mortals were far better let alone than meddle with unless we desire rather to be lost than to be blessed in the Abyss of Eternity and the thoughts of infinite pregnant LOVE But it is so natural for man and every Animal to love that love and goodness which is beneficent not only to us but to all rather than a meer self-lover that doth no good to others that it must needs conduce much to our love of God to consider that he is good to all and his mercy is over all his works and that as there is no light in the Air but from the Sun so there is no goodness but from God in all the World who is more to the Creation than the Sun is to this lower World. And a Sun that lighteth all the Earth is much more precious than my Candle A Nilus which watereth the Land of Egypt is more precious than a private Well It is the Excellency of Kings and publick Persons that if they are good they are good to many And O what innumerable Animals in Sea and Land besides the far greater Worlds of nobler Wights do continually live by one God of Love Study this Universal Infinite Love. Direct 3. Especially study Divine LOVE and Goodness in the Face of our Redeemer Jesus Christ and all the Grace which he hath purchased and conferreth As we may see that magnitude of the Stars in a Telescope which without it no Eye can discern so may we see that glory of the love of God by the Gospel of Jesus which all common natural helps are insufficient to discover to such minds as ours LOVE is the great Attribute which Christ came principally to manifest as was afore-said Joh. 3.16 1 Joh. 3.1 c. And love is the great Lesson which he came to teach us and love is the new nature which by his Spirit he giveth us And love is the great duty which by Law and Gospel he requireth of us Love hath wrought its Miracles in Christ to the posing of the understandings of Men and Angels There we may see God in the nearest condescending Unity with Man In Christ we may see the divine wisdom and word incorporate in such Flesh as ours conceived in a Virgin by the power of the Spirit of Love by which Spirit this Incorporate Word did Live Preach Converse familiarly with Man work Miracles heal Diseases suffer reproachful Calumnies and Death Rising Triumphing Ascending Interceeding sending the Embassies of Love to the World calling Home the greatest sinners unto God reconciling Enemies and making them the Adopted Sons of God forgiving all sin to penitent Believers quickening dead Souls illuminating the Blind and sanctifying the Wicked by the Spirit of Life and Light and Love and making it his Office his Work his Delight and Glory to rescue the miserable Captives of the Devil and to make Heirs of Heaven of those that were condemned to Hell and had forsaken Life in forsaking God. As this is shining burning love so it is approaching and self-applying love which cometh so near us in ways and benefits so necessary to us and so exceeding congruous to our case as that it is easier for us to perceive and feel it than we can do things of greater distance The clearer the Eye of Faith is by which we look into this mysterious Glass the more the wonders of Love will be perceived in it He never knew Christ nor understood the Gospel that wondered not at Redeeming saving love nor did he ever learn of Christ indeed that hath not learned the Lesson Work and Life of love Direct 4. Keep as full Records as you can of the particular Mercies of God to your selves and frequently peruse them and plead them with your frozen Hearts These are not the chiefest reasons of Christian love because we are such poor inconsiderable Worms that to do good to one of us is a far smaller matter than many things else that we have to think of for that end But yet when love doth chuse a particular Person for its object and there bestow its obliging Gifts it helpeth that Person far more than others to returns of thankfulness and love It 's that place that Glass which the Sun doth shine upon doth reflect its Beams rather than those that are shut up in darkness Self-love may and must be regulated and sanctified to the furthering of higher love It is not unmeet to say with David Psal 116.1 I love the Lord because he hath heard the voice of my supplication We should say as heartily I love the Lord because he hath prospered recovered comforted my Neighbour But this is not all so easie as the other And where God by personal application maketh our greatest duty easie we should use his helps Obj. But if it be selfishness as some tell us to love one that loveth us better than another of equal worth who doth not love us is it not selfishness to love God on so low an account as loving us God may say well I love those that love me Prov. 8.17 because to love him is the highest virtue but to love us is as inconsiderable as we are Ans 1. You may love another the more for loving you on several accounts 1. As it is a duty which God requireth him to perform but so you must love him equally
in a lower sort in the Soul that is Gods Image That is that the understandings most internal act viz. the knowing or perceiving when it knoweth any thing that it knoweth It is not really compounded of an act and an object as the knowledge of distinct objects is but that either its act is not properly to be called its object or that act and object are not two things but two inadequate conceptions of one thing And how doth the Soul perceive its own Volitions To say that Volitions which are acts of the Intellectual Soul must be sensate and so make a Species on the phantasie as sensate things do and be known only in that Species is to bring down the higher faculty and subordinate it to the lower that it may be intelligible while it is certain that we shall never here perfectly understand the solution of these difficulties is it not pardonable among other mens conjectures to say That the noble faculty of Sense because Brutes have it is usually too basely described by Philosophers And that Intellection and Volition in the rational Soul are a superior eminent sort of sensation transcending that of Brutes and that Intelligere Velle are eminenter sentire and that the Intellect doth by understanding other things eminently see or sense and so understand that it understandeth And that the will doth by willing feel that it willeth When I consult my Experience I must either say thus or else that Intellection and Volition so immediately ever move the Internal sense that they are known by us only as acts compounded with that sense But I am gone too far before I was aware IV. The Soul thus knowing or feeling its own acts doth in the next place rationally gather 1. That it hath power to perform them and is a substance so empowered 2. That there are other such substances with the like acts 3. And there is one prime transcendant substance which is the cause of all the rest which hath infinitely nobler acts than ours And thus Sense and Reason concur to our knowledge of God by shewing us and perceiving that Image in which by similitude we must know him The Fiery Ethereal or Solar Nature is at least the similitude of Spirits And by condescending similitude God in Scripture is called LIGHT and the FATHER of LIGHTS in whom is no darkness allowing and inviting us to think of his Glory by the similitude of the Sun or Light. But Intellectual Spirits are the highest Nature known to us and these we know intimately by most near perception By the similitude of these therefore we must conceive of God. A Soul is a self-moving Life or vital Substance actuating the Body to which it is united God is super-eminently Essential-Life perfect in himself as living Infinitely and Eternally and giving Being to all that is and Motion to all that moveth and Life to all that liveth A reasonable Soul is Essentially an understanding power And God is super-eminently an Infinite understanding knowing himself and all things perfectly A reasonable Soul is Essentially a rational Appetite or Will necessarily loving himself and all that is apprehended every way and congruously good God is super-eminently an Infinite Will or Love necessarily loving himself and his own Image which yet he freely made by communicative Love. All things that were made by this Infinite Goodness were made good and very good All his works of Creation and Providence however misconceived of by sinners are still very good All the good of the whole Creation is as the heat of this Infinite Eternal Fire of Love. And having made the World good in the good of Nature and the good of Order and the good of mutual Love he doth by his continual influx maintain and perfect it His Power moveth his Wisdom governeth and his Love felicitateth And man he moveth as man he Ruleth him by Moral Laws as man and he is his perfect Loâ—er and perfect amiable Object and End. As our Creator making us in this natural capacity and Relation as our Redeemer restoring and advancing us to blessed Union with himself and as our Sanctifier and Glorifier preparing us for and bringing us to Coelestial perfection And thus must God be conceived of that we may love him And false and defective conceptions of him as the great impediments of our love And we love him so little much because we so little know him And therefore it is not the true knowledge of God which Paul here maketh a competitor with love II. And as we know God by ascending from his Works and Image in the same order must our love ascend The first acts of it will be towards God in his works and the next will be towards God in his Relation to us and the highest towards God as Essentially perfect and amiable in himself I will therefore now apply this to the Soul that feareth lest he love not God because he perceiveth not himself either to know or love him immediately in the perfection of his Essence 1. Do you truely love the Image of God on the Soul of Man That is a Heavenly Life and Light and Love Do you not only from bare conviction commend but truly love a Soul devoted to God full of his love and living in obedience to his Laws and doing good to others according to his power This is to love God in his Image God is Infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness or Love To love true wisdom and goodness as such is to love God in his Works Especially with these two qualifications 1. Do you love to have Wisdom and Goodness and Love as Universal as is possible Do you long to have Families Cities Kingdoms and all the World made truly Holy Wise and united in Love to one another The most Universal Wisdom and Goodness is most like to God and to love this is to love God in his Image 2. Do you love Wisdom and Goodness in your selves and not in others only Do you long to be liker to God in your capacity and more near him and united to him That is Do you long to know him and his will more clearly and to enjoy a holy communion with him and his holy ones in the fullest mutual love loving and being beloved and to delight your Souls in his joyful praises in the communion of Saints This is certainly the love of God. Our union is by love he that would be united to God and his Saints in Jesus Christ that would fain know him more and love him better and praise and obey him joyfully in perfection doth undoubtedly love him And here I would earnestly caution you against two common deceits of men by counterfeit love I. Some think that they love God savingly because they love him as the God of Nature and cause of all the Natural Being Order and Goodness which is in the whole frame of Heaven and Earth This is to love somewhat of God or to love him secundum quid in one respect But if
believer to think that GOD IS Even that such a perfect glorious being is existent As if we heard of one man in another land whom we were never like to see who in wisdom love and all perfections excelled all men that ever were in the world the thoughts of that man would be pleasing to us and we should love him because he is amiable in his excellency And so doth the holy Soul when it thinketh of the infinite amiableness of God. 6. But the highest Love of the Soul to God is in taking in all his amiableness together and when we think of him as related to our selves as our Creater Redeemer Sanctifier and Glorifier and as related to all his Church and to all the world as the cause and end of all that is amiable and when we think of all those amiable works which these Relations do respect his Creation and Conservation of the whole world his Redemption of mankind his Sanctifying and Glorifying of all his chosen ones his wonderful mercies to our selves for Soul and Body his mercies to his Church on earth his unconceivable mercies to the glorified Church in Heaven the Glory of Christ Angels and Men and their perfect Knowledge Love and joyful praises and then think what that God is in himself that doth all this This Complexion of considerations causeth the fullest Love to God. And though unlearned persons cannot speak or think of all these distinctly and clearly as the Scripture doth express them yet all this is truly the Object of their Love though with confusion of their apprehensions of it But I have not yet done nor indeed come up to the point of tryal It is not every kind or degree of Love to God in these respects that will prove to be saving He is mad that thinks there is no God And he that believeth that there is a God doth believe that he is most powerful wise and good and therefore must needs have some kind of Love to him And I find that there are a sort of Deists or Infidels now springing up among us who are confident That all or almost all men shall be saved because say they all men do love God. It is not possible say they that a man can believe God to be God that is to be the Best and to be love itself and the cause of all that is good and amiable in Heaven and Earth and yet not love him The will is not so contrary to the understanding nor can be And say the same men he that loveth his neighbour loveth God for it is for his goodness that he loveth his Neighbour and that goodness is Gods goodness appearing in man He that loveth Sun and Moon and Stars Meat and Drink and pleasure loveth God for all this is Gods goodness in his works and out of his works he is unknown to us and therefore they say that all men Love God and all men shall be saved or at least all that love their Neighbours for God by is us no otherwise to be loved For answer to these men 1. It is false that God is no otherwise to be loved than as in our Neighbour I have told you before undeniably of several other respects or appearances of God in which he is to be loved And he that is not known to us as separate from all Creatures is yet known to us as distinct from all Creatures and is and must be so loved by us Else we are Idolaters if we suppose the Creatures to be God themselves and love and honour them as God Even those Philosophers that took God for the inseparable Soul of the World yet distinguished him from the World which they thought he animated and indeed doth more than animate 2. And it is false that every one loveth God who loveth his Neighbour or his Meat Drink and fleshly Pleasure or any of the accommodations of his sense For Nature causeth all men to love life and self and pleasure for themselves And these are beloved even by Atheists that believe not that there is a God! And consequently such men love their Neighbours not for God but for themselves either because they are like them or because they please them or serve their interest or delight them by society and converse as Birds and Beasts do love each other that think not of a God. And if all should be saved that so love one another or that love their own pleasure and that which serveth it not only all wicked men but most Brute Creatures should be saved If you say they shall not be damned it 's true because they are not Moral Agents capable of Salvation or Damnation nor capable of Moral Government and Obedience and therefore even the Creatures that kill one another are not damned for it But certainly as man is capable of Salvation or Damnation so is he of somewhat more as the means or way than Brutes are capable of and he is saved or damned for somewhat which Brutes never do Many a thousand love the pleasure of their sense and all things and persons which promote it that never think of God or love him And it is not enough to say that even this natural good is of God and therefore it is God in it which they love for it will only follow that it is something made and given by God which they love while they leave out God himself That God is Essentially in all things good and pleasant which they love doth not prove that it is God which they love while their thoughts and affections do not include him 3. But suppose it were so that to love the Creature were to love God is not then the hating of the Creature the hating of God If those same men that love Meat and Drink and sensual Delight and love their Neighbours for the sake of these or for themselves as a Dog doth love his Master do also hate the holiness of Gods Servants and the holiness and justice of his Word and Government and that holiness and order of Heart and Life which he commandeth them do not these men hate God in hating these And that they hate them their obstinate aversation sheweth when no reason no mercy no means can reconcile their Hearts and Lives thereto 4. I therefore ask the Infidel Objector whether he shall be saved that loveth God in one respect and hateth him in another That loveth him as he causeth the Sun to shine the Rain to fall the Grass to grow and giveth Life and Prosperity to the World but hateth him as he is the Author of those Laws and Duties and that holy Government by which he would bring them to a voluntary right order and make them holy and fit for Glory and would use them in his holy Service and restrain them from their inordinate Lusts and Wills How can love prepare or fit any man for that which he hateth or doth not love If the love of fleshly interest and pleasure prepare or fit them to