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A37498 The tryal of spirits both in teachers & hearers wherein is held forth the clear discovery and certain downfal of the carnal and antichristian clergie of these nations / testified from the Word of God to the university-congregation in Cambridge by William Dell ; whereunto is added A plain and necessary confutation of divers gross errors delivered by Mr. Sydrach Simpson in a sermon preached to the same congregation at the commencement, Anno 1653 ; wherein (among other things) is declared, that the vniversities (according to their present statutes and practices) are not (as he affirmed) answerable to the schools of the prophets in the time of the law, but rather to the idolatrous high places ... Dell, William, d. 1664.; Simpson, Sidrach, 1600?-1655. A plain and necessary confutation of divers gross and antichristian errors. 1660 (1660) Wing D933; ESTC R219079 121,760 168

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his Wisdom neither is the Plain man hindered any thing by his Ignorance Yea if I may speak a wonderfull thing saith he Ignorance is more fit and ready to receive the Gospel then Wisdom And a Shepherd and a Plowman will sooner receive the Gospel and submit to it then a Scholar who lives in the strength of Humane Wisdom and Reason He farther saith there that where the Wisdom of God is as it is in the Gospel there is no need of Mans Wisdom as where the Sun is there is no need of a Candle And he concludes there this Matter thus That the Preaching of the Gospel is a Heavenly Thing and that Humane Wisdom and Learning cannot help herein but rather hinder And that therefore when Christ sent forth the first Teachers of the Gospel he took not Wise and Learned Philosophers that the Cross of Christ might not be made void and that the Faith of Christians should not stand in the Wisdom of Man but in the Power of God But he chose plain Fishermen Tent-makers Publicans Obscure Simple Poor Contemptible Ignorant and Unlearned Men And These overcame Kings Princes People Nations Greeks Philosophers Orators Sophisters they overcame the antient Manners Customs and the very Religion of the World also their Laws Judgements divers sorts of Punishments and innumerable kinds of Deaths and by all this saith he it was Manifest that their Preaching was not in Humane Wisdom but in the Grace of God And thus doth Chrysostom affirm and prove that Humane Learning doth not fit men to the Ministry of the Gospel but is rather a Hindrance thereunto and that the Grace of God only fits them for this Heavenly Work Hear also what Wickliff saith to this matter in his Book entituled The Path way to Perfect Knowledge where he sheweth that it is not Humane Learning that helps to understand the Scriptures and to profit in the study of Them but something more High and Heavenly His own words are these He whose heart is full of Love comprehendeth without any Error the manifold abundance and largest Teaching of Gods Scripture For Paul saith the fulness of the Law is Charity and in another place the End of the Law is Charity of clean Heart and good Conscience and of Faith unfeigned And Christ saith Thou shalt love thy Lord God of all thy Heart and of all thy Soul and of all thy Mind and thy Neighbour as thy self For in these two Commandments hangeth all the Law and the Prophets And as the root of all evil is Covetousness so the root of all good is Love Charity by which we love God and the Neighbour holdeth surely all the Greatness and Largeness of Gods Speeches Therefore if we have not leisure to search all the Holy Scriptures and to pierce into all the Privities of them hold thou Love whereon all things hang and so shalt thou hold that which thou learnest there and also that which thou learnest not For if thou know Charity thou knowest something whereon also that hangeth which thou knowest not And in that that thou understandest in Scripture Love is open and in that that thou understandest not Love is hid Therefore he that holdeth Love in Vertues or Good Life holdeth both that which is open and that which is hid in Gods Word And after speaking to the Clergy he saith Therefore Worldly Fools do ye first repent of your sins and forsake Pride and Covetousness and be ye meek and fear ye God in all things and love your Neighbour as your Self and then shall ye profit in the study of Holy Writ And this is a far other way to understand the Scriptures then Humane Learning And after he speaking of the Abominations of the University of Oxford saith thus The fourth Abomination is that it is now purposed to hinder Christian Men from learning freely Gods Law till they have spent nine or ten Years at Art or Philosophy which compredendeth many strong Errors of Heathen men against the Christian Belief It seemeth well that God will not cease from Vengeance till it and other things be punished sore For it seemeth that Worldly Clerks and feignedly Religious do this under pretence that simple Men of Wit and Knowledge know not Gods Law to preach it generally against sins in the Realm But wit ye Worldly Clerks and feignedly Religious that God both can and may if it liketh him speed Simple Men out of the University as much to know the Holy Scriptures as Masters in the University Wherefore he saith it is no great matter though Men of Good Will be not poysoned with Heathen mens Error nine or ten years together But let them live well and study the Holy Scriptures and preach truly and freely against open sins till death Thus He. Whereby he declares that the Scriptures are not to be understood by Humane Learning but by Faith and Love And that Humane Learning doth not prepare men to the Knowledge of the Word but rather corrupt them with Heathen mens Errors Tindal also that Apostle of England as Fox calleth him and blessed Martyr speaks thus to this matter They will say yet more shamefully meaning the Clergy That no man can understand the Scriptures without Philautia that is to say Philosophy A man must first be well seen in Aristotle ere he can understand the Scripture say they Now saith he Aristotles Doctrine is that the World was without Beginning and shall be without End and that the first Man never was and the last never shall be And that God doth all of Necessity neither careth what we do Without this Doctrine saith he Ironically how could we understand the Scripture that saith God Created the World of nought and God worketh all things of His free will and for a secret Purpose and that we shall Rise again and God will have Accounts of all that we have done in this life Aristotle saith Give a man a Law and he hath Power of Himself to do or fulfill the Law and becometh Righteous with working Righteously But Paul and the Scripture saith That the Law doth but utter sin only and helpeth not Neither hath any man power to do the Law till the Spirit of God be given him through faith in Christ. Is it not a madness then to say that we could not understand the Scripture without Aristotle Moreover Aristotles Felicity and Blessedness standeth in avoiding all Tribulations and in Riches Health Honor Worship Friends and Authority which felicity pleaseth our Spirituality well Now without these and a thousand such like points couldst thou not understand Scripture which saith that Righteousness cometh by Christ and not of Mans Will And how that Vertues are the Fruits and Gifts of Gods Spirit and that Christ blesseth us in Tribulations Persecution and Adversity How I say couldst thou understand the Scriptures without Philosophy in as much as Paul Col. 2. warned them to be ware lest any man spoil them that is to say