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A63914 The praise of humility a sermon preached upon the 20th of March 1687 : being Palm-Sunday, at the Guild-Hall-chappel, London / by John Turner ... Turner, John, b. 1649 or 50. 1687 (1687) Wing T3314; ESTC R10525 16,061 42

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it is manifest in this case tho' in an equality of Substance of Land and Money of Goods and Chattels of Birth and Fortune that still he that hath the greater Authority is in truth and reality the Richer Man so that this Humility this Poverty of Spirit is when all is done the truest and the most valuable Riches And as in the case of Riches so also in that of Learning or Knowledge if we suppose two Men equally learned equally knowing with this diversity of temper between them the consequence of this will be in a mutual excellence on both sides that the one shall be admir'd and prais'd respected and lov'd follow'd and pointed at and crowded after but the other scarce ever taken notice of or regarded to his infinite trouble and vexation for this is the fate of Insolence and Pride that it is sure to be affronted and contemn'd and yet there is nothing that is so uneasie under it or that bears it with greatter Impatience and Resentment Though after all since the use of Learning is twofold First To instruct and ennoble a Mans self and Secondly To make him capable of instructing others and of being a public Blessing where he lives The Second of these Uses which is certainly the best and noblest is lost in the Arrogant and Assuming Man for Men had rather be Ignorant than be Magisterially taught or be imposed upon even by Truth it self commanding a Reverence not for it 's own sake by gentle and insinuating perswasion but upon account of the Brows and Forehead of its Teacher so that after all if we respect the true use of Learning though there be an equal extent of knowledge on both sides yet the Humble only is the truely the usefully the beneficially knowing Man. But I speak this only upon supposition that there can be such a thing as a very Proud and a very knowing person at the same time a thing which I can very hardly induce my self to believe for Humility is a temper that naturally leads to Knowledg by consideration and Coolness by industry and patience by not only enduring but loving with reason to be opposed and contradicted by correcting its mistakes and errors every Day as Astrologers do their Nativities by new thoughts new occurences and new events Humility insinuates it self by slow and gentle but sure and steady Progressions into the deepest Mysteries of Art and Nature Humility climbes up to Heaven and brings Heaven down by Telescopes to it self and makes the Stars fall down before it like the Angels of God ascending and descending upon Jacobs Ladder and that not in a Vision as it was with him but in some sort of reality and truth But Pride is impatient and makes too great hast to be Wise it takes up prejudices and will not forsake them it disdains to be mistaken and therefore will not relinquish its Errors it is impatient of contradiction and therefore cannot be instructed it Vaunts and Magnifies it self as having run through the whole course of Truth when it hath scarce performed the nearest Stage of that long wearisome and laborious Journey and that too with a very precipitant and hasty motion for the Proverb holds good in enquiries after Truth that the farthest way about is the nearest way home and that a cool humble considerate sober pace will with the greatest speed and with the most certain and assured safety conduct the Traveller to his Journies end Of the truth of this we have had a notorious instance in experience in this last Age of ours in the late Famous and Ingenious Author of the Leviathan I mean who as appears by some of his Performances was a Person qualifi'd by Nature for extraordinary things had they not been unhappily prevented by the Pride and Haughtiness of his temper he was got it shou'd seem into the Dogmatical Humor and was impatient of Contradiction from others though full of the Spirit of Contradiction himself ●e was resolved to be the Founder of a new Sect that should be called after his Name as there are but too many of his Disciples to be met with and he would needs be the Author and Inventer of new Notions and of new Hypotheses whither the Nature of things would bear them or no and from hence it came to pass that he became so blind that he could not see the Sun at Noon-day he could not discover the existence of a God neither did he take the consideration of him into the System of his Politics by which the main Pillar of Obligation was destroyed he was used to say that the Laws of every Nation were the only Law and Gospel when all was done and yet by his Principles he could at any time dispence not only with Positive Laws but with the Natural too which are of Moral Unalterable and Eternal Force so that according to him there is no standing Nature of things no principle of Conscience or of Obligation and what a vast absurdity in Politics this Doctrin is what Misery and Confusion it would introduce among Men whereever it is heartily Believed and Practiced a blinder Man then Mr. Hobs himself though ●e was blind enough may easily discern In his Natural Philosophy he hath been Unanswerably confuted and exposed by several learned Men and in his Mathematicks too so effectually taken to task that it hath been demonstrated plainly that he never was more mistaken than when he himself pretended to Demonstration and when he wrote his Book Contra Fastum Geometrarum against the Pride and Loftyness of the Mathematicians he discovered his own Pride and Ignorance together so necessary is Humility to Knowledg so dangerous nay so destructive to their design is it for Men that would be Learned to be Proud. And if we Translate Humility from Arts and Sciences to matters of Religion Humility though it do not Anathematize and Thunder is almost every whit as able to determin Controversies as a General Council and is as well qualified to preside in the Divinity Chair as any University Dictator of them all Humility is a sharp inquisitive and discerning Vertue and such as perswades the belief of what she teaches by very strong Arguments but by stronger temper and Men are willing to give Ear to what she says because they see plainly she hath no design upon them but only for their good they know her to be a very shrewd and learned Vertue that she hath used great industry in her inquiries after Truth and that she speaks her Mind with all imaginable frankness and sincerity and with a desire to scatter Knowledg and Happyness together which things of themselves without much use of Argument are a very fair step to Conviction But if she cannot bring all Men to be of a mind or if her own Subjects the Vassals and liege People of the humble Kingdom which is I am afraid no larger than the Territory of some Indian Princes if these themselves cannot all be united into one common Faith