by Certainty to overcome it 11. When a man hath attained a satisfying degree of perception he is capable still of clearer perception Even as when in the heating of water after all the sensible cold is gone the water may grow hotter and hotter still So after all sensible doubting is gone the perception may go clearer still 12. But still the Objective Certainty is the same that is There is that Evidence in the object which is in suo genere sufficient to notifie the thing to a prepared mind 13. But this sufficiency is a respective proportion and therefore as it respecteth mans mind in common it supposeth that by due means and helps and industry the mind may be brought certainly to discern this Evidence But if you denominate the sufficiency of the Evidence from its respect to the present disposition of mens minds so it is almost as various as mens minds are For recipitur ad modum recipientis and that is a certifying sufficient Evidence of truth to one man which to a thousand others is not so much as an Evidence of probability Therefore mediate and immediate sufficiency and certainty of Evidence must be distinguished From all this I may infer 1. That though God be the Original and End of all Verities and is ever the First in ordine essendi efficiendi and so à Jove principium in methodo syntheticâ yet he is not the primum notum the first known in ordine cognoscendi nor the beginning in methodo inquisitivâ though in such Analytical methods as begin at the ultimate end he is also the first Though all truth and evidence be from God yet two things are more evident to man than God is and but two viz. 1. The present evident objects of sense 2. Our own internal Acts of Intellective Cogitation and Volition And these being supposed the Being of God is the third evident Certainty in the World. 2. If it be no disparagement to God himself that he is less certainly known of us than sensibles and our Internal acts de esse it is then no disparagement to the Scripture and supernatural Truths that they are less certainly known Seeing they have not so clear evidence as the Being of God hath 3. The certainty of Scripture Truths is mixt of almost all other kinds of certainty conjunct 1. By sense and Intellective perception of things sensed the Hearers and See-ers of Christ and his Apostles knew the words and Miracles 2. By the same sense we know what is written in the Bible and in Church History concerning it and the attesting matters of Fact And also what our Teachers say of it 3. By certain Intellectual inference I know that this History of the words and fact is true 4. By Intellection of a natural principle I know that God is true 5. By inference I know that all his Word is true 6. By sense I know Intellectually receiving it by sense that this or that is written in the Bible and part of that word 7. By further inference therefore I know that it is true 8. By Intuitive knowledge I am certain that I have the Love of God and Heavenly desires and a Love of holiness and hatred of sin c. 9. By certain inference I know that this is the special work of the Spirit of Christ by his Gospel Doctrine 10. By experience I find the predictions of this Word fulfilled 11. Lastly By Inspiration the Prophets and Apostles knew it to be of God. And our certain Belief ariseth from divers of these and not from any one alone 5. There are two extreams here to be avoided and both held by some not seeing how they contradict themselves I. Of them that say that Faith hath no Evidence but the merit of it lyeth in that we believe without Evidence Those that understand what they say when they use these words mean that Things evident to sense as such that is Incomplex sensible objects are not the objects of Faith. We live by Faith and not by sight God is not visible Heaven and its Glory Angels and perfected Spirits are not visible Future Events Christs coming the Resurrection Judgment are not yet visible It doth not yet appear that is to sense what we shall be Our Life is hid from our own and others senses with Christ in God. We see not Christ when we rejoice in him with joy unspeakable and full of glory Thus Faith is the evidence of things not seen or evident to sight But ignorant Persons have turned all to another sense as if the objects of Faith had no ascertaining Intellectual Evidence When as it is impossible for mans mind to understand and believe any thing to be true without perceiving evidence of its truth as it is for the Eye to see without Light. As Rich. Hooker saith in his Eccl. Pol. Let men say what they will men can truly believe no further than they perceive Evidence It is a natural Impossibility For Evidence is nothing but the perceptibility of the Truth And can we perceive that which is not perceptible It 's true that evidence from Divine Revelation is oft without any Evidence ex natura rei But it may be nevertheless a fuller and more satisfying evidence Some say there is Evidence of Credibility but not of Certainty Not of natural Certainty indeed But in Divine Revelations though not in humane evidence of Credibility is Evidence of Certainty because we are certain that God cannot lie And to say I will believe though without Evidence of Truth is a contradiction or hypocritical self-deceit For your will believeth not And your understanding receiveth no Truth but upon evidence that it is Truth It acteth of itself per modum naturae necessarily further than it is sub imperio Voluntatis And the will ruleth it not despotically Nor at all quoad Specificationem but only quoad exercitium All therefore that your will can do which maketh Faith a moral Virtue is to be free from those vicious habits and acts in itself which may hinder faith and to have those holy dispositions and acts in itself which may help the understanding to do its proper Office which is to believe evident truth on the testimony of the revealer because his Testimony is sufficient Evidence The true meaning of a good Christian when he saith I will believe is I am truly willing to believe and a perverse will shall not hinder me and I will not think of suggestions to the contrary But the meaning of the formal hypocrite when he saith I will believe is I will cast away all doubtful thoughts out of my mind and I will be as careless as if I did believe or I will believe the Priest or my Party and call it a believing God. Evidence is an essentiating part of the Intellects act As there is no Act without an Object so there is no object sub formali ratione objecti without evidence Even as there is no sight but of an Illustrated
object that is A visible object II. The other extream of some of the same men is that yet Faith is not true and certain if it have any doubtfulness with it Strange That these men cannot only see what is invisible Believe what is inevident as to its truth that is incredible but also believe past all doubting and think that the weakest true believer doth so too Certainly there are various degrees of faith in the sincere All have not the same strength Christ rebuketh Peter in his fears and his disciples all at other times for their little faith When Peters faith failed not it staggered which Abrahams did not Lord increase our Faith and Lord I believe help my unbelief were prayers approved by Christ I will call a prevalent belief which can lay down Life and all this world for Christ and the hopes of Heaven by the name of certainty which hath various degrees But if they differ de nomine and will call nothing certainty but the highest degree they must needs yet grant that there is true saving faith that reacheth to no certainty in their sense Yea no man on Earth then attaineth to such a certainty because that every mans faith is imperfect To conclude Though all Scripture in itself that is indeed the true Canon be equally true yet all is not equally certain to us as not having equal evidence that it is Gods word But of that in the next Chapter of the uncertainties Chap. 6. What are the unknown things and uncertainties which we must not pretend a certain knowledge of SOmewhat of this is said already Cap. 3. But I am here to come to more particular instances of it But because that an enumeration would be a great Volume of it self I shall begin with the more general that I may be excused in most of the rest or mention only some particulars under them as we go I. A very great if not the far greatest part of that part of Philosophy called Physicks is uncertain or certainly false as it is delivered to us in any methodist that I have yet seen whether Platonists Peripateticks Epicureans the Stoicks have little but what Seneca gives us and Barlaam Collecteth I know not whence as making up their Ethicks and what in three or four Ethical writers is also brought in on the by and what Cicero reporteth of them or in our Novelists Patricius Telesius Campanella Thomas White Digby Cartesius Gassendus c. Except those whose modesty causeth them to say but little and to avoid the uncertainties or confess them to be uncertainties To enumerate instances would be an unseasonable digression Gassendus is large in his Confessions of uncertainties I think not his Brother Hobs and his second Spinosa worth the naming Nor the Paracelsians and Helmontians as giving us a new Philosophy but only as adding to the old There needs no other testimony of uncertainty to a man that hath not studied the points himself than their lamentable difference and confutation of each other in so many very many things even in the great Principles of the Science Yet here no doubt there are certainties innumerable certainties such as I have before described We know something certainly of many things even of all sensible objects But we know nothing perfectly and comprehensively not a worm not a Leaf not a Stone or a Sand not the Pen Ink or Paper which we write with not the hand that writeth nor the smallest particle of our bodies not a hair or the least accident In every thing nearest us or in the world the uncertainties and incognita are far more than that which we certainly know II. If I should enumerate to you the many uncertainties in our common Metaphysicks yea about the Being of the Science and our common Logick c. It would seem unsuitable to a Theological discourse And yet it would not be unuseful among such Theologues as the Schoolmen who resolve more of their doubts by Aristotle than by the Holy Scriptures doubtless as Aristotles Predicaments are not fitted to the kinds of beings so many of his distributions and orders yea and precepts are arbitrary And as he left room and reason for the dissent of such as Taurellus Carpenter Jacchaeus Gorlaeus Ritschel and abundance more so have they also for mens dissent from them Even Ramus hath more adversaries than followers Gassendus goeth the right way by suiting verba rebus if he had hit righter on the nature of things themselves Most novel Philosophers are fain to make new Grammars and new Logicks for words and notions to fit their new conceptions as Campanella and the Paracelsians Helmontians and if you will name the Behmenists Rosicrucians Weigelians c. Lullius thought he made the most accurate Art of notions and he did indeed attempt to fit words to things but he hath mist of a true accomplishment of his design for want of a true method of Physicks in his mind to fit his words to As Cornelius Agrippa who is one of his chief commentators yet freely confesseth in his lib. de Vanitate Scientiarum which now I think of I will say no more of this but desire the Reader to peruse that laudable book and with it to read Sanchez his Nihil Scitur to see uncertainty detected so he will not be led by it too far into Scepticism As also Mr. Glanviles Scepsis Scientifica As for the lamentable uncertainties in Medicine the poor world payeth for it Anatomy as being by ocular inspection hath had the best improvement And yet what a multitude of uncertainties remain Many thousands years have millions yearly died of Feavers and the medicating them is a great part of the Physicians work and yet I know not that ever I knew the man that certainly knew what a Feaver is I crave the pardon of the Masters of this noble art for saying it It is by dear experience that I have learnt how little Physicians know having passed through the tryal of above thirty of them on my own Body long ago meerly induced by a conceit that they knew more than they did and most that I got was but the ruine of my own body and this advice to leave to others Highly value those few excellent men who have quick and deep conjecturing apprehensions great reading and greater Experience and Sober Careful Deliberating minds and had rather do too little than too much But use them in a due conjunction with your own experience of your self But for the rest how Learned soever whose heads are dull or temper precipitant or apprehensions hasty or superficial or reading small but especially that are young or of small experience love and honour them but use them as little as you can and that only as you will use an honest ignorant Divine whom you will gladly hear upon the certain Catechistical Principles but love not to hear him meddle with Controversies So use these men in common easie cases if necessary and yet there the less
By doing thus the Church notoriously declared that they took not all the Scripture to be equally necessary to be understood but that the Govenant of Grace and the Catechism explaining it is the Gospel it self that is the Essence of it and of the Christian Religion and that all the rest of the Scriptures contain but partly the Integrals and partly the Accidents of that Religion He is the wisest man that knoweth Most and Best and every man should know as much of the Scriptures as he can But if you knew all the rest without this the Covenant of Grace and its explication it would not make you Christians or save you But if you know this truly without all the rest it will. The whole Scripture is of great use and benefit to the Church It is like the body of a man which hath its Head and Heart and Stomach c. And hath also Fingers and Toes and flesh yea Nails and Hair. And yet the Brain and Heart it self fare the better for the rest and would not be so well Seated separate from them Though a man may be a man that loseth even a Leg or Arm. So is it here But it is the Covenant that is our Christianity and the duly Baptized are Christians whatever else they do not understand These are the things that all must know and daily live upon The Creed is but the Exposition of the three Articles of the Baptismal Covenant I believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Though the Jews that had been bred up to a preparing knowledge were quickly baptized by the Apostles upon their Conversion Acts 2. Yet no man can imagine that either the Apostles or other Ministers did use to admit the Ignorant Gentiles into the Covenant of God without opening the meaning of it to them or Baptize them as Christians without teaching them what Christianity is Therefore Reason and the whole Churches subsequent Custom assure us that the Apostles used to expound the three great Articles to their Catechumens And thence it is called The Apostles Creed Marcus Bishop of Ephesus told them in the Florentine Council as you may see Sgyropilus that we have none of the Apostles Creed And Vossius de Symbolis besides many others hath many Arguments to prove that this so called was not formally made by the Apostles Bishop Usher hath opened the changes that have been in it Sandford and Parker have largely de Descensu shewed how it came in as an Exposition of the Baptismal Articles Others stifly maintain that the Apostles made it But the case seemeth plain The Apostles used to call the Baptized to the profession of the same Articles which Paul hath in 1. Cor. 15.1 2 3 c. and varied not the matter All this was but more particularly to profess Faith in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Two or three further Expository Articles are put into the Creed since Otherwise it is the same which the Apostles used not in the very syllables or forms of words but in the same sense and the words indeed being left free but seldom much altered because of the danger of altering the matter Of all the Antientest Writers not one repeateth the Creed in the same words that we have it nor any two of them in the same with one another Irenaeus once Tertullian twice hath it all in various words but the same sense That of Marcellus in Epiphanius cometh nearest ours called the Apostles and is almost it Afterward in Ruffinus and others we have more of it Yet no doubt but the Western Churches at least used it with little variation still The Nicene Creed is called by some Antients the Apostles Creed too And both were so for both are the same in sense and substance For it is not the very words that are truly fathered on the Apostles About 30â— years a go Mr. Ashwel having published a Book for the Necessity and Honour of the Creed I wrote in the Postscript to my Reformed Pastor Ed. 2. a Corrective of some passages in which he seemeth to say too much for it or at least to depress the Scripture too much in comparison of it But long experience now telleth me that I have more need to acquaint men with the Reasons and Necessity of the Creed Seeing I find a great part of ignorant Religious people much to slight the use of it and say It is not Scripture but the work of man Especially taking offence at the harsh translatiâ—n of that Article He descended into Hell. which from the beginning it 's like was not in It is the Kernel of the Scripture and it is that for which the rest of the Scripture is given us even to afford us sufficient help to understand and consent to the Covenant of Grace that our Belief our Desires and our Practice may be conformed principally to these Summaries It is not every Child or Woman that could have gathered the Essential Articles by themselves out of the whole Scripture if it had not been done to their hands Nor that could have rightly methodized the Rule of our desires or gathered the just heads of natural duty if Christ had not done the first in the Lords Prayer and God the second in the Decalogue Obj. But I believe these only because the Matter of the Creed and the words also of the other two are in the Scripture and not on any other Authority Ans If you speak of the Authority of the Author which giveth them their truth it is neither Scripture nor Tradition but God for whose Authority we must believe both Scripture and them But if you speak of the Authority of the Deliverers and the Evidence of the Delivery be it known to you 1. That the Creed Lords Prayer Decalogue and the Baptismal Covenant have been delivered down to the Church from the Apostles by a distinct Tradition besides the Scripture Tradition Even to all the Christians one by one that were Baptized and admitted to the Lords Table and to every particular Church So that there was not a Christian or Church that was not even Constituted by them 2. Be it known to you that the Church was long in possession of them before it had the Scriptures of the New Testament It 's supposed to be about eight years after Christ's Ascension before Matthew wrote the first Book of the New Testament and near the year of our Lord one hundred before the Revelation was written And do you think that there were no Christians or Churches all that while Or that there was no Baptism Or no Profession of the Christian Faith in distinct Articles No Knowledge of the Lords Prayer and Commandements No Gospel daily preached and practised What did the Church-assemblies think you do all those years No doubt those that had Inspiration used it by extraordinary gifts But that was not all Those that had not did preach the Substance of the Christian Religion contained in these forms and did Pray and Praise God
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
all that are of late discovery in the West-Indies or elsewhere are found to be so rude and barbarous some little differing from subtile Brutes When the vast Regions of Africk of Tartary and other parts of Asia are no wiser to this day When the Roman Eastern Empire so easily parted with Christianity and is turned to so much barbarous ignorance this sheweth what we are For these men are all Born as capable as we VII Especially the sottish Opinions which the Heathen and Mahometan World do generally entertain do tell us how dark a Creature man is That four parts of the whole World if not much more that is unknown should receive all the sottish Opinions as they do both against the light of Nature knowing so little of God and by such vain conceits of their Prophets and petty Deities That above the fifth part of the known World should receive and so long and quietly retain so sottish an Opinion as Mahometanism is and Build upon it the hopes of their Salvation If the Greek Church can be corrupted into so gross a foolery why may not the Latine and the English if they had the same temptations O what a sad proof is here of humane folly VIII But in the Latine Church be it spoken without any comparing Mahometanism with Christianity the wonder is yet greater and the discovery of the fallaciousness of mans understanding is yet more clear Were there no proof of it but the very being of Popery in the World and the reception of it by such and so many it affordeth the strongest temptation that ever I thought of in the World to the Brutist to question whether Instinct advance not Brutes above man The Brutes distrust not their right disposed senses but the Papists not only distrust them but renounce them Bread is no Bread and Wine is no Wine with them All mens senses are deceived that think otherwise It is necessary to Salvation to believe that Gods natural Revelations to sense here are false and not to be believed Every man that will be saved must believe that Bread is no Bread that Quantity Locality Colour Weight Figure are the Quantity Locality Colour Weight Figure of nothing And God worketh Grand Miracles by every Priest as frequently as he Consecrateth in the Mass And if any man refuse to Swear to this Renunciation of Humane Sense and the Truth of these Miracles he must be no Priest but a combustible Heretick And if any Temporal Lord refuse to exterminate all those from their Dominions who will believe their Senses and not think it necessary to renounce them as deceived he must be Excommunicated and Dispossest himself his Subjects absolved from their Oaths and Allegiance and his Dominions given to another And this is their very Religion being the Decree of a great General Council questioned indeed by some few Protestants but not at all by them but largely vindicated Later sub Innoc. 3. Can. 1 3. The sum is No man that will not renounce not only his Humanity but his Animality must be suffered to live in any ones Dominions and he that will suffer men in his Dominions must be himself turned out this is plain truth And yet this is the Religion of Popes and Emperors and Kings of Lords and Councellors of Prelates and Doctors Universities Churches and famous Kingdoms and such as men all these wise men dare lay their Salvation upon and dare Massacre men by Thousands and Hundred Thousands upon and Burn their Neighbours to Ashes upon and what greater confidence of certainty can be exprest And yet shall man be proud of Wit O what is man How dark how sottish and mad a thing All these great Princes Doctors Cardinals Universities and Kingdoms are Born with Natures as capacious as ours They are in other things as wise They pity us as Hereticks because we will not cease to be men The Infidel that denieth mans Reason and Immortality would but level us with the Brutes and allow us the pre-eminence among them in subtlety But all these Papists Forswear or Renounce that Sense which is common to Brutes and us and sentence us either below the Brutes or unto Hell. Pretend no more poor man to great knowledge as the sight of a Grave and a rotten Carcass may humble the Fool that is proud of Beauty so the thought of the Popish Mahometan and Heathen World may humble him that is proud of his understanding I tell thee man thou art capable of that madness as to believe that an Ox or an Onion is a God or to believe that a bit of Bread is God yea more to believe as necessary to Salvation that thy own and all mens senses about their proper objects are deceived and the Bread which thou seest and eatest is no Bread yea though it be three times in the three next verses 1 Cor. 11. Called Bread after Consecration by an inspired Expositor of Christs words IX Moreover the poverty of mans understanding appeareth by the great time and labour that must be bestowed for Knowledge We must be Learning as soon as we have the use of reason and all our Life must be bestowed in it I know by experience Knowledge will not be got without long hard and patient studies O what abundance of Books must we read What abundance of deep Meditations must we use What help of Teachers do we need And when all 's done how little do we obtain Is this an Intellect to be proud of X. And it is observable how every man slighteth anothers Reasons while he would have all to magnify his own All the Arguments that in disputation are used against him how frivolous and foolish are they All the Books that are written against him are little better than Nonsence or Heresie or Blasphemy Contempt is answer enough to most that is said against them And yet the men in other mens Eyes are perhaps wiser and better than themselves Most men are fools in the judgment of others Whatever side or party you are of there are many parties against you who all pity your ignorance and judge you silly deceived Souls So that if one man be to be believed of another and if the most of mankind be not deceived we are all poor silly cheated Souls But if most be deceived mankind is a very deceivable creature How know I that I must believe you when you befool twenty other Sects any more than I should believe those twenty Sects when they as confidently befool you if no other Evidence turn the Scales XI And verily I think that the Wars and Contentions and Distractions of the Kingdoms of the World do shew us that man is a pitiful silly deceiveable thing I am not at all so sharp against Wars and Souldiers as Erasmus was But I should think that if men were wise they might keep their peace and save the lives of thousands which must be dearly answered for Were all the Princes of Christendom as wise as proud wits conceit
is conversing only with those of our own mind and side and interest and not seeking familiar loving acquaintance with those that differ from us Whereby men deprive themselves of hearing half that is to be heard and of knowing much that is to be known And their proud Vice hardeneth them in this way to say I have read and I have heard enough of them I know all that they can say And if a man soberly speak to them their Vices of Pride Presumption and Passion will scarce patiently bear him to go on without interruption to the end but the Wizzard saith I know already what you will say and you are tedious and do you think that so wise a man as I hath nothing to do but hear such a Fool as you talk Thus proud men are ordinarily so full of themselves that they can scarce endure to hear or at least learn any thing from others nor restrain their violent list to speak so long as either just information or humane civility requireth XV. Another Cause is Malignity and want of Christian Love whereby men are brought if not to a hatred yet to a proud contempt of others who are not of their mind and side and way O they are all as foolish and bad as any one hath list to call them and he that raileth at them most ingeniously and impudently giveth them but their due And will a man full of Himself and his Own be moved from his presumptions by any thing that such a hated or scorned people can say Nay will he not be hardened in his self-conceit because it is such as these that contradict him Many such Causes of this Vice there be but PRIDE and IGNORANCE are the proper Parents of it whatever else be the Nurse or Friend Chap. XX. Objections answered I Easily foresee that besides the foresaid impediments all these following Objections will hinder the Cure of false pretended knowledge and self-conceitedness and false Belief if they be not answered Obj. I. You move men to an Impossibility To see without light and for an erring man to believe that he erreth He that hath not light to see the truth hath not light to see his ignorance of it This is no more than to perswade all men to be wise and not to err which you may do long enough to little purpose Ans It is impossible indeed for an erring man while such to know that he erreth but it is not impossible 1. For an ignorant man to know that he is ignorant nor for a man without light or sight to know that he seeth not though he cannot see that he seeth not For though Nescience be Nothing and Nothing is not properly and directly an Object of our Knowledge no more than of our Sight Yet as we see the limited quantity of substances and so know little from big by concluding that it hath no more quantity than we see so we know our own knowledge both as to Object and Act and we know the degree of it and to what it doth extend And so can conclude I know no more And though Nescience be nothing yet this Proposition I know no more is not nothing And so nothing is usually said to be known Reductively but indeed it is not properly known at all but this proposition de nihilo is known which is something I will not here meddle with the question whether God know non-entities 2. To think and to know are not all one For I may think that I may know that is I study to know Now I can know that I study or think and I can perceive that my studies reach not what I desire to reach but fall short of satisfaction And so as in the Body though emptiness be nothing and therefore not felt as nothing yet a hungry man feeleth it in the consequents by accident that is feeleth that by which he knoweth that he is empty And so it is with a Student as to knowledge 3. And a man that hath so much experience as we all have of the stated darkness of our understandings and frequent errors may well know that this understanding is to be suspected and so blind a Guide not over-confidently and rashly to be trusted 4. And a man that knoweth the danger of Errour may know that it is a thing that he should fear And fear should make him cautelous 5. And though an erring man while such cannot know that he erreth yet by the aforesaid means he may cease to err and know that he hath erred 6. And lastly It is a shame for a man to be unacquainted with himself and especially with his understanding and not to know the measure of his knowledge it self Obj. II. You talk like a Cartesian that must have all that would know suppose first that they know nothing no not that he feeleth and liveth Ans No such matter Some things we know necessarily and cannot chuse but know For the Intellect is not free of it self but only as quoad exercitium actus it is sub imperio voluntatis And it is vain to bid men not to know what they cannot chuse but know And it is as vain to tell them that they must suppose falsly that they know not what they know as a means to know For ignorance is no means to knowledge but knowledge is One act of knowledge being necessary to more and therefore not to be denied I have told you before what certainties are which must be known and never forsaken Obj. III. But your discourse plainly tendeth to draw men to Scepticism and to doubt of all things Ans 1. I tell you I describe to you many certainties not to be doubted of 2. And it is indeed your prefidence that tendeth to Scepticism as is shewed For men that believe hastily and falsly find themselves so oft deceived that at last they begin to doubt of all things It is Scepticism which I prevent 3. But I confess to you that I am less afraid of Scepticism in the World than ever I was as finding corrupt nature so universally disposed the contrary way As when I first saw the Books of Jacob Behmen and some such others I adventured to Prognosticate that the Church would never be much indangered by that Sect or any other which a man cannot understand and join in without great study and acuteness because few men will be at so much labour even so I say of Scepticism here and there a hard-impatient half-knowing Student may turn Sceptick but never any great number For Pride and Ignorance and other causes of self-conceitedness are Born in all men and every man that apprehendeth any thing is naturally apt to be too confident of his apprehensions and few will have the humility to suspect themselves or the patience and diligence to find out difficulties I must say in my Experience that except the Congregation which I long instructed and some few-such I meet with few Women Boys or unlearned men when they are past 18 or
20 years old but they are in conceit wiser than I and are still in the right and I am in the wrong in things Natural Civil Religious or almost any thing we talk of if I say not as they say and it is so hard to abate their confidence or convince them that I have half ceased to endeavour it but let every one believe and say what he will so it be not to the dishonour of God the wrong of others and the hazard of his Salvation For I take it for granted before-hand that contradiction ofter causeth strife than instruction and when they take not themselves for Scholars they seldom learn much of any but themselves And their own thoughts and experience must teach them that in many years which from an Experienced man they might have cheaplier learnt in a few days Obj. IV. You speak against taking things on trust and so would keep Children from Believing and Learning of their Parents and Masters and from growing wise Ans I oft tell you that humane faith is a necessary help to Divine Faith But it must not be mistaken for Divine Faith. Men are to be believed as fallible men But in some things with diffidence and in some things with confidence and in some things where it is not the speakers credit that we rely upon but a Concurrence of Testimonies which make up a natural certainty Belief and Knowledge go together and the thing is sure But man is not God. Obj. V. May not a man more safely and Confidently believe by the Churches Faith than his own That is take that for more certain which all men believe than that which I think I see a Divine word for my self Ans This is a Popish Objection thus confusedly and fallaciously often made 1. Properly No man can believe by any faith but his own any more than understand with any understanding but his own But the meaning being that we may better trust to the Churches Judgment that this or that is Gods word than to our own perswasion that it is Gods word from the Evidence of the Revelation I further answer 2. That the Churches Judgment is one part of our subordinate motive and therefore not to be put in competition with that Divine Evidence which it is always put in Conjunction with And the Churches Teaching is the means of my coming to know the true Evidences of Divinity in the word And the Churches real Holiness caused by that word is one of the Evidences themselves and not the least Now to put the question Whether I must know the Scripture to be Gods word because I discern the Evidences of its Divinity or rather because the Church Teacheth me that it is Gods word or because the Church saith it is Gods word or because the Church is Sanctified by it are all vain questions setting things conjunct and co-ordinate as opposite 1. By the Churches Judgment or Belief I am moved to a high Reverence of Gods word by a very high Humane Faith supposing it credible that it may be Gods word indeed 2. Next by the Churches or Ministers Teaching the Evidences of Divinity are made known to me 3. The Effect of it in the Churches Holiness is one of these Evidences 4. And by that and all other Evidences I know that it is Gods word 5. And therefore believe it to be true This is the true Order and Resolution of our Faith. 3. But because the Popish Method is barely to believe the Scripture to be Gods word because a Pope and his Council judgeth so I add 1. That we have even of that humane sort of Testimony far more than such For theirs is the Testimony of a self exalting Sect of Christians about the third part of the Christian world But we have also the Testimony of them and of all other Christians and in most or much of the matter of Fact that the Scriptures were delivered down from the Apostles the Testimony of some Heathens and abundance of Hereticks 2. And with these we have the Evidences of Divinity themselves 3. But if we had their Churches or Pope and Councils Decrees for it alone we should take it but for a humane Fallible Testimony For 1. They cannot plead Gods word here as the proof of their Infallibility For it is the supposed question what is Gods word which they say cannot be known but by their Infallible Judgment 2. And they cannot plead number for 1. The Mahometans are more than the Christians in the world Brierwood reckoneth that they are six parts of thirty we but five And yet not therefore Infallible nor Credible 2. And the Heathens are more than the Mahometans and Christians being four sixth parts of the world and yet not infallible But of this I have the last week wrote a Book of the certainty of Christianity without Popery and heretofore my safe Religion and others Obj. VI. At least this way of Believing and Knowing things by proper Evidences of Truth will loosen the common sort of Christians even the godly from their Faith and Religion For whereas now they quietly go on without doubting as receiving the Scriptures from the Church or their Teachers as the word of God when they fall on searching after proofs they will be in danger of being overcome by difficulties and filled with doubts if not apostatizing to Infidelity or turning Papists Ans Either these persons have already the Knowledge of Certain Evidence of the Divinity of the Scripture or Christianity or they have none If they have any the way of studying it more will not take it from them but increase it Else you dishonour Christianity to think that he that knoweth it to be of God will think otherwise if he do but better try it Upon search he will not know less but more But if he have no such certainty already 2. I further answer that I take away from him none of that humane belief which he had before If the belief of his Parents Teachers or the Church only did satisfy him before which was but a strong probability I leave with him the same help and probability and only perswade him to add more and surer arguments And therefore that should not weaken but confirm his Faith. Obj. But you tell him that the Churches or his Teachers Judgment or word is uncertain and that sets him on doubting Ans 1. I tell him of all the Strength and Credibility that is in it which I would have him make use of 2. And it is not alone but by his Teachers help that I would have him seek for certainty 3. But if he did take that Testimony for certain which was not certain If he took man for God or took his Teachers or Pope for inspired Prophets and a humane Testimony for Divine do you think that this errour should be cherished or cured I think that God nor Man have no true need of a lie in this case and that lies seldom further mens Salvation And that
which is desireable When one man nameth GOD he hath an orderly conception of his several Attributes in which yet all men are defective and most Divines themselves are culpably ignorant When another man conceiveth but of fewer of them and that disorderly And yet these must not be accounted Atheists or denied to believe in the same God or refused Baptism nor is it several Gods that men so differently believe in I. He that knoweth God to be a most perfect Spirit most powerful Wise and Good the Father Son and Holy Ghost the Creator of the world our Owner Governour and most Amiable Lover Benefactor and End I think knoweth as much of God as is of necessity to Baptism and Church Communion II. He that knoweth that Jesus Christ is God and man the Redeemer of the sinful world and the Mediator between God and Man who was conceived by the Holy-Ghost in the Virgin Mary fulfilled all righteousness was crucified as a Sacrifice for mans sin and being dead and buried rose again and ascended into Heaven and is the Teacher King and Intercessor of his Church and hath made the new Covenant and giveth the Holy-Ghost to sanctify believers and pardoneth their sins and will raise our Bodies at last and Judge the World in righteousness according to his Gospel and will give everlasting happiness to the Sanctified I think knoweth as much of Christ as is necessary to Baptism and Church Communion III. He that knoweth that the Holy Ghost is God proceeding from the Father and the Son the sanctifier of Souls by Holy Life and Light and Love by the Holy Gospel of which he is the Inditer and the Seal I think knoweth all that is necessary unto Baptism concerning the Holy Ghost IV. And as to the Act of Knowing this Trinity of Objects there is great difference between 1. Knowing the Notions or Words and the matter 2. Between an orderly clear and a dark and more confused Knowledge 3. And between apt significant words and such as any way notify a necessary true conception of the mind 4. Between such a Knowledge as maketh a man Willing and Consent to give up himself to this Trinity in Covenant and that which prevaileth not for such consent And so 1. It 's true that we know not the Heart immediately and therefore must judge by Words and Deeds But yet it is the Knowledge of the Things as is aforesaid that is necessary to Salvation because it is the Love of the Things is chiefly necessary But by what words to express that Love or Knowledge is not of equal necessity in itself 2. There being no man whose conceptions of God Christ the Holy Ghost the Covenant c. are not guilty of darkness and disorder a great degree of darkness and disorder of conceptions may consist with true grace in those of the lowest rank of Christians 3. The second Notions and Conceptions of things and so of God our Redeemer and Sanctifier as they are verba mentis in the mind itself are but Logical Artificial Organs and are not of that necessity to Salvation as the conception of the matter or incomplex objects 4. Many a man in his studies findeth that he hath oft a general and true Knowledge of Things in themselves before he can put names and notions on them and set those in due Order and long before he can find fit words to express his mental notions by which must cost him much study afterward And as Children are long learning to speak and by degrees come to speak orderly and composedly and aptly mostly not till many years use hath taught them So the expressive ability is as much matter of art and got by use in men at age And they must be taught yet as Children to speak of any thing new and Strange and which they learned not before As we see in learning Arithmetick Geometry and all the Arts and Sciences Even so men how holy internally soever must by study and use by the help of Gods Spirit learn how to speak of holy things in Prayer in Conference in answering such as ask an account of their Faith and Knowledge And hypocrites that are bred up in the use of such things can speak excellently in Prayer Conference or Preaching When true Christians at first that never used them nor were bred up where they heard them used cannot tell you intelligibly what is in their minds but are like men that are yet to learn the very Language in which they are to talk in I know this by true experience of my self and many others that I have examined 5. Therefore I say again if men cannot aptly answer me of the very Essentials of Religion but speak that which in its proper sense is Heresie or unsound and false Yet if when I open the questions to them my self and put the Article of Faith into the question and ask them e. g. Do you believe that there is but One God or are there many Doth God know all things or not Is he our Owner or not Doth he rule us by a Law or not c If they by Yea or Nay do speak the truth and profess to believe it I will not reject them for lack of knowledge if the rest concur I meet with few censorious Professors to say nothing of Teachers that will not answer me with some nonsense or falseness or ineptitude or gross confusion or defectiveness if I examine them of the foregoing Notions of the very baptismal Covenant As what is a Spirit what doth the word God signifie what is Power in God what Knowledge what Will what Goodness what Holiness what is a Person in the Trinity what is the difference between the three Persons How is God our End Had Christ his humane Soul from the Virgin or only his flesh Had he his Manhood from Man if not his Soul which is the chief essential part what is the Union of the Divine and Humane Nature wherein different from the Union of God and Saints or every Creature with an hundred such In which I must bear with ignorant false answers from eminent Professors that separate from others as too ignorant for their Communion And why then must I not bear with more in those that are new beginners and have not had their time and helps 6. But if a man can speak never so well and profess never so confident a belief if he Consent not to the Covenant and Vow of Baptism to give up himself presently and absolutely to Christ I must reject that man from the Communion of the Church But if these two things do but concur in any 1. The foresaid signification of a tolerable Knowledge and Belief by yea or nay Dost thou Believe in God c. as the Ancient Churches used to ask the Baptized 2. And a ready professed consent to be engaged by that holy Vow and Covenant to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost I will not deny Baptism to such if Adult nor after Church
prevailed with him without that false belief of a deceiver When it is once become a Sanctifying Belief then there is no doubt but the Man hath better Evidence than the uncertain word of man He hath the witness in himself And it is not a Glorifying Faith till it be a Sanctifying Faith. But the Question is What soundness of Reason or proof that this is God's Word is necessary to make it a Sanctifying Faith at least as most prevalent and trusted in By this you may know what I judge of the Faith of honest illiterate Papists and of illiterate Protestants for a great number of them who live in Love and Obedience to God. And yet to speak both more concisely and distinctly I. I may believe by Historical Tradition all that matter of Fact which those that saw Christ's and the Apostles Miracles and heard their words did know by sense and those that saw not believed on the credit of the reporters II. And yet I may know by reason through God's help that these Miracles and this Scripture Impress and Efficacy are God's attestation and none but God could do it And of this all Believers have some perception in various degrees III. And then we know it to be true because it is sealed by those attestations and is the Word of God. Obj. VII But would you have men take the matters of Fact for uncertain that this is a true Bible and Copy and was given the Church by the Apostles c. and so not pretend to be certain of them Ans I have oft said and elsewhere largely proved that as 1. A Humane Faith of highest probability prepareth the way so 2. These things are known by an Historical Evidence which hath a proper certainty above meer Humane Faith For Humane Faith resteth on mens Veracity or Fidelity which is uncertain But there is a History such as that there is such a City as Rome Venice c. which is evident by a surer ground than mens fidelity even from such a concurrence of consenters and circumstances as will prove a forgery impossible Obj. VIII You seem to favour the Popish Doctrine of Ignorance while you would have all our Knowledge confined to a few plain and easie things and perswade men to doubt of all the rest Ans 1. I perswade no man to doubt of that which he is certain of but not to lie and say he is certain when he is not 2. I am so far from encouraging Ignorance that it is Ignorance of your Ignorance which I reprove I would have all men know as much as possibly they can of all that God hath revealed And if the self-conceited knew more they would doubt more and as they grow wiser will grow less confident in uncertainties It is not knowing but false pretending to know that I am against Do you think that a thousand self-conceited men and women do really know ever the more for saying they know or crying down that Ignorance Doubting and Uncertainty which they have themselves How many a one yea Preachers have cryed down the Popish Doctrine of Uncertainty of Salvation who had no Certainty of their own but their neighbours thought by their lives were certainly in the way to Hell. Obj. IX But you would have men resist the Spirit that convinceth them and make so long a work in doubting and questioning and proving every thing as that Christians will come but to little knowledge in your way Ans They will have the more knowledge and not the less for trying Peremptory confidence is not knowledge The next way here is farthest about Receive all Evidence from God and Man from the Word and Spirit with all the desire and all the delight and all the speed that possibly you can Study earnestly Learn willingly Resist no Light neglect no Truth But what 's all this to foolish conceit that you know what you do not What 's this to the hasty believing of falshoods or uncertainties and troubling the Church and World with self-conceit and dreams I remember two or three of my old acquaintance who suddenly received from a Seducer the Opinion of Perfection that we might be perfectly sinless in this life And because I denied it they carryed it as if I had pleaded for sin against perfection and they presently took themselves to be perfect and sinless because they had got the Opinion that some are such I told them that I desired Perfection as well as they and that I was far from hindering or disswading any from Perfection but wisht them to let us see that they are so indeed and never to sin more in thought word or deed And ere long they forsook all Religion and by Drunkenness Fornication and Licentiousness shewed us their Perfection So here it is not a conceit that men have Faith and Knowledge and quickly saying I believe or turning to the Priest or Party that perswadeth them which maketh them ever the wiser men or true Believers Obj. X. But that may seem certain to another which seemeth uncertain or false to you Therefore every man must go according to his own Light. Ans 1. Nothing is Certain which is not true If that seem True to you which is False this is your Errour And is every man or any man bound to err and believe a falsehood Being is before Knowing If it Be not true you may Think it to be so which is that which I would cure but you cannot Know it to be so much less be Certain of it 2. If it be Certain to you it is Evidently True And if so hold it fast and spare not It is not any mans Certainty but Errour which I oppose Obj. XI But if we must write or utter nothing but Certainties you would have but a small Library Ans 1. The World might well spare a great many uncertain Writings 2. But I say not that you must think say or write nothing but Certainties There is a lawful and in some cases necessary exercise of our understandings about Probabilities and Possibilities The Husbandman when he ploweth and soweth is not certain of an increase 1. But call not that certain which is not 2. And be not as vehement and peremptory in it as if it were a Certainty 3. And separate your Certainties and Probabilities asunder that confusion fill not your minds with Errour Obj. XII While you perswade us to be so diffident of mens reports and to suspend our belief of what men say you speak against the Laws of Converse Ans I perswade you not to deny any man such a Belief as is his due But give him no more If a man profess himself a Christian and say that he sincerely believeth in Christ and consenteth to his Covenant though you may perceive no ascertaining Evidence that he saith true yet you must believe him because he is the only opener of his own mind and the Laws of God and Human Converse require it But what is this believing him Not taking it for a
certain truth But taking it for a thing probable which may be true for ought you know and which you must hope is true and this in different degrees according to the different degrees of the Persons credibility If you hear men confidently report any News in these times when half that we hear oft proveth false you may believe the reporter as a fallible Person that is believe that he doth not wilfully Lie and so not uncivilly contradict him and yet suspend your belief of the thing it self and whether he took it up rashly on uncertain rumors But if you hear a man speak evil of another behind his Back when the thing is not notorious and certain otherways the Law of Justice and Charity obligeth you not to believe him but to suspend your belief till you hear both sides or have surer proof yea and to suspend not with an indifferency but with a hope that it is not true which he speaketh Obj. XIII But then I shall be as uncharitable in judging the Reporter who perhaps is a godly man to be a Liar and Slanderer as I should be in believing that the other is guilty Ans 1. I say not that you are to conclude that certainly he lieth and that it 's false but to suspend your belief and to hope that it 's false 2. He that maketh himself the accuser of another man behind his Back in a way of talk doth expose himself to that disadvantage and maketh it our duty to begin our charitable Opinion on the side of him that is accused and rather to hope that he is innocent caeteris paribus than the accuser For God forbiddeth backbiting and slandering and biddeth us speak evil of no man. And he that in our hearing backbiteth and speaketh evil how godly otherwise soever without a clear necessary cause doth forfeit our Charity and Belief more than a man can do whom we do not see or hear For if I was bound to judge him innocent before this backbiting I am bound so to judge him still Therefore I do but continue that good Opinion of my Neighbour which I was bound to And that I must suspect the backbiter of a Lie is the consequent of his own act and long of himself For I cannot believe contraries And it is not his backbiting which will disoblige me from my former duty of judging the other innocent So that it is the reporter that casteth away the reputation of his own veracity Obj. XIV When you have written all this against pretended knowledge who is more guilty than your self Who so oppresseth his Reader with distinctions Are all your large Writings evident certainties Even those Controversies in which you have so many Adversaries Ans I put in this objection because I have a Book called Methodus Theologiae which I know will occasion such thoughts in many Readers But 1. It is one thing to assert uncertainties and another thing to anatomize and distinctly and methodically explain a certain truth In all my large writings if you find that I call any thing certain which is uncertain that is which I give not ascertaining evidence of acquaint me with the particulars and I shall retract them 2. I never perswaded any man to write or say no more than all men certainly know already no not all Learned Divines For then how should we receive edification Subjective certainty is as various as mens Intellects where no two are of a size And objective certainty must be tryed by the evidence and not by other mens consenting to it Nor must a Major Vote of Dissenters go for a proof of objective uncertainty For Heathens are more than the rest of the World and Mahometans more than Christians and Papists more than Protestants and the ungodly more than the godly and yet this is no proof of our own or the things uncertainty 3. Part of my writings are against uncertainties and to deliver the Church from false Opinions that go for certainties and these are they that have most contradicters And may I not write against false and uncertain Opinions which Religion is corrupted with and defend the ancient simplicity without being guilty of the introduction of uncertainties my self 4. I deny not but I have many things that are uncertain But then I acknowledge them uncertain and treat of them but as they are 5. Lastly If really my writings are guilty of that which I here reprehend false pretended knowledge the sin is never the better for that nor my accusation of it ever the less true nor your duty to avoid it ever the less Think what you will of me so you will but think rightly of sin and duty If I go contrary to my Doctrine and you can prove it take warning by me and do not you the like Chap. XXI Directions for the cure of Pretended Knowledge or Self-conceit THE Cure of this Plague of Prefidence of Pretended Knowledge is it which all the rest is written for and must now be the last in Execution as it was the first in my intention And could men be perswaded to this following course it might be done But natures vitious inclination to the vice and the Commonness and Strength of Temptations to it do make me expect to prevail but with a few Direct I. Labour to understand the true Nature and Principles of Certainty before opened False measures will make you judge Certainties to be Falshoods or Uncertain and Falshoods to be certain truths And when you know the conditions of certainty try all things by them accurately And if any would by art perswade you of the uncertainty of Natures just perceptions by Sense or Intellect remember that be they what they will you have no better or surer They are such as our Creator hath given you to trust to for your use even for the ends of life Direct II. Discern the helps of Knowledge from Knowledge or Certainty itself Believing your Teachers as men and believing Historians according to their Credibility and Reverencing the Judgment of Seniors and of the Church are all preparative helps to Certainty And humane Faith is such as to Divine Faith. But do not therefore think that it is the same Nor give men that prerogative of Infallibility which belongeth to God or to inspired Prophets who prove their word by Gods attestation The belief of Logicians is needful to your understanding Logick and Logick is a great help to your certain discerning of Physical and Metaphysical and Moral Verities And yet many Rules of your Logick may be uncertain and you must not take the helps of your Knowledge for Evidence it self Some think that nothing is known till we have Second notions for it or can define it When things sensible are better known by sensing them and usually second notions deceive men and make them doubt of what they better apprehended without them Be very suspicious of all words or terms 1. As ambiguous as almost all are And therefore he that cannot distinguish them