Of such as are able judiciously to resolve a difficulty to answer Cases of Conscience to defend the Truth to stop the mouths of all gainsayers and to Teach holy Doctrine clearly and in true Method without confusion or running into any extreams We bless God this Land and the other Reformed Churches have had a laudable degree of this mercy The Lord restore it to them and us and continue the comfortable measure that we possess XVII And it is a notorious discovery of the common Ignorance that a wise man is so hardly known And men that have not wisdom to imitate them have not wit enough to value them So that as Seneca saith He that will have the pleasure of wisdom must be content with it for it self without Applause Two or three approvers must suffice him The Blind know not who hath the best Eye-sight Swine trample upon Pearls Nay it is well if when they have increased knowledge they increase not sorrow And become not the mark of Envy and Hatred and of the venom of malignant Tongues and Hands yea and that meerly for their knowledge sake All the Learning of Socrates Demosthenes Cicero Seneca Lucane and many more and all the Learning and Piety of Cyprian and all the Martyrs of those ages of Boetius of the African Bishops that perished by Hunnerichus of Peter Ramus Marlorate Cranmer Ridley Philpot Bradford and abundance such could not keep them from a cruel Death All the excellency of Greg. Nazianzene Chrysostome and many others could not keep them from suffering by Orthodox Bishops no nor all the Holiness and Miracles of Martin Insomuch that Nazianzene leaveth it to his People as a mark of the man whom he would have them value and choose when he was dead This one thing I require that he be one of those that are envyed not pitied by others who obey not all men in all things but for the love of Truth in some things incurreth mens offence And of himself he professeth that Though most thought otherwise than he did that this was nothing to him who cared only for the truth as that which must condemn him or absolve him and make him happy or miserable But what other men thought was nothing to him any more than what another dreameth Orat. 27. page 468. And therefore he saith Orat. 26. p. 443. As for me I am a small and poor Pastor and to speak sparingly not yet grateful and accepted with other Pastors which whether it be done by right judgment and reason or by malevolence of mind and study of contention I know not And Orat. 32. p. 523. I am tired while I fight both with Speech and Envy with Enemies and with those that are our own Those strike at the Breast and obtain not their desire For an open Enemy is easily taken heed of But these come behind my back and are more troublesome Such obloquy had Hierome such had Augustine himself and who knoweth not that Envy is Virtues Shadow And what talk I of others when all godly men are hated by the world and the Apostles and Christ himself were used as they were and Christ saith Which of the Prophets did not your Fathers Kill and Persecute Math. 23. If Hating Persecuting Slandering Silencing Killing men that know more than the rest be a sign of wisdom the world hath been wise since Cains Age until this Even a Galilaeus a Savonarola a Campanella c. Shall feel it if they will be wiser than the rest So that Solomons warning Eccl. 7.16 concerneth them that will save heir Skin Be not Righteous over-much neither make thy self over wise Why wilt thou destroy thy self But again I may Prognosticate with Antisthenes in Laert. Then Cities are perishing when they are not wise enough to know the good from the bad And with Cicero Rhet. 1. That mans safety is desperate whose Ears are shut against the truth so that even from a Friend he cannot hear it XVIII And this leadeth me to the next discovery How rare wisdom is in the world in that the wisest men and Learnedst Teachers have so small Success How few are much the wiser for them If they praise them they will not Learn of them till they reach to their degree Men may delight in the sweetness of truth themselves but it is a Feast where few will strive for part with them A very few men that have first sprung up in obscure times have had great Success So had Origine at Alexandria and Chrysostom at Constantinople but with bitter sauce Pythagoras Plato and Aristotle at Athens and Augustine at Hippo had the most that History maketh mention of with Demosthenes and Cicero in Oratory Melanchthon at Wittenberge with Luther and Zwinglius in Helvetia and Calvin at Geneva prevailed much And now and then an age hath been fruitful of Learned Wise and Godly men And when we are ready to expect that each of these should have a multitude of Scholars like themselves suddenly all declineth and Ignorance and Sensuality get uppermost again And all this is because that all men are born Ignorant and Sensual But no man attaineth to any excellency of Wisdom without so long and laborious studies as the flesh will give leave to few men to perform So that he that hath most laboriously searcht for knowledge all his days knoweth not how to make others partakers of it No not his own Children of whom he hath the education Unless it be here and there one Scaliger one Paraeus one Tossanus one Trelcatius one Vossius c. how few excellent men do leave one excellent Son behind them O what would a wise man give that he could but bequeath all his wisdom to others when he dieth XIX And it 's evident that great Knowledge is more rare than Prefidence in that the hardest Students and most knowing men complain more than others of Difficulties and Ignorance When certainly other men have more cause They that study a little know little and think they know much They that study very hard but not to maturity oft become Sceptick and think nothing certain But they that follow it till they have digested their studies do find a certainty in the great and necessary things but confess their ignorance in abundance of things which the presumptuous are confident in I will not leave this out to escape the carping of those that will say that by this Character I proclaim my self one of the wisest as long as it is but the confession of my Ignorance which is their occasion But I will say as Augustine to Hierome Epist 29. Adversus eos qui sibi videntur scire quod nesciunt hoc tutiores sumus quod hanc ignorantiam nostram non ignoramus XX. Lastly Every mans nature in the midst of his pride is conscious of the Fallibility and Frailty of his own understanding And thence it is that men are so fearful in great matters of being over-reacht And where ever any conclusion dependeth upon a
yet the true ultimate end of all things is God himself And the love of God is the highest love And Gods Justice is not without that love of himself and tendeth to that good which he is capable of receiving which is but the fulfilling or complacency of his own will which is but improperly called his Receiving 2. And we little know how many in another World or in the renewed Earth are to be profited by his Justice on the damned as Angels and Men are by his Justice on the Devils 1. LOVE is the Life of Religion and of the Soul and of the Church And what can be a just pretence for any to destroy or oppose the very Life of Religion the Life of Souls and the Life of the Church of Christ Physick Blood-letting and Dismembring may be used for Life But to take away Life except necessarily for a Good that is better than that life is Murder And what is it that is better than the Life of Religion in all matters of Religion Or than the life of the Church in all Church affairs Or than the life of mens Souls in all matters of Soul concernment 2. LOVE is the great command and summary of all the Law And what can be a just pretence for breaking the greatest command yea and the whole Law 3. LOVE is Gods Image and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God who is LOVE and God in him And what can be a pretence sufficient for destroying the Image of God which is called by his name 4. There is nothing in man that God himself loveth better than our love And therefore nothing that as better can be set against it And yet alas what enmity is used in the World against the Love of God and Man and many things alledged as pretences to justify it Let us consider of some few of them 1. The great Tyrants of the World such as in several ages have been the Plagues of their own and neighbour Nations care not what havock they make of Religion and of mens lives by Bloody Wars and Cruel Persecutions destroying many thousands and undoing far more thousands of the Country Families where their armies come and sacrificing the lives of the best of their subjects by butcheries or flames And what is the pretence for all this Perhaps they would be Lords of more of the World and would have larger Kingdoms Or more honour Perhaps some Prince hath spoken a hard word of them or done them some wrong Perhaps some subjects believe not as they bid them believe or forbear not to worship God in a manner which they forbid them Perhaps Daniel will not give over praying for a time or the Apostles will not give over preaching or the three Confessors will not fall down to the Golden Image and so Nebuchadnezzar or the other Rulers seem despised And their wills and honour are an Interest that with them seemeth to warrant all this But how long will it seem so I had rather any friend of mine had the Sins of a Thief or Drunkard or the most infamous Sinner among us to answer for than the Sins of a Bloody Alexander Caesar or Tamerlane 2. The Roman Clergy set up Inquisitions force men by cruelties to submit to their Church Keys whose very nature is to be used without force and they silence yea torment the faithful Ministers of Christ and have murdered thousands of his faithful people raised rebellions against Princes and Wars in Kingdoms and taught men to hate Gods Servants as Hereticks Schismaticks Rebels Factious and what not And what pretence must justify all this Why the Interest of the Pope and Clergy called in ignorance or craft by the name of the Holy Church Religion Unity and such other honourable name But must their Church live on Blood and holy Blood And be built or preserved by the destruction of Christs Church Must their doctrine be kept up by silencing faithful Ministers and their worship by destroying or undoing the true worshippers of Christ Are all these precious things which die with Love no better than to be sacrificed to the Clergies Pride and Worldly lusts 3. Among many Schismaticks and Sectaries that are not miscalled so but are such indeed their Discipline consisteth in separating from most other Christians as too bad and that is too unlovely to be of their Communion and their Preaching is much to make those seem bad that is unlovely that are not of their way and their worship is much such as relisheth of the same envy and strife to add affliction or reproaches to their Brethren or to draw the people from the Love of others unto them And their ordinary talk is back-biting others for things that they understand not and reporting any lie that is brought them and telling the hearers something of this Minister or that person or the other that is unlovely as if Satan had hired them to Preach down Love and prate and pray down Love and all this in the name of Christ And the third chapter of James is harder than Hebrew to them they do not understand it but though they tear it not out of the Bible they leave it out of the Law in their Hearts as much as the Papists leave the Second Commandment out of their Books And it is one of the marks of a good man among them to talk against other parties and make others odious to set up them And what are the Pretences for all this Why Truth and Holiness 1. Others have not the Truth which they have And 2. Others are not against the same Doctrines and Ceremonies and Bishops and Church Orders and ways of worship which they are against and therefore are ungodly antichristian or men of no Religion But Truth seldom dwelleth with the Enemies of Love and Peace They that are Strangers and Enemies to it indeed do often cry it up and cry down those as Enemies to it that possess it The wisdom that hath bitter envying and heart-strife is from beneath and is earthly sensual and devilish I admonish all that care for their Salvation that they set up nothing upon love killing terms If you are Christs disciples you are taught of God to love each other you are taught it as Christs last and great Commandment You are taught it by the wonderful example of his life and specially Joh. 13.14 By his washing hiâ— disciples feet You are taught it by the Holy Ghosts uniting the hearts of the disciples and making them by Charity to live as in Community Acts 3. and 4. You are taught it by the Effective operation of the Spirit on your own hearts The new nature that is in you inclineth you to it And will you now pretend the necessity of your own Interest Reputation your Canons and things indifferent your little Church orders of your own making yea or the positive institutions of Christ himself as to the present exercise against this Love Hath Christ commanded you any thing before it except the
censuimus Is it possible that all the Clergy and Nobles of the Roman Kingdom can be so Ignorant of their own and other mens Ignorance as to take all the Decrees of the huge Volumes of their Councils for Certain Truths Either they were certain in their Evidence of Truth before they decreed them or not If they were so 1. How came the debates in the Councils about them to be so hard and so many to be dissenters as in many of them there were I know where Arrians or other Hereticks make up much of the Council it is no wonder But are the Certainties of Faith so uncertain to Catholick Bishops that a great part of them know not Certain Truths till the majority of Votes have told them they are certain Have the poor Dissenting-Bishops in Council nothing of certainty on which their own and all the poor peoples Faith and Salvation must depend but only this that they are over-voted As if the dissenters in the Council of Trent should say We thought beforehand the contrary had been true But now the Italian Bishops being so numerous as to over-vote us we will lay our own and all mens Salvation on it that we were deceived though we have no other reason to think so O noble Faith and Certainty It 's possible one or two or three poor silly Prelates may turn the Scales and make up a majority though as Learned men as Jansenius Cusanus or Gerson were on the other side And if the Jansenists Articles were Condemned or Cusanus his Antipapal Doctrine lib. de Concordia or Gersons for the Supremacy of Councils and de Auferibilitate Papae they must presently believe that they were certainly deceived But what 's become then of the contrary evidence which appeared before to these dissenters As suppose it were in the Council of Basil about the Immaculate conception of Mary or the Question whether the Authority of the Pope or Council be greatest decided there and at Constance and whereof at Trent the Emperor and the French were of one opinion and the Pope of another Was it evidently true before which is made false after by a Majority of Votes 2. And if all these Decreed things were Evident Truths before the said Decrees why have we not those Antecedent Evidences presented to us to convince us 2. But if they were not Evident Truths before what made those Prelates conclude them for Truths Did they know them to be such without Evidence This is grosser than a presumptuous mans believing that he shall be saved because he believeth it or their Doctrine that teach men to believe the thing is true that Christ died for them that thereby they may make it true As if the object must come after the act For then these Prelates do decree that to be true which before was false for ex-natura rei one party had evidence of its falshood that so they might make it true by decreeing that it is so A man might Lawfully have believed his own and other mens senses that Bread is Bread till the Council at Lateran sub Innoc. 3. decreed Transubstantiation And O what a change did that Council make All Christ's Miracles were not comparable to it if its Decrees be true From that day to this we must renounce sense and yet believe we must believe that by constant Miracles all Christians senses are deceived And so that this is the difference between Christians and Infidels and Heathens that our Religion deceiveth all mens senses even Heathens and all if they see our Sacrament and their Religion deceiveth no mans senses saith the grave Author of the History of the Trent Council Ed. Engl. p. 473. A better Mystery was never found than to use Religion to make men insensible And what is the Omnipotent Power that doth this such a Convention as that of Trent while with our Worcester Pate and Olaus Magnus they made up a great while two and forty things called Bishops And after such a pack of beardless Boys and ignorant Fellows created by and enslaved to the Pope as Dudithius Quinqueccles one of the Council describeth to the Emperour and which Bishop Jewel in his Letter to Seign Scipio saith he took for no Council called by no just Authority c. where were neither the Patriarchs of Constantinople Alexandria or Antioch nor Abassines nor Graecians Armenians Persians Egyptians Moors Syrians Indians nor Muscovites nor Protestants pag. 143 144. For saith he after pag. 489. Now-a-days merciful God! the intent or scope of Councils is not to discover truth or to confute falshood For these latter Ages this hath been the only endeavour of the Popes to establish the Roman Tyranny to set Wars on foot to set Christian Princes together by the Ears to raise Money to be cast into some few Bellies for Gluttony and Lust And this hath been the only cause or course of Councils for some Ages last past So here And can the Vote of a few such Fellows oblige all the World to renounce all their senses who were never obliged to it before And all this consisteth in PRETENDED FAITH and KNOWLEDGE when men must take on them to know what they do not know and make Decrees and Canons and Doctrines suited to their conjectures or rather to their carnal Interests and then most injuriously Father them on God on Christ and the Apostles II. And as the number of Forgeries and Inventions detecteth this publick Plague so doth the number of Persons that are guilty of it How many such superfluities the Abassines in their oft Baptizings and other trifles and the Armenians Syrians Georgians Jacobites Maronites the Russians c. Are guilty of the describers of their Rites and Religion tell us Some would have the State of the Church in Gregory â—sts days to be the model of our Reformation that Pope whom Authors usually call the last of the good ones and the first of the bad ones But is there either Necessity or Certainty in all the superfluities which the Churches then had and which that Great Prelates Writings themselves contain Or were there not abundance of such things then used as things Indifferent of which see Socrates and Sozomene in the Chapters of Easter and must all their Indifferents be now made necessary to the Churches Concord and Communion and all their uncertainties become certainties to us some will have the present Greek Church to be the Standard But alas poor men how many of these uncertainties crudities and superfluities are cherished among them by the unavoidable Ignorance which is caused by their oppressions To say no more of Rome O that the Reformed Churches themselves had been more innocent But how few of them unite on the terms of simple Christianity and Certainties Had not Luther after all his Zeal for Reformation retained some of this Leven he could better have endured the dissent of Zuinglius Carolostadius and Oecolampadius about the Sacrament And if his Followers had not kept up the same superfluities
this Doctrine I. What wisdom and what esteem of our wisdom is not here condemned Ans 1. Not any real useful knowledg at all whilst every thing keepeth its proper place and due esteem as is said 2. That which of it self primarily is of so small use as that it falleth under the contempt of the Apostles yet by accident through the subtilty of Satan and the viciousness of the World may become to some men in some measure necessary And here cometh in the calamity of Divines Of how little use is it to me in it self to know what is written in many a hundred Books which yet by accident it much concerneth me to know And if God restrain him not the Devil hath us here at so great an advantage that he can make our work almost endless and hath almost done it already yea can at any time divert us from greatest Truth and Works by making another at that time more necessary If he raise up Socinians our task is increased we must read their Books that we may be able to confute them so must we when he raiseth up Libertines Familists Seekers Quakers and such other Sects If he stir up controversies in the Church about Government Worship Ceremonies Circumstances Words Methods c we must read so much as to understand all that we may defend the truth against them If Papists will lay the stress of all their controversies on Church History and the words of Ancients we must read and understand all or they will triumph If School-men will build their Theology on Aristotle all men have not the wit with the Iberian Legate at the Florentine Council in Sagyrophilus to cry against the Preacher What have we to do with Aristotle But if we cannot deal with them at their own weapons they will triumph If Cavillers will dispute only in mood and figure we must be able there to over-top them or they will insult If the Plica Pox Scurvey or other new diseases do arise the Physician must know them all if he will cure them And hence it is that we say that a Lawyer must know the Law and a Physician must know Physicks and Medicine c. But a Divine should know all things that are to be known because the diseased world hath turned pretended knowledg into the great malady which must be cured but is the thing it self of any great worth Is it any great honour to know the vanity of Philosophical Pedantry And to be able to overdo such gamesters any more than to beat one at a game at Chess or for a Physician to know the Pox or Leprosie 3. Yet indeed as all things are sanctified to the holy and pure to the pure a wise man may and must make great use of common inferiour kinds of knowledge especially the true Grammatical sense of Scripture words the true precepts of Logick the certain parts of real Physicks and Pneumatology For God is seen in his Works as in a Glass and there to search after him and behold him is a noble pleasant Work and Knowledg And I would that no Israelite may have need to go down to the Philistines for instruments of this sort 4. It is not forbidden to any man to know that measure of wisdom which he truly hath God bindeth us not to err nor to call Light Darkness or Truth Error or to belie our selves or deny his gifts 1. It is desireable for a man absolutely to know as much as he can preferring still the greatest things and to know that he knoweth them and not to be sceptical and doubt of all 2. It is a duty for a converted sinner comparatively to know that he is wiser than he was in his sinful state and to give God thanks for it 3. It is his duty who groweth in wisdom and receiveth new accessions of Light to know that he so groweth and to give God thanks and to welcome each useful truth with joy 4. It is the duty of a good and wise man comparatively to know that he is not as foolish as the ungodly nor to think that every wicked man or ignorant person whom he should pity and instruct is already wiser than he every Teacher is not to be so foolish as to think that all his flock are more judicious than himself In a word it is not a true estimate of the thing or of our selves that is forbidden us but a false It is not belying our selves nor ingratitude to God nor a contradiction to know a thing and not to know that I know it nor an ignorance of our own minds which is commanded us under the pretence of humility But it is a Proud conceit that we know what we do not know that is condemned Chap. 3. What pretended knowledge is condemned and what Philosophy and Learning it is that Paul disliked II. MOre distinctly 1. It is condemnable for any man to think himself Absolutely or Highly wise because our knowledg here is so poor and dark and low that compared with our Ignorance it is little we know not what or how many or how great the things are which we do not know but in general we may know that they are incomparably more and greater than what we do know we know now but as Children and Darkly and in a Glass or Riddle 1 Cor. 13.11 12. In the sence that Christ faith none is good but God we may say that none is wise but God. For a man that must know unless he be a very sot that he knoweth nothing perfectly in the World that he knoweth but little of any Worm or Fly or pile of Grass which he seeth or of himself his Soul or Body or any Creature for this man to assume the Title of a Wise man is arrogant unless comparatively understood when he is ignorant of ten thousand fold more than he knoweth and the predominant part denominateth The old enquirers had so much modesty as to arrogate no higher name than Philosophers 2. It is very condemnable for any man to be proud of his understanding while it is so low and poor and dark and hath still so much matter to abase us He knoweth not what a Dungeon poor mortals are in nor what a darkened thing a sinful mind is nor what a deplorable state we are in so far from the Heavenly light no nor what it is to be a man in Flesh who findeth not much more cause of humiliation than of pride in his understanding O how much ado have I to keep up from utter despondency under the consciousness of so great ignorance which no study no means no time doth overcome How long Lord shall this Dungeon be our dwelling And how long shall our foolish Souls be loth to come into the Celestial light 3. It is sinful folly to pretend to know things unrevealed and impossible to be known Deut. 29.29 The secret things belong unto the Lord our God but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our Children
A man of credit or an impudent Liar Both may be equal in confident asserting and in the plausibility of the narrative Meer humane belief therefore must be uncertain From whence we see the pitiful case of the subjects of the King of Rome for so I must rather call him than a Bishop Why doth a Lay-man believe Transubstantiation or any other Article of their Faith Because the Church faith it is Gods Word What is the Church that saith so It is a faction of the Popes perhaps at Laterane or forty of his Prelates at the Conventicle of Trent How doth he know that these men do not lie Because God promised that Peters Faith should not fail and the Gates of Hell should not prevail against the Church and the Spirit should lead the Apostles into all truth But how shall he know that this Scripture is Gods Word And also that it was not a total failing rather than a failing in some degree that Peter was by that promise freed from Or that the Spirit was promised to these Prelates which was promised to the Apostles Why because these Prelates say so And how know they that they say true Why from Scripture as before But let all the rest go How knoweth the Lay-man that ever the Church made such a decree That ever the Bishops of that Council were lawfully called That they truely represented all Christs Church on Earth That this or that Doctrine is the decree of a Council or the sence of the Church indeed Why because the Priest tells him so But how knoweth he that this Priest saith true or a few more that the man speaketh with there I leave you I can answer no further but must leave the credit of Scripture Council and each particular Doctrine on the credit of that poor single Priest or the few that are his companions The Lay-man knoweth it no otherwise Q. But is not the Scripture it self then shaken by this seeing the History of the Canon and incorruption of the Books c. dependeth on the word of Man Ans No. 1. I have elsewhere fully shewed how the Spirit hath sealed the substance of the Gospel 2. And even the matters of fact are not of meer humane Faith. For meer humane Faith depends on the meer honesty of the reporter but this Historical Faith dependeth partly on Gods attestation and partly on Natural proofs 1. God did by Miracles attest the reports of the Apostles and first Churches 2. The consent of all History since that these are the same writings which the Apostles wrote hath a Natural Evidence above bare humane Faith. For I have elsewhere shewed that there is a concurrence of humane report or a consent of history which amounteth to a true Natural Evidence the Will having its Nature and some necessary acts and nothing but necessary ascertaining causes could cause such concurrence Such Evidence we have that K. James Q. Elizabeth Q. Mary lived in England that our Statute books contain the true Laws which those Kings and Parliaments made whom they are ascribed to For they could not possibly rule the Land and over-rule all mens interests and be pleaded at the Bar c. without contradiction and detection of the fraud if they were forgeries though it 's possible that some words in a Statute Book may be misprinted There is in this a Physical Certainty in the consent of men and it depends not as humane Faith upon the honesty of the reporter but Knaves and Liars have so consented whose interests and occasions are cross and so is it in the case of the history of the Scripture Books which were read in all the Churches through the World every Lords day and contenders of various opinions took their Salvation to be concerned in them VIII Those things must needs be uncertain to any man as to a particular Faith or Knowledge which are more in number than he may possibly have a distinct understanding of or can examine their Evidence whether they be certain or not For instance the Roman Faith containeth all the Doctrinal decrees and their Religion also all the Practical decrees of all the approved General Councils that is of so much as pleased the Pope such power hath he to make his own Religion But these General Councils added to all the Bible with all the Apocrypha are so large that it is not possible for most men to know what is in them So that if the question be whether this or that Doctrine be the Word of God and the proof of the affirmative is because it is decreed by a General Council this must be uncertain to almost all men who cannot tell whether it be so decreed or no Few Priests themselves knowing all that is in all those Councils So that if they knew that all that is in the Councils is Gods Word they know never the more whether this or that Doctrine e. g. the immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary c. be the Word of God. And if a Heathen knew that all that is in the Bible is the Word of God and knew not a word what is in it would this make him a Christian or Saint him You may object that most Protestants also know not all that is in the Scripture Ans True nor any one And therefore Protestants say not that all that is in the Scripture is necessary to be known to Salvation but they take their Religion to have essential parts and integral parts and accidents And so they know how far each is necessary But the Papists deride this distinction and because all truths are equally true they would make men believe that all are equally Fundamental or Essential to Christianity But this is only when they dispute against us at other times they say otherwise themselves when some other interest leads to it and so cureth this impudency It were worthy the enquiry whether a Papist take all the Bible to be Gods Word and de fide or only so much of it as is contained particularly in the decrees of Councils If the latter then none of the Scripture was de fide or to be particularly believed for above 300 years before the Council of Nice If the former then is it as necessary to Salvation to know how old Henoch was as to know that Jesus Christ is our Saviour IX Those things must needs be uncertain which depend upon such a number of various circumstances as cannot be certainly known themselves For instance the common rule by which the Papist Doctors do determine what particular Knowledge and Faith are necessary to Salvation is that so many truths are necessary as are sufficiently propounded to that person to be known and believed But no man living learned nor unlearned can tell what is necessary to the sufficiency of this proposal Whether it be sufficient if he be told it in his Childhood only and at what Age Or if he be told it but once or twice or thrice or how oft whether by a Parent or
they be the Word of God as of Ruth Judges Joshua Chronicles c. Yea if he doubted of all the Old Testament and much of the New yet if he believe so much as containeth all the Covenant of Grace and the foresaid Summaries though he sin and lose much of his helps yet he may and will be saved if he sincerely receive but this much The reason is before given Though no man can believe any thing truly who believeth not all that he knoweth to be Gods Word yet a man may doubt whether one thing be Gods Word who doubteth not of another by several occasions And here you see the Reason why a particular or explicite Belief of all the Scripture it self was never required of all that are baptized nor of all or any man that entered into the Ministry For the wisest Doctor in the world doth not attain so high For no man hath a particular explicite Belief of that which he doth not understand For it is the matter or sence that we believe and we must first know what that sence is before we can believe it to be true And no man in the World understandeth all the Scripture Yea more it is too much to require as necessary to his Ministry a subscription in General that he implicitely believeth all that is in that Bible which you shall shew him For 1. Many faults may be in the Translation if it be a Translation 2. Many errors may be in the Copy as aforesaid Nay such a subscription should not as absolutely necessary be required of him as to all the real Word of God. For if the man by error should doubt whether Job or the Chronicles or Esther were Canonical and none of the rest I would not be he that should therefore forbid him to Preach Christs Gospel I am sure the ancient Church imposed no such terms on their Pastors when part of the new Testament was so long doubted of and when some were chosen Bishops before they were Baptized and when Synesius was chosen a Bishop before he believed the Resurrection I would not have silenced Luther Althamer or others that questioned the Epistle of James What then shall we say of the Roman insolence which thinketh not all the Scripture big enough but Ministers must also subscribe to many additions of their own yea and swear to Traditions and the Expositions of the Fathers and take whole Volumes of Councils for their Religion No wonder if such men do tear the Churches of Christ in pieces 1. By this time I hope you see to what use Baptism and the Summaries of Religion are 2. And of how great use Catechizing is 3. And that Christianity hath its essential parts 4. And how plain and simple a thing true Christianity is which constituteth the Church of Christ And how few things as to knowledge are necessary to make a man a Christian or to Salvation Multitudes of opinions have been the means of turning Pastors and People from the holy and diligent improvement of these few truths in our practice where we have much to do which might take up all our minds and time Chap. VIII Inference 2. Of the use of Catechizing THough it be spoken to in what is said I would have you more distinctly here note the use of Catechizing 1. It collecteth those few things out of many which the Ignorant could not themselves collect 2. It collecteth those necessary things which all must know and believe that will be saved 3. It containeth those Great practical things which we have daily use for and must still live upon which are as Bread and Drink for our food Other things may be well added the more the better which God hath revealed But our Life and our comfort and our Hope is in these 4. And it giveth us the true method or order of holy truths which is a great advantage to understand them Not but that the things themselves have the same orderly respect to one another in the Scripture but they are not delivered in the same order of words Therefore 1. Catechisms should be very skilfully and carefully made The true fundamental Catechism is nothing else but the Baptismal Sacramental Covenant the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Commandments the Summaries of our Belief Desires and Practice And our secondary Catechism must be nothing else but the plain expositions of these the first is a Divine Catechism the second is a Ministerial Expository Catechism And here 1. O that Ministers would be wiser at last than to put their superfluities their controversies and private opinions into their Catechisms and would fit them to the true end and not to the interest of their several sects But the Roman-Trent Catechism and many more of theirs must needs be defiled with their trash and every sect else must put their singularities into their Catechisms so hard is it for the aged decrepit body of the diseased Church for want of a better concoction of the common essentials of Christianity to be free from these heaps of inconcocted crudities and excrementitious superfluities and the many maladies bred thereby I deny not but a useful controversie may be opened by way of Question and Answer But pretend it not then to be what it is not Milk for Babes Him that is weak in the Faith receive but not to doubtful disputations The Servant of the Lord must be apt to teach but must not strive 2. And it is not commonly believed how great skill is needful to make a Catechism that the method may be true and that it may neither be too long for the memory nor too short for the understanding for my part it is the hardest work save one which is the full methodizing and explaining the whole body of Divinity that ever I put my hand to And when all 's done I cannot satisfy my self in it II. Why is not Catechizing more used both by Pastors and Parents I mean not the bare words unexplained without the sence nor the sence in a meer rambling way without a form of words But the words explained O how much fruit would poor Souls and all the Church receive by the faithful performance of this work would God but cure the prophaneness and sloth of unfaithful Pastors and Parents which should do it But I have said so much of this in my Reformed Pastor that I may well forbear more here Chap. IX Inference 3. The true Preservative of puzled Christians from the Errours of false Teachers who vehemently sollicite them to their several parties IT is the common out-cry of the World. How shall we know which side to be on And who is in the right among so many who all with confidence pretend to be in the right Ans Your Preservative is obvious and easie but men usually bestow more labour and cost for Error and Hell than for Truth and Heaven Pretend not to Faith or knowledge before you have it and you are the more safe SUSPEND your judgments
they had never so torn the Churches by their Animosities nor resisted and wearied peaceable Melanchthon nor frustrated so many Conventions and Treaties for Concord as they have done Bucer had not been so censured agreement had not been made so impossible All Dury's Travels had not been so uneffectual Schlusserburgius had not found so many Heresies to fill up his Catalogue with nor Calovius so much matter for his virulent Pen nor so many equalled Calvinism with Turcism nor had Calixtus had such scornful Satyrs written against him nor the great Peace-makers Lud. Crocius Bergii Martinius Camero Amyraldus Testardus Capellus Placaeus Davenant Ward Hall and now Le Blank had so little acceptance and success Had it not been for this spreading Plague the over-valuing of our own understandings and the accounting our crude conceits for certainties all these Church Wars had been prevented or soon ended All those excellent endeavours for peace had been more successful and we had all been One. Had it not been for this neither Arminians nor Antiarminians had ever so bitterly contended nor so sharply censured one another nor written so many confident condemning Volumes against each other which in wise mens Eyes do more condemn the authors and SELF-CONCEIT or PRETENDED KNOWLEDGE should have been the title of them all How far I am able to prove that almost all their bitter and zealous contentions are about Uncertainties and Words the Reader may perceive in my Preface to the Grotian Religion and if God will I shall fuller manifest to the World. The Synod of Dort had not had so great a work of it nor the Breme and Brittain Divines so difficult a task to bring and hold them to that moderation of expressions which very laudably they have done one of the noblest successful attempts for peace though little noted which these ages have made In a word almost all the contentions of Divines the sects and factions the unreconciled fewds the differences in religion which have been the Harvest of the Devil and his Emissaries in the World have come from Pretended Knowledge and taking Uncertainties for Certain Truths I will not meddle with the particular Impositions of Princes and Prelates not so much as with the German Interim Nor the Oaths which in some place they take to their Synodical Decrees much less will I meddle at all with any Impositions Oaths Subscriptions Declarations or usages of the Kingdom where I live As the Law forbiddeth me to contradict them so I do not at all here examine or touch them but wholly pass them by which I tell the Reader once for all that he may know how to interpret all that I say Nor is it the error of Rulers that I primarily detect but of humane corrupted Nature and all sorts of men Though where such an Errour prevaileth alas it is of far sadder consequence in a Publick person a Magistrate or a Pastor that presumeth to the hurt of Publick Societies than of a private man who erreth almost to himself alone I profess to thee Reader that next to God's so much deserting so Great a part of this world there is nothing under the Sun of all the affairs of mankind that hath so taken up my thoughts with mixtures of indignation wonder pity and sollicitude for a cure as this one vice A PROUD or UNHUMBLED UNDERSTANDING by which men live in PRETENDED KNOWLEDGE and FAITH to the deceit of themselves and others the bitter censuring and persecuting of Dissenters yea of their Modest Suspending Brethren tear Churches and Kingdoms and will give no Peace nor Hopes of Peace to themselves their Neighbours or the World Lord Is there no Remedy no Hope from Thee though there be none from Man 1. Among Divines themselves that should not only have Knowledge enough to know their own Ignorance but to Guide the People of God into the ways of Truth and Love and Peace O how lamentably doth this vice prevail To avoid all offence I will not here at all touch on the case of any that are supposed to have a hand in any of the sufferings of me and others of my mind or of any that in Points of Conformity differ from me Remember that I meddle not with them at all But even those that do no way differ among themselves as Sect and Sect or at least that all pretend to Principles of Forbearance Gentleness and Peace yet are wofully sick of this disease And yet that I may wrong none I will premise this publick Declaration to the World that in the Countrey where I lived God in great mercy cast my lot among a company of so humble peaceable faithful Ministers and People as free from this Vice as any that ever I knew in the world who as they kept up full Concord among themselves without the least disagreement that I remember and kept out Sects and Heresies from the People so their converse was the joy of my life and the remembrance of it will be sweet to me while I live and especially the great success of our labours and the quiet and concord of our several Flocks which was promoted by the Pastors humility and concord Though we kept up constant Disputations none of them ever turned to spleen or displeasure or discord among us And I add in thankfulness to God that I am now acquainted with many Ministers in and about London of greatest note and labour and patience and Success who are of the same Spirit Humble and Peaceable and no confident troublers of the Churches with their Censoriousness and high esteem of their own opinions Who trade only in the simple Truths of Christianity and love a Christian as a Christian and joyn not with Back-biters nor factious self-conceited men but study only to win Souls to Christ and to live according to the Doctrine which they preach And both the former and these have these ten years since they were ejected continued their humility and peaceableness fearing God and honouring the King. And I further add that those Private Christians with whom I most converse are many of them of the same Strain suspecting their own understandings and speaking evil of no man so forwardly as of themselves So that in these Ministers and people of my most intimate acquaintance experience convinceth me that this grand disease of corrupted nature is cureable and that God hath a people in the world that have learnt of Christ to be meek and lowly who have the wisdom from above which is first pure and then peaceable gentle easy to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits and the fruit of mercy is sown in peace of these peace-makers I see in them a true Conformity to Christ and a grand difference between them and the furious fiery pretenders to more wisdom And the two sorts of Wisemen and Wisdom excellently described by James Chap. 3. I have seen in two sorts of Religious people among us most lively exemplified before our Eyes God hath
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
the Reformation must be presently answerable to the apprehension of the evil Yea sometimes the very injudicious sort of zealous people make the cry of the greatness of this or that corruption how Antichristian and intolerable it is And then the Reformation must satisfie this vulgar errour and answer the cry and expectation of the people I would here give instances of abundance of mis-reformings which all need a Reformation both in Doctrine Discipline and Worship but that I reserve it for another Treatise if I live to finish it and can get it printed called Over-doing is Undoing 12. Lastly This Vice of pretended certainty and knowledge hath set up several false terms of Christian Unity and Peace and by them hath done more to hinder the Churches Peace and Unity than most devices ever did which Satan ever contrived to that end by this Church-tearing Vice abundance of falshoods and abundance of things uncertain and abundance of things unnecessary have been made so necessary to the Union and Communion of the Churches and their Members as that thereby the Christian World hath been grinded to powder by the names and false pretences of Unity and Peace Just as if a wise Statesman would advise his Majesty that none may be his Subjects that are not of one Age one Stature one Complexion and one Disposition that so he might have Subjects more perfectly concordant than all the Princes on Earth besides and so might be the most Glorious Defender of Unity and Peace But how must this be done Why command them all to be of your mind But that prevaileth not and yet it is undone Why then they are obstinate self-will'd Persons Well but yet it is undone Why lay Fines and Penalties upon them Well but yet it is undone All the Hypocrites that had no Religion are of the Religion which is uppermost and the rest are uncured Why require more Bricks of them and let them have no Straw and tell them that their Religion is their idleness stubbornness and pride and let your little Finger be heavier than your Fathers Loins But hearken young Counsellors Jeroboam will have the advantage of all this and still the sore will be unhealed Why then Banish them and Hang them that obey not till there be none left that are not of one mind But Sir I pray you who shall do it and who shall that one man be that shall be left to be all the Kingdom You are not such a Fool as to be ignorant that no two men will agree in all things nor be perfectly of the same complexion If there must be One King and but One Subject I pray you who shall that one Subject be I hope not he that counselleth it Neque enim Lex justior ulla est quà m necis artifices arte perire suâ But hark you Sir shall that one Man have a Wife or not If not the Kingdom will die with him if yea I dare prognosticate he and his Wife will not be in all things of a mind If they be take me for a mistaken man. By this Vice of pretended knowledge and certainty it is that the Papacy hath been made the Center of the Unity of the Universal Church Unity we must have God forbid else There is no maintaining Christianity without it But the POPE must be PRINCIPIUM UNITATIS And will all Christians certainly Unite in the Pope Well and Patriarchs must be the Pillars of Unity But was it so to the Unity of the first Churches Or is it certain that all Christians will Unite in Patriarchs But further all the Mass of Gregory the too great and all the Legends in his Dialogues or at least all the Doctrines and Ceremonies which he received and the form of Government in his time must be made necessary to Church Union Say you so But it was not all necessary in the Apostles times nor in Cyprian's times no nor in Gregory's own times much of those things being used arbitrarily And what was made necessary by Canons of General Councils in the Empire mark it was never thereby made necessary in all the rest of the Churches And are you sure that meer Christians will take all these for certain truths Why if they will not Burn and Banish them This is as Tertullian saith solitudinem facere pacem vocare But hark Sir this way hath been tryed too long in vain Millions of Albigenses and Waldenses are said by Historians to be kill'd in France Savoy Italy Germany c. The French Massacre killed about Forty or Thirty Thousand The Irish Massacre in that little Island killed about Two Hundred Thousand But were they not stronger after all these cruelties than before Alas Sir all your labour is lost and your party is taken for a Blood-thirsty Generation and humane Nature which abhorreth the Blood-thirsty ever after breedeth Enemies to your way This is the effect of false Principles and terms of Unity and Peace contrived by proud self-conceited men that think the World should take their Dictates for a Supream Law and obey them as the Directive Deities of Mankind If all this be not enough to tell you what proud pretended certainty is read over the Histories of the Ages past and you shall find it written in Ink in Tears in blood in Mutations in Subversions of the Empires and Kingdoms of the World in the most odious and doleful Contentions of Prelates Lacerations of Churches and Desolations of the Earth And yet have we not experience enough to teach us Chap. XIII The Commodities of a suspended judgment and humble understanding which pretendeth to no more Knowledge or Certainty than it hath THE commodities of an humble mind which pretendeth not to be Certain till he is Certain you may gather by contraries from the twelve forementioned mischiefs of prefidence which to avoid prolixity I leave to your collection Moreover I add 1. Such a humble suspended mind doth not cheat it self with seeming to have a knowledge a Divine Faith a Religion when it hath none It doth not live on air and dreams nor feed on shadows nor is puft up with a tympanite of vain conceits instead of true substantial wisdom 2. He is not prepossessed against the Truth but hath room for Knowledge and having the teachableness of a Child he shall receive instruction and grow in true Knowledge when the proud and inflated wits being full of nothing are sent empty away 3. He entangleth not himself in a seeming necessity of making good all that he hath once received and entertained He hath not so many Bastards of his own Brain to maintain as the prefident hasty judgers have which saveth him much sinful study and strife 4. He is not liable to so much shame of mutability He that fixeth not till he feel firm ground nor buildeth till he feel a Rock need not pull down and repent so oft as rash presumers 5. Unless the World be Bedlam mad in proud obtrudings of their own Conceits methinks such
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
of Children in general and their inception of a new life so in special he seemeth to respect them as Disciples set Children to School and their business is to hear and learn all day They set not their wits against their Masters and do not wrangle and strive against him and say It is not so we know better than you But so abominably is humane nature corrupted by this Intellectual Pride that when once Lads are big enough to be from under a Tutor commonly instead of Learning of others they are of a teaching humour and had rather speak two hours than hear one And set their wits to contradict what they should learn and to conquer those that would instruct them and to shew themselves wiser than to learn to be more wise and we can scarce talk with Man or Woman but is the wisest in the Company and hardliest convinced of an errour But two things here I earnestly advise you 1. That you spend more time in Learning than in Disputing Not but that disputing in its season is necessary to defend the Truth But usually it engageth mens wits in an eager opposition against others and so against the truth which they should receive And it goeth more according to the ability of the disputants than the merits of the cause And he that is worsted is so galled at the disgrace that he hateth the truth the more for his sake that hath dishonoured him and therefore Paul speaketh so oft against such disputing and saith that the Servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle and apt to teach and in meekness instruct opposers I would ordinarily if any Man have a mind to wrangle with me tell him If you know more of these things than I if you will be my Teacher I shall thankfully hear and learn and desire him to open his Judgment to me in its fullest evidence And I would weigh it as the time and case required And if I were fully satisfied against it I would crave leave to tell him the reasons of my dissent and crave his patient audience to the end And when we well understood each others mind and reasons I would crave leave then to end in peace unless the safety of others required a dispute to defend the Truth 2. And my specially repeated counsel is that you suspend your judgment till you have cogent evidence to determine it Be no further of either side than you know they are in the right cast not your self into other mens opinions hastily upon slight reasons at a blind adventure If you see not a Certainty judge it not Certain If you see but a Probability judge it but Probable Prove all things and hold fast that which is good The Bereans are commended for searching the Scripture and seeing whether the things were so which Paul had spoken Truth feareth not the light It is like Gold that loseth nothing by the fire Darkness is its greatest Enemy and Dishonour Therefore look before you leap you are bid Believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God. Stand still till you know that the ground is safe which you are to tread on When Poysoners are as Common as Physicians you will take heed what you take It 's safer when once you have the essentials of Christianity to take too little than too much For you are sure to be saved if you are meer true Christians but how far Popery Antinomianism c. may corrupt your Christianity is a controversie Wish them that urge you to forbear their haste in a matter of everlasting consequence These are not matters to be rashly done And as long as you are uncertain profess your selves uncertain and if they will condemn you for your ignorance when you are willing to know the truth so will not God. But when you are certain resolve in the strength of God and hold fast whatever it cost you even to the death and never fear being losers by God by his Truth or by Fidelity in your Duty PART II. Of true saving Knowledge I. Causing our Love to God. II. Thereby Qualifying us for his Love. 1 Cor. 8.3 But if any man Love God the same is known of him Chap. I. Knowledge is to be estimated more by the end it tendeth to than by it self HAving done with that Epidemical mortal disease SELF-CONCEITEDNESS or PREFIDENCE or overhasty judging and Pretending to know that which we know not which I more desire than hope to cure I have left but a little room for the nobler part of my Subject True saving Knowledge because the handling of it was not my principal design The meaning of the Text I gave you before The true Paraphrase of it is as followeth As if Paul had said You overvalue your barren notions and think that by them you are wise whereas Knowledge is a means to a higher end is to be esteemed of as it attaineth that end And that end is to make us Lovers of God that so we may be known with Love by him For to Love God and be beloved by him is mans felicity and ultimate end and therefore that which we must seek after and live for in the world and he is to be accounted the wisest man that loveth God most when unsanctified Notions Speculations will prove but folly This being the true meaning of the Text I shall briefly speak of it by parts as it containeth these several Doctrines or Propositions Doct. 1. Knowledge is a means to a higher end according to which it is to be estimated Doct. 2. The End of Knowledge is to make us Lovers of God and so to be known with Love by him Doct. 3. Therefore knowledge is to be valued sought and used as it tendeth to this holy blessed end Doct. 4. And therefore those are to be accounted the wisest or best-knowing men that Love God most and not those that are stored with unholy knowledge For the first of these that Knowledge is a means to a higher end I shall first open it and then prove it I. Aquinas and some other Schoolmen make the Vision or Knowledge of God to be the highest part of mans Felicity And I deny not but that the three faculties of mans Soul Vital Activity Intellect and Will as the Image of the Divine Trinity have a kind of inseparability and coequality And therefore each of their perfections and perfect Receptions from God and operations on God is the ultimate end of man But yet they are Distinguishable though not divisible and there is such an Order among them as that one may in some respects be called the Inceptor and another the Perfecter of humane operations and so the Acts of one be called a means to the Acts of the other And thus though the Vision or Knowledge of God be one inadequate conception if not a part of our ultimate end yet the Love of God and Living to God are also other conceptions or parts of it yea
in unskilful men consist with a Sound Belief of the Things which must necessarily be believed And that Christ and Grace may be thankfully received by many that have false Names and Notions and Sayings about Christ and Grace And I know the great Power of Education and Converse and what advantage an opinion hath even with the upright which is commonly extolled by Learned Godly Religious men especially if by almost all Therefore I make no doubt but God hath many among the Papists and the Antinomians to name no others who are truly Godly though they Logically or Notionally hold such errours as if Practically held would be their damnation and if the consequents were known and held Much more when thousands of the Common People hold not the errours of the Church which they abide in And it shall not be my way of perswading my own Soul or others to Love God by first perswading them that he Loveth but few besides them And when such have narrowed Gods Love and mercy to all save their own party and made themselves easily believe that he will damn the rest of the world even such as are desirous to please God as they are they have but prepared a Snare for their own Consciences which may perhaps when it is awakened as easily believe that he will damn themselves Let us give all diligence to make our own calling and election sure and leave others to the righteous God to whose Judgment they and we must stand or fall Who art thou that judgest anothers Servant As the Covenant of Peculiarity was made only with the Israelites though the Common Law of grace made to Adam and Noe was in force to other Nations of the World So the more excellent Covenant of Peculiarity is since Christs Incarnation made only with the Christian Church though the foresaid Common Law of Grace be not repealed to all others Nor can it be said that they sin not against a Law of Grace or mercy leading to repentance And as the Covenant of Peculiarity was not repealed to the ten tribes though the benefitâ—s were much forfeited by their violation but God had still Thousands among them in Elias time that bowed not the knee to Baal and such as Obadiah to hide the Prophets though yet the Jews were the more Orthodox Even so though the Reformed Churches as the two Tribes stick closer to the truth the Kingdoms where Popery prevaileth have yet many thousands that God will save and notwithstanding their errours and corrupt additions they have the same Articles of Faith and Baptismal Covenant as we And if any man think himself the wiser or the happier man than I for holding the contrary and thinking so many are hated of God more than I do and consequently rendering him less lovely to them I envy not such the honour nor comfort of their wisdom Obj. III. You will thus confirm our Ignorant people in their presumption that tell Professors of Godliness I Love God above all and my Neighbour as my self though I do not know and talk and pray so much as you do Ans Either they do so Love God and Man or they do not If they do they are good and happy men though you call them ignorant Yea he is far from being an Ignorant man that knoweth God and Christ and Heaven and Holiness so well as to be unfeignedly in Love with them But if he do not what say I to his encouragement in presumption But you must take another course to cure him than by calling him to a barren sort of Knowledge You must shew him that the Love of God is an operative principle and where it is will have dominion and be highest in the Soul and that telling God that we Love him while we love not his Law his Service or his Children yea while we love our Appetite our Wealth our Credit and every beastly lust above him and while we cannot abide much to think or hear talk of him this is but odious Hypocrisie which deceiveth the sinner and maketh him more abominable to God. But if really you see a poor Neighbour whom you count ignorant live as one that loveth God and Goodness take heed that you proudly despise not Christs little ones but Love and Cherish those sparks that are kindled and Loved by Christ The least are called by Christ his Brethren and their interest made as his own Mat. 25. And the least have their Angels which see the face of God in Heaven Qu. IV. How then are Infants saved that neither have knowledge nor Love. Ans 1. While they have no Wills of their own which are capable of holy duties they are as members of their Parents whose Wills are theirs and who know God and Love him for themselves and their Infants As the Hand and Foot doth not know or Love God in itself and yet is holy in that it is the Hand or Foot of one that doth know and Love him 2. Sanctified Infants have that Grace which is the seed of holy Love though they have not yet the Act nor proper habit of Love. I call it as seed because it is a holy disposition of the Soul by which it is not only Physically as all are but Morally able to Love God when they come to the use of reason or at least mediately to do that which shall conduce to holy Love. 3. And in this state being Loved of God and known of him as the Children of his Grace and Promise they are happy in his Love to them For he will give their natures their due capacity in his way which we are not yet fit to be fully acquainted with and he will fill up that Capacity with his Love and Glory Obj. V. If this hold away with universities and all our Volumes and Studies of Physicks Mathematicks and other Sciences for they must needs divert our thoughts from the Love of God! And then Turks Muscovites and other contemners of Learning are in the right Ans There is a right and a wrong use of all these As there is of Arts and business of the world One man so followeth his trade and worldly business as to divert distract or corrupt his mind and drown all holy thoughts and Love and leave no due place for holy diligence And another man so followeth his calling as that Heaven hath still his heart and hope and his labour is made but part of his obedience to God and his way to life eternal and all is Sanctified by holy Principles End and Manner And so it is about common Learning Sciences or Arts And I have proved to you that among too many called great Scholars in the world many books and much reading and acquaintance with all the arts of speaking with Grammar Logick Oratory Metaphysicks Physicks History Laws c. is but one of Satans Last and Subtlest means of wasting precious time deceiving Souls and keeping such persons from pursuing the ends of their excellent wit and of life itself that
oft also so over-rule the Hearts of Men and the Course of the World as to make the knowledge and gifts of bad Men serviceable to his Church as wicked Souldiers oft fight in a good Cause and save the lives of better men yet a worldly mind is likest to follow the way of worldly interest and it is but seldom that worldly interest doth suite with and serve the interest of truth and holiness but more commonly is its greatest adversary Therefore most usually it must be expected that such worldly men should be adversaries to the same truth and holiness which their worldly interest is adverse to And hence hath arisen that Proud and Worldly and Tyrannical Clergy which hath set up and maintained the Roman Kingdom under the Name of the Holy Catholick Church and which hath by their Pope and pretended General Councils usurped a Legislative and Executive Power over the whole Christian World and made great numbers of Laws without Authority and contrary to the Laws of Christ multiplying Schisms on pretence of suppressing them and making so many things necessary to the Concord of Christians as hath made such Concord become impossible presumptuously voting other men to be Hereticks while their own Errours are of as odious a kind yea when holy Truth is sometime branded by them as Heresie And when they cannot carry the Judgments Consciences and Wills of all men along in obedience to their Tyrannical Pride and Lust and Interest they stir up Princes and States to serve them by the Sword and Murder and Persecute their own Subjects and raise bloody Wars against their Neighbours to force them to obey these proud Seducers Yea and if Kings and States be wiser than thus to be made their Hangmen or bloody Executioners to the ruine of their best Subjects and their own Everlasting Infamy and Damnation they stir up the foolish part of the Subjects against such Rulers and in a word they will give the World no peace So that I am past all doubt that the Ten Heathen Persecutions so much cryed out of was but a small matter as against the Christians Blood in comparison of what hath been done by this Tyrannical Clergy And the cruelest Magistrates still seem to come short of them in cruelty and seldom are very bloody or persecuting but when a worldly or proud Clergy stirs them up to it And all the Heresies that ever sprang up in the Church do seem to have done less harm on one side than by pretences of Unity Order and Government they have done on the other O how unspeakably have been and still are the Churches Sufferings by a proud and worldly Clergy and by mens abuse of pretended Learning and Authority 5. I will add yet one more considerable mischief that is that your unholiness and carnal minds for all your Learning corrupteth your judgments and greatly hindereth you from receiving many excellent truths and inclineth you to many mortal errours To instance in some particulars 1. About the Attributes and Government of God a bad man is inclined to doubt of Gods particular Providence his holy Truth and Justice and to think God is such a one as he would have him to be Whereas they that have the love of God and goodness have his Attributes as it were written on their Hearts that he is Good and Wise and Holy and Just and True they know by an Experimental certain knowledge which is to them like Nature and Life it self Joh. 17.3 Hos 2.20 Psal 34.8 c. 2. The very truth of the Gospel and Mystery of Redemption is far hardlier believed by a man that never felt his need of Christ nor ever had the operations of that Spirit on his Soul which are its Seal than by them that have the witness in themselves and have found Christ actually save them from their sins Who are regenerated by this holy Seed and nourished by this Milk. 1 Joh. 5.10 11 12. 1 Pet. 1.22 23. and 1 Pet. 2.2 3. Yea the very truth of our Souls Immortality and the Life and Glory to come is far hardlier believed by them who feel no inclination to sucâ— a future Glory but only a propensity to this present Life and the interest and pleasures of it than by them that have a Treasure a Home a Heart and a Conversation in Heaven and that long for nearer Communion with God and that have the Earnest and First-fruits of Heaven within them Math. 6.20 21. Phil. 3.20 21. Col. 4.1 2 3 4. Rom. 8.17 18 19 20. 4. The evil of sin in general and consequently what is sin in particular is hardlier known by a man that loveth it and would not have it to be sin than by one that hateth it and loveth God and holiness above all They that love the Lord hate evil 5. Most Controversies about the Nature of Grace are hardlier understood by them that have it not than by them that have it as a new Nature in them And consequently what kind of Persons are to be well thought of as the Children of God The Pharisees were strict and yet haters of Christ and Christians Many Preach and Write for godliness that yet when it cometh to a particular judgment deride the godly as Hypocrites or Superstitious 6. In cases about the worship of God a carnal Mind how Learned soever is apt to relish most an outside carnal ceremonious way and to be all for a dead formality or else for a proud ostentation of their own Wits Opinions and Parts or some odd singularity that sets them up to be admired as some extraordinary Persons or teacheth their own Consciences so to flatter them When a Spiritual Man is for worshipping God though with all decent Externals yet in Spirit and in Truth and in the most understanding sincere and humble manner and yet with the greatest joy and praise Rom. 8.16 26 c. 7. Specially in the work of self-judging how hard a work have the most Learned that are ungodly truely to know themselves When Learning doth but help their Pride to blind them And yet none so apt to say as the Pharisees John 9.10 Are we blind also And to hate those that honour them not as erroneously as they do themselves And therefore Augustine so lamenteth the misery of the Clergy and saith that the unlearned take Heaven by violence when the Learned are thrust down to Hell with all their learning who are prouder and more self-ignorant Hypocrites in the World expecting that all should bow to them and reverence them and cry them up as wise and excellent men than the Unholy Worldly Fleshly Clergy 8. And in every case that themselves are much concerned in their Learning will not keep them from the most blind in Justice Let the case be but such as their honour or profit or relations and friends are much concerned in and they presently take all Right to be on their side and all these to be honest men that are for them and
all those to be wicked Hypocrites Hereticks Schismaticks Factious or Liars that are against them and dare print to the world that most notorious truths in matters of fact are lies and lies are truths and corrupt all History where they are but concerned So that experience hath taught me to give little credit to any History written by men in whom I can perceive this double Character 1. That they are worldly and unconscionable 2. And concerned by a personal Interest especially when they revile their Adversaries And money friends or honour will make any Cause true and just with them and can confute all evidences of truth and innocency Learned Judges are too oft corrupt 9. And in cases of great Temptation how insufficient is Learning to repel the Tempter when it 's easily done by the holy Love of God and Goodness How easily is a man's Judgment tempted to think well of that which he loveth and ill of that which his heart is against Many such Instances I might give you but these fully shew the misery and folly of ungodly Scholars that are but blinded by dead notions and words of Art to think they know something when they know nothing as they ought to know and to hate truth and goodness and speak evil of the things they know not while for want of holy Love these tinkling Cymbals do but deceive themselves and ascertain their own damnation II. I should next have said as much of the vanity and snare of the Knowledge of such Gnosticks as in an over-valuing of their own Religious skill and gifts cry out as the Pharisees This people that know not the Law are cursed But what is said is applicable to them Chap. XVI Love best the Christians that have most Love to God and Man. IF God Love those most that have most Love and not those that have most barren Knowledge then so must we even all that take God's Wisdom as infallible Of whom can we know better whom to Love and Value than of him that is Wisdom and Love it self There is more savoury worth in the experience affections and heavenly tendency of holy Souls than in all the subtilties of Learned Wits When a man cometh to die who savoureth not more Wisdom in the Sacred Scripture and in holy Treatises than in all Aristotle's Learned works And who had not then rather hear the talk and prayers of a holy person than the most accurate Logick or Mathematicks Alas what are these but trifles to a dying man And what they will be to a dying man they should be much to us all our life unless we would never be wise till it is too late And among men seeming Religious it is not the Religious wrangler or disputer nor the Zealous reviler of his Brethren that can hotly cry down on one side These men are Heretical or on the other These are Antichristian that are the Lovely persons Not they that on one side cry out Away with these from the Ministry and Church as disobedient to us Or on the other Away with these from our Communion as not holy enough to join with us It is not they that proudliest persecute to prove their Zeal nor they that proudliest separate from others to prove it but it is they that live in the love of God and Man that are beloved of God and Man. Nature teacheth all men to love those that love them And the Divine Nature teacheth us to love those much more that love God and goodness Though love be an act of obedience as commanded yet hath it a Nature also above meer obedience and bare commanding will not cause it No man loveth God or man only because he is commanded so to do but because he perceiveth them to be good and amiable And the most loving are the most lovely so be it their love be rightly guided Doth it not kindle love in you to others more to hear their Breathings after God and Grace and Glory and to see them loving and kind to all and delighting to do all the good they can and covering tenderly the infirmities of others and practising 1 Cor. 13. and living at peace among themselves and as much as is possible with all men and loving their Enemies and blessing those that curse them and patiently bearing and forgiving wrongs than to come into one Congregation and hear a Priest teach the people to hate their Brethren as Schismaticks or Hereticks or in another and hear a man teach his Followers to hate others as Antichristian or Ceremonious Or to hear silly Men and Women talk against things that are quite beyond their reach and shaking the Head to talk against Dissenters and say Such a one is an erroneous or dangerous man take heed of hearing him Such a one is for or against Reprobation Free Will Universal Redemption Mans Power and such like which they little understand In a word the proudly Tyrannical and the proudly Schismatical with all their pretence of Learning on one side or of the Spirit and Holiness and Gifts on the other are no whit so amiable as the single-hearted honest peaceable Christian who preacheth love and prayeth love and liveth and breatheth and practiseth love Paul saith that all the Law is fulfilled in love and fulfilling is more than knowing it And Christ himself did not in vain sum up all the Commandments in the love of God and Man Nor in vain ask Peter thrice Lovest thou me nor in vain so often charge it on them as his new that is his last Commandment that they love one another Nor doth his beloved Apostle John in vain so earnestly write for love Chap. XVII Exhort Plead not against Love or works of Love upon pretence of a cross Interest of Learning Knowledge Gifts Church-order Discipline c. or any other thing IF LOVE be that which is most amiable in us to the God of Love then as nothing in the World can excuse him that is without it nor render him lovely indeed to God and Man so nothing must be made a pretence against it And no pretence will excuse that man or that Society that is against it Even corrections and severities when they must be used must come from love and be wholly ordered to the ends and interest of love And when necessity calls for destructive Executions which tend not to the good of him that is Executed yet must they tend to the good of the Community or of many and come from a greater love than is due to one or else that which otherwise would be laudable Justice is but Cruelty For the punishment of Offenders is good and just because tending to the common good Debentur Reipublicae the Community have Jus a Right to them as a means to their good So that it is Love that is the Amiableness of Justice it self If any think that Gods Justice is a cross instance let him consider 1. That though the most publick or common good be our end next the ultimate
Layman that can not tell him what is in the Councils or by a Priest that never read the Councils and whether the variety of natural capacities bodily temperaments education and course of Life before do not make as great variety of proportions to be necessary to the sufficiency of this Proposal And what mortal man can truly take the measure of them And how then can any man be Certain what those points are which are necessary for him to believe X. Those things are uncertain which depend upon an uncertain Author or Authority For instance the Roman faith dependeth on the exposition of the Scriptures by the consent of the Fathers and on the Tradition of the Church and the decrees of an authorized Council And here is in all this little but uncertainties 1. It is utterly uncertain who are to be taken for Fathers and who not Whether Origen Tatianus Arnobius Lactantius Tertullian and many such be Fathers or not Whether such a man as Theophilus Alexandrinus or Chrysostom was the Father when they condemned each other Whether such as are justly suspected of Heresy as Eusebius or such as the Romanists have cast suspicions on as Lucifer Calaritanus called a Heretick Socrates Sozomens falsly called Novatians Hilary Arelatensis Condemned by the Pope Leo and Claud. Turovens Rupertus Tuitiens and such others When the ancients renounced each others Communion as Martin did by Ithacius and Idacius and their Synod when they describe one another as stark Knaves as Socrates doth Theophil Alexandrin and Sulpitius Severus doth Ithacius which of them were the Fathers 2. How shall we know certainly which are the true uncorrupted writings of these Fathers among so many forgeries and spurious Scripts 3. How shall it be known what exposition the Fathers consented on when not one of a multitude and but few in all have commented on any considerable parts of the Scripture and those few so much often differ 4. When in the Doctrine of the Trinity it self Petavius largely proveth that most of the writers of the three first Centuries after the Apostles were unsound and others confess the same about the Millennium the corporeity of Angels and of the Soul and divers other things doth their consent bind us to believe them If not how shall we know in what to believe their consent according to this Rule 2. And as to the Church they are utterly disagreed among themselves what that Church is which hath this authority 1. Whether the Pope alone 2. Or the Pope with a Provincial Council 3. Or the Pope with a General Council 4. Or a General Council without the Pope 5. Or the universality of Pastors 6. Or the universality of the people with them 3. And for a Council 1. There is no certainty what number of Bishops and what consent of the Comprovincial Clergy is necessary to make them the true representatives of any Church 2. And more uncertain in what Council the Bishops had such consent 3. And uncertain whether the Popes approbation be necessary The great Councils of Constance and Basil determining the contrary 4. And uncertain which were truly approved 5. And most certain that there never was any General Council in the world unless you will call the Apostles a General Council but only General Councils of the Clergy of one Empire with now and then a stragling Neighbour even as we have General Assemblies and Convocations in this Kingdom And who can be certain of that faith which dependeth upon all or any of these uncertainties XI That must needs be an uncertainty which dependeth on the unknown thoughts of another man. For instance with the Papists the Priests intention which is the secret of his heart is necessary to the being of Baptism and Transubstantiation And so no man can be certain whether he or any other man be baptized or not Nor whether it be Bread or Christs Body which he eateth We confess that it is necessary to the being of a Sacrament that the Minister do seem or profess to intend it as a Sacrament But if the reality of his intent be necessary to the being of it no man can be certain that ever he had a Sacrament XII It is a hard thing to be certain on either side in those controversies which have multitudes and in a manner equal strength of Learned Judicious Well-studyed Godly Impartial men for each part I deny not but one clear-headed man may be certain of that which a multitude are uncertain of and oppose him in But it must not be ordinary men but some rare illuminated person that must get above a probability unto a Certainty of that which such a company as aforesaid are of a contrary mind in XIII There is great uncertainty in matters of private impulse When a man hath nothing to prove a thing to be Gods will but an inward perswasion or impulse in his own Breast let it never so vehemently incline him to think it true it 's hard to be sure of it For we know not how far Satan or our own distempered Phantasies may go And most by far that pretend to this do prove deceived That which must be certain must be somewhat equal to Prophetical Inspiration Which indeed is its own Evidence But what that is no man can formally conceive but he that hath had it Therefore we are bid to Try the Spirits XIV It is a hard thing to gather certainties of Doctrinal conclusion from Gods Providences alone Providential changes have their great use as they are the fulfilling or execution of the word But they that will take them instead of the Scripture do usually run into such mistakes as are rectifyed to their cost by some contrary work of Providence ere long These times have fully taught us this XV. It is hard to gather Doctrinal certainties from Godly mens Experiences alone Even our Experimental Philosophers and Physicians find that an experiment that hits oft-times quite misseth afterwards on other Subjects and they know not why A course of effects may oft come from unknown causes And it 's no rare thing for the common Prejudices Selfconceitedness or corruption of the weaker and greater number of good people which needeth great repentance and a cure to be mistaken for the Communis Sensus Fidelium the Inclination and Experience of the Godly Especially when consent or the honour of their Leaders or Themselves hath engaged them in it In my time the common sense of the strictest sort was against long hair and taking Tobacco and other such things which now their common practice is for In one Countrey the common consent of the strictest party is for Arminianism In another they are zealously against it In Poland where the Socinians are for sitting at the Sacrament the Godly are generally against it In other places they are for it In Poland and Bohemia where they had holy humble perswading Bishops the generality of the Godly were for that Episcopacy as were all the ancient Churches even the Novatians
But in other places it is otherwise So that it 's hard to be certain of Truth or Error Good or Evil by the meer Consent Opinion or Experience of any XVI But the last and great instance is that in the holy Scriptures themselves there is a great inequality in point of Certainty yea many parts of them have great uncertainty Even these that follow I. Many hundred Texts are uncertain through various Readings in several Copies of the Original I will not multiply them on Capellus his opinion Though Claud. Saravius Who got the Book Printed and other worthy men approve it I had rather there were fewer Varieties and therefore had rather think there are fewer But these that cannot be denied must not be denied Nor do I think it fit to gather the discrepancies of every odd Copy and call them Various readings â—ut it is past denial that the world hath no one ancient Copy which must be the Rule or Test of all the rest and that very many Copies are of such equal credit as that no man living can say that this and not that where they differ hath the very words of the Holy-Ghost And that even in the New Testament alone the differences or various Readings of which no man is able to say which is the right are so great a number as I am not willing to give every reader an account of Even those that are gathered by Stephanus and Junius and Brugensis and Beza if you leave out all the rest in the appendix to the Polyglot Bible In all or most of which we are utterly uncertain which Reading is Gods Word II. There are many hundred words in the Scriptures that are ambiguous signifying more things than one and the context in a multitude of places determineth not the proper sense so that you may with equal Authority translate them either thus or thus The Margin of your Bibles giveth you no small number of them It must needs here be uncertain which of them is the Word of God. III. There are many hundred Texts of Scripture where the Phrase is General and may be applyed to more particulars than one In some places the several particulars must be taken as included in the General And where there is no necessity a General Phrase should not be expounded as if it were particular But in a multitude of Texts the General is put for the particular and must be interpreted but of one sort and yet the context giveth us no certain determination which particular is meant This is one of the commonest uncertainties in all the Scriptures Here it is Gods will that we be uncertain IV. In very many passages of the History of Christ the Evangelists set both Words and Deeds in Various Orders one sets this first and another sets another first As in the order of Christs three Temptations Mat. 4. and Luk. 4. And many such like Though it is apparent that Luke doth less observe the order than the rest yet in many of these cases it is apparent that it was Gods will to notifie to us the Matter only and not the Order And that it must needs be uncertain to us which was first said or done and which was last The same is to be said of the time and place of some speeches of Christ recorded by them V. Many of Christs Speeches are recorded by the Evangelists in various words Even the Lords Prayer it self Mat. 6. and Luk. 11. Besides that Matthew hath the doxology which Luke hath not which Grotius and many others think came out of the Greek Liturgy into the Text. And even in Christs Sermon in the Mount and in his last Commission to his disciples Mat. 28.18 19 20. and Mar. 16. Now in some of these cases as of the Lords Prayer it is uncertain whether Christ spake it once or twice Though the former is more likely In most of them it is plain that it was the Will of Gods Spirit to give us the true sense of Christs sayings in various words and not all the very words themselves For the Evangelists that differ do neither of them speak falsly and therefore meant not to recite all the very words If you say that one giveth us the true words and another the true sense we shall never be certain that this is so nor which that one is So that in such cases no man can possibly tell which of them were the very words of Christ VI. There are many Texts of the Old Testament recited in the New where it is uncertain whether that which the Penman intended was an Exposition or Proof of what he said or only an Allusion to the Phrase of Speech as if he should say I may use such words to express my mind or the matter by As Matth. 2.23 He shall be called a Nazarene So v. 16 17. Rom. 10.6 7 8 18. and others I know the Excellent Junius in his Parallels hath said much and more than any other that I know to prove them all or almost all to be expository and probatory Citations But withal confessing that the generality of Ancient and Modern Expositors think otherwise he thereby sheweth a great uncertainty when he himself saith not that he is Certain of it and few others thought it probable VII There are many Texts cited in the New Testament out of the Septuagint where it differeth from the Hebrew Wherein it is utterly uncertain to us whether Christ and his Apostles intended to justifie absolutely the translation which they use or only to make use of it as that which then was known and used for the sake of the sense which it contained If they absolutely justifie it they seem to condemn the Hebrew so far as it differeth If not why do they use it and never blame it It seemeth that Christ would hereby tell us that the sense is the Gold and the words but as the Purse and we need not be over-curious about them so we have the sence As if I should use the vulgar Latine or the Rhemists Translation with the Papist because he will receive no other VIII There are many Aenigmatical and obscure expressions which a few Learned men only can probably conjecture at few or none be certain of the full sense If any certainly understand much of the Prophecies in Daniel and the Revelations it must needs be very few When Calvin durst not meddle with the latter And though most of the famous Commentators on the Revelations are such as have peculiarly made it their Study and set their minds upon it above all other things and rejoiced in conceit that they had found out the true sense which others had overseen as men do that seek the Philosophers Stone yet how few of all these are there that agree And if ten be of nine minds eight of them at least are mistaken Franc. du Jon the Lord Napier Brightman Dent Mede and my godly Friend Mr. Stephens yet living since dead with many others have studied