A TREATISE OF Knowledge and Love COMPARED In two Parts I. Of Falsly Pretended Knowledge II. Of True Saving Knowledge and Love. I. Against Hasty Judging and False Conceits of Knowledge and for necessary Suspension II. The Excellency of Divine Love and the Happiness of being Known and Loved of God. Written as greatly needful to the Safety and PEACE of every Christian and of the Church The only certain way to escape false Religions Heresies Sects and Malignant Prejudices Persecutions and Sinful Wars All caused by falsly pretended Knowledge and hasty Judging by Proud Ignorant men who know not their Ignorance By RICHARD BAXTER Who by God's blessing on long and hard Studies hath learned to know that he knoweth but little and to suspend his Judgment of Uncertainties and to take Great Necessary Certain things for the food of his Faith and Comforts and the Measure of his Church-Communion Prov. 14 16. A wise man feareth and departeth from evil But the FOOL RAGETH and is CONFIDENT 2 Cor. 11.3 But I fear lest by any means as the Serpent beguiled EVE by his subtilty so your minds should be CORRVPTED from the SIMPLICITY which is in Christ 1 Cor. 1.25 The foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men v. 20. Hath not God made fâ—oliâ—h the wisdom of this world c. 2.6 We speak wisdom among them that are perfect yet not the wisdom of this world 2 Tim. 2.15 Study to shew thy self approved to God a workman that needed not be ashamed rightly DIVIDING the word of Truth 16. But shun profane and vain oâ—â—lings for they will increase unto more ungodliness August Enchirid. cap. 59. De Corporibus Angelorum Cum ista queruntur a sicut potest quisque conjectat non inutiliter exercentur ingenia si adhibeatur disceptantia moderata absit error opinantium se scire quod nesciunt Quod enim opes est ut hec hujusmodi affirmentur vel negentur vel definiantur cum disâ—rimine quando sine crimine nesciuntur LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns at the lower end of Cheapside near Mercers Chapel 1689. TO THE Right Worshipful Sir HENRY ASHHURST AND THE Lady DIANA HIS WIFE SIR YOur Name is not prefixed to this Treatise either as accusing you of the Sin herein detected or as praising you for those Virtues which good Men are more pleased to possess and exercise than to have proclaimed though they be as Light that is hardly hid But it is to vent and exercise that Gratitude which loveth not the concealment of such Friendship and Kindness as you and your Lady Eminently and your Relatives and Hers the Children of the Lord Paget have long obliged me by And it is to Posterity that I record your Kindness more than for this Age to which it hath publickly notified it self during my publick Accusations Reproaches Sentences Imprisonments and before and since Who knoweth you that knoweth not hereof And it is to renew the record of that Love and Honour which I owed to your deceased Father formerly pthough too slenderly recorded to be the Heir and Imitater of whose Faith Piety Charity Patience Humility Meekness Impartiality Sincerity and Perseverance is as great an Honour and Blessing as I can wish you next to the conformity to our highest pattern And though he was averse to worldly Pomp and Grandeur and desired that his Children should not affect it yet God that will honour those that honour him hath advanced his Children I believe partly for his sake But I intreat you all and some other of my Friends whom God hath raised as a Blessing to their Pious and Charitable Parents and themselves to watch carefully lest the deceitful World and Flesh do turn such Blessings into Golden Fetters and to be sure to use them as they would find at last on their account And as you are a Member of the present House of Commons I think the Subject of this Treatise is not unnecessary to your consideration and daily care That when proof and notorious and sad Experience telleth us what distractions have befaln Church and State by Mens self-conceited erroneous rushing upon sin and falshood as if it were Certainly Good and True and how little Posterity feareth and avoideth this confounding Vice though History tell us that it hath been the Deluge that in all Ages hath drowned the peace and welfare of the World you may be wary and try before you venture in doubtful cases especially where the Sacred and Civil Interest of this and many other Lands doth probably lye on the determination Do you think all that ventured upon the Actions and Changes that have tost up and down both Churches and Kingdoms by Divisions Persecutions and Wars had not done better to suspend their Judgments till they could have more certainly determined Who should proceed more cautelously than Bishops And where rather than in Councils And in what rather than about Faith and Publick Government and Order And had Bishops and Councils torn the Church and Empires and Kingdoms as they have done by aspiring after Superiority and by contentious Writings and condemning each other and by contradictory and erroneous and persecuting Canons or by raising Wars and Deposing Princes ever since 400 or 500 or 600 years after Christ if not sooner if they had known their ignorance and suspended in such dangerous cases till they were sure I know you are none of them who dare pretend to a Certain Knowledge that all those Oaths Declarations Covenants Practices imposed by Laws and Canons on Ministers and People in this Land in the Act of Uniformity the Corporation Act the Vestry Act the Militia Act the five Mile Act of Banishment c. are so Good and Lawful as will justifie the Execution of them and the silencing ejecting ruining and judging to lye from six Months to six in the common Jails till they die 2000 as faithful Ministers of Christ as any Nation hath under Heaven unless they forbear to Preach the Gospel to which they are vowed or venture their Souls on that which they fear to be sins so great as they are loth to name When Christ will sentence them to Everlasting punishment who did not visit feed clothe him in the least of them whom he calls his Brethren Before Men silence conditionally the whole Ministry of such a Kingdom and actually 2000 such while the wounding dividing consequents may be so easily foreseen and before men deliberately and resolutely continue and keep up such Battering Engines on pretence of Uniformity and Obedience to Men and before they venture to own this to that Lord who hath made other terms of Church Unity and Peace it nearly concerneth them to think and think on it a thousand times A suspended judgment is here safer than prefidence and confident rage And also they that desire an Abolition of Episcopacy should a thousand times bethink them first what True and Primitive Episcopacy is
prevailed with him without that false belief of a deceiver When it is once become a Sanctifying Belief then there is no doubt but the Man hath better Evidence than the uncertain word of man He hath the witness in himself And it is not a Glorifying Faith till it be a Sanctifying Faith. But the Question is What soundness of Reason or proof that this is God's Word is necessary to make it a Sanctifying Faith at least as most prevalent and trusted in By this you may know what I judge of the Faith of honest illiterate Papists and of illiterate Protestants for a great number of them who live in Love and Obedience to God. And yet to speak both more concisely and distinctly I. I may believe by Historical Tradition all that matter of Fact which those that saw Christ's and the Apostles Miracles and heard their words did know by sense and those that saw not believed on the credit of the reporters II. And yet I may know by reason through God's help that these Miracles and this Scripture Impress and Efficacy are God's attestation and none but God could do it And of this all Believers have some perception in various degrees III. And then we know it to be true because it is sealed by those attestations and is the Word of God. Obj. VII But would you have men take the matters of Fact for uncertain that this is a true Bible and Copy and was given the Church by the Apostles c. and so not pretend to be certain of them Ans I have oft said and elsewhere largely proved that as 1. A Humane Faith of highest probability prepareth the way so 2. These things are known by an Historical Evidence which hath a proper certainty above meer Humane Faith For Humane Faith resteth on mens Veracity or Fidelity which is uncertain But there is a History such as that there is such a City as Rome Venice c. which is evident by a surer ground than mens fidelity even from such a concurrence of consenters and circumstances as will prove a forgery impossible Obj. VIII You seem to favour the Popish Doctrine of Ignorance while you would have all our Knowledge confined to a few plain and easie things and perswade men to doubt of all the rest Ans 1. I perswade no man to doubt of that which he is certain of but not to lie and say he is certain when he is not 2. I am so far from encouraging Ignorance that it is Ignorance of your Ignorance which I reprove I would have all men know as much as possibly they can of all that God hath revealed And if the self-conceited knew more they would doubt more and as they grow wiser will grow less confident in uncertainties It is not knowing but false pretending to know that I am against Do you think that a thousand self-conceited men and women do really know ever the more for saying they know or crying down that Ignorance Doubting and Uncertainty which they have themselves How many a one yea Preachers have cryed down the Popish Doctrine of Uncertainty of Salvation who had no Certainty of their own but their neighbours thought by their lives were certainly in the way to Hell. Obj. IX But you would have men resist the Spirit that convinceth them and make so long a work in doubting and questioning and proving every thing as that Christians will come but to little knowledge in your way Ans They will have the more knowledge and not the less for trying Peremptory confidence is not knowledge The next way here is farthest about Receive all Evidence from God and Man from the Word and Spirit with all the desire and all the delight and all the speed that possibly you can Study earnestly Learn willingly Resist no Light neglect no Truth But what 's all this to foolish conceit that you know what you do not What 's this to the hasty believing of falshoods or uncertainties and troubling the Church and World with self-conceit and dreams I remember two or three of my old acquaintance who suddenly received from a Seducer the Opinion of Perfection that we might be perfectly sinless in this life And because I denied it they carryed it as if I had pleaded for sin against perfection and they presently took themselves to be perfect and sinless because they had got the Opinion that some are such I told them that I desired Perfection as well as they and that I was far from hindering or disswading any from Perfection but wisht them to let us see that they are so indeed and never to sin more in thought word or deed And ere long they forsook all Religion and by Drunkenness Fornication and Licentiousness shewed us their Perfection So here it is not a conceit that men have Faith and Knowledge and quickly saying I believe or turning to the Priest or Party that perswadeth them which maketh them ever the wiser men or true Believers Obj. X. But that may seem certain to another which seemeth uncertain or false to you Therefore every man must go according to his own Light. Ans 1. Nothing is Certain which is not true If that seem True to you which is False this is your Errour And is every man or any man bound to err and believe a falsehood Being is before Knowing If it Be not true you may Think it to be so which is that which I would cure but you cannot Know it to be so much less be Certain of it 2. If it be Certain to you it is Evidently True And if so hold it fast and spare not It is not any mans Certainty but Errour which I oppose Obj. XI But if we must write or utter nothing but Certainties you would have but a small Library Ans 1. The World might well spare a great many uncertain Writings 2. But I say not that you must think say or write nothing but Certainties There is a lawful and in some cases necessary exercise of our understandings about Probabilities and Possibilities The Husbandman when he ploweth and soweth is not certain of an increase 1. But call not that certain which is not 2. And be not as vehement and peremptory in it as if it were a Certainty 3. And separate your Certainties and Probabilities asunder that confusion fill not your minds with Errour Obj. XII While you perswade us to be so diffident of mens reports and to suspend our belief of what men say you speak against the Laws of Converse Ans I perswade you not to deny any man such a Belief as is his due But give him no more If a man profess himself a Christian and say that he sincerely believeth in Christ and consenteth to his Covenant though you may perceive no ascertaining Evidence that he saith true yet you must believe him because he is the only opener of his own mind and the Laws of God and Human Converse require it But what is this believing him Not taking it for a
this labour must be content to know but little and not take on them to know much For they are not able to discern truth from falshood But while they sleep the Tares are sowed Or while they open the Door all croud in that can come first and they cannot make a just separation Ignorant Persons will swarm with errors and he that erreth will think that he is in the right And if he think that it is a divine and necessary truth which he embraceth how zealously may he pursue it D. XV. Take heed of a byas of Carnal Interest and of the disturbing Passions which selfish partiality will be apt to raise Men may verily think that they sincerely love the truth when the secret power of a carnal interest their honour their profit or pleasure is it that turneth about their judgment and furnisheth them with Arguments and whets their Wits and maketh them passionately confident and they are not aware of it Is your worldly interest on that side that your opinion is for Though that prove it not false it proveth that you should be very suspicious of your selves D. XVI Keep up unfeigned fervent love to others even as to your selves And then you will not contemn their Persons and their Arguments beyond certain cause You will not turn to passionate contentions and reproaches of them when you differ and the reverence of your Elders Teachers Superiors will make you more ready to suspect your selves than them Most of our self-conceited pretenders to knowledge have lost their love and reverence of Dissenters and are bold despisers of the Persons reasons and writings of all that contradict their errour And most that venture to cast the Churches into flames and their Brethren into silence and sufferings that they may plant their own opinions are great despisers of those that they afflict and either hate them or would make them hateful lest they should be thought to be unjust in using them like hateful Persons Love that thinketh not evil of others is not apt to vaunt it self D. XVII Reverence the Church of God but give not up your understandings absolutely to any men but take heed of taking any Church Sect or Party instead of the Infallible God. With the Universal Church you must Embody and hold Concord It is certain that it erreth not from the Essentials of Christianity Otherwise the Church were no Church no Christians and could not be saved If a Papist say and which is this Church I answer him It is the Universality of Christians or all that hold these Essentials and when I say that this Church cannot fall from these Essentials I do but say it cannot cease to be a Church The Church is constituted of and known by the Essentials of Faith and not the Essentials of Faith constituted by the Church nor so known by it though it be known by it as the Teacher of it He that deserteth the Christian Universality in deed though not in words and cleaveth too close to any Sect whether Papal or any other will be carried down the stream by that Sect and will fill his understanding with all their errors and uncertainties and confound them with the certain truths of God to make up a mixt Religion with and the reverence of his Party Church or Sect will blind his mind and make him think all this his duty D. XVIII Fear Error and ungrounded Confidence Consider all the mischiefs of it which the World hath long felt and the Churches in East and West are distracted by unto this day and which I have opened to you before He that feareth not a sin and mischief is most unlikely to escape it A tender Conscience cannot be bold and rash where the interest of God the Church and his own and others Souls is so much concerned When you are invited to turn Papist or Quaker or Anabaptist or Antinomian or Separatist think What if it should prove an Errour and as great an Errour as many godly learned men affirm it to be Alas what a gulf should I plunge my Soul in What injury should I do the Truth What wrong to Souls And shall I rashly venture on such a danger any more than I would do on Fornication Drunkenness or other sin And doth not the sad example of this Age as well as all former Ages warn you to be fearful of what you entertain O what promising what hopeful what confident Persons have dreadfully miscarried and when they once began to roll down the Hill have not stopt till some of them arrived at Infidelity and Prophaneness and others involved us all in confusions And yet shall we not fear but rage and be confident And to see on the other side what darkness and delusion hath faln upon thousands of the Papal Clergy and what their Errour hath cost the World should make those that are that way inclined also fear Direct XIX Above all pray and labour for a truely humble mind that is well acquainted with its own defects and fear and fly from a proud overvaluing of your own understanding Be thankful for any Knowledge that you have but take heed of thinking it greater than it is The Devils Sin and the imitation of Adam are not the way to have the illumination of Gods Spirit It is not more usual with God to bring low those that are Proud of Greatness than to leave to folly deceit and errour those that are proud of Wisdom and to leave to Sin and Wickedness those that are proud of Goodness A Proud understanding cannot be brought to suspect it self but is confident of its first undigested apprehensions It either feeleth no need of the Spirits light but despiseth it as a fancy or else it groweth conceited that all its conceptions are of the Spirit and is proud of that Spirit which he hath not Nothing maketh this peremptory confidence in false conceits so common as Pride of a knowledge which men have not Would the Lord but humble these persons throughly they would think Alas What a dark deceitful mind have I how unfit to despise the judgment of them that have laboured for knowledge far more than I have done and how unfit to be confident against such as know much more than I But so deep and common is this Pride that they that go in rags and they that think themselves unworthy to live and are ready to despair in the sense of Sin do yet ordinarily so overvalue their own apprehensions that even these will stifly hold their vain and unpeaceable opinions and stifly reject the judgment and arguments of the wisest and best that will not be as envious as they Direct XX. Lastly Keep in a Child-like teachable learning resolution with a sober and suspended judgment where you have not sure evidence to turn the scales When Christ saith Mat. 18.3 Except ye be converted and become as little Children ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven As he hath respect to the humility
ultimate end and perfection of man and all knowledge is to be estimated but as it tendeth to this This being the plain Paraphrase of the Text I shall stay no longer on it but thence deduce and handle these two Observations Doct. I. Falsly pretended knowledge is oft pernicious to the Possessor and injurious to the Church And over-valuing ones own Opinions and Notions is a certain mark of dangerous Ignorance II. A Man is so far truly wise as he loveth God and consequently is approved or loved by him and as he loveth others to their Edification I. The first is but the same that Solomon thus expresseth Prov. 26.12 Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit there is more hope of a fool than of him And Paul elsewhere Rom. 12.16 Be not wise in your own conceits And Rom. 11.25 and Prov. 26.5 16. For it is certain that we are all here in great darkness and it 's but little that the wisest know And therefore he that thinks he knoweth much is ignorant both of the things which he thinks he knoweth and ignorant of his ignorance Therefore 1 Cor. 3.18 Let no man deceive himself If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this World let him become a Fool that he may be wise To be wise in this World is the same with that in the words following The wisdom of this World is foolishness with God And 1 Cor. 1.19 20 21 22. It is written I will destroy the wisdom of the wise c. Where is the wise where is the Scribe where is the disputer of this World Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this World For after that in the wisdom of God the World by wisdom knew not God it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe For the Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom c. So Chap. 2.4 5 6 7 8. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words or probable discourses of mans wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect yet not the wisdom of this World nor of the Princes of this World that come to nought But we speak that wisdom of God in a Mystery even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the World unto our glory even Christ the wisdom of God chap. 1.24 which none of the Princes of this World knew In all this note 1. That there is a wisdom which Paul placeth Christianity it self in 2. That this is to know God in Christ objectively and to be taught of God by Christ and his Spirit efficiently 3. That there is a Wisdom which Paul comparatively vilifieth 4. This is called the Wisdom of this world or age 5. That most plainly he meaneth by it that which then was called Learning and Philosophy which the Greeks did value and by which they judged of the Gospel which comprehended the methods of all the Sects Epicureans Academicks Peripateticks and Stoicks but not their true Morals but their Physicks and Logick and Metaphysicks which Laertius and others tell us how variously they held 6. That Paul doth not absolutely prohibit such studies nor yet despise any true knowledge 7. But he vilifieth this Philosophy on these accounts 1. Because it was the exercise of a poor low insufficient Light They did but Grope after God in the dark as Acts 17.27 2. Because it was mostly taken up with inferiour things of small concernment comparatively As things corporeal are good in themselves and when sanctified and made subservient to things spiritual so the knowledge of Physicks is to be esteemed But as things corporeal yet are objectively the snare and ruine of those that perish and therefore the world to be renounced and crucified as it is our temptation an Enemy or Competitor with Christ just so it must be with Natural Philosophy 3. Because it was greatly overvalued by the World as if it had been the only Wisdom when indeed it is of it self but an indifferent thing or fit but to make a by-recreation of till it be made to serve to higher ends even as Riches Honour and Pleasure are overvalued by worldlings as if they were the only felicity when in themselves they are but more indifferent things and prove beneficial or hurtful as they are used Therefore Paul was to take down the pernicious esteem of this kind of Philosophy as Preachers now must take down mens esteem of worldly things however they are the works and gifts of God. And as Christ would by his actual poverty and sufferings and not by words only take down the esteem of worldly wealth and pride so Paul by neglecting and forbearing the use of Artificial Logick Physicks and Metaphysicks would depress their rate 4. Because that there was abundance of falshood mixt with the truth which the Philosophers held as their multitude of different Sects fully proves 5. Because the Artificial Organical part was made so operous as that it drowned Real Learning instead of promoting it and became but like a game at Chess a devise rather to exercise vain proud wits by than to find out useful truth As to this day when Logick and Metaphysicks seem much cultivated and reformed yet the variety of methods the number of notions the precariousness of much the uncertainty of some things the falshood of many maketh them as fit for Boys to play with in the Schools and to be a Wood into which a Sophister may run to hide his Errours as to be a means of detecting them And therefore a knavish Cheater will oft bind you strictest to the pedantick part of the Rules of Disputation that when he cannot defend his Matter he may quarrel with your Form and Artifice and lose time by questioning you about Mood and Figure 6. Because by these operous diversions the minds of men were so forestalled or taken up as that they had not leisure to study great and necessary saving truth And if men must be untaught in the Doctrines of Life till they had first Learnt their Logick Physicks and Metaphysicks how few would have been saved when at this day so many come from our Universities after several years study raw smatterers in these and half-witted Scholars whose Learning is fitter to trouble than to edifie And if Scripture had been written in the terms and method of Aristotle how few would have been the better for them But great Good must be common And as Paul on all these accounts sets light by this Philosophy so he calls it the wisdom of this world 1. Because this world was its chief object 2. And the creatures were its only Light. 3. And it led but few to any higher than worldly ends 4. And it was that which worldly men that were strangers to heavenly Light and Holiness did then most magnify and use Yet as Christ when
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
in Compositions All men confess that every Plant every Worm or Fly every sensitive yea every sensible Being is so little known to us as that the unknown part far exceedeth the known XVII 5. And we are not agreed of late of the number of the very Elements themselves much less of Compounds of which while we know so few that which we do know is the more defectively known because as in knowing of Letters and Syllables the knowledge of one thing is needful to the true and useful knowledge of another XVIII But the Order and Relations of things to one another is so wonderfully unsearchable and innumerably various as quite surpasseth all humane understanding Yea though ORDER and Relation constitute all Morality Policy Literature c. so that it is as it were that World which humane Intellects converse in and the business of all humane Wills and Actions yet few men know so much as what ORDER and RELATION is Nay nor whether it be Any thing or nothing And though health and sickness harmony and discord beauty and ugliness virtue and vice consist in it and Heaven and Hell depend upon it and Law and Judgment do make and determine it yet is it not easie to know what it is by an Universal Notion nor whether it be truly to be called Any thing at all We doubt not but ORDER should be a most observable Predicament in the Series of humane Notions or nominanda But yet I doubt not much but that Gassendus who would make tempus and spatium two of his Predicaments doth ascribe to them that Entity which they have not XIX And though undoubtedly Action is a noble Predicament and whatever the Cartesians say requireth more causation than non agere doth yea is it self the causation of the mutations in the World yet men scarce know what to call it Some say it is res others it is but accidens rei and others modus rei some say It is in passo Some say it is in agente Some say it is neither but is agentis Some say immanent acts are Qualities as Scotus c. XX. And which is yet worse the very name Accident Mode and Quality are but general unapt notions not well understood by any that use them nor suited meetly to the severals contained under them And when we call a thing or nothing a Quality Accident or Mode we are little the wiser and know not well what we have said Sure I am that they are exceedingly heterogenea which Aristotle comprizeth in the very predicament of Quality And Gassendus thought all Accidents may be as well called Qualities or Modes XXI And which is yet worse all humane language is so wofully Ambiguous that there is scarce a word in the World that hath not many senses and the learned world never came to agreement about the meaning of their common words so that ambiguity drowneth all in uncertainty and confusion XXII And which is yet worse the certain apprehension of Sense and Reason is commonly by men called Learned reduced to and tryed by these dreaming ambiguous names and universal notions and men are drawn to deny their certain knowledge because they know not by what universal term to call it e. g. I know as far as is useful to me by seeing what Light is but whether it be Substantia Accidens Modus c. or what to call it universally few know And no wonder for their universal notions are their own works or Entia rationis fabricated by the imperfect comparing of things with things by ignorant understandings but the sensibility of objects the sensitive faculty the Intellect are the works of God. I know much better what Light is by seeing it than I know what an Accident or a Quality is So I know by feeling what Heat is I know what Motion or Action is I know what pain and pleasure is I know what love and hatred is I know partly what it is to think to know to will choose and refuse but what is the right universal notion of these what true definition to give of any one of them the Learnedst man doth not well know Insomuch as I dare boldly say that the vulgar ordinarily know all these better without definitions than the most Learned man living can know them by definitions alone And here I will presume to step aside to say as in the Ears of our over-doing Separatists who can take none into Christian Communion that cannot tell you how they were Converted or at least give them a fair account of their understanding all the Articles of the Faith in words that are adapted to the matter I tell you 1. That the knowledge of Words and second Notions and Definitions is one thing and the knowledge of Matters or Things is another 2. And it is the knowledge of the Things and not of the Words that is primarily and absolutely necessary to Salvation 3. And that many an illiterate ill bred person understand things long before they can utter their understandings in any intelligible words 4. And therefore if any man do but these two things 1. By Yea or Nay do signifie to me that he understandeth the Truth when I put the matter of nothing but the Baptismal Covenant into my Questions 2. And do manifest serious willingness accordingly by avoiding evil and using Gods means I dare not I will not refuse that person from the Communion of the Church Though I would do as much as the rigidest censurer to bring such up to greater knowledge XXIII And on the other side men are made to think that they know the things because they know the Names and Definitions And so that they are learned and Wise when they know little the more by all their learning For to be able to talk over all the Critical Books and Lexicons and Grammars all the Logical Notions and Definitions is nothing but Organical Knowledge Like the Shoemaker that hath a Shop full of Lasts and that most of them unmeet for any mans foot but never made a Shoe by any of them And false and confused and idle names and notions fill the learned world with False Confused and Vain Conceptions which Common-Countrey people scape so that it costeth many a man twenty years study to be made more erroneous than he would have been by following an honest trade of life XXIV Nay our very Articles of Faith and Practice which Salvation lyeth on are commonly tryed by these arbitrary Organical notions whole loads of School Volumes are witnesses of this Though the School-men where our Grammarians deride them as Barbarians have often done well in fitting words to things and making the Key meet for the Lock Yet old terms and notions and axioms too often go for current and over-rule disputes when they are not understood nor are proper or univocal What work doth Aristotle make with Actus and Potentia and the School-men after him What abundance of darkness do these two words contain in all
have found out their own errors they are apt to suspect all the substance of Sciences to be error And he speeds well that cometh but with Sanchez to a nihil scitur And he better that cometh but with Cornel. Agrippa to write Vanity and Vexation upon all the Sciences for many come to Infidelity it self and some to Atheism And as Dr. Tho. Jackson noteth by such distrust of men and humane things are tempted into a distrust or unbelief of Christ or perhaps with Hobbs grow to cry down all Learning besides their own which is worse than the worst that they decry XXXVII And by all this Princes and States are tempted to hate Learning it self and banish it as a pernicious thing As the case of the Turkish Muscovian and some other Empires testifie All this I have said not to dishonour true Learning which I would promote with all my power but to shew the Corruption and Vanity of that Philosophy and humane false Learning which Paul and the Ancient Writers did decry and why the Council of Carthage forbad the reading of the Gentiles Books and reproached Apollinarius and other Hereticks for their Gentile Learning Of the great uncertainty of our Physicks and Metaphysicks almost all the chief Authors themselves make free confessions See Suarez Metaph. disp 35. pag. 219 221 237. Fromondus de Anim. pag. 63. Gassendus often and who not Pious Bonaventure hath written a Tract de Reductione Artium ad Theologiam and another de non frequentandis quaestionibus Cornel. Agrippa de Vanitate Scientiarum is well worth the reading beforehand to prevent mens loss of time Chap. 4. III. What are the Certainties that must be known and held fast and why IT is none of the Apostles meaning that men should be meer Scepticks Nor am I seconding Sanchez his nihil scitur unless you take Science for adequate Science or in a transcendent notion as it signifieth that which is proper to another World and therefore may be denyed of this He can neither play the part of a Christian or of a man who doubts of all things and is assuredly confident of nothing That our discourse of this may be orderly and edifying it is of great use that I first help you rightly to understand what Certainty is The word is ambiguous and sometime is applied to the Object and sometime to the Act and Agent The former is called Objective Certainty the latter Subjective Certainty The Objective is either Certainty of the Thing or Certainty of Evidence by which the thing is discernible or perceptible to us And this either Sensible Evidence or Rational and the latter is either self-evidence of principles or derived Evidence of Consequences Subjective Certainty is also either considered in the Nature of it or in the Degree And as to the Nature it is either the Senses Certainty or the Intellects and this either of Incomplex Objects or Complex The first is either of sensed Objects or purely Spiritual The second of Principles or of Conclusions Of all these there are Certainty The Degrees are these It being first supposed that no Humane apprehension here is absolutely perfect and therefore all our Certainties subjective are Imperfect The word therefore signifieth not only a perfect apprehension but it signifieth non falli not to be deceived and such an apprehension of the evidence as giveth us a just resolving and quieting confidence And so 1. The due Objects of sense and 2. The immediate acts of the Soul it self are Certain in the first and highest degree I know certainly what I see clearly so far as I see it And I know certainly that I think and know and will. The next degree of Certainty is of Rational Principles and the next of Consequents It 's like in a Scheme you will easilier understand it CERTAINTY being an ambiguous word is either I. Objective which is I. Of Being of the Thing which is nothing but Physical Verity II. Of Evidence which makes things Perceptible and it is Evidence 1. Sensible viz. 1. To the External Senses 2. To the Internal Senses 2. Intelligible 1. Of the Being of Things viz. 1. Quod sint 2. Quid sint 3. Qualia sint 1. Things sensed and imagined as colours light heat c. 2. The Acts of Intellection and Will. 2. Of Complex Verity which is 1. Of self-evident Principles 2. Derivative Evidence of Conclusions II. Subjective Certainty by which I am certain of the Object Considerable I. In its Nature viz. Certainty 1. Of Sense 1. Of the Outward Senses when they are not deceived 2. Of the Inward Sense and Imagination 2. Of the Intellect which is 1. Of Beings 1. Sensed and imagined 2. Of the Acts of the Soul. 1. Quod sint 2. Quid sint 3. Qualia sint 2. Of the Complex Verities 1. Of self-evident Principles 2. Of Conclusions N. Qu. Whether there be not a third sort of Certainty both Objective and Subjective viz. Goodness not-sensible Certainly apprehended by the Intellectual Soul not only sub ratione Veri sed Boni and whether the Will by its Natural Gust have not a Complacential Perception of it as well as the Intellect Vid. Pemble Vindic. Grot. II. In the Degrees of Certainty which are in the order following 1. Sense perceiving the Object and it self is the first perceiver and hereof the surest 2. Imagination receiving from Sense hath more requisites to its Certainty 3. Intellection about things sensible hath yet more requisites to its Certainty viz. 1. That the Object be true 2. The Evidence sensible 3. That the Sense be sound and the Medium and other Conditions of Sense be just 4. That the Imagination be not corrupt 5. That the Intellect it self be sound 4. But Intellection about It self and Volition hath the highest Certainty 5. We are surer of the Quod than the Quid and Quale as that we Think than What and How. 6. We are certainer of self-evident Principles than of the Consequences 7. Consequences have various degrees of Evidence and Certainty A few Propositions may further help your understandings I. All things in the world have their Certainty physical of Being that is it is a Certainty or a Truth that this thing is II. The thing which is most commonly called Objective Certainty is such a degree of Perceptibility or Evidence as may aptly satisfie the doubting Intellect III. Evidence is called Infallible 1. When he that receiveth it is never deceived and so all Truth is Infallible Truth for he is not deceived who believeth it 2. Or when a man cannot err about it And there is no such Evidence in the world unless you suppose all things else agreeable IV. The Perception is called Infallible 1. Either quia non falsa because it is not deceived And so every man is Infallible in every thing which he truly perceiveth 2. Or because it Cannot or Will not err And so Absolute Infallibility is proper to God But secundum quid in certain cases upon certain Objects with
and Kill them that will not do it And what is it that must perswade us to all this Why meerly a Hoc est corpus meum as expounded by the Councils of Laterane and Trent And is not Davids I am a Worm and no Man Psal 22.6 as plain yea and that in a Prophecy of Christ Must we believe therefore that neither David nor Christ was a Man but a Worm Is not I am the Vine and ye are the Branches Joh. 15.1 2. as plain Must Sense be renounced and ordinary Miracles believed for such words as these And doth not Paul call it Bread after consecration three times in the three next verses And is not he as good an expositor of Christs Words as the Council of Trent And when did God work Miracles which were meer objects of belief against sense Miracles were done as sensible things thereby to confirm Faith and that which no sense perceived was not taken for a Miracle To conclude when the Apostle saith that Flesh and Blood cannot enter into the Kingdom of God plainly speaking of them formally as now called and not as they signify Sin and consequently that Christs Body is now in Heaven a Spiritual Body and not formally Flesh and Blood yet must the Bread and Wine be turned into his Flesh and Blood on Earth when he hath none in Heaven And by their Doctrine no Baker nor Vintner is secured but that a Priest may come into his Shop or Celler and turn all the Bread and Wine in it into Christs Body and Blood yea the whole City or Garrison may thus be deprived of their Bread and Wine if the Priest intend it and yet it shall not be so in the Sacrament it self if the Priest intend it not But I have staid too long in this XIV Next to the Act of Cogitation and Volition itself and to the most certain Objects of Sence there is nothing in all the World so Certain that is so Evident to the Intellect as the Being of God He being that to the Mind which the Sun is to the Eye certainliest known though little of him be known and no Creature comprehend him XV. That God is True is part of our knowing him to be perfect and to be God and therefore is most certain XVI That Man is made by God and for God that we owe him all our Love Obedience and Praise that we have all from him and should please him in the use of all with many such like are Notitiae Communes Certain Verities received by Nature some as Principles and some as such evident conclusions as are not to be doubted of XVII That the Scripture is the Word of God is a certain Truth not sensible nor a Natural Principle but an Evident conclusion drawn from that Seal or Testimony of the Spirit Antecedent Concomitant Impressed and Consequent which I have oft opened in other Treatises XVIII That the Scripture is True is a Certain Conclusion drawn from the two last mentioned premises viz. That God is True Verax and that the Scripture is his Word XIX Those Doctrines or sayings which are parts of Scripture evidently perceived so to be by Sense and Intellective perception are known to be True by the same Certainty as the Scripture in general is known to be true XX. To conclude then there are two sorts of Certain Verities in Theology 1. Natural Principles with their certain consequents 2. Scripture in General with all those assertions which are Certainly known to be its parts And all the rest are to be numbred with uncertainties except Prophetical certainty of Inspiration which I pass by Chap. V. Of the several Degrees of Certainty 1. AS Certainty is taken for Truth of Being it admitteth of no Degrees All that is True is equally True. 2. But Certainty of Evidence hath various degrees none doubteth but there are various degrees of Evidence all the doubt is whether any but the highest may be called Certainty And here let the Reader first remember that the question is but de nomine of the name and not the thing And next the Evidence is called Certain because it is Certifying aptitudinally It is apt to certify us 3. And then the question will be devolved to subjective Certainty whether it have various degrees For if it have so then the Evidence must be said to have so because it is denominated respectively from the Apprehensive Certainty And here de re it must be taken as agreed 1. That Certainty is a certain Degree of apprehension 2. That there are various degrees of apprehension 3. That no Man on Earth hath a perfect Intellectual apprehension at least of things Moral and Spiritual For his apprehension may be still increased and those in Heaven have perfecter than we 4. That there are some degrees so low and doubtful as are not fit to be called Certainty 5. That even these lowest degrees with the greatest doubting are yet often True apprehensions and whenever they are True they are Infallible that is not deceived Therefore this Infallibility which is but not to be deceived is indeed one sort of Certainty which is so denominated Relatively from the natural Truth or Certainty of the object But it is not this sort of Certainty which we enquire after 6. Therefore it followeth that this subjective certainty containeth this Infallible Truth of perception and addeth a degree which consisteth in the satisfaction of the mind 7. But if the mind should be never so confident and satisfied of a falshood this deserveth not the name of Certainty because it includeth not Truth For it is a Certain perception of Truth which we speak of and Confident erring is not Certainty of the Truth 8. As therefore the degrees of doubting are variously overcome so there must needs be various degrees of Certainty 9. When doubting is so far overcome as that the mind doth find rest and satisfaction in the Truth it may be called Certainty But when doubting is either prevalent and so troublesome as to leave us wavering it is not called Certainty 10. It is not the forgetting or neglect of a difficulty or doubt nor yet the wills rejecting it which is properly called Certainty This quieteth the mind indeed but not by the way of ascertaining Evidence Therefore ignorant people that stumble upon a truth by chance with confidence are not therefore Certain of it And those that take it upon trust from a Priest or their Parents or good peoples Opinion are not therefore Certain of it Nor they that say as some Papists Faith hath not evidence but is a Voluntary reception of the Churches Testimony and meritorious because it hath not Evidence Therefore though I see no cogent Evidence I will believe because it is my duty Whether this mans Faith may be saving or no I will not now dispute but certainly it is no Certainty of apprehension He is not Certain of what he so believeth This is but to cast away the doubt or difficulty and not at all
the better lest they hinder nature that would Cure the Disease If you dislike my counsel you may be shortly past blaming it for though their successes have Tongues their miscarriages are mostly silent in the Grave O how much goeth to make an able Physician But enough of such instances III. But though Errors in Politicks the World payeth yet much dearer for I must not be too bold in talking here But I will confess that here the uncertainties are almost all in the Applicatory part and through the incapacity of the minds of men For the truth is the main Principles of Policy are part of the Divine Law and of true Morality and in themselves are plain and of a satisfying Certainty could you but get mens heads and hearts into a fitness duely to consider and receive them IV. But to come nearer to our own profession there is much uncertainty in those Theological Conclusions which are built on such premises where any one of these Physical Metaphysical or Logical Uncertainties are a part yea though it be couched in the narrowest room even in one ambiguous term of Art and scarce discerned by any but accurate observers With great pomp and confidence many proceed to their Ergo's when the detection of the fraud not only of an uncertain Medium but of one ambiguous syllable will marr all And the conclusion can be no stronger or furer than the more weak and doubtful of the premises V. When the Subject is of small and abstruse parts far from the Principles and Fundamentals of the Matter usually the Conclusions are uncertain Nature in all matters beginneth with some few great and master parts like the great boughs or limbs of the Tree or the great Trunks and Master Vessels in our bodies and from thence spring branches which are innumerable and small And it is so in all Sciences and in Theology it self The great Essential and Chief Integral parts are few and easily discerned But two grand Impediments hinder us from a Certain knowledge in the rest one is the great Number of Particles where the understanding is lost and as they say seeketh a Needle in a bottle of Hay or a leaf in a Wood and the other is the Littleness of the thing which maketh it undiscernible to any but accurate and studious minds And therefore how much soever men that trade in little things may boast of the sublimity of them and their own subtilty their perceptions usually are accompanied with uncertainty though in some cases an uncertain knowledge known to be so is better than none VI. Yea though the Matters themselves may be more bulky yet if in knowing and proving them we must go through a great number of Syllogisms and Inferences usually the conclusion is very uncertain to us whatever it may be to an extraordinary accurate and prepared mind For 1. We shall be still jealous or may be lest in so many terms and mediums some one of them should be fallacious and insufficient and weaken all And we are so conscious of our own weakness and liableness to forget oversee or be mistaken that we shall or may still fear lest we have mist it and be overseen in something in so long a course and series of arguings VII Those parts of History which depend meerly on the credit of Mens Wisdom and Honesty and so are meerly of Humane Faith must needs be uncertain For the conclusion can be no surer than the premises All men as such are liars that is untrusty or such as possibly may deceive 1. They may be deceived themselves 2. And they may deceive others where they are not themselves deceived Every man hath some Passion some Ignorance some Error some Selfish interest and some Vice. This age if we never had known other instance is so sad a proof of this that tears are fitter than words to express it most confident reporters totally differ about the most notorious matters of Fact. I must not name them but I pity strangers and posterity If it come especially to the characterizing of others how ordinarily do men speak as they are affected And they are affected as self-interest and passion leadeth them with Cochlaeus Bolseck and such others what villains were Luther Zwinglius Calvin c. with their faithfullest acquaintance what Good and Holy men saving Luthers animosity If the Inquisitors Torment Protestants or Burn them is it not necessary that they call them by such odious names as may justify their fact If they banish and silence faithful holy able Ministers they must accuse them of some villanies which may make them seem worthy of the punishment and unworthy to Preach the Gospel of Christ what different characters did Constantius and Valens and their party on one side and Athanasius and the Orthodox on the other side give of one another What different characters were given of Chrysostom How differently do Hunnerichus and Gensericus on one side and Victor Uticensis and other Historians on the other side describe the Bishops and Christians of Africk that then suffered They were Traytors and Rebels and Rogues and Enemies to the King and Hereticks to Hunnerichus But to others they are Holy blameless Men and those were Tyrants and Hereticks that Persecuted them What difference between the Histories of the orthodox and that of Philostorgius and Sondius What different Characters do Eusebius and Eunapius give of Constantine and Eunapius and Hilary c. give of Julian What different Characters are given of Hildebrand on one side and of the Emperours Henrys on the other side by the many Historians who followed the several parts How false must a great number of the Historians on one side be I know that this doth not make all Humane Faith and History useless It hath its degree of credibility answerable to its use And a wise man may much conjecture whom to believe 1. A Man that like Thuanus sheweth modesty and impartiality even towards Dissenters 2. A man that had no notable interest to byas him 3. A man that manifesteth otherways true honesty and conscience 4. Supposing that he was himself upon the place and a competent Witness But there is little or no Credit to be given 1. To a factious furious railer 2. To one that was a flatterer of Great Men or depended on them for preferment or lived in fear of speaking the truth or that speaketh for the interest of his Riches and Honour in the World or for his engaged personal reputation or that hath espoused the interest of a sect or faction 3. There is little credit to be given to any Knave and Wicked Man. He that dare be Drunk and Swear and Curse and be a Fornicator or covetous Worldling dare Lie for his own Ends. 4. Nor to the honestest man that taketh things by rumours hear-say and uncertain reports and knoweth not the things themselves But how shall strangers and posterity know when they read a History whether the Writer was an honest Man or a Knave
By doing thus the Church notoriously declared that they took not all the Scripture to be equally necessary to be understood but that the Govenant of Grace and the Catechism explaining it is the Gospel it self that is the Essence of it and of the Christian Religion and that all the rest of the Scriptures contain but partly the Integrals and partly the Accidents of that Religion He is the wisest man that knoweth Most and Best and every man should know as much of the Scriptures as he can But if you knew all the rest without this the Covenant of Grace and its explication it would not make you Christians or save you But if you know this truly without all the rest it will. The whole Scripture is of great use and benefit to the Church It is like the body of a man which hath its Head and Heart and Stomach c. And hath also Fingers and Toes and flesh yea Nails and Hair. And yet the Brain and Heart it self fare the better for the rest and would not be so well Seated separate from them Though a man may be a man that loseth even a Leg or Arm. So is it here But it is the Covenant that is our Christianity and the duly Baptized are Christians whatever else they do not understand These are the things that all must know and daily live upon The Creed is but the Exposition of the three Articles of the Baptismal Covenant I believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Though the Jews that had been bred up to a preparing knowledge were quickly baptized by the Apostles upon their Conversion Acts 2. Yet no man can imagine that either the Apostles or other Ministers did use to admit the Ignorant Gentiles into the Covenant of God without opening the meaning of it to them or Baptize them as Christians without teaching them what Christianity is Therefore Reason and the whole Churches subsequent Custom assure us that the Apostles used to expound the three great Articles to their Catechumens And thence it is called The Apostles Creed Marcus Bishop of Ephesus told them in the Florentine Council as you may see Sgyropilus that we have none of the Apostles Creed And Vossius de Symbolis besides many others hath many Arguments to prove that this so called was not formally made by the Apostles Bishop Usher hath opened the changes that have been in it Sandford and Parker have largely de Descensu shewed how it came in as an Exposition of the Baptismal Articles Others stifly maintain that the Apostles made it But the case seemeth plain The Apostles used to call the Baptized to the profession of the same Articles which Paul hath in 1. Cor. 15.1 2 3 c. and varied not the matter All this was but more particularly to profess Faith in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Two or three further Expository Articles are put into the Creed since Otherwise it is the same which the Apostles used not in the very syllables or forms of words but in the same sense and the words indeed being left free but seldom much altered because of the danger of altering the matter Of all the Antientest Writers not one repeateth the Creed in the same words that we have it nor any two of them in the same with one another Irenaeus once Tertullian twice hath it all in various words but the same sense That of Marcellus in Epiphanius cometh nearest ours called the Apostles and is almost it Afterward in Ruffinus and others we have more of it Yet no doubt but the Western Churches at least used it with little variation still The Nicene Creed is called by some Antients the Apostles Creed too And both were so for both are the same in sense and substance For it is not the very words that are truly fathered on the Apostles About 30â— years a go Mr. Ashwel having published a Book for the Necessity and Honour of the Creed I wrote in the Postscript to my Reformed Pastor Ed. 2. a Corrective of some passages in which he seemeth to say too much for it or at least to depress the Scripture too much in comparison of it But long experience now telleth me that I have more need to acquaint men with the Reasons and Necessity of the Creed Seeing I find a great part of ignorant Religious people much to slight the use of it and say It is not Scripture but the work of man Especially taking offence at the harsh translatiâ—n of that Article He descended into Hell. which from the beginning it 's like was not in It is the Kernel of the Scripture and it is that for which the rest of the Scripture is given us even to afford us sufficient help to understand and consent to the Covenant of Grace that our Belief our Desires and our Practice may be conformed principally to these Summaries It is not every Child or Woman that could have gathered the Essential Articles by themselves out of the whole Scripture if it had not been done to their hands Nor that could have rightly methodized the Rule of our desires or gathered the just heads of natural duty if Christ had not done the first in the Lords Prayer and God the second in the Decalogue Obj. But I believe these only because the Matter of the Creed and the words also of the other two are in the Scripture and not on any other Authority Ans If you speak of the Authority of the Author which giveth them their truth it is neither Scripture nor Tradition but God for whose Authority we must believe both Scripture and them But if you speak of the Authority of the Deliverers and the Evidence of the Delivery be it known to you 1. That the Creed Lords Prayer Decalogue and the Baptismal Covenant have been delivered down to the Church from the Apostles by a distinct Tradition besides the Scripture Tradition Even to all the Christians one by one that were Baptized and admitted to the Lords Table and to every particular Church So that there was not a Christian or Church that was not even Constituted by them 2. Be it known to you that the Church was long in possession of them before it had the Scriptures of the New Testament It 's supposed to be about eight years after Christ's Ascension before Matthew wrote the first Book of the New Testament and near the year of our Lord one hundred before the Revelation was written And do you think that there were no Christians or Churches all that while Or that there was no Baptism Or no Profession of the Christian Faith in distinct Articles No Knowledge of the Lords Prayer and Commandements No Gospel daily preached and practised What did the Church-assemblies think you do all those years No doubt those that had Inspiration used it by extraordinary gifts But that was not all Those that had not did preach the Substance of the Christian Religion contained in these forms and did Pray and Praise God
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
a people that truly honour him in the world But O that they were more And O that they were more perfect Alas what a number are there that are otherwise Even among Divines this Plague is most pernicious as being of most publick influence Take him that never had a natural acuteness of wit nor is capable of judging of difficult points if he be but of long standing and grey hairs and can preach well to the people and have studied long he is not only confident of his fitness to judge of that which he never understood but his Reputation of wisdom must be kept up among the people by his Supercilious talking against what he understandeth not Yea if he be one that never macerated his flesh with the difficult and long studies of the matter without which hard points will never be well digested and distinctly understood yet if he be a Doctor and have lived long in a reputation for wisdom his Ignorant flashy Conjectures and hasty superficial apprehensions must needs go for the more excellent Knowledge And if you put him to make good any of his Contradictions to the truth his Magisterial contempt or his uncivil wrath and unmannerly interruptions of you in your talk must go for reason And if he cannot resist the strength of your evidence he cannot bear the hearing of it but like a scold rather than a Scholar taketh your words out of your mouth before you come to the end As if he said Hold your tongue and hear me who am wiser I came to Teach and not to Hear If you tell him how uncivil it is not patiently to hear you to the end he thinks you wrong him and are too bold to pretend to a liberty to speak without interruption Or he will tell you that you are too long he cannot remember all at once If you reply that the sense of the forepart of a Speech usually depends much on the latter part and he cannot have your sence till he have all and that he must not answer before he understandeth you and that if his memory fail he should take notes and that to have uninterrupted turns of speaking is necessary in the order of all sober conferences without which they will be but noise and strife he will let you know that he came not to hear or keep any Laws of Order or Civility but to have a combat with you for the reputation of wisdom or Orthodoxness And what he wants in Reason and Evidence he will make up in ignorant Confidence and Reviling and call you by some ill Name or other that shall go for a Confutation But yet this is not the usual way It is too great a hazard to the reputation of their wisdom to cast it on a dispute The common way is never to speak to the Person himself but if any one cross their conceits or become the object of their envy they backbite him among those that reverence their wisdom and when they are sure that he is far enough out of hearing they tell their credulous Followers O such a man holdeth unsound or dangerous Opinions Take heed how you hear him or read his writings this or that Heresie they savour of when the poor man knoweth not what he talketh of And if any one have the wit to say to him Sir he is neither so sottish nor so proud as to be uncapable of instruction if you are so much wiser than he why do you not teach him He will excuse his omission and his commission together with a further calumny and say These erroneous persons will hear no reason It is in vain If he be asked Sir did you ever try it 's like he must confess that he did not unless some magisterial rebuke once went for Evidence of truth If the hearers which is rare have so much Christian wit and honesty as to say Sir Ministers above all men must be no back-biters nor unjust you know it is unlawful for us to judge another man till we hear him speak for himself If you would have us know whether he or you be in the right let us hear you both together His answer would be like Cardinal Turnon at the conference at Poisie and as the Papists ordinarily is It is dangerous letting Hereticks speak to the People and it agreeth not with our zeal for God to hear such odious things uttered against the Truth In a word There are more that have the Spirit of a Pope in the World than one even among them that cry out against Popery and that would fain be taken for the Dictators of the World whom none must dissent from much less contradict And there are more Idolaters than Heathens who would have their Ignorant understandings to be instead of God the uncontrolled director of all about them But if these men have not any confidence in their self-sufficiency if they can but embody in a society of their minds or gather into a Synod he must needs go for a proud and arrogant Schismatick at least that will set any Reason and Evidence of Truth against their Magisterial Ignorance when it is the Major Vote The very Truth is The great Benefactor of the World hath not been pleased to dispense his Benefits Equally but with marvellous disparity As he is the God of Nature he hath been pleased to give a natural capacity for judiciousness and acuteness in difficult speculations but to few And as he is the Lord of all he hath not given men equal educacation nor advantages for such extraordinary knowledge Nor have all that have leisure and capacity self denyal and patience enough for so long and difficult studies But the Devil and our selves have given to all men Pride enough to desire to be thought to be wiser and better than we are And he that cannot be equal with the wisest and best would be thought to be so And while all men must needs seem wise while few are so indeed you may easily see what must thence follow 2. And it is not Divines only but all ranks of people who are sick of this disease The most unlearned ignorant people the silliest Women if they will not for shame say that they are wiser than their Teachers in the general yet when it cometh to particular cases they take themselves to be always in the right and O how confident are they of it And who more peremptory and bold in their judgments than those that least know what they say It is hard to meet with a person above eighteen or twenty years of age that is not notably tainted with this malady And it is not only these great mischiefs in matters of Religion which spring from self-conceitedness but even in our common converse it is the cause of disorder ruin and destruction For it is the common vice of blinded nature and it is rare to meet with one that is not notably guilty of it When they are past the state of professed Learners 1. It is
advantaged by the help of other mens experiments 2. And others rush on Practice in their youth partly because they have not yet knowledge enough to discern uncertainties and difficulties in the Art or to see what is further necessary to be known And partly because they think that seeing Skill must be got by experience use must help them to that experience and all men must have a beginning 3. And when they do their best they say God requireth no more 4. And they hope if they kill one they cure many But O that they had the Sobriety to consider 1. That the Physician is but One man And will his maintenance or livelyhood excuse him for killing many 2. That even one mans Life is more precious than one mans maintenance or fuller supply Is it not honester to beg your bread 3. That killing men by virtue of your trade without danger to you doth but hinder your Repentance but not so much extenuate your sin as many think Which is aggravated in that you kill your friends that trust you and not Enemies that oppose you or avoid you 4. Your experience must not be got by killing men but by accompanying experienced Physicians till you are fit to practice And if you cannot stay so long for want of maintenance beg rather than kill men or betake you to some other trade But if you be too Proud or Confident to take such Counsel I still advise all that love their lives that they choose not a Physician under fourty years old at least and if it may be not under sixty unless it be for some little disease or remedy which hath no danger and where they can do no harm if they do no good Old men may be ignorant but Young men must needs be so for want of experience though some few rare persons are sooner ripe than others And whereas they say that they Cure more than they Kill I wish that I had reason to believe them I suppose that if more of their patients did not live than die they would soon lose their practice But it 's like the far greatest part of those that live would have lived without them and perhaps have been sooner and easier cured if nature had not by them been disturbed And what calling is there in which hasty judging and conceits of more knowledge than men have doth not make great confusion and disappointment If a Fool that rageth and is confident be a Pilot woe to the poor Seamen and Passengers in the Ship. If such a one be Commander in an Army his own and other mens Blood or Captivity must cure his confidence and stay his rage For such will learn at no cheaper a rate How oft hear we such Workmen Carpenters Masons c. raging confident that their way is right and their work well done till the ruin of it confute and shame them If this disease take hold of Governours who will not stay to hear all parties and know the Truth but take up reports on trust from those that please or flatter them or judge presently before impartial tryal and hearing all woe to the land that is so governed The wisest and the best man must have due information and time patience and consideration to receive it or else he may do as David between Mephibosheth and Ziba and cannot be just What an odious thing is a partial blind rash hasty and impatient judge that cannot hear think and know before he judgeth Such the old Christians had to do with among their Persecutors who knew not what they held or what they were and yet could judge them and cruelly execute them And such were Tacitus and other old Historians that from common prejudice spake words of contempt or reproach of them The Christians were glad when they had a Trajan an Antonine an Alexander Severus c. to speak to that had Reason and Sobriety to hear their cause Among the Papists the old Reformers and Martyrs took him for a very commendable judge or Magistrate that would but allow them a Patient hearing and give them leave to speak for themselves Truth and Godliness have so much evidence and such a testimony for themselves in the Conscience of Mankind as that the Devil could never get them so odiously thought of and so hardly used in the World but only by keeping them unknown which is much by expelling and silencing their defenders who speed well sometime if an Obadiah hide them by fifties in a Cave and by tempting their Judges to hear but some superficial narrative of their cause and to have but a glimpse of the outside as in transitu and to see only the back-parts of it yea but the clothing which is commonly such as are made by its Enemies Good men and causes are too oft brought to them and set out by them as Christ with his Scarlet Robe his Reed and Crown of Thorns and then they say Behold the man and when they have cryed out Blasphemy and an Enemy to Caesar they write over his cross in scorn The King of the Jews Cain had not Patience to hear his own Brother and weigh the Case no not after that God had admonished him But he must first hate and murder and afterward consider why when it is too late Judas must know his Masters Innocency and what he had done in despair to hang himself And so wise Achitophel cometh to his end If David would have pondred his usage of Uriah as much in time as he did when Nathan had awakened his reason O what had he prevented If Paul had weighed before the case of Christians as he did when Christ did stop his rage he had not incurred the guilt of Persecution and the Martyrs Blood But he tells us that he was exceedingly mad against them And it is madness indeed to venture on Cruelty and Persecution and not stay first to understand the cause and consider why and what is like to be the end How ordinarily in the world are the excellentest men on Earth for Wisdom and Holiness such as Ignatius Cyprian and the rest of the Antient Martyrs and such as Athanasius Chrysostom c. reviled and used as if they were the basest Rogues on Earth laid in Jails banished silenced murdered and all this by men that know not what they are and have no true understanding of their cause Men of whom the world was not worthy wandred up and down in Dens and Caves and suffered joyfully the spoiling of their goods yea and death it self Heb. 11. from men that Judged before they knew Many a Great Man and Judge that hath condemned Christ's Ministers as Hereticks false Teachers unworthy to preach the Gospel have been such as understand not their Baptism Creed or Catechism and have need of many years teaching to make them know truly but those Principles that every Child should know There needs no great learning wisdom sobriety or honesty to teach them to cry out You are a Rogue a Seducer a
it was not this a presumptuous understanding When a man shall be one year of one Sect and another of another and yet always confident that he is in the right 6. When men that are known to be ignorant in other parts of Religion shall yet in some one opinion which they have espoused seem to themselves much wiser than their Teachers and make nothing of the Judgments of those that have studied it many a year is not this a presuming mind Take the ablest Divine that ever you knew living suppose him to be Jewel Andrews Usher Davenant Calvin Chamier Camero Armesius Gataker c. Let him be one that all Learned men admire whose Judgment is sent for from several Kingdoms who hath spent a long life in hard and very successful studies every Boy and Silly Woman every ignorant vicious clown that differeth from him in any point shall slight all the wisdom of this man as if in comparison of himself he were a fool Let it come but to the point of Anabaptistry Separation Antinomianism yea the grossest opinions of the Quakers and what senseless fellow or wench is not much wiser than all these Divines And they will pity him as a poor carnal ignorant person which hath not the teaching of God which they have Yea let him but seek to draw a sensualist from his Voluptuousness this poor sot doth presently take himself to be the wiser man and can prove all his Gaming his Idleness his Wantonness his precious time wasted in Plays and long Feastings his Gluttony his Tipling his Prodigal wastefullness to be all lawful things whatever the Learned Pastor say But why do not such men suspect their understandings and consider with themselves what likelihood is there that men as holy as I that have studied it all their days should not be wiser than I that never searcht as they have done Doth not God say he that seeketh shall find and wisdom must be laboriously searched for as a hidden treasure and doth not God use to give his blessing on supposition of mens Faithful endeavours 7. Is it not palpable Pride when a few men no wiser nor better than others can easily believe that all the rest of the Christian World the most Learned Godly and concordant Christians are all deceived ignorant Souls and they and their few adherents only are in the right in some doubtful controversies wherein they have no advantage above others either for capacity or grace I know that when the World is drowned in wickedness we must not imitate them be they never so many nor follow a multitude to do evil and I know that the Certain Truth of the Gospel must be held fast though most of the World be Infidels And that when the Arrians were the most they were not therefore the rightest And that even among Christians Carnal Interests use to breed and keep up such corruptions as must not for the number of the vicious be approved But when those that truely fear God and seek the Truth and Faithfully serve him as self-denyingly as any others shall agree in any part of Holy Doctrine or Worship for a few among them to rise up in a conceit of their own understandings and separate from them as they separate from the World and this upon less study than many of the rest have used to find out the Truth I am sure none but a Proud person will do this without great jealousie of his own understanding and great fear of erring and without long and serious search and deliberation at the least 8. Is it not Pride of understanding when we see men confident upon inconsiderable Reasons when they bring nothing that should move a man of any competent understanding and yet they build as boldly on this Sand as if they built upon a Rock 9. And when they slight the strongest and clearest arguments of another And in their prefidence disdain them before they understand them as not worthy of consideration and as silly things 10. When they obtrude all their Conceits magisterially upon others and expect that all men presently be of their mind and say as they do when they value men just as they agree with or disagree from their opinion and all are dear to them that hold with them and all are slighted that think they err When a man that without chewing presently swalloweth their conceits is taken for a sounder man than he that will take nothing as sure till Evidence prove it to him Is not this notorious Pride of understanding And O how common is this imposing Pride even in them that cry out against it and condemn it They that will vilify one party as Imposing all their own conceptions even in words and forms and ceremonies on the Churches of Christ will yet themselves be rigid Imposers No man shall be of their Communion nor judged meet for the Holy Sacrament who cometh not to their opinions in many of their singularities Nay worse that will not abstain from communion with other Churches whom their presumption separateth from 11. And do not those people most value their own understandings who choose Teachers to please them and not to Teach them and hear them as Judges or censurers and not as Learners How ordinary is this If they be to choose a Pastor they will rather have the most injudicious man who thinks as they think than the wisest man that is able to teach them better If they hear any thing which agreeth not with their former conceits they go away magisterially censuring the Preacher He taught unsound Doctrine dangerous things And neither understand him nor endeavour to Learn I have seldom Preached in strange congregations nor seldom written on any subject but among many Learners some such hearers and readers I have had that neither have understanding enough to Teach nor humility enough to know it and to Learn but they go away prating among their Companions of what they never understood and if it fall out that I know of it and answer them they have nothing to say But a putarem or non-putarem I thought you had meant thus or thus contrary to what I spoke or I noted not this or that word which the sence depended on Do but say as they would have you and you are an excellent man But if you tell them more than they knew if it detect any error or ignorance which they had before they condemn your teaching instead of learning of you Poor Souls If you are wise enough already what need you a Teacher If you are not why will you not learn If you were wiser than He why did you choose or take him for your Teacher If you are not why will you not learn of him 12. The deep and cruel censures which they pass against Dissenters doth shew their self-conceitedness None more censorious than raw unexperienced persons not only Ignorant Preachers but Women and Boys How readily and boldly without any fear of God doth one seek to make his
and as proud self-seeking men that will approve of none but those that flatter them and are of their way Some such there may be But sure all are not such Why do you not desire the Judgment of the wisest most impartial men but take up with the applause of unlearned persons that are of your own mind and way and magnify you for humouring them So you shall hear Empyricks and She-Physicians vilify Doctors of Physick as men that have less knowledge than they and are so Proud and Covetous and Dishonest that there is no trusting them When Pretended Knowledge must have so base a Cloak it is the greater sin 6. And it is the heinouser sin when they venture to do heinous mischief by it As a Papist a Quaker or a Separatist will in his confidence be a perverter of others and a Condemner of the Just and a defamer of those that are against him and a troubler of the Church and World. He that in his self-conceitedness dare resist the wisest and his Teachers and Rulers and set Countries on Fire is wickedly presumptuous So in the practice of Physick when people will be self-conceited when the Lives of others lie upon it and a silly Fellow or Woman will venture to purge to let blood to give this or that who know neither the disease nor proper cure 7. It is therefore a heinous sin in Rulers who must judge for the life and death of others or for the peace or misery of thousands about them I mean Pastors and Commanders in Armies and Navies and other Governours on whom the publick welfare of the Church or Army or Navy or Countrey doth depend O how wise should that person be whose errours may cost thousands so dear as their destruction Or if their understandings be not extraordinary how cautelous should they be in judging upon hearing the wisest and hearing dissenters and not only Flatterers or Consenters and hearing men of several minds and hearing all Witnesses and Evidence and hearing every man speak for himself and after all considering throughly of it Specially of Laws and Wars and Impositions in Religion where thousands of Conscience say what you can will expect Satisfaction When a Woman called to Antigonus to hear her cause and do her Justice he told her that he could not have leisure She answered you should not have while to be King then Whereupon he heard her and did her right Had it been to an inferior Judge she had spoken reason 8. Lastly Pretended Certainty is the greater sin when it is falsly fathered on God. But the Pope and Council dare pretend that God hath promised them Infallibility and God hath certified them that the consecrated Bread is no Bread and that our senses are all deceived and God hath made the Pope the universal Ruler of the World or Church and made him and his Council the only Judges by which all men must know what is the word of God. So when Fanaticks will pretend that by Revelation Visions or Inspirations of the Spirit God hath assured them that this or that is the meaning of a Text which they understand not or the truth in such or such a controversy Alas among too many well meaning persons God is pretended for a multitude of sinful errors And they that preach false Doctrine will do it as the old Prophet spake to the young as from the Lord And they that rail at godliness and they that censure backbite cast out or persecute their Brethren will do it as Rabshakeh Hath not God sent me c. Men will not make any snares for the Church or their Brethrens Consciences but in the name of God They will not divide the Church nor cast out Infants nor refuse Communion with their Brethren but in the name of God. One man saith God forbiddeth him all Book Prayers or all Imposed Forms of Prayer And another saith God forbiddeth him all but such And all bely God and add this heinous abuse of his holy word and name unto their sin Chap. 15. Some special aggravations more of this sin in Students and Pastors which should deter them from pretended Knowledge or prefidence TO such I will suppose that to name the Evils may suffice on my part without sharp amplifications Though I have spoken to you first in what is said I will briefly add 1. That this sin will make you slothful students Few study hard who are quickly confident of their first conceptions 2. While you do study it keepeth out Knowledge You are too full of your selves to receive easily from others 3. It is the Common Parent of Errour and Heresy Ignorance is the Mother and Pride the Father of them all And Prefidence and Pretended Knowledge is but Proud Ignorance in another name 4. What a life of precious time will you waste in following the erroneous thoughts of your bewildred minds 5. As food altereth the temperament of the body which it nourisheth so the very temperament of your minds and wills and affections will become vain and frothy and shadowy or malignant and perverse according to the quality of your Errour 6. It is the common Parent of Superstition It defileth God's Worship with Humane Inventions with duties and sins of our own making All such mens dreams will seem to them to be the Laws of God. 7. It will entail a corrupt Education of Youth upon us and consequently a corrupt degenerate kind of Learning and so a degenerate Ministry on the Churches When Youths are possessed with abundance of Uncertainties under the name of Learning and Religion it will grow the custom to Teach and Talk and Live accordingly Do I say It will do If the Schoolmens Errour in this deserve but half as much as Faber Valla Hutten Erasmus charge upon them you should hear and take warning Not to avoid the most accurate knowledge by the hardest studies but to avoid pretending that you know what you do not 8. And you will make vain strife and contention about vanity your very trade and business when you come abroad in the world They that make Uncertainties or Errours to be their studies and honourable Learning must keep up the honour of it by Living as they Learnt and talking vainly for the vanities of their minds 9. And you are like hereby to become the chiefest Instruments of Satan to trouble the Church either with Heresies Schisms or Persecutions 10. And truly it should much turn your hearts against it to know that it is a continual habit or exercise of Pride And Pride the Devil's sin is one of the most heinous and odious to God. If you hate any sin you should hate Pride And it is one of the worst sorts of Pride too As Nature hath three Principles active Power Intellect and Will and Man three Excellencies Greatness Wisdom and Goodness so Pride hath these three Great Objects Men are proud that they are Greater or Wiser or Better than others That is They think themselves Greater or Wiser
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
But let that holy knowledge and love be mine which God most loveth and the World most hateth and costeth us dearest upon Earth but hath the blessed end of a Heavenly Reward Chap. XII The eighth Inference What is the work of a faithful Preacher and how it is to be done IF that Knowledge which kindleth in us the Love of God be the only saving Knowledge then this is it that Ministers must principally preach up and promote Could we make all our hearers never so learned that will not save their Souls But if we could make them holy and kindle in them the love of God and goodness they should certainly be saved The holy practical Preacher therefore is the best Preacher because the holy practical Christian is the best and only true Christian We work under Christ and therefore must carry on the same work on Souls which Christ came into the World to carry on All our Sermons must be fitted to change mens Hearts from Carnal into Spiritual and to kindle in them the love of God. When this is well done they have learnt what we were sent to teach them and when this is perfect they are in Heaven Those Preachers that are Enemies to the godliest of the people and would make their Hearers take them all for Hypocrites that go any further than obedience to their Pastors in Church-forms and Orders Observances and Ceremonies and a civil Life are the great Enemies of Christ his Spirit his Gospel and the Peoples Souls and the Eminent Servants of the Devil in his malignant War against them all All that Knowledge and all those Formalities which are set up instead of divine Love and holy Living are but so many cheats to deceive poor Souls till time be past and their convictions come to late I confess that ignorance is the calamity of our times and people perish for lack of Knowledge And that the Heart be without Knowledge it is not good And lamentable ignorance is too visible in a great degree among the religious sort themselves as their manifold differences and errours too openly proclaim And therefore to Build up men in Knowledge is much of the Ministerial work But what Knowledge must it be Not dead Opinions or uneffectual Notions or such Knowledge as tendeth but to teach men to talk and make them pass for men of parts But it is the Knowledge of God and our Redeemer the Knowledge of Christ Crucified by which we Crucifie the Flesh with all its Affections and Lusts And by which the World is Crucified to us and we to it If the Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost in whom the God of this World hath blinded their Eyes when there is no truth and mercy and knowledge of God in the Land no wonder if such a Land be clad in mourning When men have not so much Knowledge of the evil of sin and their own sin and misery and of the need and worth of Christ of the truth of Gods Word of the vanity of the World of the greatness wisdom and goodness of God and of certain most desirable Glory of Heaven as shall humble their Souls and turn them from the World to God and absolutely deliver them up to Christ and mortifie fleshly Lusts and overcome temptations and renew them unto the Love of God and goodness and set their Hearts and Hopes on Heaven This is the ignorance that is mens damnation And the contrary effectual Knowledge is it which saveth Souls Chap. XIII The ninth Inference Those that Know God so far as to Love him above all may have comfort notwithstanding their remaining ignorance A Great number of upright hearted Christians who Love God sincerely and obey him faithfully are yet under so great want of further knowledge as is indeed a great dishonour to them and a hinderance of them in their duty and comfort and to many a great discouragement And O that we knew how to cure this imperfection that Ignorance might not feed so many Errours and cause so many fractions and disturbances in the Church and so many sinful miscarriages in its members But yet we must conclude that the person that hath knowledge enough to renew his Soul to the Love of God shall be loved by him and shall never perish and therefore may have just comfort under all the imperfections of his knowledge More wisdom might make him a better and more useful Christian But while he is a Christian indeed he may rejoyce in God. I blame not such for complaining of the dulness of their Understandings the badness of their Memories their little profiting by the means of Grace I should blame them if they did not complain of these And I think their case far more dangerous to the Church and to themselves who have as much ignorance and know it not but proudly glory in the wisdom which they have not But many a thousand Christians that have little of the Notional and Organical part of Knowledge have powerful apprehensions of the Power Wisdom and Love of God and of the great Mercy of Redemption and of the Evil of Sin the Worth of Holiness and the Certainty and Weight of the Heavenly Glory And by how much these men love God and Holiness more than the more Learned that have less Grace by so much they are more beloved of God and accounted wiser by the God of wisdom and therefore may rejoice in the greatness of their felicity I would have none so weak as to under-value any real useful Learning But if Pharisees will cry out against unlearned godly Christians These people know not the Law and are accursed Remember the Thanksgiving of your Lord I thank thee Father Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to Babes And as the reputed foolishness of God that is of Gods Evangelical Mysteries will shortly prove wiser than all the reputed wisdom of men so he that hath wisdom enough to love God and be saved shall quickly be in that World of light where he shall know more than all the Doctors and subtile disputers upon Earth and more in a moment than all the Books of men can teach him or all their Authors did ever here know Jer. 9.23 24. Thus saith the Lord Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom neither let the mighty man glory in his might let not the rich man glory in his riches But let him that glorieth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness and righteousness in the Earth For in these things do I delight saith the Lord. Chap. XIV Questions and Objections answered Quest 1. IF so much knowledge will save a man as helpeth him to love God as God may not Heathens or Infidels at least be saved For they know that there is one God who is Infinitely Good and Perfect and more amiable than all the World and the
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
body or the fruit of 3. This life of Love is the perfection of mans faculties as to their intended end and use As all the operations of the lower faculties Vegetative and Sensitive are subordinate to the use and operations of the Intellectual part which is the higher so all the Acts of the Intellect itself are but subservient and Dirigent to the Will or Love and Practice The understanding is but the Eye by which the Soul seeth what to love and choose or refuse and what to do or to avoid Love is the highest act of our highest faculty And complacency in the highest infinite good is the highest of all the acts of Love. This is the State of the Soul in its Ripeness and Mellow Sweetness when it is delightful embracing its most desired object and is blessed in the fruition of its ultimate end All other Graces and Duties are Servants unto this They are the parts indeed of the same new creature but the Hands and Feet are not the Heart 4. For Love is the very foretast of Heaven the beginning of that felicity which shall there be perfect In Heaven all Saints shall be as One and all united to their glorious Head as he is united to the Father disparities allowed Joh. 17.24 And what more uniteth Souls than Love Heaven is a state of Joyful Complacence and what is that but Perfect Love The Heavenly work is perfect Obedience and Praise And what are these but the actions and the breath of Love 5. Therefore they that live this life of Love are fitter to die and readier for Heaven than any others Belief is a foresight of it but Love is a foretast the first fruits and our earnest and pledge He that Loveth God and Christ and Angels and Saints and perfect Holiness and Divine Praise is ready for Heaven as the Infant in the womb is ready for birth at the fulness of his time But other Christians whose Love is true but little to their fears and damped by darkness and too much love of the body and this world do go as it were by untimely birth to Heaven and those in whom the love of the body is predominant come not thither in that state at all The God of Grace and Glory will meet that Soul with his felicitating embracements who panteth and breatheth after him by Love And as Love is a kind of Union with the Heavenly Society the Angels who love us better than we love them will be ready to convey such Souls to God. As the living dwell not in the graves among the dead and the dead are buried from among the living so holy Souls who have this life of Love cannot be among the miserable in Hell nor the dead in sin among the blessed 6. Therefore this life of holy Love doth strengthen our Belief it self Strong Reasons that are brought for the Immortality of Souls and the future Glory are usually lost upon unsanctified hearers yea with the Doctors themselves that use them When they have perswaded others that there is a Heaven for Believers and that by Arguments in themselves unanswerable they have not perswaded their own hearts but the predominant Love of Flesh and Earth doth byass their understandings and maketh them think that they can confute themselves Their gust and inclination prevaileth against Belief And therefore the greatest Scholars are not always the strongest Believers But holy Love when it is the Habit of the Soul as it naturally ascendeth so it easily believeth that God that Glory to which it doth ascend The gust and experience of such a Soul assureth it that it was made for Communion with God and that even in this life such Communion is obtained in some degree and therefore it easily believeth that it is Redeemed for it and that it shall perfectly enjoy it in Heaven for ever Though Glory be here but seminally in Grace and this world be but as the womb of that better world for which we hope yet the life that is in the Embrio and seed is a confirming Argument for the perfection which they tend to O that men knew what holy Love doth signifie and foretel As the seed or Embrio of a man becometh not a Beast or Serpent so he that hath the habitual Love of God and Heaven and Holiness is not capable of Hell no more than the Lovers of worldliness and sensuality are capable of present Communion with God and of his Glory God doth not draw mens Hearts to Himself nor kindle Heavenly desires in them in vain He that hath the Spirit of Christ hath the Witness in himself that Christ and his Promises of Life are true 1 John 5.10 11 12. And what is this Spirit but the Habit of Divine and Heavenly Love and its concomitants May I but feel my Soul inflamed with the fervent Love of the Heavenly Perfection surely it will do more to put me quite out of doubt of the certainty of that blessed state than all Arguments without that Love can do 7. And holy Love will be the surest Evidence of our Sincerity which many old Writers meant that called it The Form of Faith and other graces As means as means are informed by their aptitudinal respect unto the End so Love as it is the Final Act upon God the Final Object thus informeth all subordinate Graces and Duties as they are means And as all Morality is subjected in the Will as the proper primary seat and is in the Intellect executive power and senses only by participation so far as their acts are imperate by the Will so Love and Volition being really the same thing it may accordingly be said that nothing is any further acceptable to God than it is Good and nothing is morally Good any further than it is voluntary or willed and to be willed as Good as End or as Means and to be Loved are words that signifie the same No preaching praying fasting c. no fear of punishment no belief of the Truth c. will prove us sincere and justified any further than we can prove that all this either cometh from or is accompanied with Love that is with a Consenting Will. With the heart man believeth unto righteousness Rom. 10. And If thou believe with all thy heart thou mayest be baptized saith Philip to the Eunuch Acts 8. My Son give me thy heart is Wisdom's invitation All 's nothing without the heart that is without willingness or Love. They that love most are sureliest forgiven and have most holiness or grace how unskifull soever they may be in their expressions The sealing Spirit of Adoption is the Spirit of Love and the Abba Father and the unexpressed groans of filial Love are understood and acceptable to God. A Loving Desire after God and Holiness is a better Evidence than the most taking Tongue or largest Knowledge 8. This life of Holy Love will make all our Religion and Obedience easy to us It will give us an alacrity to the performance and a