ERROR He brought that Scripture 2 King 6.1.2 Touching the Sons of the Prophets asking leave of Elisha to go and build at Jordan to prove the Lawfulness and Religiousness of the Vniversities in their present Vse and Customs c. Answer To this I Reply that there is a vast difference between those Schools and these Vniversities as in many other things so chiefly in this That in those Schools of the Prophets named by him the holy men of God freely taught the Youth who came willingly to them to learn especially in the corrupt times of Israel and Judah I say they taught them only the Knowledge of the Books of Moses and of the other Prophets then extant and no Heathenish knowledge or Disciplines of the Gentiles at all And these kinde of Schools began early in the Church For the Fathers before the Flood and the Patriarks after all taught their Children and Families the Word of God And so each of their Families was such a School And that we may not be at uncertainties in this matter it is manifest what Doctrine they taught by that which God himself saith of Abraham Gen. 18.19 I know Abraham saith God that he will command his Children and Household after him that they keep the way of the Lord and to do Justice and Judgement This was the summe of Abrahams Doctrine to his Family And this is farther confirmed by that of Asaph Psal. 78.2.3.4 Where he saith I will open my mouth in a Parable I will utter dark sayings of old which we have heard and known and our Fathers have told us We will not hide them from their Children shewing to the Generation to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and the wonderfull works that he hath done Where we plainly see what Doctrine the Children received from their Parents and the Parents taught their Children from one Generation to another to wit not vain Philosophy and the Disciplines of the Heathens but the praises of the Lord and his strength and wonderfull works This also is manifest by the practise of Jehosaphat King of Judah who sent his Princes with the Levites up and down throughout Judah and they onely took the Book of the Law of the Lord with them and no Heathnish Authors and taught the People 2 Chron. 17. And Ezra after the Prophets return from Babilon took onely the Book of the Law of Moses and read it to them and the Levites also read in the Book of the Law of God distinctly to the People and gave them the sense and caused them to understand it Nehem. 8. And this also James the Apostle witnesseth Acts 15.21 saying Moses of old time hath in every City them that Preach him being read in the Synagogues every Sabbath day So that the faithfull Prophets of the Lord during all the Old-Testament had the chief care in their Schools to keep the Word of the Lord among them in a right sense according to the mind of the Spirit For seeing the Lords People are his Portion they knew they were to be carefully Educated and Instructed in the right knowledge of the Scriptures to prepare them for the Lord and to make them meet for his Kingdom And the keeping of the Word and Doctrine of God pure is one of the greatest matters of all in the Church of God For as the Word is such is the VVorship such is the Faith such is the Conscience such is all Wherefore the Holy men of God would by no means bring in the Philosophy or Doctrine of the Heathens into their Schools to teach that to their Sons or Scholars but onely the true faithfull and unmixed word of God And if against this it be Objected That Moses was learned in all the Learning of the Egyptians To this I Reply But did Moses ever teach any of that Learning in the Church or publish any of the Doctrines of it or did he command or encourage any of the people of God to learn it Or did any other of the Prophets of the Lord many ages teach their Sons or Scholars any of the Egyptian Philosophy which was the Antientest or the Sinaradine Table of Hermes Trismegistus the pretended Scholar of Moses so much boasted of or any Heathnish Author whatsoever of which there were many then extant I say let them prove that but one Heathnish Author was read by any of the Prophets to their Scholars and then they will have some colour taught Jesus and the Resurrection from the dead Thus Peter first taught the Men of Judea and Inhabitants of Jerusalem That God had made Jesus whom they had crucified both Lord and Christ having raised him from the dead because it was not possible for him to be holden of death who was the Lord and Author of Life And Steven disputing with the Libertines Cirenians and Alexandrians and divers Philosophers of Cilicia and Asia did hold forth to them nothing but Christ and that He should put an end to the Temple and Law and should change all the Customs of Moses And they were not able to resist the wisdom and spirit by which he spake Act. 6. And Paul at the Vniversity of Athens reproved their Heathenism and taught nothing among the Epicureans and Stoicks and other sects of Philosophers but the Resurrection of Christ and his Kingdom and judgement Act. 17. He also disputed daily in the School of one Tyrannus and that for two years together and perswaded onely the things touching the Kingdom of God brought into the world by Jesus Christ Act. 19. And he so prevailed with his Doctrine that many which used curious Arts brought their books together and burnt them before all men and the prior of them was counted at fifty thousand pieces of silver So that as the Gospel prâ—vailed and the Name of Christ was magnified so did people renounce Philosophy and burn their books of curious Arts For which Books our Vniversity would give as much mony if they could procure it from good Benefactors as they were valued at So that as they through the efficacy of the Gospel of Heathens became Christians and threw away all other Learning and burnt their Books of great value least they should infect others So on the contrary in our Vniversities of pretended Christians men usually become true Heathens never valuing the precious Gospel of God our Saviour as they do other Heathnish and Philosophical Books Farther the same Paul dwelt after at Rome two whole years in his own hired house and during all that time Preached onely the Kingdom of God and taught those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness But taught not one word of Philosophy He also at Corinth a great and famous City of Greece full of Philosophers and Orators taught nothing among them but Christ Crucified to the Jews a Stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness But to them that believe both of Jews and Greeks Christ the power of
diligence and speed to procure fifty Volums of the Scriptures to be written in parchment well and Legibly and in such a bigness or Volume as might be carried with greatest ease for she further teaching and instructing of those that came to attain the knowledge of the Christian Religion Judging it most meet that Christian people should be instructed in the Doctrine of Christ And though afterwards when the suffering times of the Church began to be over Christians became more carâ—â—l and secure and that in the very days of Constantine and so began to decline the word of faith and to seek after Philosophy yet had God in all the ages of his Church some of his servants who did reject it and did cleave only to the word Among which I shall only for the present produce the Testimonies of Berno who lived above six hundred years ago and Zuinglius of latteâ— times Berno who lived about the year 1008 and was a man furnished with all sorts of Learning saith That he had for many years rejected aâ—â—ung the figments of the Poets and the Histories of the Heathens and the study of secular Letters and had converted the whole intention of his mind in the word of God and the Divine things contained therein And accordingly he taught no other Doctrine to any Hularicus Zuinglius also Pastor of Zâ—rich in Helvetâ—ae â—man who had been educated in all kind of Learning and was after through faith and the teaching of God an eminent Instrument in his Church he saith thus of himself When saith he I being yet a youth was exercised in all sorts of Learning I can truly say that I did not profit less then the rest of my equals But when about seven years ago I betook my self to the study of the holy Scriptures then the things that I had before sacked in or learned from Philosophers and Divines did procure me so much trouble that being then moved by the Authority of the Scriptures I judged that all those things were to be cast away and counted as dung and that the true minde of God was only to be received from his pure and simple word And therefore I began humbly to intreat the Lord that he would vouchsafe me his own light By which means it shortly came to pass that the reading of the holy Scripture did much delight and please me and they being nakedly and alone propounded did flow unto me with more ease then if I had read them divided and distracted with variety of Comments And as he rejected Philosophy wholly and entertained the word So did he only teach this word to faithful Câ—ristians who are the only true School of Christ in the world Now by all this it appears that the Schools of the Prophets and Apostles and of Christ himself the Head of them and of the most faithfull Christians that followed Christ in the first and latter ages were in no sort like the Schools in the present Vniversities where humane Learning according to the Statutes of the Vniversities prevails for the first seven years and they think youth cannot be made good Christians except they be first made good Heathens The Schools of the Prophets and Apostles would not meddle with the Philosophy of the Heathen but led the children and youth presently to the word of God and therein to the true Knowledge of God in Christ But these Schools first lead youth from God and his word several years together to the corrupt Reason Wisdom Notions Conceptions yea to the Idolatry Blasphemy Atheism Lusts Filthiness and Villanies of the cursed Heathen that thereby in a strange and Antichristian Method they may be the fitter to know and understand the Scriptures The Schools of the Prophets taught only Moses and the Prophets to the Jewish youth and the Schools of the Apostles taught Christ only and his Gospel to the children of Christians But the Vniversities lead men both from Moses and from Christ both from the Law and the Gospel to the Heathen to make men hereby able Christians and Divines The Queen of the South came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon And the Vniversities leave Christ who is Infinitely greater and wiser then Solomon and go to the utmost parts of the earth for wisdom there So that in these Vniversities there hath been the greatest Apostacy and withdrawing from Christ and the greatest dishonour and disparagement offered to him and his Gospel as ever was known For is it not a matter of greatest wonder and amazement that after that Word which was with God and was God and is God blessed for ever hath been manifested in the flesh and that flesh of his hath been justified by the Spirit to have the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in it bodily and that this wonderfull person hath come to his Church in the same common nature with it filled with all the Righteousness Wisdom Truth Power Life Peace and Joy and all the things of God I say is it not strange that He who alone comprehends the fulness of all things and in whom are hid all the Infinite Treasures of Divine and Heavenly wisdom and knowledge that he alone should not be counted sufficient and enough no not by those who pretend his name to make us wise to Salvation which is the only True Excellent and necessary wisdom in the world and to make the man of God perfect and the whole Church of God compleat but to the great dishonor of Christ yea to the very rejection of Christ the children of Christians must be led from the Doctrine of Christ the Son of the living God to the Doctrine and Disciplines of the Wretched Filthy Abominable Wicked and damned Heathen and to spend the prime and flower of their youth in these things Who but Antichrist himself could have brought in and set up such an Abomination of desolation in the Church of God And yet for the better credit of all things must these be them that their Divinity cannot be called the Doctrine of Christ but of Antichrist being wholly contrary to the word of faith And therefore Mr. Simpson was the more to blame to flatter them in their evils and to deceive the world in appropriating to them the glorious Title of the Schools of the Prophets who are in all things so contrary and contradictory to them Now the summe and certainty of this matter is this That the Congregations of Believers where only the word of the Gospel is truly taught according to the Ministration of the Spirit whether to youth or men they under the New Testament are answerable to the Schools of the Prophets under the Old who only taught Moses and the Prophets And the Vniversities wherein Philosophy is first taught the youth and after Divinity and then both are mingled together to the utter perverting and corrupting the Gospel of Christ I say these Vniversities in the time of the Gospel are answerable to the High-Places in
as dirt and dung and the plain word of the Gospel only shall prevail and flourish among the Christian People which time the Lord hasten for his Elects sake 2. ERROR That they who have endeavoured to pull down Schools have alwayes been men who were found Enemies to Religion So Julian the Apostate shut up the doors of the Schools because he would have all Religion to go down Answer True it is that they who have sought the subversion of Christian Schools wherein the Doctrine of the Gospel is purely taught without the mixture of Philosophy and Heathenism they all have been and are very enemies to the true Religion But they that seek to put down Heathenish Schools and to erect Christian or to reform the Schools of Heathen into Christian or to remove Heathenism out of Christian Schools they are not before God and good men enemies to true Religion but the great friends of it Nay they that call Heathenish Schools by the name of Christian that they may still remain with the better credit in their Heathenism without any true Reformation according to the Gospel I rather judge them to be enemies to the true Religion and friends only to their profit preferment and ends Julian indeed did forbid that Christians should be instructed in the Disciplines of the Gentiles but saith Sozomen the Writer of the Ecclesiastical History he did this because he thought that by those Disciplines men might attain to a great faculty to perswade which advantage he would not have the Christians to gaine to the help of their Religion Now certainly this was done as Socrates another Writer of the Ecclesiastical History doth acknowledge by the singular providence of God For seeing then Christians had begun to degenerate from the Gospel and to betake themselves to Heathenish Learning Julian attribuâ—â—d all the glory and excellency of Christianity to that Learning and so thought with Mr. Simpson that if Humane Learning were denyed to Christians Christianity it self would soon be at end Wherefore the Lord stirred up Julian to put down the Doctrine of the Heathen in the Schools of Christians that it might appear to all the World That as the true Christian Religion is not helped by Humane Learning so neither is it hindred by the want of it And that there is more Light Knowledge Truth Wisdom Power Vtterance given to Christians by the Vnction of the Spirit alone which all receive who believe then through all Heathenish Disciplines And also that it might be manifest that true Christianity is founded on faith in Christ and the gift of his Spirit only and not at all on Humane Learning For what Humane Learning had Peter and John and yet in what Wisdom and Authority did they being ignorant and unlearned men Reprove Convince and Silence the greatest and ablest men of the Jews And what Humane Learning had Steven and yet he confuted the Libertines and Cyrenians and Alexandrians and all the Philosophers of Cilicia and Asia which disputed with him and they all were not able to resist not the Humane Learning but the Wisdom and Spirit by which he spake And Christ hath promised all his people that when for his Names sake they should be brought before Kings and Rulers who usually have the greatest accomplishment of Humane Learning that then they should not study beforehand what to say for he would give them in that very hour a mouth and wisdom which none of their Adversaries should be able to resist And the power and vertue of the Gospel and the wisdom knowledge and utterance of Gods Spirit is more gloriously manifest in plain men then in learned men For in the one the Grace and Vertues of the Spirit are attributed to Humane Learning But in the other to God only who dwells in them Wherefore that the Wisdom and Knowledge and Light and Power of the word of faith in true Christians might not be attributed to Humane Learning God stirred up an enemy to Christian Religion to be so serviceable to it as to hinder Heathenish Doctrine from being taught in the Schools of Christians that so the Câ—urch might be restored to be as in the dayes of its Youth when there flourished in it only the simple and plain word of faith without any intermingling Philosophy or Humane Doctrine And if Constantine had made such an order in his time Julian had not had such an opportunity to have renounced Christianity and turned Heathen For Julian being instructed in the Philosophy and Disciplines of the Heathen by Libanius his Tutor by this means he came to love Philosophy better then the Gospel and so by degrees turned from Christianity to Heathenisme which may be a fair warning to all Christians that they suffer not their children to be so educated lest at last with Julian they at least in their hearts loath and reject the Gospel and become with him Apostates and Pagans And hence it is most evident that Heathenish Philosophy is so far from being a profitable study for the children of Christians that it is very dangerous for them to be so educated as Socrates is forced to confess where he saith For Christians to be thorowly instructed in the Disciplines of the Gentiles there is none will grant that this is profitable to the Christian Religion For it is not without danger for Christians to be taught in the learning of the Heathens seeing this teacheth that there are many Gods And therefore saith he the Doctrine of the Heathen is not approved by Christ or any of his Apostles or Disciples Wherefore said Luther My counsel is that a youth should shun Philosophy and School Divinity as the death of his soul 3. ERROR That the Knowledge of Heavenly things cannot come to us but by things on earth and that all Divinity is swadled in Humane Learning Answer I conceive that all Christians at the first reading of this will acknowledge that this Doctrine is not Divine but Philosophical The Philosophers say that nothing is in the understanding but that which is first in the sense which is proportionable to that which Mr. Simpson speaks and yet they know not what they say when they say so But let us consider if this be so That the Knowledge of heavenly things cannot come to us but by things on earth then how shall we know the Mysterie of God even the Father and the Mysterie of Christ who is God manifest in the flesh Or how shall the Mysterie of faith and of our union with Christ through faith into one flesh and Spirit with him be known Or the new birth and new Creature which hath all things new in it and all those new things the things of God Or how shall the free Justification of a sinner through the death of Christ and his Reconciliation to God be known with all the rest of the things of the Gospel seeing nothing on earth can reveal the least part of these things And if
this evil should arise but in the end of the world when the world through the prevailing of sin being loaden with the wrath of God should draw neer to hell and damnation For the miserable people must needs hear those things taught and delivered out of the Pulpits which those Molochites have learned in the Universities And they have learned nothing but the highest blasphemies of God Neither is it lawful to have anywhere any other Pastor then these In Jeremiah that valley is called Gehinnom from whence Christ took that word Gehenna which what it signifies I do not well know but it seems to me to come from Janah which signifies to eat up or to pill or waste as Tyrants or Usurers do pill and suck out the people so that Gehinnom is the valley of pilling or wasting the people for these being set over the people as shepherds ought to feed them with the word of life and they in stead thereof do insensibly waste and devour them in their body goods and soul with the pestilent Doctrines of Universitâ—es And such Teachers do the Univesities those Sâ—nagogues of perdition give us Thus Luther These now are Luthers own words which I have made legible to English men Wherein it is manifest that he condemns the Universities in the very institution and constitution of them and chiefly in their chief studies Humane Learning and School-Divinity and also as to that gross popish Opinion that they are the Fountain and Nurseries of the Ministery and that none are fit to teach or so fit to teach as those that have been educated in them Yea though these be raw foolish ignorant fellows yet being University-Graduates must they be set over Towns and Parishes and the miserable people must not onely hear them and their doltish Doctrine brought from the Uniâ—ersities but also must be constrained by secular power and Laws to pay them well for such pains which tends onely to the ruine of their souls for ever and no hand is yet strongly and resolutely stretched out to deliver the people from this intolerable bondage For the necks of the people of the world have never endured so grievous a yoak from any Tyrants as from the Doctrine and Domination of the Clergy For worldly Tyrants have onely afflicted mens bodies and temporal estates which reached but to this short life but these spiritual Tyrants the Clergy or false Ministery when they have got countenance strength and ayd from the wordly Magistrates how have they with their Academical Philosophical Heathenish Divinity infected poysoned and destroyed the people to eternal death and no body durst shun them upon pain of temporal death or punishments But now through the great goodness of God and his mighty Providences and Works from heaven it is a more happy age and happy shall they be who being called forth shall do the work of God against all discouragements and difficulties and shall not with Ephraim being harnessed turn their backs in the day of battel And now to return to our business again touching the Universities let none object that Luther speaks against Popish Universities only for this is but a weak and simple Defence and altogether unable to ward off the mighty blow of Gods word from their heads and hearts For the things condemned in the foregoing Testimonies of Luther are the self same for the substance of them as do live prevaile and flourish in our present Universities as hath been before declared and I leave it to every faithful Christian to judge the truth in this matter But men would faine preserve their Titles Degrees Authority Dignity State Stipends and therefore for defence of these things they must needs say something though it be to never so little purpose but yet by such discourse they sufficiently declare how cool and icie they are for Christs interest and how zealous for their own But certaine it is that as the Universities were set up at first as nurseries for Antichrists kingdome men being therein so educated according to the undertaking of Charles the great in Philosophy and School-Divinity that it might be said to them Vos estis sal terrae lux mundi Ye are the salt of the earth and the light of the world which yet onely agrees to the faithful who are born of God so have they still remained the same hitherto in substance though not without some small change of outward form For first the Philosophy taught and studied in the University is the very same that it was at first and this Philosophy is nothing but the Religion of the heathen for what the Law was to the Jews and the Gospel is to the Christians Philosophy was and is to the heathen and in this study the poor lads wast the flower and cream of their lives to no purpose but to make them more heathenish corrupt and bold then they were by nature And 2. For their Divinity which they usually learn in the Universities out of the Fathers Schoolmen and Systems and in which they are trained up to dispute either for it or against it in the Schools it being in seriousnesâ— all one to them what they hold and maintaine in Religion seeing all is but opinion to them and which they after teach to the peole with special regard to their own profit and advantage this is not the true word and Ministery of the Gospel For the Gospel is the word of faith which word is the word in our hearts according to the tenor of the New Covenant wherein God saith I will write my law in their hearts and put it in their inward parts But now the University-Divines the Truth being indeed dead in their hearts and having no presence nor power there they take it up out of the books and writings of men wherein it hath been buryed and by this means bring forth a dead Doctrine to the world which other men have spoken but they have no experience of and not the word of life which hath quickened them but onely a dead Letter raised up like the lâ—ving Letter which they present to them as the Wâ—tâ—h of Endor raised up a dead Samuel in the outward habit and appearance of the living Samuel and presented him to Saul so these University-Divines bring forth the outward garments and appearance of the Truth to the people when they do best but the substance soul and life of the truth they cannot bring forth because they have not the lâ—ving word of God in their hearts but have onely a dead word which they gather out of the books and writings of men And this is the University-Dâ—vinity And Lastly The Preachers which the Universities send forth are usually in the greatest enmity to Christ and his Gospel of all other men whatsoever and do bring greatest prejudice to Christs Kingdom and advantage to Antichrists For when men without learning and yet without the Spirit of Christ will undertake to teach the people as many also now do