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
The Lord deliver us from such wit and learning Is it not enough to refuse Heaven and choose Hell in the certain causes to lose the only day of their hopes and in the midst of light to be incomparably worse than mad but they must needs be accounted wise and learned in all this self-destroying folly As if like the Physician who boasted that he killed men according to the Rules of art it were the heighth of their ambition to go learnedly to Hell and with Reverend gravity and wit to live here like brutes and hereafter with Devils for evermore Chap. 11. The seventh Inference Why the ungodly world hateth Holiness and not Learning FRom my very Child-hood when I was first sensible of the concernments of mens Souls I was possest with some admiration to find that every where the Religious godly sort of people who did but exercise a serious care of their own and other mens Salvation were made the wonder and obloquy of the world Especially of the most vitious and flagitious men so that they that professed the same Articles of faith the same Commandments of God to be their Law and the same Petitions of the Lords Prayer to be their desire and so professed the same Religion did every where revile those that did endeavour to live according to that same profession and to seem to be in good sadness in what they said I thought that this was impudent Hypocrisie in the ungodly worldly sort of men To take them for the most intolerable persons in the Land who are but serious in their own Religion and do but endeavour to perform what all their Enemies also vow'd and promised If religion be bad and our faith be not true why do these men profess it If it be true and good why do they hate and revile them that would live in the serious practice of it if they will not practise it themselves But we must not expect Reason when sin and sensuality have made men unreasonable But I must profess that since I observed the course of the world and the concord of the Word and Providences of God I took it for a notable proof of mans fall and of the verity of the Scripture and the supernatural Original of true Sanctification to find such an universal enmity between the holy and the serpentine seed and to find Cain and Abels case so ordinarily exemplified and him that is born after the Flesh to persecute him that is born after the Spirit And methinks to this day it is a great and visible help for the confirmation of our Christian Faith. But that which is much Remarkable in it is that nothing else in the world except the Crossing of mens carnal interest doth meet with any such universal enmity A man may be as learned as he can and no man hate him for it If he excel all others all men will praise him and proclaim his excellency He may be an excellent Linguist an excellent Philosopher an excellent Physician an excellent Logician an excellent Orator and all commend him Among Musicians Architects Souldiers Seamen and all Arts and Sciences men value prefer and praise the best Yea even Speculative Theology such wits as the Schoolmen and those that are called great Divines are honoured by all and meet as such with little Enmity Persecution or Obloquy in the world Though I know that even a Galilaeus a Campanella and many such have suffered by the Roman Inquisitors that was not so much in enmity to their Speculations or Opinions as through a fear lest new Philosophical notions should unsettle mens minds and open the way to new opinions in Theology and so prove injurious to the Kingdom and Interest of Rome I know also that Demosthenes Cicero Seneca Lucan and many other learned men have died by the hands or power of Tyrants But that was not for their Learning but for their opposition to those Tyrants Wills and Interests And I know that some Religious men have suffered for their Sins and Follies and some for their medling too much with secular affairs as the Councellours of Princes as Functius Justus Jonas and many others But yet no Parts no Excellency no Skill or Learning is hated commonly but honoured in the World no not Theological Learning save only this practical Godliness and Religion and the Principles of it which only rendereth men amiable to God through Christ and saveth mens Souls To know and love God and live as those that know and love him to seek first his Kingdom and the Righteousness thereof to walk circumspectly in a holy and heavenly Conversation and studiously to obey the Laws of God this which must save us this which God loveth and the Devil hateth is hated also by all his Children for the same malignity hath the same effect But methinks this should teach all considering men to perceive what Knowledge it is that is best and most desirable to all that love their happiness Sure this sort of Learning Wit and Art which the Devil and the malignant World do no more dispraise oppose and persecute though as it is sanctified to higher ends it be good yet of it self is comparatively no very excellent and amiable thing I know Satan laboureth to keep out Learning it self that is truly such from the world because he is the Prince and Promoter of darkness and the Enemy of all useful light And lower Knowledge is some help to higher and speculative Theology may prepare for practical and the most gross and brutish ignorance best serveth the Devils designs and turn And even in Heathen Rome the Arts prepared men for the Gospel and Learning in the Church Reformers hath ever been a great help and furtherance of Reformation But yet if you stop in Learning and Speculation and take it as for it self alone and not as a means to holiness of Heart and Life it is as nothing It is Paul's express resolution of the case that if we have all Knowledge without this holy Love we are nothing but as sounding Brass or a tinkling Cymbal 1 Cor. 13. But surely there is some special excellency in this holy knowledge and Love and Obedience which the Devil and the malignant World so hate in high and low in rich and poor in Kindred Neighbours Strangers or any where they meet with it It is not for nothing This is the Image of God this is it that is contrary to their carnal Minds and to their fleshly Lusts and sinful Pleasures This tells them what they must be and do or be undone for ever which they cannot abide to be or do Let us therefore be somewhat the wiser for this discovery of the mind of the Devil and all his Instruments I will love and honour all Natural Artificial acquired Excellencies in Philology Philosophy and the rest As these expose not men to the Worlds Obloquy so neither unto mine or any sober mans In their low places they are good and may be used to a greater good
that he will love me who hath loved me while I was his Enemy and called me home when I went astray and mercifully received me when I returned Who hath given me a life full of precious mercies and so many experiences of his love as I have had Who hath so often signified his love to my Conscience So often heard my prayers in distress and hath made all my life notwithstanding my sins a continual wonder of his mercies O unthankful Soul if all this will not persuade thee of the love of him that gave it I that can do little good to any one yet have abundance of friends and hearers who very easily believe that I would do them good were it in my power and never fear that I should do them harm And shall it be harder to me to think well of Infinite Love and Goodness than for my neighbours to trust me and think well of such a wretch as I What abundance of love-tokens have I yet to shew which were sent me from Heaven to perswade me of my Fathers love and care 7. Shall I not easily believe and trust his love who hath promised me eternal glory with his Son with all his holy ones in Heaven Who hath given me there a great Intercessor to prepare Heaven for me and me for it and there appeareth for me before God Who hath already brought many millions of blessed Souls to that glory who were once as bad and low as I am And who hath given me already the Seal the Pledge the Earnest and the First-fruits of that Felicity Therefore O my Soul if men will not know thee if thou were hated of all men for the cause of Christ and Righteousness If thine uprightness be imputed to thee as an odious crime If thou be judged by the blind malignant World according to its gall and interest If friends misunderstand thee If Faction and every evil cause which thou disownest do revile thee and rise up against thee It is enough it is absolutely enough that thou art known of God God is All and All is nothing that is against him or without him If God be for thee who shall be against thee How long hath he kept thee safe in the midst of dangers and given thee peace in the midst of furious Rage and Wars He hath known how to bring thee out of trouble and to give thee tolerable ease while thou hast carried about thee night and day the usual causes of continual torment His loving kindness is better than life Psal 63.3 but thou hast had a long unexpected life through his loving kindness In his favour is life Psal 30. And life thou hast had by and with his favour Notwithstanding thy sin while thou canst truly say thou lovest him he hath promised that all shall work together for thy good Rom. 8.28 And he hath long made good that promise Only ask thy self again and again as Christ did Peter whether indeed thou love him And then take his love as thy full and sure and everlasting portion which will never fail thee though flesh and Heart do fail For thou shalt dwell in God and God in thee for evermore 1 Joh. 4.12 15 16. Amen FINIS A Catalogue of Books Printed for and Sold by Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chapel A Christian Directory or Body of practical Divinity 1. Christian Ethicks 2. Oeconomicks 3. Ecclesiasticks 4. Politicks Resolving multitudes of Cases on each Subject By Rich. Baxter Folio Mr. Baxters Catholick Theology Folio Mr. Baxters Methodus Theologiae Christianae Folio A Third Volume of Sermons Preached by the late Reverend and Learned Tho. Manton D.D. In two parts Folio A Hundred Select Sermons on several Texts of Fifty on the Old Testament and Fifty on the New. Folio Choice and Practical Expositions on four Select Psalms Folio Both by the Reverend and Learned Tho. Horion D.D. late Minister of St. Hellens London The true Prophecies and Prognostications of Michael Nostrodamus Physician to Henry the Second Francis the Second and Charles the Ninth Kings of France and one of the Best Astronomers that ever were Folio Sixty one Sermons Preached mostly on publick occasions whereof five formerly Printed by Adam Littleton D.D. Rector of Chelsea in Middlesex Folio The Novels and Tales of the Renowned John Boccasio the first Refiner of Italian Prose containing a hundred curious Novels Folio A Key to open Scripture Metaphors in two Volumes By Benjamin Keach and Tho. Delawn Folio The Saints Everlasting Rest or a Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints in their Enjoyment of God in Glory 4 to The English Nonconformity as under King Charles II. and King James II. Truly Stated and Argued By Richard Baxter 4to A discourse concerning Liturgies By the Late Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. David Clarkson 8vo A discourse of the saving Grace of God. By the late Reverend and Learned David Clarkson Minister of the Gospel 8vo The Vision of the Wheels seen by the Prophet Ezekiel Opened and Applyed Partly at the Merchants Lecture in Broad-street and partly at Stepney on January 31. 1689. being the Day of Solemn Thanksgiving to God for the great Deliverance of this Kingdom from Popery and Slavery By his then Highness the most Illustrious Prince of Orange Whom God raised up to be the glorious Instrument thereof By Matthew Mead Pastor of a Church of Christ at Stepney 4to A Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live. 12mo The right Method for settled Peace of Conscience and Spiritual Comfort 8vo The Life of Faith in every State. 4to Alderman Ashursts Funeral Sermon 4to A Key for Catholicks to open the juglings of the Jesuits The first part of answering all their common Sophisms The second against the Soveraignty and necessity of General Councils 4to The certainty of Christianity without Popery 8vo Full and easy satisfaction which is the true Religion Transubstantiation shamed 8vo Naked Popery Answering Mr. Hutchinson 4to Which is the true Church A full Answer to his Reply proving that the General Councils and the Popes Primacy were but in one Empire 4to The History of Bishops and their Councils abridged and of the Popes 4to The Cure of Church Divisions 8to A full Treatise of Episcopacy shewing what Episcopacy we own and what is in the English Diocesan frame for which we dare not swear never to endeavour any alteration of it in our places 4to A search for the English Schismatick comparing the Canoneers and Nonconformists 4to An Answer to Mr. Dodwell and Dr. Sherlock confuting an Universal-humane Church Soveraignty Aristocratical and Monarchical as Church Tyranny and Popery and defending Dr. Iz. Barrows excellent Treatise 4to FINIS Had I been supposed to have written this Book to hide my sloth and ignorance men would not have neglected my Methodus Theologie and Catholick Theology thro' meer sloth and saying That it 's too high and hard for them A Country-man having sent his Son
believer to think that GOD IS Even that such a perfect glorious being is existent As if we heard of one man in another land whom we were never like to see who in wisdom love and all perfections excelled all men that ever were in the world the thoughts of that man would be pleasing to us and we should love him because he is amiable in his excellency And so doth the holy Soul when it thinketh of the infinite amiableness of God. 6. But the highest Love of the Soul to God is in taking in all his amiableness together and when we think of him as related to our selves as our Creater Redeemer Sanctifier and Glorifier and as related to all his Church and to all the world as the cause and end of all that is amiable and when we think of all those amiable works which these Relations do respect his Creation and Conservation of the whole world his Redemption of mankind his Sanctifying and Glorifying of all his chosen ones his wonderful mercies to our selves for Soul and Body his mercies to his Church on earth his unconceivable mercies to the glorified Church in Heaven the Glory of Christ Angels and Men and their perfect Knowledge Love and joyful praises and then think what that God is in himself that doth all this This Complexion of considerations causeth the fullest Love to God. And though unlearned persons cannot speak or think of all these distinctly and clearly as the Scripture doth express them yet all this is truly the Object of their Love though with confusion of their apprehensions of it But I have not yet done nor indeed come up to the point of tryal It is not every kind or degree of Love to God in these respects that will prove to be saving He is mad that thinks there is no God And he that believeth that there is a God doth believe that he is most powerful wise and good and therefore must needs have some kind of Love to him And I find that there are a sort of Deists or Infidels now springing up among us who are confident That all or almost all men shall be saved because say they all men do love God. It is not possible say they that a man can believe God to be God that is to be the Best and to be love itself and the cause of all that is good and amiable in Heaven and Earth and yet not love him The will is not so contrary to the understanding nor can be And say the same men he that loveth his neighbour loveth God for it is for his goodness that he loveth his Neighbour and that goodness is Gods goodness appearing in man He that loveth Sun and Moon and Stars Meat and Drink and pleasure loveth God for all this is Gods goodness in his works and out of his works he is unknown to us and therefore they say that all men Love God and all men shall be saved or at least all that love their Neighbours for God by is us no otherwise to be loved For answer to these men 1. It is false that God is no otherwise to be loved than as in our Neighbour I have told you before undeniably of several other respects or appearances of God in which he is to be loved And he that is not known to us as separate from all Creatures is yet known to us as distinct from all Creatures and is and must be so loved by us Else we are Idolaters if we suppose the Creatures to be God themselves and love and honour them as God Even those Philosophers that took God for the inseparable Soul of the World yet distinguished him from the World which they thought he animated and indeed doth more than animate 2. And it is false that every one loveth God who loveth his Neighbour or his Meat Drink and fleshly Pleasure or any of the accommodations of his sense For Nature causeth all men to love life and self and pleasure for themselves And these are beloved even by Atheists that believe not that there is a God! And consequently such men love their Neighbours not for God but for themselves either because they are like them or because they please them or serve their interest or delight them by society and converse as Birds and Beasts do love each other that think not of a God. And if all should be saved that so love one another or that love their own pleasure and that which serveth it not only all wicked men but most Brute Creatures should be saved If you say they shall not be damned it 's true because they are not Moral Agents capable of Salvation or Damnation nor capable of Moral Government and Obedience and therefore even the Creatures that kill one another are not damned for it But certainly as man is capable of Salvation or Damnation so is he of somewhat more as the means or way than Brutes are capable of and he is saved or damned for somewhat which Brutes never do Many a thousand love the pleasure of their sense and all things and persons which promote it that never think of God or love him And it is not enough to say that even this natural good is of God and therefore it is God in it which they love for it will only follow that it is something made and given by God which they love while they leave out God himself That God is Essentially in all things good and pleasant which they love doth not prove that it is God which they love while their thoughts and affections do not include him 3. But suppose it were so that to love the Creature were to love God is not then the hating of the Creature the hating of God If those same men that love Meat and Drink and sensual Delight and love their Neighbours for the sake of these or for themselves as a Dog doth love his Master do also hate the holiness of Gods Servants and the holiness and justice of his Word and Government and that holiness and order of Heart and Life which he commandeth them do not these men hate God in hating these And that they hate them their obstinate aversation sheweth when no reason no mercy no means can reconcile their Hearts and Lives thereto 4. I therefore ask the Infidel Objector whether he shall be saved that loveth God in one respect and hateth him in another That loveth him as he causeth the Sun to shine the Rain to fall the Grass to grow and giveth Life and Prosperity to the World but hateth him as he is the Author of those Laws and Duties and that holy Government by which he would bring them to a voluntary right order and make them holy and fit for Glory and would use them in his holy Service and restrain them from their inordinate Lusts and Wills How can love prepare or fit any man for that which he hateth or doth not love If the love of fleshly interest and pleasure prepare or fit them to