mule Ask an ignorant man what God is what Jesus Christ is what his natures what his offices are ask him what the Spirit of God is what God requireth at his hands how he should serve him ask him how he will get faith examine him about the doctrines of Justification Adoption Sanctification what evidences he can shew for everlasting life and salvation what marks of Christianity he can shew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Diogenes opulentum quendam indoctum ovem aureo vellere dixit Fortuna Craesum facit Minerva Platonem Psal 49.20 what tokens of sound conversion and sincerity in himself what strange answers shall you receive from an ignorant man so that the bleating of a sheep the neighing of an horse or the lowing of an Oxe is as much to the purpose as his answers are Is he rich he is a rich beast as Diogenes Cynicus called a rich man that was unlearned a sheep with a golden fleece Is he honourable he is an honour a ble beast if ignorant as one said of an ignorant and unlearned King that he was but a crowned Asse Fortune makes a man rich said an Heathen but it is wisdom makes a man and let me adde it is the knowledge of God that makes a man indeed that makes a true Christian Man that is in honour and understandeth not is like the beasts that perish saith the Psalmist when man was in his highest honour he did affect to become like God in knowledge and therefore God made him like a beast that understandeth not God made him like the beast and a godly Divine of ours well observeth it is better to be a beast then to be like a beast for a beast in his own condition followeth the instinct of nature but to be like a beast is for a man to unman himself to degenerate to a baser condition then that wherein he was created therefore be not in that sottish estate as to be like the horse or mule that hath no understanding 8. An ignorant state is an estate hardly to be cured That is the reason why there are so many old men that are sottish and ignorant men that have lived sixty seventy or eighty years and yet are but children in understanding Jerem. 4.22 therefore the Holy Ghost calleth an ignorant people sottish children so the Lord complaineth my people is foolish they have not known me they are sortish children they have no understanding If a man be ignorant the elder he is the more sottish and ignorant he growes Ignorante in youth is sottishnesse in old age therefore people commonly call an old ignorant man an old fool and the Apostle Peter calleth such ignorance 1 Pet. 2.15 the ignorance of foolish men 1. An old man thinks it a great disgrace and disparagement for him to be taught or to learn what saith he have I lived to this age and must I now be catechised 2. Ignorant old men are very unteachable if a fool be brayed in a morter Prov. 23.9 yet his folly will not depart from him saith Solomon and if any man speak in the ears of a fool he will despise the wisdome of his words Words and perswasions are but spent in vain upon an old sottish man who is wiser in his own conceit then seven men that can render a reason Prov. 14.23 A reproof will enter more into a wise man then an hundred stripes into a foole it is natural for old ignorant persons to frame many excuses they are ready to say they know enough and as much as any body can tell them and they need know no more and they think themselves well where they are they are in love with darknesse and hate the light Luke 7 30 and therefore like the blind Pharisees they despise the counsell of God against themselves 3. Old men do usually hang upon some old custome or tradition of their fore-fathers and from that they will not be beaten though they can give no reason for it 4. The older they grow the weaker are their brains and so the more unapt to learn senex bis puer an old man is twice a child Covetousnesse for the most part so possesseth old men Pluto the God of riches is feigned blind by the Poets and this sin never waxing old but growing green in withered and decrepit old men their hearts being so set upon the things of the world that they have neither heart nor will to get knowledge 6. Being old and now ready to drop into the grave they have but a little time to be instructed and so at length as they lived all their dayes without knowledge so they dye without wisdome as Eliphaz speaketh Job 4.21 You see then that an ignorant estate is very dangerous Eccles 4.13 because hard to be cured Better is poverty with wisdome then folly with riches and honour Better is a poor and wise child then a foolish King who will no more be admonished let me close up this with that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 14.20 Brethren be not children in understarding howbeit in malice be ye children but in understanding be men or as the Greek hath it in understanding be ye of a ripe or perfect age 9. Ignorance makes a man to slight and despise all Gods works David meditating on the works of God cries out O Lord how great are thy works and thy thoughts are very deep but then he addeth A brutish man knoweth not neither doth a fool understand this Psal 92.5 6. who so is wise will observe these things Psal 107.43 As Pearles cast before dogs or swine so are the works of God among ignorant persons swine or dogs will trample pretious pearls under their feet in the dirt but skilful Lapidaries will use them carefully and set them in gold and rich attire So ignorant people that know not the works of God and consider not the operation of his hands will contemn and despise or at least neglect the excellent documents and fruitfull instructions of Gods glory therein exhibited whereby the Name of God is much prophaned A man that knows and considereth the works of God useth them aright and glorifieth God in them The Dung-hill-Cock as the Fable moralizeth doth more esteem of a barley corn then of a pretious pearl knowing the profit of the one not the rich value of the other So blind and ignorant people do lightly esteem of Gods glorious and wonderful works preferring the dirty commodities of this dung-hill world before the footsteps of Gods Majesty imprinted in his works thereby exceedingly dishonouring the Lord himself And let me adde hereunto that ignorance makes a man lightly to esteem of God himself and of his word An ignorant man is ready to passe by a King without any reverence done unto him and the Country Peasant we know doth trample many a wholesome herb under his feet which the skilfull Apothecary doth gather up and make good account of because he is ignorant of the
speech of Christ already produced Perkins Treatise of Conscience Nescire malum est Horar the servant that doth not his Masters will by reason he knoweth it not shall be beaten with stripes though fewer now this ignorance shall not wholly excuse a man because every man is bound to know God by a positive command and whether we know Gods lawes or know them not they still bind us as Master Perkins doth observe Adam had the perfect knowledge of God and lost the same for himself and his posterity no man therefore for this is to complain against the justice of God since that our first sin hath merited a greater punishment I say then that this sin may excuse for the degree and measure of the sin but not from the sin it self I come now to make use and application of the doctrine Is Ignorance the principal cause of a peoples destruction The first use shall be for lamentation what cause have we exceedingly to lament the great ignorance that is among us though God hath delivered us from that blindnesse and darknesse with which our forefathers were overwhelmed Time was men were wholly ignorant of the true God and of his worship even in this our land where in divers places thereof were Temples and Altars erected to heathenish Idols viz. In Bath the Temple of Apollo in Leicester the Temple of Janus Stow. Camden in York where Peter's now is the Temple of Bellona and in London the chief and head City of our Land where Paul's is now the Temple of Diana and if there were such grosse idolatry in these principal places what hope can there be of better things in countrey villages all our Priests were Painims our Religion was superstition our worship idolatry our Gods were dumb Idols or Dii stercorarii dung-hill deities we were all as Paul saith to the Ephesians Eph. 5.8 sometime darknesse the night of that heathenish ignorance is past and the clouds of that errour scattered by the Sun-beames of the Gospel preached among us and therefore it is much more sad and lamentable now to see men blind and ignorant under the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ what swarms of ignorant people are there every where ignorant congregations ignorant families ignorant parents ignorant children ignorant Masters ignorant servants there is no faithfull Minister that laboureth to know the state of his flock but may sadly witnesse with me the truth of this thing how few of our people and Congregations if you come to them that can render a sound reason of the hope that is in them Beloved let me tell you that this is a woful sin in this clear light of the Gospel and it is one of the sins for which God hath a controversie with the land this day and it is a sin so much the more dangerous and the more to be lamented by all that fear the Lord because it is scarcely apprehended to be a sin for a man to be a swearer a lier a drunkard a whoremonger an oppressour these sins partly by the light of nature and partly by reason of the odiousnesse of them are granted by the most to be sins but ignorance of God and of his word and of those points which are as it were the very life and marrow of Religion this is hardly taken to be a sin no man thinks himself the lesse wicked because he is ignorant this I say is the more dangerous because it passeth away unregarded and unobserved by us yet this is the fin that is the principal cause of a peoples destruction a sin against which the Lord will proceed when he cometh to judgement Hos 4.14 the people that do not understand shall fall This was Je usalem's sin which drew tears out of the eyes of our blessed Saviour when he drew near he beheld the City Luke 29.41 and wept over it saying if thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy day c. where you have 1. Our Saviour Christs lamentation for this sinful City before he goes into it Luk. 19 41 2. A prediction and prophesie of her destruction for her sins and principally for her contempt of him and his Gospel verse 43. 3. The ground of this their hardnesse of heart is their ignorance of Jesus Christ if thou hadst known even thou in this thy day there can be no greater grief to true faithful and painful Pastours Isai 49.4 then to bestow pains to no purpose lose their labours and not profit their people how doth he bewail their ignorance of himself Psal 48.1 2 Psal 87.3 Psal 132.13 14. Act. 13.27 if thou hadst known thou who art the City of God the seate of the great King the joy of the whole earth yea thou whose gates the Lord hath loved and concerning whom most glorious things have been spoken thou whom God hath chosen for his habitation and his rest thou who hast often heard these things out of the Prophets and therefore thy ignorance is grosse and palpable not to be excused or extenuated not being simple but affected and therefore thy sin and misery is the greater If thou hadst known the things that belong to thy peace i. e. if thou hadst known and wouldest acknowledge me my benefits and blessings that I now offer unto thee and would bestow upon thee for by peace here after the manner of the Hebrews we must understand affluentiam omnium bonorum abundance of all good things it is like enough that this unhappy city and her inhabitants knew and were cunning in many quirks of the law but they were not well catechised in this one needful and necessary point of the Gospel that Jesus Christ was their peace as S. Paul told the Ephesians Eph. 2.14 Acts 4.12 nor that there was Salvation to be had or hoped for by no other means hinc illae lachrimae this was their sin and this occasioned his sorrow Dolor cor constringit ita ut dolentes non possunt eloqui quae concipiunt lingua moerentis excandescentis saepe faucibus haret which he expresseth most lively emphatically and pathetically by this Aposiopesis this abrupt speech and imperfect sentence if thou hadst known in this thy day for as joy doth dilatare cor enlarge the heart and make men eloquent and fluent in speech so on the contrary sorrow and grief binds up the heart so that sorrowful persons cannot speak out the things which they do conceive and both the tongue of a sad person and of an angry person doth often cleave to their jaws for anger see an example of the young man in the Comedy see how abruptly he speaks Egone illam quae illum quae non and for grief I have read of an old man that grievously lamenting the untimely death of his hopefull sonne and being demanded the cause of his mourning was not able to expresse himself but so well as he could utter his mind he thus by an
cannot receive good 1. Without knowledge a man cannot receive Jesus Christ God first shineth into the heart with the light of knowledge before Jesus Christ can be received by the hand of faith though Jesus Christ when he was upon earth spake as never man spake his preaching being with power and authority and not like that of the Scribes yet multitudes of his hearers could not receive him till the eyes of their understanding were opened 2. Without knowledge a man cannot receive the Spirit of God John 14.17 our Saviour saith That the world cannot receive the Spirit of truth because it seeth him not neither knoweth him many men make a mock and scorn of the Spirit of God because they do not know him the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishnesse to him neither can he know them 1 Cor. 2.14 because they are spiritually discerned A natural man may hear of spiritual things but cannot be in a capacity of receiving them till he come to understand and to know them They are riddles to a natural man as the Apostle saith 1 Cor. 2.9 Eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor hath it entred into the heart of man to conceive the things that God hath prepared for them that love him he speaks there of the things of the Gospel but saith he God hath revealed them to us by his spirit and we have the mind of Christ vers ult A natural and ignorant man is like a corrupt stomach where no meat will digest or nourish it doth him no good it turneth to no good nutriment so it is with an ignorant soul the spiritual things of God do him no good they digest not in his soul they nourish him not because he is full of darknesse corruption and ignorance 4. Without the knowledge of God we can have no communion and fellowship with him God is light and the ignorant man is darknesse 2 Cor. 6.14 and what communion hath light with darknesse God is light and in him there is no darknesse and while thou art in the dark dungeon of ignorance thou canst not converse with the Father of Lights A natural man is a blind man he cannot see nor discern spiritual things God takes no delight in such blind fools If you delight your selves in ignorance and are unwilling to be taught as many children and servants are how can you have any communion with God that know him not It is true as a judicious Divine observeth Mr. Cotton on John there are many that desire knowledge and cannot attain it and of such saith he God will either accept their desires or give them knowledge but such as please themselves with their ignorance they have no communion with God but are sealed up unto damnation If a man walketh in darkness and saith he hath fellowship with God he is a liar A man can have no communion with God in the spirit nor in his ordinances nor in any thing as his without the knowledge of God for while he liveth in the darknesse of ignorance he is without God in the world 5. Col. 1.13 Without the knowledge of God men are still under the power of Satan the Prince of darknesse They are said to be under the power of darknesse i. e. of ignorance and they that are under the power of darknesse are under the power of this Black Prince the Devil himself is bound in everlasting chains under darknesse and he bindeth sinners with the chains of darknesse the darknesse of ignorance and holds them under his power Acts 26.18 therefore when a sinner is converted unto God he is delivered from the power of Satan being turned from darknesse to light and being made a meet partaker of the inheritance of of the Saints in light he is delivered from the power of darknesse Most men while they are under Satans power they are held with this chain where ever an ignorant man goes he goes like a fettered prisoner with his Keeper at his back let him go to the Congregation to hear the word there Satan either stops his ears or blinds his eys or else choaks and steals away the good seed of the word out of his heart Those that are without the acknowledgment of the truth they are taken captive 2 Tim. 2.26 Eph. 6.12 or taken alive by him in his snare and wicked spirits are said to be the Rulers of the darknesse of this world Oh tremble then thou ignorant wretch to think to whom thou art in bondage 6. While thou art ignorant wanting the knowledge of God thou art in subjection to every base lust Paul speaking of the unregenerate State Tit. 3.3 1 Pet. 1.14 describeth it thus At that time we were foolish and disobedient serving divers lusts and pleasures Fashion not your selves saith Peter according to the former lusts in your ignorance An ignorant man knoweth not what is good and what is evil and often putteth good for evil Isai 5.20 Prov. 14.12 and evil for good putteth darknesse for light and light for darknesse now the will and affections do for the most part follow the understanding in things that are good I say for the most part because the will and affections are sometimes more depraved then the understanding and in evill things the will and affections do altogether follow the understanding now the understanding being darkned and putting evill for good and good for evill how can it be but a cause of divers lusts making the soule to serve divers lusts and pleasures Ambition Pride Passion Drunkennesse Revenge Every sin and lust will command them so long as they are without the true knowledge of God this is a miserable slavery to be led by their lusts if they had eyes to see it one lust hurries them one way and another hurries them another way where there is the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and vertue 2 Pet. 1.3 4. such have escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust there is no escaping the pollutions and defilements of sin and lust but by the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 7. Ignorance makes a man like a beast A man without knowledge is like Nebuchadnezzar who had the heart of a beast in the shape of a man an ignorant man hath the head and heart of a beast an ignorant man is a very beast For what difference between a man and a beast A beast hath eyes ears legs as well as a man seeth heareth goeth smelleth tasteth Keckerm Physick 1. as well as a man can do nay many beasts can doe these things better then a man can doe a man then differeth only from a beast in understanding and discourse Therefore saith God to his people Be not as the horse or mule Psal 32.9 Mule nihil sentis Epigram 14.1 that hath no understanding as the Poet calleth an ignorant man a sottish man yea a sottish
vertues and medicinable uses thereof which the Apothecary knoweth knowledge is a necessary precedent to a reverent and high estimation of God and his word for to know the excellency of any thing is a good preparative to a due esteem thereof 10. Ignorance is an inlet into all errours It is a fruitfull mother of errour Praeteritae veniam dabit ignorautia culpae Ovid. Epist 19. An ignorant man is apt to be carried away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with vain and empty words The Papists who would perswade the people they may be ignorant and a little or no knowledge is required of them give great occasion to us to suspect as if they meant to make a prey of them by seducing them with grosse errours for then saith Chrysostome thieves go to stealing when they have first put out the candle and in dark shops men use to utter their base and refuse wares It was ignorance of the doctrine of regenertion and of the Scriptures that made Nicodemus conceive that carnally that our Saviour spake spiritually Joh. 3.3 4. It was ignorance of the Scriptures that made the Sadduces make a mock and scoffe at the resurrection and afterwards to propound their question about a woman that had many Husbands Whose wife she should be in the resurrection Matth. 22.23 our Saviour tells them that ignorance was the cause of this their errour ye erre not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God verse 29. An ignorant man is a prey for every impostour and deceiver as Sampson was for the Philistines when his eyes were out Psal 95.10 If the blind lead the blind both fall into the ditch together It is a people saith God that do erre in their hearts and the reason is given they have not known my wayes An ignorant man is the very map of change and like children tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine being not well grounded an ignorant man like a child is apt to be taken with every new fangle soon growing weary of every thing The most learned are subject to errour for at the best they know but in part and do frequently erre because not wholly sanctified knowledg then is most necessary that we may be able to try doctrines that are brought to us Prov. 28.11 and to discern the spirits whether they be of God or no the rich man is wise in his own conceit but the poor that hath understanding can try him saith Solomon Lastly An ignorant man is every moment liable to Gods wrath and vengeance They have not known my wayes saith the Lord therefore I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest Psal 95. ult Powre out thy wrath upon the Heathen Jer. 10.25 that have not known thee c. saith the Prophet Jeremy the like hath David Psalm 79.6 Put all those together and you may clearly see the danger of the sin of ignorance that we may be stirred up to labour after the true knowledg of God in Jesus Christ The case of ignorant men then is much to be pitied lamented for if their case be to be lamented who through corporall blindnesse run into innumerable mischiefs and at last fall into a deep gulf without hope of recovery much more are they to be pitied who through spirituall blindnesse plunge themselves into far greater evills for the present and at last fall into the pit of everlasting destruction without recovery Do you not pitty blind men when you see them go out of the way or stumble at every block or fall into every pit or ditch or be misled by every false guide or exposed to the injury of every vile and malicious person how much more then should we sadly lament the case of those who are ignorant lying under the punishment of spiritual blindnesse which is greater then bodily blindnesse beyond all comparison and much more desperate 2 The second thing by way of motive to this duty of getting knowledge is the great worth Prov. 4.7 Phil. 3.8 benefit and excellency of knowledge Get wisdom saith Solomon for wisdom is the principal thing we read of the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord. And here consider 1. Knowledg is the principal thing wherein the image of God consisteth Col. 3.10 the new man is said to be renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him it is not our substance that is Gods image but true knowledge knowledge makes a man like unto God this the Devill knew well enough when he tempted our first Parents to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evill Gen. 3.5 telling them that God knew that in the day they eat thereof their eyes should be opened and they should be as Gods knowing good and evill Ignorance makes a man like the bruit beasts that perish but knowledge is the renewing of the image of God upon the soule Pythagoras engraved in a stone with his own hand these words setting it before his Academy He that knoweth not in his measure what be ought to know scil in divine things is but a beast among men he that knoweth what is simply needfull and no more is a man among men but he that knoweth according to the helps vouchsafed him of God what may well be known and so far as to direct himself and others aright in the way to true happinesse Exod. 4. is a God among men Thus the Lord tells Moses he should be to his brother Aaron instead of God 2. Knowledge is a most enriching thing Col. 2.2 3. Vnicum bonum scientia unicum malum ignorantia we read of the riches of the full assurance of understanding and of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge this makes a man rich to God there is one that is dives sibi rich to himself there is another that is dives Deo rich unto God he that hath onely outward treasures is rich to himself but he that hath the treasures of wisdom and knowledge is rich in God God never chargeth us to be rich in worldly things but to be rich in knowledg Col. 1.6 to be filled with the knowledg of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding where this treasure is wanting the soule is beggerly and bankrupt base in Gods sight as he saith of the Church of Laodicea Rev. 3.17 Thou sayest thou art rich and encreased with goods and hast need of nothing and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked A blind and ignorant soul August Serm. 16 in Marth is a poor miserable and beggerly soul When thou buyest a Farm thou buyest a good one saith a Father when thou marriest a wife thou chusest a good one when thou desirect children thou desirest good ones and when thou hast all these riches thou art but poor inter tot dona amongst so many gifts and malus inter tot bona evill among so many good things