he hath set up to them they are half as long in Learning for all that as if he had never given them such a help And therefore it is that we cannot leave our Learning to Posterity Because still the stop is in the Receivers incapacity And he cannot be capable of the plainest precepts but by much time and study 2. Pride maketh men hasty in concluding because they are not humbled to a just Suspicion of their own apprehensions And men stay not to prove and try things before they judge 3. Pride maketh men insensible how much they are ignorant of in all their Knowledge 4. And it causeth men to slight the Reasons and Judgments of other men by which they might learn or at least might be taught to Judge considerately and suspend their own If over-valuing a mans own apprehensions be Pride as it is then certainly Pride is one of the commonest sins in the world and particularly among men professing godliness who upon every poor surmise or report are condemning those that they do not throughly know and in every petty controversy they are all still in the right though of never so many minds III Another cause of Pretended Knowledge is the want of a truly tender Conscience Which should make men fear lest they should err lest they should deserve the curse of putting light for darkness darkness for light evil for good good for evil should make them afraid lest they should defile their minds resist the truth blaspheme God or Dishonour him by fathering Errors on him and lest they should prove snares to mens Souls and a Scandal and Trouble to the Church of God. A tender Conscience would not have espoused such opinions under a year or two or manies deliberation which an Antinomian or other Sectary will take up in a few days if they were true O saith the tender Conscience what if I should Err and prove a Snare to Souls and a Scandal and Dishonour to the Church of God c. IV. Another cause of Pretended Knowledge is a blind Zeal for Knowledge and Godliness in the General while men know not what it is that they are zealous of They think that it is a necessary part of sincerity to receive the Truth speedily without delay And therefore they take a present concluding for a true Receiving it And he that soonest taketh up that which is offered him probably as a part of Godliness is taken for the most resolved down-right convert Which is true in case of Evident Truths where it is the will that by vice suspendeth the mind But not in dark and doubtful cases V. Another cause is an inordinate trust in man When some admire the learned too much and some the Religious and some this or that particular person and therefore build too confidently on their words Some on great men some on the Multitude but most on men of fame for great Learning or great Piety A credit is to be given by every learner to his Teacher But the confounding this with oâ— Belief of God and making it a part of our Religion and not trusting man as man only that is as a fallible Wight doth cause this Vice of Pretended Knowledge to pass with millions for Divine Faith. Especially when men embody themselves into a Sect as the only Orthodox or Godly party or as the only true Church as the Papists do then it emboldeneth them to believe any thing which their Sect or Church believeth For they think that this is the Churches Faith which cannot err or is the safest And that God would not let so many good men err And thus they that should be made their Teachers and the Helpers of their Faith become the Lords of it and almost their Gods. VI. And it much increaseth this sin that men are not sufficiently acquainted with the Original and Additional Corruption of mans nature and know not how Blind all Mankind is Alas man is a dark Creature What error may he not hold What villany may he not do Yea and maintain Truly said David All men are Liars Pitifully do many expound this as an effect of his unbelief and passion because he saith I said it my haste When it is no more than Paul saith Let God be true and every man a Liar Rom. 3. And than Solomon and Isaiah say All men are Vanity And Jeremy cursed be he that trusteth in man All men are untrusty in a great degree Weak False and Bad. And his haste was either as Dr. Hammond translateth it his Flight or else that his Tryal and distress made him more passionately sensible of the Vanity or Untrustiness of man than he was at other times For Vanity and a Lie to the Hebrews were words of the same importance signifying Deceivableness and untrustiness And indeed among mankind there is so great a degree of Impotency Selfishness Timorousness Ignorance Errour and Viciousness as that few wicked men are to be believed where there is any strong Temptation to lying And the Devil is seldom unprovided of Temptations And abundance of Hypocrites are as untrusty as open wicked men And abundance of sincere Godly persons especially Women have loose Tongues and hasty passions and a stretching Conscience but specially injudicious heads so that frequently they know not truth from falshood nor have the tenderness of Conscience to be silent till they know So that if one say it another will say it till a hundred say it and then it goeth for currant truth Good-mens over-much credulity of one another hath filled the Church with Lies and Fables Many of the Papists Sâ—â—â—rstitions Purgatory praying to Saints and Angels prayâ—â— for the dead c. were bred by this credulity It is so visible in Venerable Beda Gregory the first yea before them in Sulpitius Severus of Martius Life and abundance more that to help up Christianity among the Pagans they laid hold of any old Womans or Ignorant Mans Dreams and Visions and stories of pretended Miracles Revelations that it made even Melchior Canus cry out of the shameful Ridiculous filth that hence had filled their Legends Even Baronius upon Tryal retaineth no small number of them and with his Brethren the Oratorians on their Prophesying days told them to the people I am ashamed that I recited one out of him before my Treatise of Crucifying the World though I did it not as perswading any that it was true For I quickly saw that Sophronious on whom he fathered it was none of the reporters of it that Book being spurious and none of Sophronius his work Indeed I know of such impudent false History lately Printed of matters of publick fact in these times yea divers concerning my own Words and Actions by persons that are far from Contemptible that Strangers and Posterity will scarce believe that humane nature could be guilty of it in the open light And I know it to be so customary a thing for the Zealots professing the fear of God on one
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
and whether the Episcopi Gregis or eorum Praesides or true Evangelists or Apostolical General Bishops disarmed and duely chosen be any injury to the Church And whether the Jews had not been a National Christian Church under the Twelve Apostles and Seventy if they had not rejected him that would have gathered them as the Hen gathereth her Chickens under her Wings They that cannot deny that Christ setled a Superior Rank of Ministers appointing them besides their Extraordinaries the work of Gathering and Over-seeing many Churches promising therein to be with them to the end of the World and that only Matthias must make up the National number of such though Justus had been with Christ as well as he must be the Provers that this Rank and Imparity was reversed by him that did Institute it if they affirm it And not without proof charge Christ with seeming levity and mutability as setling a Form of Ministry and Government which he would have continue but one Age Much less must they impose such an unproved affirmation as the terms of Church Concord Woe woe woe how effectually hath Satan almost undone the Christian World by getting in naughty Ministers and Magistrates where he could not utterly Extirpate Christianity by Arms Thereby making Rulers and Preachers the Captains of the malignant Enemies of seriousness in that Religion which they Profess and Preach themselves And if in such Hypocrisie they Convert a Soul they hate him as an Enemy for believing them And thereby tempt Religious Men to mistake the Crime of the naughty Preacher as the fault of the Office and to oppose the Office for the Persons sake and so Ministry and Christianity is despised by too many The shutting of their Church Doors and condemning to Scorn and Beggery and Jails those that were as wise and faithful as themselves unless fearing heinous sin made them worse should have been by the Persecutors long and deeply thought on twenty eight years ago and ever since by them that believe that Christ will judge them And so should all Doctrines and Practices that tend to unwarrantable separations and divisions by others Things of this moment should not be ventured on nor Papists made both Lords and Executioners by our distracted Combates with each other and the miserable Nation and undone Church left to no better a remedy than a non putaremus and to hear the worldly Tyrants and the tempted Sufferers accusing each other and disputing when the House is burnt who was in the fault I think he was most faulty that could most easily have helped it and would not But if Great and Rich Men will be the strength of the Factious as they have most to lose they may be the greatest losers All this hath been said to tell you how nearly the Doctrine of this Book for necessary Doubting and a humble Understanding and for Christian Love and against pretended Knowledge and rash Judging doth concern the duty and safety of this Nation Church and State. My late Book of the English Nonconformity fully evinceth this and more but blinding Prejudice Worldliness and Faction give leave to few of the guilty to read it I rest your much obliged Servant Rich. Baxter July 31. 1689. TO THE READER Reader UPon the Review of this Book written long ago I find 1. That it is a Subject as necessary now as ever Experience telling us that the Disease is so far from being Cured that it is become our publick shame and danger and if the wonderful Mercy of God prevent it not is like to be the speedy confusion and ruine of the Land. 2. As to the manner of this writing I find the effects of the failing of my Memory in the oft repeating of the same things with little diversification But I will not for that cast it away considering 1. That perhaps oft repeating may make the matter the better remembered and if it do the work intended no matter though the Author be not applauded 2. And men may think justly that what is oft repeated dropt not from the Author inconsiderately nor is taken by him to be small and useless but is that digested Truth which he would most inculcate 3. And those who blame their weakness who accuse the Church Liturgy of too much repetition I suppose will not be much offended with it in our Writings while the dulness and forgetfulness of many Readers maketh it needful Aug. 3. 1689. Rich. Baxter THE CONTENTS The First Part. 1 Cor. 8.2 3. CHap. 1. The Text opened What Philosophy Paul depresseth and why Ch. 2. What Wisdom and Esteem of it are not here condemned Ch. 3. What Pretended Knowledge is condemned and what Learning or Philosophy it is which Paul disliked further opened with thirty Reasons Ch. 4. What are the Certainties which must be known and held fast and why where Certainty is distinctly described Ch. 5. Of the various Degrees of Certainty Ch. 6. What are the unknown things or Uncertainties which we must not pretend a certain Knowledge of even Scripture Truths Ch. 7. The first Inference The True Reason and Usefulness of the Christian simplicity in differencing the Covenant and the Principles of Religion from the rest of the holy Scriptures Ch. 8. Infer 2. Of the Use of Catechizing Ch. 9. Infer 3. The true Preservative of puzzled Christians from the Errours of false Teachers who draw them to their several Parties Ch. 10. Infer 4. What is the great Plague and Divider of the Christian World. Ch. 11. The common discoveries of Mens proud self-conceited understanding and of pretended Knowledge Ch. 12. Of the mischievous effects of this proud pretence of more Knowledge than men have Ch. 13. The Commodities of a suspended Judgment and humble understanding which pretendeth to no more Knowledge or Certainty than it hath Ch. 14. The Aggravations of the Sin of Prefidence Ch. 15. Special Aggravations of it in Students and Pastors Ch. 16. Twenty clear proofs of the little Knowledge that is in the World to move us to a due distrust of our understandings Ch. 17. Infer 5. It is not the dishonour but the praise of Christ and his Apostles and the Gospel that they speak in a plain style and manner of the certain necessary things without the Vanity of School Uncertainty and unprofitable Notions Ch. 18. Infer 6. The true and false ways of restoring the Churches and healing our Divisions hence opened and made plain Ch. 19. Of the causes of Prefidence or proud pretended Knowledge in order to the Cure. Ch. 20. Objections Answered Ch. 21. Directions for the Cure. The Second Part. CHap. 1. Knowledge is a means to a higher End according to which it is to be estimated Ch. 2. The End of Knowledge is to make us Lovers of God and so to be known of him Ch. 3. Therefore Knowledge is to be sought valued and used as it tendeth to our Love of God. Ch. 4. Therefore they are the wisest and best knowing Men that Love God best and not
they that have much unholy Knowledge Ch. 5. The first Inference By what measures to estimate Knowledge Ch. 6. The second Inference To abate our censures and contempt of the less-learned Christians and Churches Ch. 7. The third Inference How to judge of the Knowledge necessary to Church Communion Ch. 8. The fourth Inference The aptness of the Teaching of Christ to ingenerate the Love of God and Holiness Ch. 9. The fifth Inference What great cause of thankfulness men have for the Constitution of the Christian Religion And how unexcusable they are that will not learn so short and sweet and safe a Lesson Ch. 10. The sixth Inference How little reason ungodly men have to be proud of their Learning or any of their Knowledge Ch. 11. The seventh Inference Why the ungodly World hateth Holiness and not Knowledge Ch. 12. The eighth Inference What is the work of a faithful Preacher and how it is to be done Ch. 13. The ninth Inference Those that know God so far as to Love him truely may have comfort notwithstanding their remaining ignorance Ch. 14. Questions and Objections Answered Qu. 1. If so much Knowledge will save Men as causeth them To Love God may not Heathens be saved who know God to be good and therefore may Love him Qu. 2. May not a Papist or Heretick Love God and be saved Qu. 3. At least you make Ignorant Persons happy that can but Love God though they know not their Catechism Qu. 4. How are Infants saved that have neither Knowledge nor Love Qu. 5. If this hold true Universities and most humane Learning should be cast out as the Turks and Moscovites do and the Armenians Abassines Greeks and Ignorant sort of Papists are the wisest Because multitudes of other Notions must needs divert mens thoughts from God. Ch. 15. Use Exhort I. Deceive not your selves by over-valuing an unholy sort of Knowledge or common Gifts Ch. 16. Exhort II. Love best those Christians that Love God best and live in Love and Peace with others Ch. 17. Exhort III Pretend not your Knowledge against the Love of God or Man or against the Interest of the Church and Souls Ch. 18. Exhort IV. Bend all your Studies to a life of Increased and Exercised Love. How the Love of God must be Exercised and Increased The benefit hereof Ch. 19. Exhort V. Place your Comfort in Health and Sickness in Mutual Divine Love. 1. See that you Love God. How known Doubts Answered Ch. 20.2 But let it be the chief part of your Comfort that you are known of God. What comfort this affordeth What frame of Soul it bespeaketh in us in Life and at our Death PART I. 1 Cor. 8.2 3. And if any man think that he knoweth any thing he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know But if any man Love God the same is known of Him. Chap. I. The Scope and Text opened what Philosophy or worldly Wisdom Paul depresseth and why THE Calamitous Divisions of the Churches of Christ and the Miscarriages and Contentions of too many particular Brethren having been sad upon my thoughts above forty years by this time without imputation of hastiness and rash judging I may take leave to tell the World what I have discovered to be the principal cause which is falsly PRETENDED KNOWLEDGE or IGNORANCE OF IGNORANCE or a proud unhumbled understanding confident that it knoweth that which it knoweth not And consequently what must be the cure if our calamity be here cureable viz. To know as much as we can but withal to know how little we know and to take on us to know no more than we do know nor to be certain of our uncertainties The Text which I have chosen to be the ground of my discourse is so plain notwithstanding some little difficulties that did not the nature of the Disease resist the clearest Remedy so many good people had never here often read their sin described as insensibly as if they read it not The Chapter hath so much difficulty as will not stand with my intended brevity to open it I refer you to Expositors for that whether they were the Nicolaitans or any other sort of Hereticks that the Apostle dealeth with I determine not It is plain that they were Licentious Professors of Christianity who thought that it was the ignorance of others that made them judge it unlawful to eat things offered to Idols and that their own greater knowledge set them above that scruple A mixture of Platonick Philosophy with Christianity made up most of the Primitive Hereticks and for want of a due digestion of each too much corrupted many of the Greek Doctors of the Church The unlearned sort of Christians were so much despised by some of the Philosophical Hereticks that they were not thought worthy of their Communion for as Jude saith they separated themselves being sensual having not the Spirit but more affected Philosophical fancies which made Paul warn men to take heed lest any seduced them by vain Philosophy not using the name of Philosophy for that solid knowledge of Gods works which is desireable but for the Systemes of vain Conceits and Precepts which the Word was then used to signifie as every Sect derived them from their Masters And so the Apostle taketh knowledge in this Text not for solid knowledge indeed but for Gnosticism or Philosophical presumptions such as even yet most Philosophers are guilty of who take a multitude of Precepts some useful some useless some true and some false and all but notionally or to little purpose and joining these do call them Philosophy And Paul tells them that opinionative and notional knowledge were it true like the Devils Faith is of no such excellency as to cause them to shelter their sins under the confidence and honour of it and despise unlearned conscionable Christians for such knowledge by inflation oft destroyeth the Possessors or becomes the Fuel of the Devilish sin of Pride when Love buildeth up our selves and others to Salvation And to conceit that a man is wise because of such knowledge and so to over-value his own understanding is a certain sign that he is destitute of that knowledge in which true wisdom doth consist and knoweth nothing with a wise and saving knowledge as every thing should be known And indeed a mans excellency is so far from lying in vain Philosophical Speculations that the use of all true knowledge is but to bring us up to the Love of God as the highest felicity to be approved and beloved by God And those unlearned Christians that have the Spirit of Sanctification without your vain Philosophy have knowledge enough to bring them to this Love of God which is a thing that passeth all your knowledge or rather to be known of God as his own and loved by him For our felicity lyeth in receiving from God and in his loving us more than in our loving him but both set together to love God and so to be loved of him are the
their writings And for want of other words to supply our needs what abundance of distinctions of Actus and Potentiae are the Scotists and other Schoolmen fain to use What abundance of disputes are kept up by the ambiguity of the word Cause while it is applyed to things so different as Efficience Constitution and Finality The like may be said of many more And then when it cometh to a dispute of the Divine Nature of the Soul of the most weighty things these confounding notions must over-rule the Case We must not have an argument for the Souls Immortality but what these notions check or vitiate no nor scarce for an Attribute of God. XXV And it is so hard a thing to bring men to that self-denial and labour as at Age throughly and impartially to revise their juvenile conceptions and for them that learnt words before things to proceed to learn things now as appearing in their proper evidence and to come back and cancel all their old notions which were not found and to build up a new frame that not one of a multitude is ever Master of so much virtue as to attempt it and go through with it Was it not labour enough to study so many years to know what others say but they must now undo much of it and begin a new and harder labour who will do it XXVI And indeed none but men of extraordinary Acuteness and Love of truth and Self-denial and Patience are fit to do it For 1. The Common dullards will fall into the ditch when they leave their Crutches And will multiply Sects in Philosophy and Religion while they are unable to see the truth in itself And indeed this hath made the Protestant Churches so liable to the derision and reproach of their adversaries And how can it be avoided while all men must pretend to know and judge what indeed they are unable to understand 2. Yea the half-witted men that think themselves acute and wise fall into the same Calamity 3. And the proud will not endure to be thought to err when they plague the world with error 4. And the Impatient will not endure so long and difficult studies 5. And when all is done as Seneca saith they must be content with a very few approvers and must bear the scorn of the ignorant-learned crowd Who have no way to maintain the reputation of their own Wisdom Orthodoxness and Goodness but by calling him Proud or Self-conceited or Erroneous that differeth from them by knowing more than they And who but the truly self-denying can be at so much cost and labour for such reproach when they foreknow that he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow XXVII By these means mens minds that should be taken up with God and his Service are abused and vilified and filled with the dust and smoak of vain and false and confused notions And mans life is spent as David saith in a vain shew And men dream waking with as great industry as if they were about a serious work Alas how pitifully is much of the learned world employed XXVIII By this means also mens precious time is lost And he that had time little enough to learn and do things necessary for the common good and his own salvation doth waste half of it on he knoweth not what And Satan that findeth him more ingenious than to play it away at Cards and Dice or than to Drink and Revel it away doth cast another bait before him and get him learnedly to dream it away about unprofitable words and notions XXIX And by this means the Practice of goodness is hindred in the world yea and Holy Affections quenched While these arbitrary Notions and Speculations being mans own are his more pleasant game And Studies and Pulpits must be thus employed and heart and life thus stoln from God. Yea it 's well if Godliness grow not to be taken by such dreamers for a low a dull and an unlearned thing yea if they be not tempted by it to Infidelity and to think not only the zealous Ministers and Christians but even Christ and his Apostles to be unlearned men below their estimation XXX And by the same means the devilish sin of Pride will be kept up even among the Learned yea and the Preachers of Humility For what is that in the world almost that men are prouder of than that Learning which consisteth in such notions and words as are afore described And the proudest man I think is the worst XXXI And by this means the sacred Chairs and Pulpits will be possessed by such men whose spirits are most contrary to a Crucified Christ and to that Cross and Doctrine which they must preach And when Christ's greatest Enemies are the Pastors of his Churches all things will be ordered and managed accordingly and the faithful hated and abused accordingly Though I must add that it is not this Cause alone but many more concurring to constitute a worldly wicked mind which use to procure these effects XXXII And by false and vain Learning Contentions are bred and propagated in the Churches None are instruments so apt and none have been so successful as all Church History recordeth and the Voluminous contentions of many such learned parties testify XXXIII And this is an increasing malady for new Books are yearly written containing the said arbitrary notions of the several Authors And whereas real and organical Learning should be orderly and conjunctly propagated and Things studied for themselves and Words for Things the systems of of Arts and Sciences grow more and more corrupted our Logicks are too full of unapt notions our Metaphysicks are a meer confused mixture of Pneumatology and Logick and What part hath totally escaped XXXIV And the number of such Books doth grow so great that they become a great impediment and snare and how many years precious time must be lost to know what men say and who saith amiss or how they differ XXXV And the great diversity of Writers and Sects increaseth the danger trouble especially in Physicks by that time a man hath well studied the several sects the Epicureans and Somatists the Cartesians with the by-parties Regius Berigardus c. the Platonists the Peripateticks the Hermeticks Lullius Patricius Telesius Campanella White Digby Glisson and other Novelists and hath read the most learned improvers of the curranter sort of Philosophy Scheggius Wendeline Sennertus Hoffman Honorat Faber Got c. how much of his life will be thus spent And perhaps he will be as far to seek in all points saving those common evident certainties which he might have learned more cheaply in a shorter time than he was before he read them And will wish that Antonine Epictetus or Plutarch had served instead of the greater part of them And will perceive that Physicks are much fuller of uncertainties and emptier of satisfying usefulness than Morality and true Theology XXXVI By such false methods and notions men are often led to utter Scepticism and when they
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 be the Word of God as of Ruth Judges Joshua Chronicles c. Yea if he doubted of all the Old Testament and much of the New yet if he believe so much as containeth all the Covenant of Grace and the foresaid Summaries though he sin and lose much of his helps yet he may and will be saved if he sincerely receive but this much The reason is before given Though no man can believe any thing truly who believeth not all that he knoweth to be Gods Word yet a man may doubt whether one thing be Gods Word who doubteth not of another by several occasions And here you see the Reason why a particular or explicite Belief of all the Scripture it self was never required of all that are baptized nor of all or any man that entered into the Ministry For the wisest Doctor in the world doth not attain so high For no man hath a particular explicite Belief of that which he doth not understand For it is the matter or sence that we believe and we must first know what that sence is before we can believe it to be true And no man in the World understandeth all the Scripture Yea more it is too much to require as necessary to his Ministry a subscription in General that he implicitely believeth all that is in that Bible which you shall shew him For 1. Many faults may be in the Translation if it be a Translation 2. Many errors may be in the Copy as aforesaid Nay such a subscription should not as absolutely necessary be required of him as to all the real Word of God. For if the man by error should doubt whether Job or the Chronicles or Esther were Canonical and none of the rest I would not be he that should therefore forbid him to Preach Christs Gospel I am sure the ancient Church imposed no such terms on their Pastors when part of the new Testament was so long doubted of and when some were chosen Bishops before they were Baptized and when Synesius was chosen a Bishop before he believed the Resurrection I would not have silenced Luther Althamer or others that questioned the Epistle of James What then shall we say of the Roman insolence which thinketh not all the Scripture big enough but Ministers must also subscribe to many additions of their own yea and swear to Traditions and the Expositions of the Fathers and take whole Volumes of Councils for their Religion No wonder if such men do tear the Churches of Christ in pieces 1. By this time I hope you see to what use Baptism and the Summaries of Religion are 2. And of how great use Catechizing is 3. And that Christianity hath its essential parts 4. And how plain and simple a thing true Christianity is which constituteth the Church of Christ And how few things as to knowledge are necessary to make a man a Christian or to Salvation Multitudes of opinions have been the means of turning Pastors and People from the holy and diligent improvement of these few truths in our practice where we have much to do which might take up all our minds and time Chap. VIII Inference 2. Of the use of Catechizing THough it be spoken to in what is said I would have you more distinctly here note the use of Catechizing 1. It collecteth those few things out of many which the Ignorant could not themselves collect 2. It collecteth those necessary things which all must know and believe that will be saved 3. It containeth those Great practical things which we have daily use for and must still live upon which are as Bread and Drink for our food Other things may be well added the more the better which God hath revealed But our Life and our comfort and our Hope is in these 4. And it giveth us the true method or order of holy truths which is a great advantage to understand them Not but that the things themselves have the same orderly respect to one another in the Scripture but they are not delivered in the same order of words Therefore 1. Catechisms should be very skilfully and carefully made The true fundamental Catechism is nothing else but the Baptismal Sacramental Covenant the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Commandments the Summaries of our Belief Desires and Practice And our secondary Catechism must be nothing else but the plain expositions of these the first is a Divine Catechism the second is a Ministerial Expository Catechism And here 1. O that Ministers would be wiser at last than to put their superfluities their controversies and private opinions into their Catechisms and would fit them to the true end and not to the interest of their several sects But the Roman-Trent Catechism and many more of theirs must needs be defiled with their trash and every sect else must put their singularities into their Catechisms so hard is it for the aged decrepit body of the diseased Church for want of a better concoction of the common essentials of Christianity to be free from these heaps of inconcocted crudities and excrementitious superfluities and the many maladies bred thereby I deny not but a useful controversie may be opened by way of Question and Answer But pretend it not then to be what it is not Milk for Babes Him that is weak in the Faith receive but not to doubtful disputations The Servant of the Lord must be apt to teach but must not strive 2. And it is not commonly believed how great skill is needful to make a Catechism that the method may be true and that it may neither be too long for the memory nor too short for the understanding for my part it is the hardest work save one which is the full methodizing and explaining the whole body of Divinity that ever I put my hand to And when all 's done I cannot satisfy my self in it II. Why is not Catechizing more used both by Pastors and Parents I mean not the bare words unexplained without the sence nor the sence in a meer rambling way without a form of words But the words explained O how much fruit would poor Souls and all the Church receive by the faithful performance of this work would God but cure the prophaneness and sloth of unfaithful Pastors and Parents which should do it But I have said so much of this in my Reformed Pastor that I may well forbear more here Chap. IX Inference 3. The true Preservative of puzled Christians from the Errours of false Teachers who vehemently sollicite them to their several parties IT is the common out-cry of the World. How shall we know which side to be on And who is in the right among so many who all with confidence pretend to be in the right Ans Your Preservative is obvious and easie but men usually bestow more labour and cost for Error and Hell than for Truth and Heaven Pretend not to Faith or knowledge before you have it and you are the more safe SUSPEND your judgments
Heretick a Schismatick disobedient seditious or Away with such a fellow from the Earth it is not fit that he should live Act. 22.22 and 21.26 Or Away with him Crucifie him give us Barabbas or to say We have found this man a pestilent fellow a mover of Sedition a Leader of a Sect that teacheth contrary to the Decrees of Caesar c. But patience till the Cause were fully tryed and all things heard and equally weighed would prevent most of this I know that ignorance and weakness of Judgment is the common calamity of mankind and there is no hope of curing us by unity in high degrees of knowledge And though Teachers are and must be a great stay to ignorant Learners yet alas how can they tell which are the wisest Teachers and whom to chuse When all pretend to Wisdom and no man can judge of that which he neither hath nor knoweth and even the Roman Sect who pretend most to Infallibility have so exceeded all men in their Errour as to make it a part of Religion necessary to our possessions communion dominion and salvation to maintain the falshood of God's Natural Revelations to the senses of all sound men in the world How shall one that would learn Philosophy know in this Age what Sect to follow or what Guide to chuse Hence is our Calamity and the Remedy will be but imperfect till the time of perfection come But yet we are not remediless 1 If men would but well lay in hold fast love and faithfully improve the few necessary Essential Principles 2. If they would make them a Rule in trying what is built upon them and receive nothing that certainly contradicteth them 3. If they would stay think and try till their thoughts are well digested and all is heard before they take in doubtful things 4. If they will carry themselves as humble Learners to those whose wisdom is conspicuous by its proper light especially the concordant Pastors of the Churches 5. And if they will not quarrel with Truth for every difficulty which they understand not but humbly as Learners suspect their own wit till their Teachers have helpt them in a leisurely and faithful tryal by such means the mischief of Errour and Rashness might be much avoided In common matters necessity and undeniable experience doth somewhat rebuke and restrain this vice If Children should set their wits against their Parents or Scholars presently dispute it with their Masters Nature and the Rod would rebuke their pride and folly If they that never used a Trade should presently take themselves to be as wise as the longest practicers who would be Apprentices And if an unskilful Musician Painter Poet or other such like shall be confident that he is as good at his work as any standers by will not easily cherish his folly as being not blinded by his self-love A good workman shall have most praise and practice Buyers will convince the ignorant boasters by forsaking such mens shops As it is with self-conceited ignorant Writers who are restrained by the people who will not buy and read their Books And usually Good and Bad Judges Magistrates Lawyers Souldiers Pilots Artificers are discerned by most that are capable of judging because 1. These are matters where the common sense and experience of mankind doth render them somewhat capable of judging and save them from deceit 2. And here is not usually such deep and long Plots and endeavours to deceive as in matters of Speculation and specially Religion and Policy there is 3. And the Devil is not so concerned and industrious to deceive men in matters of so low importance 4. And if one be deceived many are ready to rectifie him 5. And Mens Interest here is better understood in bodily matters and they are not so willing to be deceived A poor man can easily discern between a charitable man and an uncharitable between a merciful and an oppressing Landlord We discern between diligent and slothful Servants but in matters that are above our reach which we must take on trust and know not whom to trust the difficulty is greater Where the Errour and Haste of either party will breed mischief but much more of both If the Physician or other Undertaker be Confident in his Errour and precipitant he will impose ruine on mens health as I have said And if the Patient be self-conceited and rash in his choice he is like to suffer for it But when both Physician and Patient are so what hope of escape And especially when through the great imperfection of mans understanding not one of a multitude is clear and skilful in things that are beyond the reach of sense And if one man after great experience come to be wiser than the rest the hearer knoweth it not and he must cast out his Notions among as many assailing Warriours as there are ignorant self-conceited hearers present and that is usually as there are persons And when every one hath poured out his confidence against it and perhaps reproached the Author as erroneous because he will know more than they and will not reverence their known mistakes alas how shall the person that we would instruct be it for Health or Soul be able to know which of all these to trust as wisest But the saddest work is that forementioned in Churches Kingdoms Families and Souls I must expect that opening the Crime will exasperate the Guilty But what remedy 1. Should I largely open what work this maketh in Families I have too much matter for the complaint If the Wife differ from the Husband she seemeth always in the right If the Servant differ from the Master and the Child from the Parent if a little past infancy they are always in the right What is the Contention in Families and in all the World but who shall have his way and will If they are of several Parties in Religion or if any be against Religion it self if they be foolish erroneous or live in any sin that can without utter impudence be defended still they are able to make it good And except Children at School or others that professedly go to be taught whom can we meet with so ignorant or mistaken that will not still think when even Superiours differ from them and reprove them that they are in the right 2. And what mischiefs doth it cause in Churches When the Papal Tyrannical part are so confident that they are in the right that when they silence Preachers and Imprison and burn Christians they think it not their duty so much as to hear what they have to say for themselves Or if they hear a few words they have not the patience to hear all or impartially to try the cause But they are so full of themselves and over wise that it must seem without any more ado a crime to dissent from them or contradict them And thus proud self-conceitedness smiteth the Shepherds scattereth the flocks and will allow the Church of Christ no Unity or Peace
more accurate than any Logical Author doth prescribe And the Lords Prayer and Decalogue especially will prove this when truly opened And the Doctrine of of the Trinity and the Baptismal Covenant is the Foundation of all true method of Physicks and Morality in the World. What if a novice cannot Anatomize Cicero or Demosthenes doth it follow that they are immethodical Brand-miller and Flaccher upon the Scripture Text and Steph. Tzegedine Sohnius Gomarus Dudley Fenner and many others upon the Body of Theology have gone far in opening the Scripture Method But more may be yet done VI. Consider also that the Eternal Wisdom Word and Son of God our Redeemer is the Fountain and giver of all Knowledge Nature to be restored and Grace to restore it are in his hands He is that true Light that lighteneth every one that cometh into the World The Light of Nature and Arts and Sciences are from his Spirit and Teaching as well as the Gospel Whether Clemens Alexandrinus and some other Ancients were in the right or not when they taught that Philosophy is one way by which men come to Salvation it is certain that they are in the right that say it is now the gift of Christ And that as the Light which goeth before Sun-rising yea which in the night is reflected from the Moon is from the Sun as well as its more glorious Beams So the Knowledge of Socrates Plato Zeno Cicero Antonine Epictetus Seneca Plutarch were from the Wisdom and Word of God the Redeemer of the World even by a lower gift of his Spirit as well as the Gospel and higher illumination And shall Christ be thought void of what he giveth to so many in the World VII Lastly Let it be considered above all that the grand difference between the teaching of Christ and other men is that he teacheth effectively as God spake when he Created and as he said to Lazarus Arise He giveth wisdom by giving the Holy Ghost All other Teachers speak but to the Ears but he only speaketh to the Heart Were it not for this he would have no Church I should never have else believed in him my self nor would any other seriously and savingly Aristotle and Plato speak but words but Christ speaketh LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE in all Countreys through all Ages to this day This above all is his witness in the World. He will not do his work on Souls by ludicrous enticing words of the Pedantick wisdom of the World but by illuminating Minds and changing Hearts and Lives by his effectual operations on the Heart God used not more Rhetorick nor Logick than a Philosopher when he said only Let there be Light but he used more Power Indeed the first Chapter of Genesis though abused by Ignorants and Cabalists hath more true Philosophy in it than the presumptuous will understand as my worthy Friend Mr. Samuel Gott lately gone to God hath manifested in his excellent Philosophy excepting the style and some few presumptions But operations are the glorious Oratory of God and his wisdom shineth in his works and in things beseeming the Heavenly Majesty and not in childish Laces and Toys of Wit. Let us therefore cease quarrelling and learn wisdom of God instead of teaching and reprehending him Let us magnifie the mercy and wisdom of our Redeemer who hath brought Life and Immortality to light and certified us of the matters of the World above as beseemed a Messenger sent from God and hath taught us according to the matter and our capacity and not with trifling childish notions Chap. XVIII Inference VI. The true and false ways of restoring the Churches and healing our Divisions hence opened and made plain HAving opened to you our Disease it is easie were not the Disease it self against it to discern the Cure. Pretended knowledge hath corrupted and divided the Christian World. Therefore it must be CERTAIN VERITIES which must Restore us and Unite us And these must be Things PLAIN and NECESSARY and such as God hath designed to this very use or else they will never do the work One would think that it should be enough to satisfie men of this 1. To read Scripture 2. To peruse the terms of Concord in the Primitive Church 3. To peruse the sad Histories of the Churches Discord and Divisions and the Causes 4. To peruse the state of the World at this day and make use of Universal Experience 5. To know what a Christian is what Baptism is and what a Church is 6. To know what Man is and that they themselves and the Churches are but Men. But penal and sinful Infatuation hath many Ages been upon the minds of those in the Christian World who were most concerned in the Cure and our sin is our misery as I think to the damned it will be the chief part of their Hell. But this subject is so great and needful and that which the Wounds and Blood of the Christian World do cry for a skilful Cure of that I will not thrust it into this corner but design to write a Treatise of it by it self as a second part of this This Book is since Printed with some Alteration and called The true and Only way of the Concord of the Churches Chap. XIX Of the Causes of this Disease of Prefidence or Proud Pretended Knowledge in order to the Cure. THE Cure of Prefidence and pretended knowledge could it be wrought would be the Cure of Souls Families Churches and Kingdoms But alas how low are our hopes yet that may be done on some which will not be done on all or most And to know the causes and oppugn them is the chief part of the Cure so far as it may be hoped for 1. The first and grand cause is the very Nature of ignorance it self which many ways disableth men from knowing that which should abate their groundless confidence For 1. An ignorant man knoweth but little parcels and scraps of things And all the rest is unknown to him Therefore he fixeth upon that little which he knoweth and having no knowledge of the rest he cannot regulate his narrow apprehensions by any conceptions of them And all things visible to us not light it self excepted which as seen by us is Fire incorporated in Air being Compounds the very Nature or Being of them is not known where any Constitutive part is unknown And in all Compounds each part hath such relation and usefulness to others that one part which seemeth known is it self but half known for want of the knowledge of others Such a kind of knowledge is theirs that knowing only what they see do take a Clock or Watch to be only the Index moving by the Hours being ignorant of all the causal parts within Or that know no more of a Tree or other Plant than the Magnitude Site Colour Odour c. Or that take a man to be only a Body without a Soul or the Body to be only the Skin and Parts discerned by the Eye in converse
side and the other to receive and rashly tell about lies of one another that I confess I am grown to take little heed of what such say in such a case unless the report continue a year uncontrolled For it 's common for them to tell those things as unquestionable which a few months prove false And yet never to manifest any repentance but to go on with the like one month disproving what the former hatcht and vended And indeed the very wisest and best of men are guilty of so much Ignorance Temerity Suspiciousness of others partiality c. That we must believe them though far sooner than others yet still with a reservâ—â—o change our minds if we find them mistaken 〈◊〉 still on supposition that they are fallible persons and that all men are Liars VII Another great cause of pretended false Knowledge and Confidence is the unhappy prejudices which our minds contract even in our Childhood before we have time and wit and Conscience to try things by true deliberation Children and Youth must receive much upon trust or else they can learn nothing But then they have not wit to proportion their apprehensions to the Evidence whether of Credibility or Certainty And so fame and tradition and education and the Countreys Vote do become the ordinary Parents of many Lies and folly maketh us to fasten so fearlesly in our fâ—rst apprehensions that they keep open the door to abundance of more falshoods And it must be clear Teachers or great impartial studies of a self-denying mind with a great blessing of God that must deliver us from prejudice and undeceive us And therefore all the World seeth that almost all men are of the Religion of their Country or their Parents be it never so absurd Though with the Mahometans they believe the Nonsence of a very sot once reading a quarter of whose Alcoran one would think should cure a man of Common reason of any inclination to his belief And among the Japonians even the eloquent Bonzii believe in Amida and Xaca To mention the belief of the Chinenses the People of Pegu Siam and many other such yea the Americans the Brasilians Lappians c. that correspond with Devils would be a sad instance of the unhappiness of mens first apprehensions and education And what doth the foresaid instance of Popery come short herein which tells us how Prejudice and Education and Company can make men deny all mens common sence and believe common unseen Miracles pretended in the stead VIII Another cause is the mistaking of the nature of the duty of submitting our judgment to our Superiours and Teachers especially to the Multitude or the Church or Antiquity No doubt but much reverence and a humane belief is due to the Judgment of our Teachers credibly made known But this is another thing quite different 1. From knowing by Evidence 2. And from believing God of which before and after IX Another cause is base slothfulness which makes men take up with the judgment of those in most reputation for Power Wisdom or Number to save them the labour of searching after the scientifical Evidence of things or the certain Evidence of Divine Revelations X. Another frequent cause is an appearance of something in the Truth which frighteneth men from it either for want of a clear methodical advantageous representation or by some difficult objection or some miscarriage in the utterance carriage or life of them that seem most zealous for it such little things deceive dark man And when he is turned from the Truth he thinks that the contrary Errour may be embraced without fear XI Another great cause of Confidence in false Conceits is the byass of some personal Interest prevailing with a corrupted Will and the mixture of Sense and Passion in the Judgment For as interested men hardly believe what seemeth against them and easily believe that which they would have to be true so Sense and Passion or Affections usually so bear down Reason that they think it their right to possess the Throne Not but that Sense is the only discerner of its own sensible Object as such and Reason by Sense as it is intelligible But that 's not the matter in hand But the Sensualist forceth his Reason to call that Best for him which his Sense is most delighted with and that Worst which most offendeth Sense The Drunkard will easily judge that his drinking is good for him and the Glutton that his pleasant meats are lawful and the Time-waster that his Plays are lawful and the Fornicator the wrathful revenger c. that their lusts and passions are lawful because they think that they have Feeling on their side It 's hard to carry an upright Judgment against Sense and Passion XII Sometimes a strong deluded Imagination maketh men exceeding confident in Errour some by Melancholy and some by a natural weakness of Reason and strength of Phantasie and some by misapprehensions in Religion grow to think that every strong conceit which doth but come in suddenly at reading or hearing or thinking on such a Text or in time of earnest prayer especially if it deeply affect themselves is certainly some suggestion or inspiration of God's Spirit And hence many Errours have troubled poor Souls and the Church of God which afterward they have themselves retracted Hence are the confidence of some ignorant Christians in expounding difficult Scriptures Prophecies and the boldness of others in expounding dark Providences and also in foretelling by their own surmises things to come XIII And not a few run into this mischief in some extreams by seeing others run into Errour on the other side Some are so offended at the credulity of the weak that they will grow confident against plain certainties themselves As because there are many feigned Miracles Apparitions Possessions and Witchcrafts in the World divulged by the Credulity of the injudicious therefore they will more foolishly be confident that there are no such things at all And because they see some weak persons impute more of their opinions performances and affections to God's Spirit than they ought therefore they grow mad against the true operations of the Spirit and confident that there is no such thing Some deride Praying by the Spirit and Preaching by the Spirit and Living by the Spirit when as they may as well deride understanding willing working by a Reasonable Soul no holy thing being holily done without God's Spirit any more than any act of life and reason without the Soul And they may on the same grounds deride all that Live not after the flesh and that are Christians Rom. 8.5 6 7 8 9 13. or that Love God or that seek Salvation Yea some run so far from spiritual Fanaticisms that they deny the very Being of Spirits and many confidently set up a dead Image of true Religion in bitter hatred and opposition of all that hath Life and serious Holiness So mad are some made by seeing some feverish persons dote XIV Another Cause
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
Love to the blessed God who is Love it self O happy exchange did I part with all the pleasures of the world for one flame one spark more of the Love of God I hate not my self for my ignorance in the common Arts and Sciences But my God knoweth that I even abhor and loath my self because I love and delight in him no more O what a Hell is this dead and disaffected heart O what a foretast of Heaven would it be could I but feel the fervours of Divine Love Well may that be called the First-fruits of Heaven and the Divine Nature and Life which so uniteth Souls to God and causeth them to live in the pleasures of his Goodness I dare not beg hard for more common knowledge But my Soul melteth with grief for want of Love and forceth out tears and sighs and cries O when will Heaven take acquaintance with my heart and shine into it and warm and revive it that I may truly experience the delightful life of holy Love I cannot think them loathsom and unlovely that are unlearned and want the ornaments of Art. But I abhor and curse those hateful sins which have raised the clouds and shut the windows and hindred me from the more lively Knowledge and Love of God. Would God but number me with his zealous Lovers I would presume to say that he had made me wise and initially happy But alas such high and excellent things will not be gotten with a lazy wish nor will holy Love dwell with iniquity in unholy and defiled Souls But if Wisdom were justified of none but her Children how confidently durst I call my self a Son of Wisdom For all my Reason is fully satisfied that the learned ungodly Doctors are meer fools and the Lovers of God are only wise And O that my Lot may be with such however I be esteemed by the dreaming world Chap. VI. The second Inference To abate our Censures and Contempt of the less Learned Christians and Churches upon Earth I Must confess that Ignorance is the great Enemy of Holiness in the world and the Prince of Darkness in his Kingdom of Darkness oppugneth the Light and promoteth the works of Darkness by it And it is found that where Vision ceaseth the People perish even for lack of knowledge And the ignorantest Countreys are the most ungodly But I must recant some former apprehensions I have thought the Armenians the Syrians the Georgians the Copties the Abassines the Greeks more miserable for want of Polite Literature than now I judge them Though I contemn it not as the Turks do and the Moscovites yet I perceive that had men but the knowledge of the holy Scriptures yea of the summaries of true Religion they might be good and happy men without much more If there be but some few among them skill'd in all the Learning of the world and expert in using the Adversaries weapons against themselves as Champions of the Truth the rest might do well with the bare Knowledge of God and a Crucified Christ It is the malice of assaulting Enemies that maketh all other Learning needful in some for our defence But the New Creature liveth not on such food but on the bread of life and living waters and the sincere Milk of the sacred Word The old Albigenses and Waldenses in Piedmont and other Countreys did many Ages keep up the life and comfort of true Religion even through murders and unparallel'd cruelties of the worldly Learned Church when they had little of the Arts and common Sciences But necessary Knowledge was propagated by the industry of Parents and Pastors Their Children could say over their Catechisms and could give account of the Principles of Religion and recite many practical parts of Scripture And they had much Love and Righteousness and little Division or Contention among them which made the moderate Emperor Maximilian profess to Crato that he thought the Picards of all men on Earth were likest the Apostolick Primitive Churches And Brocardus who dwelt among them in Judea tells us that the Christians there that by the Papists are accounted Hereticks as Nestorians or Eutychians were indeed good harmless simple men and lived in Piety and mortifying Austerities even beyond the very Religious sort the Monks and Fryars of the Church of Rome and shamed the wickedness of our Learned part of the World. And though there be sad mixtures of such Superstitions and Traditions as ignorance useth to breed and cherish yet the great devotion and strictness of many of the Abassines Armenians and other of those ruder sort of Christians is predicated by many Historians and Travellers And who knoweth but there may be among their vulgar more love to God and Heaven and Holiness than among the contentious Learned Nations where the Pastors strive who shall be the greatest and Preach up that Doctrine and Practice which is conformable to their own Wills and worldly Interests and where the people by the oppositions of their Leaders are drawn into several Sides and Factions which as Armies Militate against each other Is not the love of God like to be least where Contentions and Controversies divert the peoples minds from God and necessary saving Truths And where men least love one another And where mutual Hatred Cruelty and Persecution proclaim them much void of that love which is the Christian Badge I will not cease praying for the further Illumination and Reformation of those Churches But I will repent of my hard thoughts of the Providence of God as if he had cast them almost off and had few holy Souls among them For ought I know they may be better than most of Europe And the like I say of many unlearned Christians among our selves we know not what love to God and goodness doth dwell in many that we have a very mean esteem of The Breathings of poor Souls towards God by Christ and their desires after greater holiness is known to God that kindleth it in them but not to us Chap. VII The third Inference By what measures to judge of the Knowledge necessary to Church Communion I Know that there are some that would make Christ two Churches one Political and Congregate as they phrase it and the other Regenerate Or one Visible and the other Invisible And accordingly they say that professed Faith is the qualification of a Member of the Church-Congregate and Obedience to the Pope say the Papists and real love is the qualification of the Church-Regenerate But as there is but one Catholick Church of Christ so is there but one Faith and one Baptism by which men are stated as Members in that Church But as Heart-consent and Tongue-consent are two things but the latter required only as the Expression and Profession of the former so Heart-consenters and Tongue-consenters should be the same men as Body and Soul make not two men but one But if the Tongue speak that consent which is not in the Heart that Person is an Hypocrite and is but
which is desireable When one man nameth GOD he hath an orderly conception of his several Attributes in which yet all men are defective and most Divines themselves are culpably ignorant When another man conceiveth but of fewer of them and that disorderly And yet these must not be accounted Atheists or denied to believe in the same God or refused Baptism nor is it several Gods that men so differently believe in I. He that knoweth God to be a most perfect Spirit most powerful Wise and Good the Father Son and Holy Ghost the Creator of the world our Owner Governour and most Amiable Lover Benefactor and End I think knoweth as much of God as is of necessity to Baptism and Church Communion II. He that knoweth that Jesus Christ is God and man the Redeemer of the sinful world and the Mediator between God and Man who was conceived by the Holy-Ghost in the Virgin Mary fulfilled all righteousness was crucified as a Sacrifice for mans sin and being dead and buried rose again and ascended into Heaven and is the Teacher King and Intercessor of his Church and hath made the new Covenant and giveth the Holy-Ghost to sanctify believers and pardoneth their sins and will raise our Bodies at last and Judge the World in righteousness according to his Gospel and will give everlasting happiness to the Sanctified I think knoweth as much of Christ as is necessary to Baptism and Church Communion III. He that knoweth that the Holy Ghost is God proceeding from the Father and the Son the sanctifier of Souls by Holy Life and Light and Love by the Holy Gospel of which he is the Inditer and the Seal I think knoweth all that is necessary unto Baptism concerning the Holy Ghost IV. And as to the Act of Knowing this Trinity of Objects there is great difference between 1. Knowing the Notions or Words and the matter 2. Between an orderly clear and a dark and more confused Knowledge 3. And between apt significant words and such as any way notify a necessary true conception of the mind 4. Between such a Knowledge as maketh a man Willing and Consent to give up himself to this Trinity in Covenant and that which prevaileth not for such consent And so 1. It 's true that we know not the Heart immediately and therefore must judge by Words and Deeds But yet it is the Knowledge of the Things as is aforesaid that is necessary to Salvation because it is the Love of the Things is chiefly necessary But by what words to express that Love or Knowledge is not of equal necessity in itself 2. There being no man whose conceptions of God Christ the Holy Ghost the Covenant c. are not guilty of darkness and disorder a great degree of darkness and disorder of conceptions may consist with true grace in those of the lowest rank of Christians 3. The second Notions and Conceptions of things and so of God our Redeemer and Sanctifier as they are verba mentis in the mind itself are but Logical Artificial Organs and are not of that necessity to Salvation as the conception of the matter or incomplex objects 4. Many a man in his studies findeth that he hath oft a general and true Knowledge of Things in themselves before he can put names and notions on them and set those in due Order and long before he can find fit words to express his mental notions by which must cost him much study afterward And as Children are long learning to speak and by degrees come to speak orderly and composedly and aptly mostly not till many years use hath taught them So the expressive ability is as much matter of art and got by use in men at age And they must be taught yet as Children to speak of any thing new and Strange and which they learned not before As we see in learning Arithmetick Geometry and all the Arts and Sciences Even so men how holy internally soever must by study and use by the help of Gods Spirit learn how to speak of holy things in Prayer in Conference in answering such as ask an account of their Faith and Knowledge And hypocrites that are bred up in the use of such things can speak excellently in Prayer Conference or Preaching When true Christians at first that never used them nor were bred up where they heard them used cannot tell you intelligibly what is in their minds but are like men that are yet to learn the very Language in which they are to talk in I know this by true experience of my self and many others that I have examined 5. Therefore I say again if men cannot aptly answer me of the very Essentials of Religion but speak that which in its proper sense is Heresie or unsound and false Yet if when I open the questions to them my self and put the Article of Faith into the question and ask them e. g. Do you believe that there is but One God or are there many Doth God know all things or not Is he our Owner or not Doth he rule us by a Law or not c If they by Yea or Nay do speak the truth and profess to believe it I will not reject them for lack of knowledge if the rest concur I meet with few censorious Professors to say nothing of Teachers that will not answer me with some nonsense or falseness or ineptitude or gross confusion or defectiveness if I examine them of the foregoing Notions of the very baptismal Covenant As what is a Spirit what doth the word God signifie what is Power in God what Knowledge what Will what Goodness what Holiness what is a Person in the Trinity what is the difference between the three Persons How is God our End Had Christ his humane Soul from the Virgin or only his flesh Had he his Manhood from Man if not his Soul which is the chief essential part what is the Union of the Divine and Humane Nature wherein different from the Union of God and Saints or every Creature with an hundred such In which I must bear with ignorant false answers from eminent Professors that separate from others as too ignorant for their Communion And why then must I not bear with more in those that are new beginners and have not had their time and helps 6. But if a man can speak never so well and profess never so confident a belief if he Consent not to the Covenant and Vow of Baptism to give up himself presently and absolutely to Christ I must reject that man from the Communion of the Church But if these two things do but concur in any 1. The foresaid signification of a tolerable Knowledge and Belief by yea or nay Dost thou Believe in God c. as the Ancient Churches used to ask the Baptized 2. And a ready professed consent to be engaged by that holy Vow and Covenant to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost I will not deny Baptism to such if Adult nor after Church
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
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