A man of credit or an impudent Liar Both may be equal in confident asserting and in the plausibility of the narrative Meer humane belief therefore must be uncertain From whence we see the pitiful case of the subjects of the King of Rome for so I must rather call him than a Bishop Why doth a Lay-man believe Transubstantiation or any other Article of their Faith Because the Church faith it is Gods Word What is the Church that saith so It is a faction of the Popes perhaps at Laterane or forty of his Prelates at the Conventicle of Trent How doth he know that these men do not lie Because God promised that Peters Faith should not fail and the Gates of Hell should not prevail against the Church and the Spirit should lead the Apostles into all truth But how shall he know that this Scripture is Gods Word And also that it was not a total failing rather than a failing in some degree that Peter was by that promise freed from Or that the Spirit was promised to these Prelates which was promised to the Apostles Why because these Prelates say so And how know they that they say true Why from Scripture as before But let all the rest go How knoweth the Lay-man that ever the Church made such a decree That ever the Bishops of that Council were lawfully called That they truely represented all Christs Church on Earth That this or that Doctrine is the decree of a Council or the sence of the Church indeed Why because the Priest tells him so But how knoweth he that this Priest saith true or a few more that the man speaketh with there I leave you I can answer no further but must leave the credit of Scripture Council and each particular Doctrine on the credit of that poor single Priest or the few that are his companions The Lay-man knoweth it no otherwise Q. But is not the Scripture it self then shaken by this seeing the History of the Canon and incorruption of the Books c. dependeth on the word of Man Ans No. 1. I have elsewhere fully shewed how the Spirit hath sealed the substance of the Gospel 2. And even the matters of fact are not of meer humane Faith. For meer humane Faith depends on the meer honesty of the reporter but this Historical Faith dependeth partly on Gods attestation and partly on Natural proofs 1. God did by Miracles attest the reports of the Apostles and first Churches 2. The consent of all History since that these are the same writings which the Apostles wrote hath a Natural Evidence above bare humane Faith. For I have elsewhere shewed that there is a concurrence of humane report or a consent of history which amounteth to a true Natural Evidence the Will having its Nature and some necessary acts and nothing but necessary ascertaining causes could cause such concurrence Such Evidence we have that K. James Q. Elizabeth Q. Mary lived in England that our Statute books contain the true Laws which those Kings and Parliaments made whom they are ascribed to For they could not possibly rule the Land and over-rule all mens interests and be pleaded at the Bar c. without contradiction and detection of the fraud if they were forgeries though it 's possible that some words in a Statute Book may be misprinted There is in this a Physical Certainty in the consent of men and it depends not as humane Faith upon the honesty of the reporter but Knaves and Liars have so consented whose interests and occasions are cross and so is it in the case of the history of the Scripture Books which were read in all the Churches through the World every Lords day and contenders of various opinions took their Salvation to be concerned in them VIII Those things must needs be uncertain to any man as to a particular Faith or Knowledge which are more in number than he may possibly have a distinct understanding of or can examine their Evidence whether they be certain or not For instance the Roman Faith containeth all the Doctrinal decrees and their Religion also all the Practical decrees of all the approved General Councils that is of so much as pleased the Pope such power hath he to make his own Religion But these General Councils added to all the Bible with all the Apocrypha are so large that it is not possible for most men to know what is in them So that if the question be whether this or that Doctrine be the Word of God and the proof of the affirmative is because it is decreed by a General Council this must be uncertain to almost all men who cannot tell whether it be so decreed or no Few Priests themselves knowing all that is in all those Councils So that if they knew that all that is in the Councils is Gods Word they know never the more whether this or that Doctrine e. g. the immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary c. be the Word of God. And if a Heathen knew that all that is in the Bible is the Word of God and knew not a word what is in it would this make him a Christian or Saint him You may object that most Protestants also know not all that is in the Scripture Ans True nor any one And therefore Protestants say not that all that is in the Scripture is necessary to be known to Salvation but they take their Religion to have essential parts and integral parts and accidents And so they know how far each is necessary But the Papists deride this distinction and because all truths are equally true they would make men believe that all are equally Fundamental or Essential to Christianity But this is only when they dispute against us at other times they say otherwise themselves when some other interest leads to it and so cureth this impudency It were worthy the enquiry whether a Papist take all the Bible to be Gods Word and de fide or only so much of it as is contained particularly in the decrees of Councils If the latter then none of the Scripture was de fide or to be particularly believed for above 300 years before the Council of Nice If the former then is it as necessary to Salvation to know how old Henoch was as to know that Jesus Christ is our Saviour IX Those things must needs be uncertain which depend upon such a number of various circumstances as cannot be certainly known themselves For instance the common rule by which the Papist Doctors do determine what particular Knowledge and Faith are necessary to Salvation is that so many truths are necessary as are sufficiently propounded to that person to be known and believed But no man living learned nor unlearned can tell what is necessary to the sufficiency of this proposal Whether it be sufficient if he be told it in his Childhood only and at what Age Or if he be told it but once or twice or thrice or how oft whether by a Parent or
the Reformation must be presently answerable to the apprehension of the evil Yea sometimes the very injudicious sort of zealous people make the cry of the greatness of this or that corruption how Antichristian and intolerable it is And then the Reformation must satisfie this vulgar errour and answer the cry and expectation of the people I would here give instances of abundance of mis-reformings which all need a Reformation both in Doctrine Discipline and Worship but that I reserve it for another Treatise if I live to finish it and can get it printed called Over-doing is Undoing 12. Lastly This Vice of pretended certainty and knowledge hath set up several false terms of Christian Unity and Peace and by them hath done more to hinder the Churches Peace and Unity than most devices ever did which Satan ever contrived to that end by this Church-tearing Vice abundance of falshoods and abundance of things uncertain and abundance of things unnecessary have been made so necessary to the Union and Communion of the Churches and their Members as that thereby the Christian World hath been grinded to powder by the names and false pretences of Unity and Peace Just as if a wise Statesman would advise his Majesty that none may be his Subjects that are not of one Age one Stature one Complexion and one Disposition that so he might have Subjects more perfectly concordant than all the Princes on Earth besides and so might be the most Glorious Defender of Unity and Peace But how must this be done Why command them all to be of your mind But that prevaileth not and yet it is undone Why then they are obstinate self-will'd Persons Well but yet it is undone Why lay Fines and Penalties upon them Well but yet it is undone All the Hypocrites that had no Religion are of the Religion which is uppermost and the rest are uncured Why require more Bricks of them and let them have no Straw and tell them that their Religion is their idleness stubbornness and pride and let your little Finger be heavier than your Fathers Loins But hearken young Counsellors Jeroboam will have the advantage of all this and still the sore will be unhealed Why then Banish them and Hang them that obey not till there be none left that are not of one mind But Sir I pray you who shall do it and who shall that one man be that shall be left to be all the Kingdom You are not such a Fool as to be ignorant that no two men will agree in all things nor be perfectly of the same complexion If there must be One King and but One Subject I pray you who shall that one Subject be I hope not he that counselleth it Neque enim Lex justior ulla est quà m necis artifices arte perire suâ But hark you Sir shall that one Man have a Wife or not If not the Kingdom will die with him if yea I dare prognosticate he and his Wife will not be in all things of a mind If they be take me for a mistaken man. By this Vice of pretended knowledge and certainty it is that the Papacy hath been made the Center of the Unity of the Universal Church Unity we must have God forbid else There is no maintaining Christianity without it But the POPE must be PRINCIPIUM UNITATIS And will all Christians certainly Unite in the Pope Well and Patriarchs must be the Pillars of Unity But was it so to the Unity of the first Churches Or is it certain that all Christians will Unite in Patriarchs But further all the Mass of Gregory the too great and all the Legends in his Dialogues or at least all the Doctrines and Ceremonies which he received and the form of Government in his time must be made necessary to Church Union Say you so But it was not all necessary in the Apostles times nor in Cyprian's times no nor in Gregory's own times much of those things being used arbitrarily And what was made necessary by Canons of General Councils in the Empire mark it was never thereby made necessary in all the rest of the Churches And are you sure that meer Christians will take all these for certain truths Why if they will not Burn and Banish them This is as Tertullian saith solitudinem facere pacem vocare But hark Sir this way hath been tryed too long in vain Millions of Albigenses and Waldenses are said by Historians to be kill'd in France Savoy Italy Germany c. The French Massacre killed about Forty or Thirty Thousand The Irish Massacre in that little Island killed about Two Hundred Thousand But were they not stronger after all these cruelties than before Alas Sir all your labour is lost and your party is taken for a Blood-thirsty Generation and humane Nature which abhorreth the Blood-thirsty ever after breedeth Enemies to your way This is the effect of false Principles and terms of Unity and Peace contrived by proud self-conceited men that think the World should take their Dictates for a Supream Law and obey them as the Directive Deities of Mankind If all this be not enough to tell you what proud pretended certainty is read over the Histories of the Ages past and you shall find it written in Ink in Tears in blood in Mutations in Subversions of the Empires and Kingdoms of the World in the most odious and doleful Contentions of Prelates Lacerations of Churches and Desolations of the Earth And yet have we not experience enough to teach us Chap. XIII The Commodities of a suspended judgment and humble understanding which pretendeth to no more Knowledge or Certainty than it hath THE commodities of an humble mind which pretendeth not to be Certain till he is Certain you may gather by contraries from the twelve forementioned mischiefs of prefidence which to avoid prolixity I leave to your collection Moreover I add 1. Such a humble suspended mind doth not cheat it self with seeming to have a knowledge a Divine Faith a Religion when it hath none It doth not live on air and dreams nor feed on shadows nor is puft up with a tympanite of vain conceits instead of true substantial wisdom 2. He is not prepossessed against the Truth but hath room for Knowledge and having the teachableness of a Child he shall receive instruction and grow in true Knowledge when the proud and inflated wits being full of nothing are sent empty away 3. He entangleth not himself in a seeming necessity of making good all that he hath once received and entertained He hath not so many Bastards of his own Brain to maintain as the prefident hasty judgers have which saveth him much sinful study and strife 4. He is not liable to so much shame of mutability He that fixeth not till he feel firm ground nor buildeth till he feel a Rock need not pull down and repent so oft as rash presumers 5. Unless the World be Bedlam mad in proud obtrudings of their own Conceits methinks such
till you have true evidence to establish them 1. It is only Christians that I am now instructing and if you are Christians you have already received the Essentials of Christianity even the Baptismal Covenant the Creed the Lords Prayer and Decalogue And I need not tell you that moreover you must receive all those Truths in Nature and Scripture which are so plain that all these dissenting sects of Christians are agreed in them And when you have all these and faithfully love and practice them you are sure to be saved if you do not afterward receive some contrary Doctrine which destroyeth them Mark then which is the safe Religion As sure as the Gospel is true he that is meet for Baptism before God is meet for pardon of sin and he that truely consenteth to the Baptismal Covenant and so doth dedicate himself to God is made a Member of Christ and is justified and an Heir of Heaven Your Church Catechism saith truly of all such that in Baptism each one is made a Member of Christ a Child of God and an Heir of Heaven So that as sure as the Gospel is true every true Baptized Christian whose Love and Life doth answer that Faith shall certainly be saved Ask all parties and few of them but impudent designers can deny this Well then the Baptismal Covenant expounded in the Creed Lords Prayer and Commandments is your Christian Religion As a Christian you may and shall be saved that a True Christian is saved all confess But whether a Papist be saved is questioned by the Protestants and so is the Salvation of many other sects by others You are safe then if you take in nothing to endanger you And is it not wisdom then to take heed how you go further and on what grounds lest you over-run your safe Religion Obj. But then I must not be a Protestant For the Papists say that they cannot be saved Ans A Protestant is either one that holdeth to the ancient simple Christianity without the Papists manifold additions Or one that positively also renounceth and opposeth those additions In the first sense a Protestant and a meer Christian is all one and so to say that a Protestant cannot be saved is to say that a Christian as such cannot be saved If it be the meer name of a Protestant that the Papist accounteth damnable tell him that you will not stick with him for the name You are contented with the old name of Christian alone But Protestantism in the second sense is not your Religion but the Defensative of your Religion as flying from the Plague is not my Humanity or Life but a means to preserve it And so Protestants are of many sizes Some oppose some points and some others some more some less which the Papists have brought in And yet they are not of so many Religions But whoever condemneth you if Christ save you he doth but condemn himself as uncharitable Christianity is certainly a State of Salvation but whether Popery be or whether the Greek Opinions be or whether this or that difference and singularity stand with Salvation is the doubt Cast not your self then needlesly into doubt and danger Obj. But then you will have us be still but Infants and to learn no more than our Catechisms and not to learn and believe all that God hath revealed in his Word Ans No such matter This is the sum of what I advise you to 1. Hold fast to your simple Christianity as the Certain terms of Salvation 2. Receive nothing that is against it 3. Learn as much more as ever you can 4. But take not mens words nor their plausible talk for Certifying Evidence And do not think if you believe a Priest that this is believing God nor if his Reasons seem plausible to you and you are of his Opinion that this is Divine Knowledge If you do incline to one mans Opinion more than another tell him that you incline to his Opinion but tell him that you take not this for Divine Knowledge or any part of your Religion If you will needs believe one side rather than another about Church History or the matters of their Parties Interest tell them I believe you as fallible men but this is none of my Divine Faith or Religion To learn to know is to learn Scientifical Evidence and not to learn what is another mans Opinions nor whether they are probable or not much less to read a Councils Decrees or the Propositions of a disputing Systeme and then for the mens sake to say This is Orthodox Nor yet because it hath a taking aspect To learn of a Priest to believe God is one thing and to believe him or his party Church or Council is another thing Learn to know as much as you can and especially to know what God hath revealed to be believed And learn to believe God as much as you can And believe all your Teachers and all other men as far as they are credible in that case with such a humane belief as fallible men may justly require And where Contenders do consent suspect them the less But where they give one another the Lie in matters of Fact try both their Evidences of credibility before you trust them and then trust them not beyond that Evidence But still difference your Divine Faith and Religion from your Opinion and Humane Faith. And let men sollicite you never so long take not on you to know or believe till you do that is not beyond the Evidence I do but perswade you against Presumption and Hypocrisie Shall I say SUSPEND TILL YOU HAVE TRUE EVIDENCE and you are safe why if you do not you will know never the more nor have ever the more Divine Faith For I can mean no more than SUSPEND YOUR PRESUMPTIONS and do not foolishly or hypocritically take on you to know what you do not or to have a Faith which you have not If you can know truly do it with fidelity and be true to the Truth whoever offer it or whatever it cost you But suspend your Profession or hasty Opinions and Conceits of what you know not Obj. But every side almost tells me that I am damned if I do not believe as they do Ans 1. By that you may see that they are all deceived at least save one which ever it be while they differ and yet condemn each other 2. Thereby they do but give you the greater cause to suspect them For by this shall all men know Christs Disciples if they love one another Right Christians are not many Masters as knowing that themselves shall have the greater condemnation else for in many things we offend all And the wisdom which hath envy and strife is not from above but from beneath and is earthly sensual and devilish introducing confusion and every evil work Jam. 3.1 15 16. Christs Disciples judge not lest they be judged 3. By this you may see that unless you can be of all mens minds
20 years old but they are in conceit wiser than I and are still in the right and I am in the wrong in things Natural Civil Religious or almost any thing we talk of if I say not as they say and it is so hard to abate their confidence or convince them that I have half ceased to endeavour it but let every one believe and say what he will so it be not to the dishonour of God the wrong of others and the hazard of his Salvation For I take it for granted before-hand that contradiction ofter causeth strife than instruction and when they take not themselves for Scholars they seldom learn much of any but themselves And their own thoughts and experience must teach them that in many years which from an Experienced man they might have cheaplier learnt in a few days Obj. IV. You speak against taking things on trust and so would keep Children from Believing and Learning of their Parents and Masters and from growing wise Ans I oft tell you that humane faith is a necessary help to Divine Faith But it must not be mistaken for Divine Faith. Men are to be believed as fallible men But in some things with diffidence and in some things with confidence and in some things where it is not the speakers credit that we rely upon but a Concurrence of Testimonies which make up a natural certainty Belief and Knowledge go together and the thing is sure But man is not God. Obj. V. May not a man more safely and Confidently believe by the Churches Faith than his own That is take that for more certain which all men believe than that which I think I see a Divine word for my self Ans This is a Popish Objection thus confusedly and fallaciously often made 1. Properly No man can believe by any faith but his own any more than understand with any understanding but his own But the meaning being that we may better trust to the Churches Judgment that this or that is Gods word than to our own perswasion that it is Gods word from the Evidence of the Revelation I further answer 2. That the Churches Judgment is one part of our subordinate motive and therefore not to be put in competition with that Divine Evidence which it is always put in Conjunction with And the Churches Teaching is the means of my coming to know the true Evidences of Divinity in the word And the Churches real Holiness caused by that word is one of the Evidences themselves and not the least Now to put the question Whether I must know the Scripture to be Gods word because I discern the Evidences of its Divinity or rather because the Church Teacheth me that it is Gods word or because the Church saith it is Gods word or because the Church is Sanctified by it are all vain questions setting things conjunct and co-ordinate as opposite 1. By the Churches Judgment or Belief I am moved to a high Reverence of Gods word by a very high Humane Faith supposing it credible that it may be Gods word indeed 2. Next by the Churches or Ministers Teaching the Evidences of Divinity are made known to me 3. The Effect of it in the Churches Holiness is one of these Evidences 4. And by that and all other Evidences I know that it is Gods word 5. And therefore believe it to be true This is the true Order and Resolution of our Faith. 3. But because the Popish Method is barely to believe the Scripture to be Gods word because a Pope and his Council judgeth so I add 1. That we have even of that humane sort of Testimony far more than such For theirs is the Testimony of a self exalting Sect of Christians about the third part of the Christian world But we have also the Testimony of them and of all other Christians and in most or much of the matter of Fact that the Scriptures were delivered down from the Apostles the Testimony of some Heathens and abundance of Hereticks 2. And with these we have the Evidences of Divinity themselves 3. But if we had their Churches or Pope and Councils Decrees for it alone we should take it but for a humane Fallible Testimony For 1. They cannot plead Gods word here as the proof of their Infallibility For it is the supposed question what is Gods word which they say cannot be known but by their Infallible Judgment 2. And they cannot plead number for 1. The Mahometans are more than the Christians in the world Brierwood reckoneth that they are six parts of thirty we but five And yet not therefore Infallible nor Credible 2. And the Heathens are more than the Mahometans and Christians being four sixth parts of the world and yet not infallible But of this I have the last week wrote a Book of the certainty of Christianity without Popery and heretofore my safe Religion and others Obj. VI. At least this way of Believing and Knowing things by proper Evidences of Truth will loosen the common sort of Christians even the godly from their Faith and Religion For whereas now they quietly go on without doubting as receiving the Scriptures from the Church or their Teachers as the word of God when they fall on searching after proofs they will be in danger of being overcome by difficulties and filled with doubts if not apostatizing to Infidelity or turning Papists Ans Either these persons have already the Knowledge of Certain Evidence of the Divinity of the Scripture or Christianity or they have none If they have any the way of studying it more will not take it from them but increase it Else you dishonour Christianity to think that he that knoweth it to be of God will think otherwise if he do but better try it Upon search he will not know less but more But if he have no such certainty already 2. I further answer that I take away from him none of that humane belief which he had before If the belief of his Parents Teachers or the Church only did satisfy him before which was but a strong probability I leave with him the same help and probability and only perswade him to add more and surer arguments And therefore that should not weaken but confirm his Faith. Obj. But you tell him that the Churches or his Teachers Judgment or word is uncertain and that sets him on doubting Ans 1. I tell him of all the Strength and Credibility that is in it which I would have him make use of 2. And it is not alone but by his Teachers help that I would have him seek for certainty 3. But if he did take that Testimony for certain which was not certain If he took man for God or took his Teachers or Pope for inspired Prophets and a humane Testimony for Divine do you think that this errour should be cherished or cured I think that God nor Man have no true need of a lie in this case and that lies seldom further mens Salvation And that
that he will love me who hath loved me while I was his Enemy and called me home when I went astray and mercifully received me when I returned Who hath given me a life full of precious mercies and so many experiences of his love as I have had Who hath so often signified his love to my Conscience So often heard my prayers in distress and hath made all my life notwithstanding my sins a continual wonder of his mercies O unthankful Soul if all this will not persuade thee of the love of him that gave it I that can do little good to any one yet have abundance of friends and hearers who very easily believe that I would do them good were it in my power and never fear that I should do them harm And shall it be harder to me to think well of Infinite Love and Goodness than for my neighbours to trust me and think well of such a wretch as I What abundance of love-tokens have I yet to shew which were sent me from Heaven to perswade me of my Fathers love and care 7. Shall I not easily believe and trust his love who hath promised me eternal glory with his Son with all his holy ones in Heaven Who hath given me there a great Intercessor to prepare Heaven for me and me for it and there appeareth for me before God Who hath already brought many millions of blessed Souls to that glory who were once as bad and low as I am And who hath given me already the Seal the Pledge the Earnest and the First-fruits of that Felicity Therefore O my Soul if men will not know thee if thou were hated of all men for the cause of Christ and Righteousness If thine uprightness be imputed to thee as an odious crime If thou be judged by the blind malignant World according to its gall and interest If friends misunderstand thee If Faction and every evil cause which thou disownest do revile thee and rise up against thee It is enough it is absolutely enough that thou art known of God God is All and All is nothing that is against him or without him If God be for thee who shall be against thee How long hath he kept thee safe in the midst of dangers and given thee peace in the midst of furious Rage and Wars He hath known how to bring thee out of trouble and to give thee tolerable ease while thou hast carried about thee night and day the usual causes of continual torment His loving kindness is better than life Psal 63.3 but thou hast had a long unexpected life through his loving kindness In his favour is life Psal 30. And life thou hast had by and with his favour Notwithstanding thy sin while thou canst truly say thou lovest him he hath promised that all shall work together for thy good Rom. 8.28 And he hath long made good that promise Only ask thy self again and again as Christ did Peter whether indeed thou love him And then take his love as thy full and sure and everlasting portion which will never fail thee though flesh and Heart do fail For thou shalt dwell in God and God in thee for evermore 1 Joh. 4.12 15 16. Amen FINIS A Catalogue of Books Printed for and Sold by Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chapel A Christian Directory or Body of practical Divinity 1. Christian Ethicks 2. Oeconomicks 3. Ecclesiasticks 4. Politicks Resolving multitudes of Cases on each Subject By Rich. Baxter Folio Mr. Baxters Catholick Theology Folio Mr. Baxters Methodus Theologiae Christianae Folio A Third Volume of Sermons Preached by the late Reverend and Learned Tho. Manton D.D. In two parts Folio A Hundred Select Sermons on several Texts of Fifty on the Old Testament and Fifty on the New. Folio Choice and Practical Expositions on four Select Psalms Folio Both by the Reverend and Learned Tho. Horion D.D. late Minister of St. Hellens London The true Prophecies and Prognostications of Michael Nostrodamus Physician to Henry the Second Francis the Second and Charles the Ninth Kings of France and one of the Best Astronomers that ever were Folio Sixty one Sermons Preached mostly on publick occasions whereof five formerly Printed by Adam Littleton D.D. Rector of Chelsea in Middlesex Folio The Novels and Tales of the Renowned John Boccasio the first Refiner of Italian Prose containing a hundred curious Novels Folio A Key to open Scripture Metaphors in two Volumes By Benjamin Keach and Tho. Delawn Folio The Saints Everlasting Rest or a Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints in their Enjoyment of God in Glory 4 to The English Nonconformity as under King Charles II. and King James II. Truly Stated and Argued By Richard Baxter 4to A discourse concerning Liturgies By the Late Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. David Clarkson 8vo A discourse of the saving Grace of God. By the late Reverend and Learned David Clarkson Minister of the Gospel 8vo The Vision of the Wheels seen by the Prophet Ezekiel Opened and Applyed Partly at the Merchants Lecture in Broad-street and partly at Stepney on January 31. 1689. being the Day of Solemn Thanksgiving to God for the great Deliverance of this Kingdom from Popery and Slavery By his then Highness the most Illustrious Prince of Orange Whom God raised up to be the glorious Instrument thereof By Matthew Mead Pastor of a Church of Christ at Stepney 4to A Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live. 12mo The right Method for settled Peace of Conscience and Spiritual Comfort 8vo The Life of Faith in every State. 4to Alderman Ashursts Funeral Sermon 4to A Key for Catholicks to open the juglings of the Jesuits The first part of answering all their common Sophisms The second against the Soveraignty and necessity of General Councils 4to The certainty of Christianity without Popery 8vo Full and easy satisfaction which is the true Religion Transubstantiation shamed 8vo Naked Popery Answering Mr. Hutchinson 4to Which is the true Church A full Answer to his Reply proving that the General Councils and the Popes Primacy were but in one Empire 4to The History of Bishops and their Councils abridged and of the Popes 4to The Cure of Church Divisions 8to A full Treatise of Episcopacy shewing what Episcopacy we own and what is in the English Diocesan frame for which we dare not swear never to endeavour any alteration of it in our places 4to A search for the English Schismatick comparing the Canoneers and Nonconformists 4to An Answer to Mr. Dodwell and Dr. Sherlock confuting an Universal-humane Church Soveraignty Aristocratical and Monarchical as Church Tyranny and Popery and defending Dr. Iz. Barrows excellent Treatise 4to FINIS Had I been supposed to have written this Book to hide my sloth and ignorance men would not have neglected my Methodus Theologie and Catholick Theology thro' meer sloth and saying That it 's too high and hard for them A Country-man having sent his Son
for ever that we do them Rom. 11.34 For who hath known the mind of the Lord or who hath been his Counsellor And how many such compose the Theology of some and the Philosophy of more 4. It is sinful folly to pretend to know that which is impossible or unrevealed to him though it be possible and revealed to others For as the Eye so the Understanding must have its necessary light and due constitution and conditions of the object and of it self or else it cannot understand 5. It is sinful folly to pretend to certainty of knowledge when either the thing is but probable or at best we have but doubtful opinions or conjectures of it and no true certainty 6. It is sinful folly to pretend that we know or receive any thing by Divine Faith or Revelation when we have it but by Humane Faith or probable conjecture from natural evidence As soon as men are perswaded by a Sect a Seducer or a selfish Priest to believe what he saith abundance presently take such a perswasion for a part of their Religion as if it were a Believing God. 7. It is sinful folly to take on us that we know what we know not at all because we do but know that it is knowable and that wise men know it and as soon as we understand that it should be known and that wise men conclude it to be true therefore to pretend that we know it to be true 8. And it is sinful folly to pretend that we truly know or apprehend the Thing or Matter or incomplex object meerly because we have got the bare words and second notions of it which are separable from the knowledge of the thing All these are false and sinful pretences of knowledge which men have not But because Paul so warneth us to take heed of vain Philosophy and Atheists and Infidels deride him for speaking against the wisdom of the World as if he spake against Learning because he had it not and because the Disease which he attempted to Cure remaineth among Schollars to this day and instead of a Cure many contemn the Physician and dislike Christ himself and the Gospel as defective of the Learning which they overvalue I will once again and that more distinctly tell you some few of the faults of our common Learning even now that it is cultivated and augmented in this Age that you may see that Paul did not injuriously accuse it or Christ injuriously neglect it I. Natural Imperfection layeth the Foundation of our common calamity in that it is so long before sense and reason grow up to a natural maturity through the unripeness of Organs and want of Exercise that Children are necessitated to learn words before things and to make these words the means of their first knowledge of many of the things signified so that most furnish themselves with a stock of names and words before ever they get any true knowledge of the matter II. And then they are exceeding apt to think that this treasury of words and second notions is true wisdom and to mistake it for the knowledge of the thing Even as in Religion we find almost all Children and ignorant people will learn to say by rote the Creed and Lords Prayer and Commandments and Catechism and then think that they are not Ignorants when it is long after before we can get them to understand the sense of the words which they can so readily speak yea though they are plain English words which they use for the most part in ordinary discourse III. When Children come to School also their Masters teach them as their Parents did or worse I mean that they bestow almost all their pains to furnish them with words and second notions And so do their Tutors too oft at the University So that by that time they are grown to be Masters of a considerable stock of words Grammatical Logical Metaphysical c. and can set these together in Propositions and Syllogisms and have learnt Memoriter the Theorems or Axioms and some distinctions which are in common use and reputation they are ready to pass for Masters of the Arts and to set up for themselves and leave their Tutors and to teach others the like sort and measure of Learning which they have thus acquired Like one that sets up his Trade as soon as he hath gotten a Shop full of Tools IV. And indeed the memories of young men are strong and serviceable so many years sooner than their judgments that prudent Teachers think it meet to take that time to furnish them with words and organical notions while they are unmeet to judge of things Even as pious Parents must teach them the words of the Catechism that when they grow riper their judgments may work upon that which their Memories did before receive And in this they are in the right upon two suppositions 1. That distinguishing things obvious and easily understood from things remote abstruse and difficult they would teach them those of the first sort with the words though not the second And while they make haste with them in the Languages they would not make too much haste with the Notions and Theorems of the Arts and Sciences 2. That they still make them know that words as to matter are but as the dish to the meat and all this while they are but preparing for wisdom and true Learning and not getting or possessing it and that unless they will equalize a Parrot and a Philosopher they must know how little they have attained and must after Learn things or not pretend to know any thing indeed As Children learn first to speak and then learn what to speak of V. And the great mischief is that multitudes of those notions which are taught us are false not fitted to the Things but expressing the conceptions of roving uncertain erroneous bewildred minds Words are the instruments of Communication of thoughts And when I hear a man speak I hear perhaps what he thinketh of things but not always what they are Our Universal notions are the result of our own comparing Things with things And we are so wofully defective in such comparings that our Universal notions must needs be very defective so that they abound with errour VI. And the penury and narrowness of words is a great impediment to the due expressing of those poor confused conceptions which we have For a man can think more aptly and comprehensively than he can speak And hence it cometh to pass that words and universal notions are become like Pictures or Hieroglyphicks almost of arbitrary signification and use as the speaker pleaseth And as a multitude of School-distinctions tell us you can know little by the Grammatical use or Etymology of the words what the meaning of them is in a theorem or distinction till the speaker tell it you by other words VII And the conceptions of men being as various as their Countenances the same words in the mouths of several men
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
and celebrate the Lords Supper provoking one another to Love and to good works 3. Be it known to you that these three Summaries come to us with fuller Evidence of Certain Tradition from God than the rest of the Holy Scriptures Though they are equally true they are not equally Evident to us And this I thus prove 1. The Body of the Scriptures were delivered but one way but the Covenant Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue are delivered two ways They are in the Scripture and so have all the Evidence of Tradition which the Scriptures have And they were besides that delivered to the memories of all Christians If you say that the Creed is not in the Scripture or that the Scripture is not altered as it is I answer 1. That it is in the Scripture as to the matter signified in as plain words even of the same signification 2. There is no alteration made but a small addition which is no disparagement to it because the ancient substance of it is still known and the additions are not new made things but taken out of Scripture And if yet any Heretick should deny that God is Wise and Good and Just and Merciful it were no dishonour to the Creed nor weakening of its certainty to have these attributes yet added to it 2. These Summaries as is said were far ancienter than the rest of the New Testament as written and known and used long before them 3. These Summaries being in every Christians mind and memory were faster held than the rest of the Scriptures Therefore Parents could and did teach them more to their Children You never read that the Catechizers of the people did teach them all the Bible nor equally ask them who Jared or Mehaleel or Lamech was as they did who Christ was Nor put every History into the Catechism but only the Historical Articles of the Creed 4. Therefore it was far easier to preserve the purity of these Summaries than of the whole Body of the Scriptures For that which is in every mans memory cannot be altered without a multitude of reprovers Which makes the Greeks since Photius keep such a stir about Filioque as to think that the Latines have changed Religion and deserved to be separated from for changing that word But no wonder that many hundred various Readings are crept into the Bible and whole Verses and Histories as that of the Adulterous Woman are out in some that are in others For it is harder to keep such a Volume uncorrupt than a few words Though writing as such is a surer way than memory and the whole Bible could never have been preserved by memory Yet a few words might especially when they had those words in writings also 5. Add to this that the Catechistical Summaries aforesaid were more frequently repeated to the people at least every Lords day Whereas in the reading of the Scriptures one passage will be read but seldom perhaps once or twice in a year And so a corruption not so easily observed 6. And if among an hundred Copies of the Scripture ten or twenty only should by the Carelesness of the Scribes be corrupted all the rest who saw not these Copies would not know it and so they might fall into the hands of Posterity when many of the sounder might be lost 7. And Lastly The danger of depravation had no end For in every age the Scripture must be written over anew for every Church and person that would use it And who that knoweth what writing is could expect that one Copy could be written without errors and that the second should not add to the errors of the 1st as Printers now do who print by faulty Copies And though this danger is much less since Printing came up that is but lately And the mischiefs of Wars and Heretical Tyrants burning the truest Copies hath been some disadvantage to us Obj. Thus you seem to weaken the Certain incorruption of the Scriptures Ans No such thing I do but tell you the case truly as it is The wonderful Providence of God and care of Christians hath so preserved them that there is nothing corrupted which should make one Article of faith the more doubtful I assert no more depravation in them than all confess but only tell you how it came to pass and tell you the greater certainty that we have of the Essentials of Religion than of the rest And whereas every man of brains confesseth that many hundred words in Scripture by Variety of Copies are uncertain I only say that it is not so in the Essentials And I do not wonder that Virgil Ovid Horace Cicero c. Have not suffered such depravations For 1. It is not so easy for a Scribes error to pass unseen in oratione ligata as in oratione soluta in verse as in prose 2. And Cicero with the rest was almost only in the hands of Learned men whereas the Scriptures were in the hands of all the Vulgar Women and Children 3. And the Copies of these Authors were comparatively but few Whereas every one almost got Copies of the Scripture that was able And it 's liker that some depravation should be found among ten thousand Copies than among a hundred So that I have proved to you that the Creed Lords Prayer Commandments and Covenant of Baptism are not to be believed only because they are in the Scripture but also because they have been delivered to us by Tradition and so we have them from two hands as it were or ways of Conveyance and the rest of the Scriptures but by one for the most part I will say yet more because it is true and needful If any live among Papists that keep the Scripture from the people or among the poor Greeks Armenians or Abassines where the people neither have Bibles commonly nor can read or if any among us that cannot read know not what is in the Bible yea if through the fault of the Priest any should be kept from knowing that ever there was a Bible in the world Yet if those persons by Tradition receive the baptismal Covenant the Creed Lords Prayer and Commandments as Gods Word and truly believe and Love and Practice them those persons shall be saved For they have Christs promise for it And the very Covenant itself is the Gift of Christ and Life to consenters Whereas he that knoweth all the Scripture can be saved only by consenting to and performing this same Covenant But having greater helps to understand it and so to Believe it and Consent he hath a great advantage of them that have not the Scripture And so the Scripture is an unspeakable mercy to the Church And it is so far from being too little without the supplement of the Papists Traditions and Councils as that the hundredth part of it as to the bulk of words is not absolutely it self of necessity to Salvation Yet I say more If a man that hath the Scripture should doubt of some Books of it whether
you must be damned by the Censures of many And if you can bear it from all the Sects save one why not from that one also 4. But I pray you ask these damning Sectaries Is it believing your Word and being of your Opinion that will save me Or must I also know by scientifical Evidence that you say true and that God himself hath said what you say If he say that believing him and his party though he call it the Church is enough to save you you have then less reason to believe him For unless he can undertake himself to save you he cannot undertake that believing him shall save you If he say God hath promised to save you if you believe me believe that when he hath proved it to you But if it be Knowledge and Divine Faith which he saith must save you it is not your believing his Word or Opinion that will help you to that I would tell such a man Help me to Knowledge and Faith by Cogent or Certifying Evidence and I will learn and thank you with all my Heart But till I have it it is but mocking my self and you to say that I have it Obj. But the Papists herein differ from all other Sects For they will say That if I believe the Church concerning Divine Revelations and take all for Divine Revelation which the Church saith is so and so believe it then I have a Divine Faith. Ans 1. And is this to you a Certifying Evidence that indeed God revealed it because their Church saith so If their Church agree with Greeks Armenians Syrians Copties Abassines Protestants and all other Christian Churches then it will be no part of the contest in question and it is a stronger Foundation of the two to believe it because all say it than because they say it But if they differ from the rest know their proof that their Church can tell Gods mind and not the rest of the Christian World. And that about a third part of the Christians in the World have such a promise which all the rest have not 2. And how doth their Church know that it is Gods Word Is it by any certifying Evidence or by Prophetical Inspiration If by Evidence let it be produced Is it not revealed to others as well as to them Must not we have a Faith of the same kind as the Church hath If so we must believe by the same Evidence as that Church believeth And what is that It is not their own words Doth a Pope believe himself only or a Council believe themselves only Or hath God said You shall be saved if you will believe your selves and believe that I have said all that you say I have said Where is there such a promise But if Pope and Council be not saved for believing themselves how shall I know that I shall be saved for believing them and that one kind of Faith saveth me and another them I ask it of each particular Bishop in that Council Is he saved for believing himself or the rest If no man be saved for believing himself why should another be saved for believing him And the Faith of the Council is but the Faith of the Individual Members set together Obj. But they are saved for believing themselves as consenters and not singly Ans All Consenters know nothing as Consenters but what they know as Individuals And what is the Evidence by which they know and are brought to consent Must not that Evidence convince us also Obj. But the present Church are saved for believing not themselves but the former Church Ans Then so must we It is not the present Church then that I must believe by a saving Faith But why then was the last Age saved and so the former and so on to the first Is any thing more evident than that all men must be saved for Believing God And that his Word must be known to be his Word by the same Evidence by one man and another And that Evidence I have proved in several Treatises to be another kind of thing than the Decree of a Pope and his Council But if it be not Evidence but Prophetical Inspiration and Revelation by which the Council or Church knoweth Gods Word I will believe them when by Miracles or otherwise they prove themselves to be true Prophets till then I shall take them for Phanaticks and hear them as I do the Quakers Should I here stay to bid you ask them as before How you shall be sure that their Council was truly General and more Authentick and Infallible than the second at Ephesus or that at Ariminum or that at Constance and Basil c. And whether the more General Dissent of all the other Christians from them be not of as great Authority as they that are the smaller part and how you shall be sure of that And also how but on the word of a Priest you can know all that the Church hath determined with abundance such Questions of the Meaning of each Council the ambiguity of words the Errour of Printers the forgery of Publishers c. I should help you to see that saying as a Priest saith Is not Knowing the thing nor Believing God. Stop therefore till you have Evidence Follow no Party as a Party in the dark Or if probability incline you more to them than to others call not this Certainty Religion Divine Faith. Thus your Faith will be Faith indeed and you will escape all that would corrupt and frustrate it The business is great God requireth you to refuse no Light But withal he chargeth you to believe no falshood nor put darkness for light Much less to father mens Lies or Errours or Conceits on God and to lay your Salvation on it that they are all God's Word How dreadful a thing is this if it prove false Is it not blaspheming God No man in his wits then but a partial designer can look that you should make haste or go any further than you have assuring or convincing Evidence If you Know that any Sect doth Err you need no Preservative If you do not tell them I am ignorant of this matter I will learn as fast as I can not neglecting greater matters and I will be neither for you nor against you further than I can know And as to the former Objection of being still Infants I further answer that as feigned knowledge is no knowledge so Manhood consisteth not in being of many uncertain Opinions no not so much in knowing many little controverted things as in getting a clearer more affecting powerful practical Knowledge and belief of our Christianity and the great and sure things which we know already and in Love and Obedience practising of them He is the strongest Christian who loveth God best and hath most Holiness and he knoweth God better than any others do By this much you may see that the world is full of counterfeit Faith and Knowledge and Religion even fancy and belief of
they had never so torn the Churches by their Animosities nor resisted and wearied peaceable Melanchthon nor frustrated so many Conventions and Treaties for Concord as they have done Bucer had not been so censured agreement had not been made so impossible All Dury's Travels had not been so uneffectual Schlusserburgius had not found so many Heresies to fill up his Catalogue with nor Calovius so much matter for his virulent Pen nor so many equalled Calvinism with Turcism nor had Calixtus had such scornful Satyrs written against him nor the great Peace-makers Lud. Crocius Bergii Martinius Camero Amyraldus Testardus Capellus Placaeus Davenant Ward Hall and now Le Blank had so little acceptance and success Had it not been for this spreading Plague the over-valuing of our own understandings and the accounting our crude conceits for certainties all these Church Wars had been prevented or soon ended All those excellent endeavours for peace had been more successful and we had all been One. Had it not been for this neither Arminians nor Antiarminians had ever so bitterly contended nor so sharply censured one another nor written so many confident condemning Volumes against each other which in wise mens Eyes do more condemn the authors and SELF-CONCEIT or PRETENDED KNOWLEDGE should have been the title of them all How far I am able to prove that almost all their bitter and zealous contentions are about Uncertainties and Words the Reader may perceive in my Preface to the Grotian Religion and if God will I shall fuller manifest to the World. The Synod of Dort had not had so great a work of it nor the Breme and Brittain Divines so difficult a task to bring and hold them to that moderation of expressions which very laudably they have done one of the noblest successful attempts for peace though little noted which these ages have made In a word almost all the contentions of Divines the sects and factions the unreconciled fewds the differences in religion which have been the Harvest of the Devil and his Emissaries in the World have come from Pretended Knowledge and taking Uncertainties for Certain Truths I will not meddle with the particular Impositions of Princes and Prelates not so much as with the German Interim Nor the Oaths which in some place they take to their Synodical Decrees much less will I meddle at all with any Impositions Oaths Subscriptions Declarations or usages of the Kingdom where I live As the Law forbiddeth me to contradict them so I do not at all here examine or touch them but wholly pass them by which I tell the Reader once for all that he may know how to interpret all that I say Nor is it the error of Rulers that I primarily detect but of humane corrupted Nature and all sorts of men Though where such an Errour prevaileth alas it is of far sadder consequence in a Publick person a Magistrate or a Pastor that presumeth to the hurt of Publick Societies than of a private man who erreth almost to himself alone I profess to thee Reader that next to God's so much deserting so Great a part of this world there is nothing under the Sun of all the affairs of mankind that hath so taken up my thoughts with mixtures of indignation wonder pity and sollicitude for a cure as this one vice A PROUD or UNHUMBLED UNDERSTANDING by which men live in PRETENDED KNOWLEDGE and FAITH to the deceit of themselves and others the bitter censuring and persecuting of Dissenters yea of their Modest Suspending Brethren tear Churches and Kingdoms and will give no Peace nor Hopes of Peace to themselves their Neighbours or the World Lord Is there no Remedy no Hope from Thee though there be none from Man 1. Among Divines themselves that should not only have Knowledge enough to know their own Ignorance but to Guide the People of God into the ways of Truth and Love and Peace O how lamentably doth this vice prevail To avoid all offence I will not here at all touch on the case of any that are supposed to have a hand in any of the sufferings of me and others of my mind or of any that in Points of Conformity differ from me Remember that I meddle not with them at all But even those that do no way differ among themselves as Sect and Sect or at least that all pretend to Principles of Forbearance Gentleness and Peace yet are wofully sick of this disease And yet that I may wrong none I will premise this publick Declaration to the World that in the Countrey where I lived God in great mercy cast my lot among a company of so humble peaceable faithful Ministers and People as free from this Vice as any that ever I knew in the world who as they kept up full Concord among themselves without the least disagreement that I remember and kept out Sects and Heresies from the People so their converse was the joy of my life and the remembrance of it will be sweet to me while I live and especially the great success of our labours and the quiet and concord of our several Flocks which was promoted by the Pastors humility and concord Though we kept up constant Disputations none of them ever turned to spleen or displeasure or discord among us And I add in thankfulness to God that I am now acquainted with many Ministers in and about London of greatest note and labour and patience and Success who are of the same Spirit Humble and Peaceable and no confident troublers of the Churches with their Censoriousness and high esteem of their own opinions Who trade only in the simple Truths of Christianity and love a Christian as a Christian and joyn not with Back-biters nor factious self-conceited men but study only to win Souls to Christ and to live according to the Doctrine which they preach And both the former and these have these ten years since they were ejected continued their humility and peaceableness fearing God and honouring the King. And I further add that those Private Christians with whom I most converse are many of them of the same Strain suspecting their own understandings and speaking evil of no man so forwardly as of themselves So that in these Ministers and people of my most intimate acquaintance experience convinceth me that this grand disease of corrupted nature is cureable and that God hath a people in the world that have learnt of Christ to be meek and lowly who have the wisdom from above which is first pure and then peaceable gentle easy to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits and the fruit of mercy is sown in peace of these peace-makers I see in them a true Conformity to Christ and a grand difference between them and the furious fiery pretenders to more wisdom And the two sorts of Wisemen and Wisdom excellently described by James Chap. 3. I have seen in two sorts of Religious people among us most lively exemplified before our Eyes God hath
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
The Lord deliver us from such wit and learning Is it not enough to refuse Heaven and choose Hell in the certain causes to lose the only day of their hopes and in the midst of light to be incomparably worse than mad but they must needs be accounted wise and learned in all this self-destroying folly As if like the Physician who boasted that he killed men according to the Rules of art it were the heighth of their ambition to go learnedly to Hell and with Reverend gravity and wit to live here like brutes and hereafter with Devils for evermore Chap. 11. The seventh Inference Why the ungodly world hateth Holiness and not Learning FRom my very Child-hood when I was first sensible of the concernments of mens Souls I was possest with some admiration to find that every where the Religious godly sort of people who did but exercise a serious care of their own and other mens Salvation were made the wonder and obloquy of the world Especially of the most vitious and flagitious men so that they that professed the same Articles of faith the same Commandments of God to be their Law and the same Petitions of the Lords Prayer to be their desire and so professed the same Religion did every where revile those that did endeavour to live according to that same profession and to seem to be in good sadness in what they said I thought that this was impudent Hypocrisie in the ungodly worldly sort of men To take them for the most intolerable persons in the Land who are but serious in their own Religion and do but endeavour to perform what all their Enemies also vow'd and promised If religion be bad and our faith be not true why do these men profess it If it be true and good why do they hate and revile them that would live in the serious practice of it if they will not practise it themselves But we must not expect Reason when sin and sensuality have made men unreasonable But I must profess that since I observed the course of the world and the concord of the Word and Providences of God I took it for a notable proof of mans fall and of the verity of the Scripture and the supernatural Original of true Sanctification to find such an universal enmity between the holy and the serpentine seed and to find Cain and Abels case so ordinarily exemplified and him that is born after the Flesh to persecute him that is born after the Spirit And methinks to this day it is a great and visible help for the confirmation of our Christian Faith. But that which is much Remarkable in it is that nothing else in the world except the Crossing of mens carnal interest doth meet with any such universal enmity A man may be as learned as he can and no man hate him for it If he excel all others all men will praise him and proclaim his excellency He may be an excellent Linguist an excellent Philosopher an excellent Physician an excellent Logician an excellent Orator and all commend him Among Musicians Architects Souldiers Seamen and all Arts and Sciences men value prefer and praise the best Yea even Speculative Theology such wits as the Schoolmen and those that are called great Divines are honoured by all and meet as such with little Enmity Persecution or Obloquy in the world Though I know that even a Galilaeus a Campanella and many such have suffered by the Roman Inquisitors that was not so much in enmity to their Speculations or Opinions as through a fear lest new Philosophical notions should unsettle mens minds and open the way to new opinions in Theology and so prove injurious to the Kingdom and Interest of Rome I know also that Demosthenes Cicero Seneca Lucan and many other learned men have died by the hands or power of Tyrants But that was not for their Learning but for their opposition to those Tyrants Wills and Interests And I know that some Religious men have suffered for their Sins and Follies and some for their medling too much with secular affairs as the Councellours of Princes as Functius Justus Jonas and many others But yet no Parts no Excellency no Skill or Learning is hated commonly but honoured in the World no not Theological Learning save only this practical Godliness and Religion and the Principles of it which only rendereth men amiable to God through Christ and saveth mens Souls To know and love God and live as those that know and love him to seek first his Kingdom and the Righteousness thereof to walk circumspectly in a holy and heavenly Conversation and studiously to obey the Laws of God this which must save us this which God loveth and the Devil hateth is hated also by all his Children for the same malignity hath the same effect But methinks this should teach all considering men to perceive what Knowledge it is that is best and most desirable to all that love their happiness Sure this sort of Learning Wit and Art which the Devil and the malignant World do no more dispraise oppose and persecute though as it is sanctified to higher ends it be good yet of it self is comparatively no very excellent and amiable thing I know Satan laboureth to keep out Learning it self that is truly such from the world because he is the Prince and Promoter of darkness and the Enemy of all useful light And lower Knowledge is some help to higher and speculative Theology may prepare for practical and the most gross and brutish ignorance best serveth the Devils designs and turn And even in Heathen Rome the Arts prepared men for the Gospel and Learning in the Church Reformers hath ever been a great help and furtherance of Reformation But yet if you stop in Learning and Speculation and take it as for it self alone and not as a means to holiness of Heart and Life it is as nothing It is Paul's express resolution of the case that if we have all Knowledge without this holy Love we are nothing but as sounding Brass or a tinkling Cymbal 1 Cor. 13. But surely there is some special excellency in this holy knowledge and Love and Obedience which the Devil and the malignant World so hate in high and low in rich and poor in Kindred Neighbours Strangers or any where they meet with it It is not for nothing This is the Image of God this is it that is contrary to their carnal Minds and to their fleshly Lusts and sinful Pleasures This tells them what they must be and do or be undone for ever which they cannot abide to be or do Let us therefore be somewhat the wiser for this discovery of the mind of the Devil and all his Instruments I will love and honour all Natural Artificial acquired Excellencies in Philology Philosophy and the rest As these expose not men to the Worlds Obloquy so neither unto mine or any sober mans In their low places they are good and may be used to a greater good
yet the true ultimate end of all things is God himself And the love of God is the highest love And Gods Justice is not without that love of himself and tendeth to that good which he is capable of receiving which is but the fulfilling or complacency of his own will which is but improperly called his Receiving 2. And we little know how many in another World or in the renewed Earth are to be profited by his Justice on the damned as Angels and Men are by his Justice on the Devils 1. LOVE is the Life of Religion and of the Soul and of the Church And what can be a just pretence for any to destroy or oppose the very Life of Religion the Life of Souls and the Life of the Church of Christ Physick Blood-letting and Dismembring may be used for Life But to take away Life except necessarily for a Good that is better than that life is Murder And what is it that is better than the Life of Religion in all matters of Religion Or than the life of the Church in all Church affairs Or than the life of mens Souls in all matters of Soul concernment 2. LOVE is the great command and summary of all the Law And what can be a just pretence for breaking the greatest command yea and the whole Law 3. LOVE is Gods Image and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God who is LOVE and God in him And what can be a pretence sufficient for destroying the Image of God which is called by his name 4. There is nothing in man that God himself loveth better than our love And therefore nothing that as better can be set against it And yet alas what enmity is used in the World against the Love of God and Man and many things alledged as pretences to justify it Let us consider of some few of them 1. The great Tyrants of the World such as in several ages have been the Plagues of their own and neighbour Nations care not what havock they make of Religion and of mens lives by Bloody Wars and Cruel Persecutions destroying many thousands and undoing far more thousands of the Country Families where their armies come and sacrificing the lives of the best of their subjects by butcheries or flames And what is the pretence for all this Perhaps they would be Lords of more of the World and would have larger Kingdoms Or more honour Perhaps some Prince hath spoken a hard word of them or done them some wrong Perhaps some subjects believe not as they bid them believe or forbear not to worship God in a manner which they forbid them Perhaps Daniel will not give over praying for a time or the Apostles will not give over preaching or the three Confessors will not fall down to the Golden Image and so Nebuchadnezzar or the other Rulers seem despised And their wills and honour are an Interest that with them seemeth to warrant all this But how long will it seem so I had rather any friend of mine had the Sins of a Thief or Drunkard or the most infamous Sinner among us to answer for than the Sins of a Bloody Alexander Caesar or Tamerlane 2. The Roman Clergy set up Inquisitions force men by cruelties to submit to their Church Keys whose very nature is to be used without force and they silence yea torment the faithful Ministers of Christ and have murdered thousands of his faithful people raised rebellions against Princes and Wars in Kingdoms and taught men to hate Gods Servants as Hereticks Schismaticks Rebels Factious and what not And what pretence must justify all this Why the Interest of the Pope and Clergy called in ignorance or craft by the name of the Holy Church Religion Unity and such other honourable name But must their Church live on Blood and holy Blood And be built or preserved by the destruction of Christs Church Must their doctrine be kept up by silencing faithful Ministers and their worship by destroying or undoing the true worshippers of Christ Are all these precious things which die with Love no better than to be sacrificed to the Clergies Pride and Worldly lusts 3. Among many Schismaticks and Sectaries that are not miscalled so but are such indeed their Discipline consisteth in separating from most other Christians as too bad and that is too unlovely to be of their Communion and their Preaching is much to make those seem bad that is unlovely that are not of their way and their worship is much such as relisheth of the same envy and strife to add affliction or reproaches to their Brethren or to draw the people from the Love of others unto them And their ordinary talk is back-biting others for things that they understand not and reporting any lie that is brought them and telling the hearers something of this Minister or that person or the other that is unlovely as if Satan had hired them to Preach down Love and prate and pray down Love and all this in the name of Christ And the third chapter of James is harder than Hebrew to them they do not understand it but though they tear it not out of the Bible they leave it out of the Law in their Hearts as much as the Papists leave the Second Commandment out of their Books And it is one of the marks of a good man among them to talk against other parties and make others odious to set up them And what are the Pretences for all this Why Truth and Holiness 1. Others have not the Truth which they have And 2. Others are not against the same Doctrines and Ceremonies and Bishops and Church Orders and ways of worship which they are against and therefore are ungodly antichristian or men of no Religion But Truth seldom dwelleth with the Enemies of Love and Peace They that are Strangers and Enemies to it indeed do often cry it up and cry down those as Enemies to it that possess it The wisdom that hath bitter envying and heart-strife is from beneath and is earthly sensual and devilish I admonish all that care for their Salvation that they set up nothing upon love killing terms If you are Christs disciples you are taught of God to love each other you are taught it as Christs last and great Commandment You are taught it by the wonderful example of his life and specially Joh. 13.14 By his washing hiâ— disciples feet You are taught it by the Holy Ghosts uniting the hearts of the disciples and making them by Charity to live as in Community Acts 3. and 4. You are taught it by the Effective operation of the Spirit on your own hearts The new nature that is in you inclineth you to it And will you now pretend the necessity of your own Interest Reputation your Canons and things indifferent your little Church orders of your own making yea or the positive institutions of Christ himself as to the present exercise against this Love Hath Christ commanded you any thing before it except the
at the first hearing Take it for granted that your first conceptions of things must alter either as to the Truth or the Evidence or the Order or the Degree Few men are so happy in youth as to receive at first such right impressions which need not after to be much altered When we are Children we know as Children but when we become Men childish things are done away Where we change not our Judgment of the matter yet we come to have very different apprehensions of it I would not have Boys to be meer Scepticks for they must be Godly and Christians But I would have them leave room for increase of knowledge and not be too peremptory with their juvenile conceptions but suppose that a further light will give them another prospect of the same things D. X. Chuse such Teachers if possible as have themselves attained the things you seek even that most substantial Wisdom which leadeth to Salvation For how else shall they teach others what they have not learnt themselves O the difference between Teachers and Teachers between a rash flashy unexperienced proud wit and clear headed well studied much experienced and godly man Happy is he that hath such a Teacher that is long exercised in the ways of Truth and Holiness and Peace and hath a heart to value him D. XI Value Truth for Goodness and Goodness above Truth and estimate all Truths and Knowledge by their usefulness to higher Ends. That is Good as a Means which doth Good. There is nothing besides God that is simply Good in of and for it self all else is only Good derivatively from God the Efficient and as a Means to God the final Cause As a pound of Gold more enricheth than many loads of Dirt so a little Knowledge of great and necessary matters maketh one wiser than a great deal of pedantick toyish Learning No man hath time and capacity for all things He is but a proud fool that would seem to know all and deny his ignorance in many things Even he that with Alstedius c. can write an Encyclopaedia is still unacquainted with abundance that is intelligible For my own part I humbly thank God that by placing my dwelling still as in the Church-yard he hath led me to chuse still the studies which I thought were fittest for a man that is posting to another world He that must needs be ignorant of many things should chuse to omit those which he can best spare Distinguish well between studying and knowing for Use and for Lust For the True Ends of Knowledge and for the bare delight of Knowing One thing is necessary Luke 10.42 And all others but as they are necessary to that one Mortifie the Lust of useless Knowledge as well as other lusts of flesh and fantasie Dying men commonly call it Vanity Remember what a deal of precious Time it wasteth and from how many greater and more necessary things it doth divert the mind and with what wind it puffs men up as is aforesaid How justly did the rude Tartarians think the great Libraries and multitudes of Doctors and idle Priests among the Chinenses to be a foolery and call them away from their Books to Arms as Palafox tells us when all their Learning was to so little purpose as it was and led them to no more high and necessary things D. XII Yet because many smaller parts of Knowledge are necessary to Kingdoms Academies and Churches which are not necessary nor greatly valuable to individual persons let some few particular persons be bred up to an eminency in those studies and let not the generality of Students waste their time therein There is scarce any part of Knowledge so small and useless but it is necessary to great Societies that some be Masters of it which yet the generality may well spare And all are to be valued and honoured according to their several excellencies But yet I cannot have while to study as long as Politian how Virgil should be spelt nor to decide the quarrels between Phil. Pareus and Gruter nor to digest all his Grammatical Collections nor to read all over abundance of Books which I allow house room to Nor to learn all the Languages and Arts which I could wish to know if I could know them without neglecting greater things But yet the excellent Professors of them all I honour D. XIII Above all Value Digest and seriously Live upon the most Great and Necessary Certain Truths O that we knew what Work inward and outward the great Truths of Salvation call for from us all If you do not faithfully value and improve these you prepare for delusion You forget your Premises and Principles God may justly leave you in the dark and give you up to believe a lie Did you live according to the importance of your certain Principles your lives would be filled with fruit and business and delight and all this Great So that you would have little mind or leisure for little and unnecessary things It is the neglect of things necessary which fills the World with the trouble of things unnecessary D. XIV Study hard and search diligently and deeply and that with unwearied patience and delight Unpleasant studies tire and seldom prosper Slight running thoughts accomplish little If any man think that the Spirit is given to save us the labour of hard and long studies Solomon hath spent so many Chapters in calling them to dig search cry labour wait for Wisdom that if that will not undeceive them I cannot They may as well say that God's blessing is to save the Husbandman the labour of plowing and sowing And that the Spirit is given to save men the labour of learning to read the Bible or to hear it or think of it or to pray to God. Whereas the Spirit is given us to provoke and enable us to study hard and read and hear and pray hard and to prosper us herein And as vain are our idle Lads that think that their natural Wits or their Abode and Degrees in the Universities will serve the turn instead of hard studies And so they come out almost as ignorant and yet more proud than they went thither to be Plagues in all Countreys where they come to teach others by example the idleness and sensuality which they learnt themselves and being ignorant yet the honour of their Functions must be maintained and therefore their ignorance must be hid which yet themselves do weekly make ostentation of in the Pulpit where they should be shining lights and when their own Tongues have proclaimed it those of understanding that observe and loath it must be maligned and railed at for knowing how little their Teachers know Nothing without long and hard studies furnisheth the mind with such a stock of truth as may be called real wisdom That God is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him and not of the lazy neglecters of him is the second Principle in Religion Heb. 11.6 They that cannot be at
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