The Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety, Chapter 14
CHAP. XIV. A survey of the Causes of Disputes; Secondly, Curiosity.
IF now we proceed farther in our enquiry we shall find, that another grand incendiary of our Disputes is Curiosity: A vice which though in some respects it may be reckoned a species of the former, that of Pride, yet in others it admits a distinct consideration. This is that baneful weed which the Devil made a shift to steal even into Paradise, and which has ever since affected the richest soils, the most pregnant and polite Wits; nor did it only eject man from thence, but it has improved the original curse, and multiplied those briers and thorns among which he was cast, yea, transplanted them from the Earth, where they could only raze the skin, into the Brain, where they pierce and torture the intellectual and immortal Part of Man. Nay farther, even that sweat of his brows, which was to extirpate them from the ground, serves but to water and cherish them in his mind; his very industry being in this case the extremest ill-husbandry, and the more pains he takes, the farther he removes himself from all real advantages of his toil.
THERE are some parts of Knowledge which God has thought fit to seclude from us, to fence them not only as he did the interdicted Tree, by Precept and Commination, but with Difficulties and Impossibilities; made it not only our sin and danger, but our Folly and madness to attempt them. Of this kind are the Mysterious parts of our Religion, which he shews us as it were a-far off to exercise our faith and reverence, but stoops them not to our sense and disquisition. These he has placed like the Sun, where they may influence, not annoy; warm, not scorch us. And would we still permit them to remain at that safe and wholsome distance, we should find none but benigne effects; but so importunate are the instigations of Curiosity, that no bounds will keep us from the Mount: We will needs break through into the thick darkness, how dreadful soever the thunders and lightnings are in the way. Like bold Phaetons we despise all benefits wherewith the Father of light and us can court us; unless we may guide his Chariot; and we moralize the Fable as well in the tragicalness of the event, as the insolence of the undertaking; this unhappy Curiosity having not only ruin'd many of the inquisitors, but set the whole world also in a conflagration. Nor is this temerity more fatal in its Success, than impious in its Foundation: For besides that, it is a direct invasion of Gods peculiar, and violation of his Command, it does evidently imply a distrust, either of his Wisdom or his Goodness; supposes him either so ignorant of the strength of those faculties himself has made, that he has assigned them unproportionable objects, and so they must have new work cut out for them by our selves; or else presumes his Eye evil towards his own Creatures; that as the Devil once suggested to our first Parents, he fears the rivalry of poor mortals, and by an envious detention of some parts of felicity, like one that had been Bountiful only upon surprize and incogitancy, illiberally retracts and contradicts his original design of making Man completely happy. Nay, indeed this represents him unkind, not only to us his created Images, but even to that Eternal and express image of his Person, the Son of his bosom, who may well be thought to have been, as despised in his Eyes, as he was once in ours, Esay 53. 3. if he have so cheaply expos'd him for their sakes, to whom he denies any of those intellectual advantages, which difference them from Beasts. Thus wickedly curious are we, that rather than converse with vulgar ordinary things, we create prodigies, put new forms upon him that is unchangeable, rob divinity of its most inseperable attribute, and not only disobey God, but reproach him. And then 'tis no wonder if that which affords so little glory to God, hath no more good-will for Men, and that which thus wars with Heaven, leave little peace on Earth. Indeed if we will be building our Babels, and thus assault Omnipotence, 'tis but just we should have our language confounded, and that that knowledge for which we boldly attempt to rifle Gods cabinet, should like the Coal from the Altar, serve only to embroil and consume the sacrilegious invaders. Yet besides what is owing to divine vengeance in the case, the thing has in its self a proper, natural efficiency toward it; for when so many men are engag'd in a blind search, 'tis not imaginable they should all stumble upon the same Notions, and supposing them to fall upon variety, 'tis impossible but mens fond overweening of their own conceits and petulant disdains of others, will improve that variety into Opposition, and that opposition into set and Solemn Feuds. And God knows, the Church is too effectively acquainted with this fatal gradation, and can experimentally attest the unhappy propriety of this sort of Curiosity towards the engendring of discord and confusion.
BUT besides this higher rank of things which God hath set so much above us, there are others of an inferior sort, as much below us, which are concealed from us, not for their sublimity, but their uselesness; for as God on the one hand remembers that we are but flesh, unable to bear the nearer approaches of divinity, and so talks with us as once with Moses through a cloud: So on the other he forgets not that he breathed into us the breath of life, a vital active spirit, whose motions he expects should own the dignity of its original, and as it was its self an emanation of the Essential Goodness, should aim at only real and solid good, and not evaporate and exhaust its powers in mean and impertinent pursuits. And upon this score also, he has found it necessary to hide many things from us, not that they would dazzle, but misemploy our Eye; not swallow up our Understanding, but divert our Attention, from what is more important: Of this sort are those many thin aerial speculations, the certain knowledge whereof would bring us no real advantage, make us at all the wiser to Salvation; yet such a value does our inquisitive Nature set upon every thing for its being hid, that as if our Life were bound up with these Secrets, and all our Felicity dwelt in the Shade of these recesses, we pursue this search with indefatigable industry, ransack all corners with as great diligence as the Woman for her lost piece of Silver, Luk. 15. 8. And as if this were indeed the treasure hid in the field, sell all that we have, lay out our whole selves upon the purchase. Indeed he that shall consider what solemn Disquisitions there are upon the slightest, and inconsiderablest Subjects, with what Advertence and concern Questions of this kind are bandied in the world, must wonder how men can at once be so serious and so trifling; or that those who can say so much, should not once ask themselves to what purpose they say any thing. Yet what multitudes of men are there engag'd in such chases as this? when alas, the quarry is not worth half the toil, could it be gotten: but what Solomon sayes of the sluggard, Prov. 12. 27. that he rosteth not that which he took in hunting, is true of the contrary temper, these over-busie spirits whose labour is their only reward, they hunt a shadow, and chase the wind; and when they strein to their utmost speed, there is still the wonted Distance between them and their aims; all their eager pursuits bring them no acquest; but after they have traverst so much ground, traced all the mazes that learned Curiosity could contrive to perplex men, and st…ied to the weariness of the flesh, if not to the quenching of the Spirit too, they are still in the same ignorance from whence they set out, and 'twere well if they were also in the same doubtfulness: But the unhappiness of it is, they acquire a confidence without any true ground of it; and get such a Knowledge as may puff up, but not edifie. This was eminently exemplified in the Gnosticks of old, whose vain Chimaeras, and foolish questions, as the Apostle calls them, Tit. 3. 9. past with them for such a superlative wisdom, as gave them Insolence to discriminate themselves from others by that swelling Title, and monopolize the reputation of Science, which yet if we will believe the great Doctor of the Gentiles, and he too brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, the greatest Rabbi of the Iews, was science falsly so called. And God knows, they want not successors in this as well as in other particulars, men are so possest with their own Phancies that they take them for Oracles, and think they see visions, and are arrived to some Extraordinary revelations of Truth, when indeed they do but dream dreams, and amuse themselves with the Phantastick Ideas of a busie imagination. Yet would they only please themselves in the delusion, the Phrensie were more innocent; but like the prouder sort of Lunaticks, they will needs be Kings and Rulers, impose their wild conjectures for Laws upon others, and denounce War against all that receive them not: And this is that which makes the great combustion, and confusion among us; for while one man Opines one way, another another, and each will obtrude his opinion on every-body else; 'tis impossible but the contests should be sharp and endless; for each man labours under a double Impatience, the one of having his own notions rejected, the other of having the quite contrary impos'd on him; and though 'tis true the reciprocalness of the Injury ought to allay the displeasure at it, yet men so much more consider what they suffer than what they do, that every one crys out aloud of that hard measure, which himself offers without regret. And between winds so contrary and so fierce, 'tis no wonder if storms arise; and in such Tempests has Religion so long been tossed, that it now needs the interposition of a divine Miraculous power, to keep it from sinking; for alas, these Skirmishes expire not with the first Propugners of the Opinions; they perhaps began as single Duellers, but then they soon get their troops about them, have their partisans and abettors, who not only enhance, but entail the feud to posterity. And indeed this propagation of Strife, both in these trifling, and the former more profound speculations, is the most fatal circumstance of the whole Case: Were it not for this, though we might have many Errors, we could have no Sects. And if the Church might be sometimes wounded with the darts of single Adversaries, yet she could not be surrounded and besieg'd with combinations and confederacies. Some straggling Souldiers might prove renegados, but they would not revolt in troops and legions. We should not have such numerous Parties, who with the greatest violation of Christian unity, denominate themselves, not from the grand author and finisher of our Faith; but from the first brocher of their Idoliz'd opinions. In the mean time, 'tis a sad contemplation, that a little vain curiosity should weigh so much, or the Churches peace so little with us: that we should sacrifice the one, to the satisfaction shall I say, or rather to the whetting and inflaming of the other. But 'tis a yet sadder, that this should chiefly be done by those whose learning enables, and whose profession should devote to the most noble and most profitable Studies; nay have the highest obligations to correct those exorbitances in others, which with such Art and labour they propagate and teach. How wounding a spectacle is it to see our greatest Heroes like Hercules at the Distaffe, thus degenerously employed, and to find those who were by Christ design'd for fishers of Men, thus entertain themselves like Children, with picking up Shells and Pebbles on the shore; and which is yet more unmanly wrangling about them too. Indeed at this rate, 'tis no wonder if they make the disciples Complaint, we have travailed all night and have taken nothing. This sure is so little the way to win Souls, that he whose business it is to destroy them, can very contentedly refer them to this method; can gladly leave us all our nice and subtle disquisitions, upon the very same score that one of the Gothick Commanders, advised the sparing of the Italian Schools and Libraries; Let us, sayes he, leave them their Books, that whilest they amuse themselves with such follies, we may subdue them at our pleasure. It is the saying of the Wise-man, there is a wisdom that multiplieth bitterness; and sure if there be a wisdom acquired by these curious Enquiries, 'tis of this sort, like the Knowledge of Good and Evil attained by our first Parents, which taught them to know the Good only by its loss, and the Evil by its smart. Indeed our too high, and transcending speculations on the one hand, and our too trivial and unprofitable on the other; are like the torrid and frigid Zone, the one consumes us with its heat, the other chils, and benumns us with its cold; that turns us to Cinders, this to Ice. These little trifling Notions being too slight an exercise to keep heat in our Christianity, which not only expresses but maintains its life by strong and vigorous Motions. And therefore between these two intemperate, God has provided us an habitable Clime, I mean that middle rank of divine truths which tend to practice. Here he would have us dwell and converse, fix our thoughts and studies: Nor need we fear that they are too dry a subject for our contemplation. We see as deep Speculators, as any now assume to be, found it far otherwise. David could entertain himself with the Meditation of God's Law (not his hidden Decrees or counsels) all the Day, Psal. 119. 97, Nay it seems the Matter was so copious and redundant, that it could not be confin'd within that narrow boundary of Time, but invaded the night also; forced him to defaulk from his rest, to bestow on his meditations, I have thought of thy Name O Lord in the night season, and have kept thy Law, Vers. 55. Neither is it a vain expence of Time, which it thus tempts to, but gives the happiest improvement; lands at that harbour to which all rational studies tend, gives understanding, Vers. 130. makes wise the simple, Psal. 19. 7. and this also in an eminent degree, such as set him above his teachers, and his Elders also. Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine Enemies. I have more understanding than my teachers, for thy testimonies are my study. I am wiser than the aged, because I keep thy commandments, Psal. 119. 98, 99, 100. These are high and liberal Elogies of this divine study: and if any shall seek to divert an unwelcome inference by saying that David spoke them only in pious raptures, that they were the transport of his zeal, rather than the estimate of his judgment; we must resolve the objector far removed from such religious excesses, and under the contrary defect: yet the cause will so well bear an appeal, that he may be trusted to consult farther, let him advise with Solomon, whose large desires and possessions too of wisdom, must suppose him no stranger to its nature, and he will tell him the very same, and that not in his devouter extasies, but in his most compos'd sedate temper, when he solemnly seats himself in his School, reads Ethicks to his disciples, and professes his design of giving subtilty to the Simple, and to the young man knowledge and discretion, Prov. 1. 4. for if his whole book of Proverbs be scanned, the sum of it will be found to be nothing else but an exhortation to the study of this practick Wisdom. Nay when his own understanding was improved and advanc'd by Experience also, when he had not only beg'd, but bought wisdom, after he had given his Curiosity its full unbounded Range, compassed the whole Universe, and examin'd not only in contemplation, but by sensitive experiment, whatever therein could pretend to be that good for the sons of Men, Eccl. 2. 3. we find after all this busie inquest, he gives up his verdict in this form, Eccles. 12. 13. Let us hear the end of the whole matter, Fear God and keep his Commandments, for this is the Whole Duty of Man: And now methinks so solemn a decision of the wisest of Men, and he too inspir'd by the Omniscient God, may be thought of weight enough to acquiesce in. Yet since there are some who love not to weigh in the balance of the Sanctuary, and that had rather receive Responses from Delphos than from between the Cherubims: Let such at least hear even the Heathen Oracle attesting Socrates to be the wisest man, because he directed his studies to the moral part of Learning, which he did to such a degree, as to disparage all those more Airy speculations, which better'd not mens Manners, but were only foreign, a noise and clattering of Words. And Pythagoras his School defines Philosophy, foreign, the cleansing and perfecting of humane life, which two things are said to be done, first by Vertue, whose business it is to remove foreign, the inordination of our Passions: Secondly, by Truth, which restores foreign, the Image and pourtraicture of God. And since this is the joynt suffrage both of Religion and Reason, why should those that pretend to either defie both, and vainly consume themselves in unprofitable searches? Why should men wander to seek beggary and emptiness, who may with far less labour be rich at home? Alas, 'tis not bare knowledge, how great or universal soever, that can possess us of felicity. Were it possible for us to have a window into Heaven, to see all the Divine secrets, yet that might be but like the Rich mans prospect into Abrahams bosom, while himself was in the bottomless pit. They are not only the gross and illiterate Souls that must feed those flames, the most Aerial and Sublimated, are rather the more proper fuel for an immaterial Fire, and the knowledge we carry thither, render us the fitter company for him, who knew every thing but how to keep himself happy. It was at once the Observation and Wonder of Plutarch, that whereas God has several incommunicable properties as Power and Immortality, &c. these all men aspir'd to, in the mean time neglected that of Goodness, wherein he was willing all men should share. And sure there is now cause of the same complaint, we would have Omniscience and all parts of Divinity besides the holiness, yet alas, those without these would prove but fatal acquests, and that approach towards being Gods, would only make us the more Devils. The only advantagious as well as possible way of Assimilation with God is by purity, and the means of that an Attentive consideration of those Divine revelations, which are to regulate our practice; these at once dispence light and warmth, direct and revive the Soul: And if men would not exhale vapours to cloud and darken them, Eclipse the clearest Truths by difficulties of their own creating, no man could miss his way to Heaven for want of light, and yet so vain are they as to think they oblige the world by involving it in darkness, as if their Mists should like that which Watered the new-form'd Earth, Gen. 2. 6. supply the place of the dew of Heaven. But certainly to all such in their profusest liberalities, we need make no other Request than Diogenes did to Alexander, desire them only that they will not stand between us and the Sun, intercept its rays, and rob us of that which is infinitely better than any thing they can give us. Were this but obtain'd, we should soon discern the inconsiderableness of those things whose effects have been so sadly considerable to Christendom; those many Chimaeras which we wrangle and fight about, would in this Sun-shine appear but Motes that dance in the Air, (though God knows as we manage them, they are the most luxurious Revels to the Prince that rules there.) Were but a St. Pauls doctrine throughly imbib'd, our Curious Arts, foreign, superfluous unconcerning studies, would as it happened, Acts 19. be supplanted; and our devotion if sufficiently accended, would as theirs, burn up innumerable books of this sort. And sure as this would be the greatest, so it would be the most triumphant Bonfire Christendom ever saw, as being not only an indication, but a means of the mighty growth, and prevailing of the Word of God, which our vain Curiosities serve only to impede and obstruct, while they do as mightily advance dissentions & animosities amongst men.