A Treatise of Knowledge and Love, Part 1 · Chapter 15
Chap. 15.
Some ſpecial aggravations more of this ſin, in Students and Paſtors, which ſhould deter them from pretended Knowledge or prefidence.
TO ſuch I will ſuppoſe that to name the Evils may ſuffice (on my part) without ſharp amplifications. Though I have ſpoken to you firſt in what is ſaid, I will briefly add,
1. That this ſin will make you ſlothful ſtudents. Few ſtudy hard who are quickly confident of their firſt conceptions.
2. While you do ſtudy, it keepeth out Knowledge: You are too full of your ſelves to receive eaſily from others.
3. It is the Common Parent of Errour and Hereſy. Ignorance is the Mother, and Pride the Father of them all: And Prefidence and Pretended Knowledge is but Proud Ignorance in another name.
4. What a life of precious time will you waſte in following the erroneous thoughts of your bewildred minds.
5. As food altereth the temperament of the body which it nouriſheth, ſo the very temperament of your minds and wills and affections will become vain, and frothy, and ſhadowy, or malignant and perverſe, according to the quality of your Errour.
6. It is the common Parent of Superſtition: It defileth God's Worſhip with Humane Inventions, with duties and ſins of our own making: All ſuch mens dreams will ſeem to them to be the Laws of God.
7. It will entail a corrupt Education of Youth upon us, and conſequently a corrupt degenerate kind of Learning, and ſo a degenerate Miniſtry on the Churches. When Youths are poſſeſſed with abundance of Uncertainties under the name of Learning and Religion, it will grow the cuſtom to Teach, and Talk, and Live accordingly: Do I ſay, It will do? If the Schoolmens Errour in this deſerve but half as much as Faber, Valla, Hutten, Eraſmus, charge upon them, you ſhould hear and take warning: Not to avoid the moſt accurate knowledge by the hardeſt ſtudies, but to avoid pretending that you know what you do not.
8. And you will make vain ſtrife and contention about vanity, your very trade and buſineſs when you come abroad in the world. They that make Uncertainties or Errours to be their ſtudies and honourable Learning, muſt keep up the honour of it by Living as they Learnt, and talking vainly for the vanities of their minds.
9. And you are like hereby to become the chiefeſt Inſtruments of Satan, to trouble the Church either with Hereſies, Schiſms or Perſecutions.
10. And truly it ſhould much turn your hearts againſt it, to know that it is a continual habit or exerciſe of Pride. And Pride (the Devil's ſin) is one of the moſt heinous and odious to God. If you hate any ſin, you ſhould hate Pride. And it is one of the worſt ſorts of Pride too. As Nature hath three Principles, active Power, Intellect and Will, and Man three Excellencies, Greatneſs, Wiſdom and Goodneſs; ſo Pride hath theſe three Great Objects: Men are proud that they are Greater, or Wiſer, or Better than others: That is, They think themſelves Greater, or Wiſer, or Better than they are, and they would have others think ſo too. As for Pride of Beauty, or Clothing, or ſuch like corporeal things and appurtenances, it is the Vice of Children, and the more ſhallow and fooliſh ſort of Women. But Greater things make up a Greater ſort of Pride. O what a number of all Ranks and Ages do live in this great ſin of Pride of Wiſdom, or an Over-valued Underſtanding, who never feel or lament it!
11. Moreover your Prefidence prepareth you for Scepticiſm, or doubting of the moſt certain neceſſary Truths: Like ſome of our Sectaries, who have been falſly▪ confident of ſo many Religions, till at laſt they doubt of all Religion. He that finds that he was deceived while he was an Anabaptiſt, and deceived when he was a Separatiſt, and deceived while he was an Antinomian or Libertine, and deceived when he was a Quaker, is prepared to think alſo that he was deceived when he was a Chriſtian, and when he believed the Immortality of the Soul, and the Life to come. When you have found your Underſtandings oft deceive you, you will grow ſo diſtruſtful of them, as hardly ever to believe them when it is moſt neceſſary. He that often lyeth, will hardly be believed when he ſpeaketh truth. And all this cometh from believing your firſt and ſlight apprehenſions too eaſily and too ſoon, and ſo filling up your minds with lyes, which when they are diſcovered, make the Truth to be ſuſpected. Like ſome fanciful, luſtful Youths, who haſtily grow fond of ſome unſuitable unlovely perſon, and when they know them, cannot ſo much as allow them the conjugal affection which they are bound to.
12. Laſtly, Conſider what a ſhame it is to your Underſtandings, and how it contradicteth your pretence of Knowledge. For, how little knoweth that man who knoweth not his own Ignorance? How can it be thought that you are like to know great matters at a diſtance, the profundities, ſublimities and ſubtilties of Sciences, who know not yet how little you know?