CHAP. XIX.

VIII. Of the Causes of this Disease of Prefidence, or proud Pretended Knowledge, in order to the Cure.

THE Cure of prefidence and pretended knowledge, could it be wrought, would be the cure of souls, families, churches, and kingdoms. But alas, how low are our hopes! Yet that may be done on some, which will not be done on all or most. And to know the causes, and oppugn them, is the chief part of the cure, so far as may be hoped for.

I. The first and grand cause is the very nature of ignorance itself; which many ways disableth men, from knowing that which should abate their groundless confidence. For, 1. An ignorant man knoweth but little parcels and scraps of things; and all the rest is unknown to him: therefore he fixeth upon that little which he knoweth; and having no knowledge of the rest, he cannot regulate his narrow apprehensions by any conceptions of them. And all things visible to us (not light itself excepted, which, as seen by us, is fire incorporated in air;) being compounds; the very nature or being of them is not known, where any constitutive part is unknown. And in all compounds, each part hath such relation and usefulness to others, that one part which seemeth known, is itself but half-known, for want of the knowledge of others. Such a kind of knowledge is theirs, that knowing only what they see, do take a clock or watch to be only the index moving by the hours, being ignorant of all the casual parts within: or that know no more of a tree, or other plant, than the magnitude, site, colour, odour, &c. Or that take a man to be only a body, without a soul; or the body, be only the skin and parts, discerned by the eye in converse.

Now that which such persons do sensibly apprehend, they are confident of, because that nature teacheth them to trust their senses; but not knowing the rest, their little partial conceptions are lame, defective, and deceitful. For most will hence rashly conclude of the negative, that there is no more, because they know no more. But if any be more wise and modest, yet do they want the conception of the unknown parts, to make the rest to be true knowledge, or to tell them what is yet unknown: and such use to turn a judicial rule

into a physical; that'non apparere et non esse,' are to them all one.

2. And an ignorant man doth not know what conceptions other men have of the same things which he is ignorant of: so that he neither knoweth the thing intelligible, (what it is) nor yet the act of knowing it, which he never had: but, as a man born blind hath no formal conception, either of sight, or of light, or visible objects; so is it here.

3. Nor hath he usually a true knowledge of his own ignorance; how imperfect his understanding is, and how much to be suspected, as liable to mistake: though in some sensible matters, it is easy to convince men of a total ignorance; yet when they know any thing, it is hard to convince them what more is to be known, and to keep them from false and hasty conclusions. A man that cannot read at all, is easily convinced that he cannot read: but he that can read a little, is apt to think that he readeth rightly, when he doth not. A man that never heard of physic, is easily convinced that he hath no skill in it: but if he have read, heard of, and tried a few medicines; he is apt to grow conceited, and venture men's lives upon his skill. A man that never saw building, navigation, or any art or manufacture, is easily convinced that he is ignorant of it: but if he have got some smattering knowledge, he is ready to think that it is more than it is, because he knoweth not what he wants.

And to err, and know that a man erreth, (at the same time, about the same thing,) is a contradiction: for he that erreth, judgeth a falsehood to be a truth: but to know that so to judge is to err, is certainly not so to judge; for 'intellectus vult verum;' that is, truth is the object which it is naturally inclined to. The same light which discovereth error, cureth it: and that light which discovereth the thing itself, is it that must convince me that I before erred about it, by misapprehensions.

4. And an ignorant man doth not so much as know the difficulties of the case, and what may be said on the other side: what contrary evidence convinceth others, or what weight there is in the objections, which are, or may be brought against him. So that all men being naturally ignorant, and little being known for much that is unknown, even to the wisest; alas, the temptation to error and false confidence is so strong, that few escape it.

II. Another cause of it is, the radical master sin of pride :

an unhumbled mind, never well acquainted with its own dark and erroneous condition, and its great need of natural and supernatural helps. I find it hard to convince men of this; but the forementioned effects do certainly prove it. The vice is born with us at the very heart. It is the devil's image: he that is not naturally proud, is not a son of Adam. It liveth first, and dieth last: and there is nothing that man is apter to be proud of, than his reason, which is his humanity, and next to that of his goodness, and of his greatness. Men perceive not this in themselves, because they know not what pride is, while it ruleth in them. They think that it is only some womanish or childish extrinsical ostentation, (boasting) or perking up above others in garb and place, or peacock-like looking upon their own train, or setting it up for others to look on. But pride is (as I said before) an overvaluing ourselves, and a desire that others should overvalue us: and how few be there that be not tickled, when their wisdom is applauded, and nettled when it is accounted small: it is hard to bear to be accounted and reported a fool, or a person of little wit. Many a man spendeth all the studies of his life, more for a fame of learning than for learning itself; what is pride if this be not? What grosser pride, than for a woman or unexperienced lad, to scorn and despise the oldest and hardest students in divinity, as dark souls in comparison of them! The Quakers in their shops, when I go along London streets, say, Alas, poor man, thou art yet in darkness:' they have oft come into the congregation, (when I had liberty to preach Christ's Gospel) and cried out against me as a deceiver of the people. They have followed me home, crying out in the streets, The day of the Lord is coming, when thou shalt perish as a deceiver.' They have stood in the market-place, and under my window, year after year, crying out to the people, 'Take heed of your priests, they deceive your souls:' And if they saw any one wear a lace or neat clothing, they cried to me, 'These are the fruit of thy ministry.' If they spake to me with the greatest ignorance or nonsense, it was with as much fury and rage, as if a bloody heart had appeared in their faces; so that though I never hurt, or occasioned the hurt of one of them, that I know of, their truculent countenances told me what they would have done had I been in their power (this was in 1656, 57, 58, 59.) And yet they were poorly clothed: (some of them went through the streets

stark naked), and cried out over and over all the year, Woe to the proud!' Wonderful! wonderful! O the blindness of a corrupted mind! that these poor souls did not perceive their superlative pride. How highly did these people think of their own wisdom and holiness, while they cried down laces, points, and cuffs!

And when did I ever know either a true church-tyrant, or a true sectarian separating humourist, which were not both notorious proud over-valuers of their own conceits. To which those that bowed not must be persecuted as unruly schismatics by the one sort, and excommunicated, separated from, and damned as ungodly, carnal or antichristian by the other sort?

Several ways doth PRIDE cause pretended knowledge. 1. By thinking that our understandings are so good as that without great study we can know truth from falsehood; and so making us venture to judge of things at the first hearing or reading; which we cannot be capable of judging of under long and diligent studies; because recipitur ad modum recipientis.' Therefore it is that when a man by great success in studies hath made things as plain as words can make them, so that you would think that all students should presently be wise at easy rates by the light which he hath set up to them, they are half as long in learning for all that, as if he had never given them such a help. And therefore it is, that we cannot leave our learning to posterity; because still the stop is in the receiver's incapacity. And he cannot be capable of the plainest precepts, but by much time and study.

2. Pride maketh men hasty in concluding, because they are not humbled to a just suspicion of their own apprehensions. And men stay not to prove and try things before they judge.

3. Pride maketh men insensible how much they are ignorant of, in all their knowledge.

4. And it causeth men to slight the reasons and judgments of other men, by which they might learn, or at least might be taught to judge considerately, and suspend their own.

If overvaluing a man's own apprehensions be pride (as it is), then certainly pride is one of the commonest sins in the world, and particularly among men professing godliness, who upon every poor surmise or report are condemning those, that do not throughly know, and in every petty con

troversy, they are all still in the right, though of never so many minds.

III. Another cause of pretended knowledge is the want of a truly tender conscience: which should make men fear, lest they should err, lest they should deserve the curse of putting "light for darkness, and darkness for light; evil for good, and good for evil:" (Isa. v. 20:) and should make them afraid lest they should defile their minds, resist the truth, blaspheme God or dishonour him, by fathering errors on him, and lest they should prove snares to men's souls, and a scandal and trouble to the Church of God. A tender conscience would not have espoused such opinions under one or two or many years deliberation, which an Antinomian, or other sectary will take up in a few days, (if they were true.) O, saith the tender conscience, what if I should err, and prove a snare to souls, and a scandal and dishonour to the Church of God! &c.

IV. Another cause of pretended knowledge is a blind zeal for knowledge and godliness in the general, while men know not what it is they are zealous of. They think it is a necessary part of sincerity to receive the truth speedily without delay and therefore they take a present concluding, for a true receiving it. And he that soonest taketh up that which is offered him, probably as a part of godliness, is taken for the most resolved downright convert. Which is true in case of evident truths, where it is the will that by vice suspendeth the mind. But not in dark and doubtful cases.

V. Another cause is, an inordinate trust in man: when some admire the learned too much, and some the religious, and some this or that particular person, and therefore build too confidently on their words: some on great men, some on the multitude, but most on men of fame for great learning, or great piety. A credit is to be given by every learner to his teacher: but the confounding this with our belief of God, and making it a part of our religion, and not trusting man as man only, that is, a fallible wight, doth cause this vice of pretended knowledge, to pass with millions for divine faith. Especially when men embody themselves into a sect, as the only orthodox or godly party, or as the only true church (as the Papists do); then it emboldeneth them to believe any thing, which their sect or church believeth. For they think that this is the church's faith, which cannot err, or is the safest: