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 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 diffi

cult 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, orthodoxy 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 men's minds that should be taken up with God and his service, are abused and vilified, and filled with the dust and smoke of vain, and false, and confused notions. And man's life is spent (as David saith) in a vain show. And men dream waking with as great industry, as if they were about a serious work. Alas, how pitifully are many of the learned world employed.

XXVIII. By this means also men's 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 or 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 hindered in the world; yea, and holy affections quenched. While these arbitrary notions and speculations, (being man's own) are his more pleasant game; and studies and pulpits must be thus employed, and heart and life thus stolen from God.

Yea, it is well if godliness grow not to be taken by such dreamers, for a low, dull, and 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 by 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. 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 arts and sciences grow more and more corrupted, our logics are too full of unapt notions, our metaphysics are a mere confused mixture of pneumatology and logic; 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 and trouble, especially in physics; 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 Peripatetics, the Hermetics, Lullius, Patricius, Telesius, Campanella, White, Digby, Glisson, and other novelists; and hath read the most learned improvers of the more current 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 physics are much fuller of uncertainties, and more empty 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 have found out their own errors, they are apt to suspect all the substance of sciences to be error. And he speeds well that cometh but with Sanchez to a nihil scitur,' and he better that cometh but with Cornelius Agrippa, to write vanity and vexation upon all the sciences: for many come to infidelity itself, and some to atheism; and, as Dr. Thomas Jackson noteth, by such distrust of men and human things, are tempted into a distrust or unbelief of Christ; or perhaps with Hobbes grow to cry down all learning besides their own, which is worse than the worst that they decry.

XXXVII. And by all this, Princes and States are tempted to hate learning itself, and banish it as a pernicious thing: as the case of the Turkish, Muscovian, and some other empires testify.

All this I have said, not to dishonour true learning, which I would promote with all my power; but to shew the corruption and vanity of that philosophy and human false learning, which Paul and the ancient writers did decry; and why the Council of Carthage forbad the reading of the Gentiles' books, and reproached Apollinarius, and other heretics for their Gentile learning.

Of the great uncertainty of our physics and metaphysics, almost all the chief authors themselves make free confessions. See Suarez, Metaph. disp. 35, pp. 219. 221. 237; Fromondus de Anim. p. 63; Gassendus often; and who not.

Pious Bonaventure hath written a tract "de Reductione

Artium ad Theologiam ;" and another "de non frequentandis quæstionibus;" "Cornel. Agrippa de Vanitate Scientiarum," is well worth the reading beforehand to prevent men's loss of time.

CHAP. IV.

III. What are the Certainties that must be known and held fast, and why.

It is none of the apostle's meaning that men should be mere sceptics: nor am I seconding Sanchez's nihil scitur,' unless you take science for adequate science, or in a transcendent notion, as it signifieth that which is proper to another world, and therefore may be denied of this. He can neither play the part of a Christian or of a man, who doubts of all things, and is assuredly confident of nothing.

That our discourse of this may be orderly and edifying, it is of great use that I first help you rightly to understand what certainty is. The word is ambiguous, and sometimes is applied to the object, and sometimes to the act and agent. The former is called objective certainty; the latter subjective certainty.

The Objective is either certainty of the thing, or certainty of evidence, by which the thing is discernible or perceptible to us; and this either sensible evidence, or rational; and the latter is either self-evidence of principles, or derived evidence of consequences.

Subjective certainty is also either considered in the nature of it, or in the degree; and as to the nature it is either the senses' certainty, or the intellects'; and this is either of incomplex objects, or complex: the first is either of sensible objects, or purely spiritual: the second of principles, or of conclusions. Of all these there are certainty.

The degrees are these: It being first supposed that no human apprehension here is absolutely perfect; and therefore all our certainties subjective are imperfect; the word therefore signifieth not only a perfect apprehension, but it signifieth 'non falli,' not to be deceived, and such an apprehension of the evidence as giveth us a just resolving and

quieting confidence. And so, 1. The due objects of sense, and, 2. The immediate acts of the soul itself, are certain in the first and highest degree. I know certainly what I see clearly, so far as I see it: and I know certainly that I think, and know, and will. The next degree of certainty is of rational principles, and the next of consequents.

It is likely in a scheme you will more easily understand it.

CERTAINTY being an ambiguous word, is either,

I. Objective: which is,

I. Of Being of the Thing; which is nothing but Physical Verity.
II. Of Evidence; which makes Things Perceptible; and it is Evidence,
1. Sensible; 1. To the External Senses.

viz.

2. To the Internal Senses.

1. Quod sint,

2. Intelligible,

1. Of the
Being of
Things, viz.
3. Qualia sint,
2. Of Complex Verity,
which is,

2. Quid sint,

1. Things sensed and imagined; as colours, light, heat, &c.

2. The Acts of Intellection and Will.

1. Of self-evident Principles. 2. Derivative Evidence of Conclusions.

II. Subjective Certainty; by which I am certain of the Object; Considerable,

51. Of the Outward Senses, when they are not de

ceived.

2. Of the Inward Sense and Imagination.

1. Of Sense,

I. In its Nature; viz. Certainty.

tellect;
which is,

1. Sensed and
imagined.

2. Of the Acts
of the Soul.

1. Quod sint.

2. Quid sint. 3. Qualia sint.

2. Of the Com-S1. Of self-evident Principles. plex Verities, 2. Of Conclusions.

N. Qu. Whether there be not a third sort of Certainty both Objective and Subjective; viz. Goodness not sensible, Certainty apprehended by the Intellectual Soul, not only sub ratione Veri, sed et Boni? And whether the Will by its Natural Gust have not a Complacential Perception of it as well as the Intellect? (Vid. Pemble Vindic, Grot.)

II. In the Degrees of Certainty; which are the Order following:

1. Sense perceiving the Object and itself, is the first perceiver; and hereof

the surest.

2. Imagination receiving from Sense, hath more requisites to its Certainty.
3. Intellectual about Things sensible, hath yet more requisites to its Cer-
tainty; viz. 1. That the Object be true; 2. The Evidence sensible;
3. That the Sense be sound, and the Medium and other Conditions of
Sense be just; 4. That the Imagination be not corrupt; 5. That the In-
tellect itself be sound.

4. But Intellection about itself and Volition hath the highest Certainty.
5. We are surer of the Quod, than the Quid and Quale; as that we Think,
than What and How.

6. We are more certain of self-evident Principles than the Consequences.
7. Consequences have various degrees of Evidence and Certainty.

A few propositions may further help your understandings.