§. XXI.
III. The learned School Divinity obnoxious; A Monster; A Letter-Knowledge Heathenized.The third and main Part of their Literature is School Divinity, a Monster, made up of some Scriptural Notions of Truth, and the Heathenish Terms and Maxims; being, as it were, the Heathenish Philosophy Christianized, or rather, the literal external Knowledge of Christ Heathenized. It is Man in his first, fallen, natural State, with his devilish Wisdom, pleasing himself with some Notions of Truth, and adorning them with his own sensual and carnal Wisdom, because he thinks the Simplicity of the Truth too low and mean a Thing for him; and so despiseth that Simplicity, wheresoever it is found, that he may set up and exalt himself, puffed up with this his monstrous Birth. It is the Devil, darkening, obscuring, and veiling the Knowledge of God, with his serpentine and worldly Wisdom; that so he may the more securely deceive the Hearts of the Simple, and make the Truth, as it is in itself, despicable and hard to be known and understood, by multiplying a thousand difficult and needless Questions, and endless Contentions and Debates. All which, he who perfectly knoweth, is not a Whit less the Servant of Sin than he was; but ten Times more so, in that he is exalted, and proud of Iniquity, and so much the farther from receiving, understanding, or learning the Truth, as it is in its own naked Simplicity; because he is full, learned, rich, and wise in his own Conceit: And so those that are most skilled in it, wear out their Day, and spend their precious Time about the infinite and innumerable Questions they have feigned and invented concerning it. A certain learned Man called it, A twofold Discipline, like the Race of the Centaurs, partly proceeding from divine Sayings, partly from philosophical Reasons. Its needless Questions and endless Janglings.A thousand of their Questions they confess themselves to be no-ways necessary to Salvation; and yet many more of them they could never agree upon, but are, and still will be, in endless Janglings about them. The Volumes that have been written about it, a Man in his whole Age could scarce read, though he lived to be very old; and when he has read them all, he has but wrought himself a great deal more Vexation and Trouble of Spirit than he had before. These certainly are the Words multiplied without Knowledge; by which Counsel hath been darkened, Job xxxviii. 2. They make the Scripture the Text of all this Mass; and it is concerning the Sense of it that their voluminous Debates arise. But a Man of a good upright Heart may learn more in half an Hour, and be more certain of it, by waiting upon God, and his Spirit in the Heart, than by reading a thousand of their Volumes; which by filling his Head with many needless Imaginations, may well stagger his Faith, but never confirm it: And indeed those that give themselves most to it, are most capable to fall into Error, as appeareth by the Example of Origen, who, by his Learning, was one of the first, that falling into this Way of interpreting the Scriptures, wrote so many Volumes, and in them so many Errors, as very much troubled the Church. Whereby Arius fell into Error and Schism.Also Arius, led by this Curiosity and human Scrutiny, despising the Simplicity of the Gospel, fell into his Error, which was the Cause of that horrible Heresy which so much troubled the Church. Methinks the Simplicity, Plainness, and Brevity of the Scriptures themselves, should be a sufficient Reproof for such a Science; and the Apostles, being honest, plain, illiterate Men, may be better understood by such Kind of Men now, than with all that Mass of scholastick Stuff, which neither Peter, nor Paul, nor John, ever thought of.