Needs stay, Is not the way, Nor just. Search well another world: who studies this, Son-dayes. Bright shadows of true rest! some shoots of blisse ; Heaven once a week: The next world's gladness prepossest in this; A day to seek Eternity in time; the steps by which We climb above all ages; lamps that light Man through his heap of dark days; and the rich, And full redemption of the whole week's flight. Ib. One stanza out of three, 107. Henry More, 1614-1687. (Handbook, pars. 170, 343, 447.) A Platonist theologian of great learning and thought; author of the Mystery of Godliness, etc., and of various philosophical poems (1647), and of a Platonical Song of the Soul (1642). Prudence sometimes Craft. I know it is no part of Prudence to speak slightly of those that others admire; only that Prudence is but craft that commands an unfaithful silence. And I know not how an honest man can discharge his conscience in prudentially conniving at such falsities as he sees ensnare the minds of men, while they do not only abuse their intellectuals by foppish and ridiculous conceptions, but insinuate such dangerous and mischievous opinions, as supplaced and destroy the very fundamentals of Christian religion. A Brief Discourse of Enthusiasm, sec. 49. Compare the saying: 'The silence of a wise man is sometimes a greater sin than the talk of fools.' The Soul all Eye and Ear. Even so the soul in this contracted state, Confined to these strait instruments of sense, More dull and narrowly doth operate: At this hole hears, the sight may ray from thence, Here tastes, there smells: but when she's gone from hence, Like naked lamp she is one shining sphere, And round about hath perfect cognizance Whatever in the horizon doth appear, She is one orb of sense: all eye, all touch, all ear. Platonical Song of the Soul. 108. Richard Baxter, 1615-1691. (Handbook, par. 398.) An unwearied preacher and pastor, and the author of one hundred and sixty-eight works. His Saint's Rest, and Call to the Unconverted, are still read; but all his writings are good, clear, earnest, and liberal. Vanity of Knowledge. How small is our knowledge in comparison of our ignorance. And how little doth the knowledge of learned doctors differ from the thoughts of a silly child! For from our childhood we take it ie. a lamp uncovered, a favourite Platonist idea. in by drops, and as trifles are the matter of childish knowledge, so words, and notions, and artificial forms, do make up more of the learning of the world than is commonly understood, and many such learned men know little more of any great and excellent things themselves, than rustics that are contemned by them for their ignorance. God and the life to come are little better known by them, if not much less, than by many of the unlearned. What is it but a child game, that many logicians, rhetoricians, grammarians, yea, metaphysicians, and other philosophers, in their eagerest studies and disputes, are exercised in? Of how little use is it to know what is contained in many hundred of the volumes that fill our libraries! Yea, or to know many of the most glorious speculations in physics, mathematics, etc., which have given some the title of virtuosi, and ingeniosi, in these times, who have little the more wit or virtue to live to God, or overcome temptations from the flesh and world, and to secure their everlasting hopes. What pleasure or quiet doth it give to a dying man to know almost any of their trifles? Yea, it were well if much of our reading and learning did us no harm, nay more than good. I fear lest books are to some but a more honourable kind of temptation than cards and dice, lest many a precious hour be lost in them that should be employed on much higher matters, and lest many make such knowledge but an unholy, natural, yea, carnal pleasure, as worldlings do the thoughts of their land and honours, and lest they be the more dangerous by how much the less suspected. But the best is, it is a pleasure so fenced from the slothful with thorny labour of hard and long studies, that laziness saveth more from it than grace and holy wisdom doth. But, doubtless, fancy and the natural intellect may, with as little sanctity, live in the pleasure of reading, knowing, disputing, and writing as others spend their time at a game at chess, or other ingenious sport. For my own part, I know that the knowledge of natural things is valuable, and may be sanctified, much more theological theory, and when it is so, it is of good use: and I have little knowledge which I find not some way useful to my highest ends. And if wishing or money could procure more, I would wish and empty my purse for it; but yet if many score or hundred books which I have read had been all unread, and I had that time now to lay out upon higher things, I should think myself much richer than now I am. And I must earnestly pray, the Lord forgive me the hours that I have spent in reading things less profitable, for the pleasing of a mind that would fain know all, which I should have spent for the increase of holiness in myself and others! and yet I must thankfully acknowledge to God, that from my youth He taught me to begin with things of greatest weight, and to refer most of my other studies thereto, and to spend my days under the motives of necessity and profit to myself, and those with whom I had to do. And now I think better of the course of Paul that determined to know nothing but a crucified Christ ⚫ among the Corinthians, that is, so to converse with them as to use, and glorying as if he knew nothing else, and so of the rest of the apostles and primitive ages. And though I still love and honour (and am not of Dr. Colet's mind, who, as Erasmus saith, most slighted Augustine), yet I less censure even that Carthage council which forbade the reading of the heathens' books of learning and arts, than formerly I have done. And I would have men savour most that learning in their health, which they will, or should, savour most in sickness, and near to death. And, alas! how dear a vanity is this knowledge! That which is but theoretic and notional is but a tickling delectation of the fancy or mind, little differing from a pleasant dream. But how many hours, what gazing of the wearied eye, what stretching thoughts of the impatient brain must it cost us, if we will attain to any excellency. Well saith Solomon, Much reading is a weariness to the flesh, and he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow.' How many hundred studious days and weeks, and how many hard and tearing thoughts, hath my little, my very little knowledge, cost me: and how much infirmity and painfulness to my flesh, increase of painful diseases, and loss of bodily ease and health! How much pleasure to myself of other kinds, and how much acceptance with men have I lost by it, which I might easily have had in a more conversant and plausible way of life! And when all is done, if I reach to know any more than others of my place and order, I must differ so much (usually) from them; and if I manifest not that difference, but keep all that knowledge to myself, I sin against conscience and nature itself. The love of man and the love of truth oblige me to be soberly communicative. Were I so indifferent to truth and knowledge as easily to forbear their propagation, I must also be so indifferent to them as not to think them worth so dear a price as they have cost me (though they are the free gifts of God). But if I obey nature and conscience in communicating that knowledge which containeth my difference aforesaid, the dissenters too often take themselves disparaged by it, how peaceably soever I manage it; and as bad men take the piety of the godly to be an accusation of their impiety, so many teachers take themselves to be accused of ignorance by such as condemn their errors by the light of truth; and if you meddle not with any person, yet take they their opinions to be so much their interest, as that all that is said against them they take as said against themselves. And then, alas! what envyings, what whispering disparagements, and what backbitings, if not malicious slanders and underminings, do we meet with from the carnal clergy. And Oh, that it were all from them alone! and that among the zealous and suffering party of faithful preachers there were not much of such iniquity, and that none of them preached Christ in strife and envy! It is sad that error should find so much shelter under the selfishness and pride of pious men, and that the friends of truth should be tempted to reject and abuse so much of it in their ignorance as they do: but the matter of fact is too evident to be hid. Dying Thoughts. And they made light of it. We come now to the application. Hence you may be informed of the blindness and folly of all carnal men. How contemptible are their judgements that think Christ and salvation contemptible! And how little reason is there why any should be moved by them or discouraged by any of their scorns or contradictions! How shall we sooner know a man to be a fool than if we know no difference between dung and gold? Is there such a thing as madness in the world if that man be not mad that sets light by Christ and his own salvation, while he daily toils for the things of the earth? And yet what pity it is to see that a company of poor ignorant souls will be ashamed of godliness if such men as these do deride them! or will think hardly of a holy life if such as these do speak against it! Hearers! if you see any set light by Christ and salvation, do you set light by that man's wit and by his words, and bear the reproaches of a holy life as you would |