How Much Then is it to be Lamented, as Well as Impossible to be Denied...
How much then is it to be lamented, as well as impossible to be denied, that though all scripture assures us, that the things of the Spirit of God are and must, to the end of the world, be foolishness to the natural man, yet from one end of learned Christendom to the other, nothing is thought of as the true and proper means of attaining divine knowledge, but that which every natural, selfish, proud, envious, false, vain-glorious, worldly man can do. Where is that divinity student who thinks, or was ever taught to think, of partaking of the light of the gospel any other way, than by doing with the scriptures that which he does with pagan writers, whether poets, orators, or comedians, viz., exercise his logic, rhetoric, and critical skill, in descanting upon them? This done, he is thought by himself, and often by others, to have a sufficiency of divine apostolical knowledge. What wonder therefore, if it should sometimes happen, that the very same vain, corrupt, puffing literature, that raises one man to be a poet-laureate, should set another in a divinity chair?

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