(1.) _The greatest errors that have most disturbed the church in all ages have had their rise from learned men._ The names of their authors are marked upon their foreheads. These known errors are so many, that they fill whole volumes. The result of which consideration will be this, that learned men have often been very dangerously mistaken. (2.) _The present contentions and disputes of men_, managed on all hands with so much earnestness, wherein one party triumphs over another, and all, in their own apprehensions, are victorious. Instead of conquests by arguments and answers, each party is but more confirmed in its own apprehensions; and yet the one-half is certainly wrong, and perhaps in many things both parties are mistaken. This, I say, sufficiently shows the incapacities of the learned; for if every capacity were truly correspondent to truth, there would be no more disputes nor differences. (3.) _The most learned find the business of their own persuasion and satisfaction in many truths, in which common people have no scruple nor doubt, very difficult_; because they see more objections to be answered, and more of the weakness of arguments than others do; but this shews their capacities are not so large as some would think. (4.) Let us once for all consider _that which seems to be the highest evidence for knowledge and understanding in the learned, and we shall find, upon just examination, it is no more than an argument of their ignorance_. What is there wherein they seem more acute and eagle-eyed than in their distinctions, by which they would give us the most minute differences of things, and appear so exact as if they would divide an atom, and give everything its just weight and measure? But let us consider that, though all distinctions are not unprofitable, their multitude is become oppressive and troublesome, and more time must be spent in learning terms and words of art than things; and their nicety and subtlety so great, that they rather darken truth, and give occasion to bold spirits to undertake the defence of any paradox. Nay, if we could sever these clearly from their abuses, yet, seeing it is certain there are more distinctions of terms than things, they will evince that our knowledge is more verbal than real, and that often for a mountain of words we have but a molehill of substantial matter. Nay, seeing we make but a sorry shift at best by these artifices to come to some rude conceptions of things, which otherwise we cannot in any tolerable manner comprehend, it is as great a proof of our imperfection in knowledge, as the necessary use of staves and crutches is an evidence of lameness. If I should pass from this to the consideration of the multitude beyond all number of books that are written, we shall find them but so many proclamations of our ignorance; for if we could believe them all to contain so many wholesome precepts of necessary truth, which yet we cannot rationally imagine, this would