An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

4. This is not from the nature of learning it self, it's from the abuse of it.¹

1. 1This is not from the nature of learning it self, but from the abuse of […].This is not from the nature of learning it self, but from the abuse of 〈…〉.

As the Apostle saith, Not many noble men, not many rich men hath God called, 1 Cor 1. 26. But this is not, because nobility, or wealth, are in themselves sin, but because such things do many times become a snare to us. Learning therefore of it self, and in its own nature, hath no such poisonous quality; and therefore it's a most irrational thing to say, That learning can be no more sanctified than sin. For was it not in Paul, who as Tertullian expresseth it, did sanctify the Poets verses he alleged? And are not learned men, if Orthodox, and loving of the truth more able to convince the errors of the learned gain-sayers? Have not the eminent Lights in the Church of God, in all ages, been learned men? Was not the Egyptian learning sanctified to Moses? And now learning is more necessary since the Apostles times, then formerly. For in those days, they were endowed with miracles, which were a strong demonstration of the infallible Doctrine that was preached, and they could speak in Tongues, and some had the gift of interpretation, and prophesying by immediate workings of Gods Spirit; but none can now pretend to any such thing. What private man could have been able to have read so much as one verse in the Bible, had there not been men learned in the Original Tongues, who translated it into our known Language? Neither can those Ministerial qualifications which the Apostle requireth in every Elder, That he be able to teach, to divide the Word of God aright, to be able by sound Doctrine to convince the gainsayers, be performed without learning. Yea, Doth not the Apostle Peter charge the wresting of Scripture to their own destruction upon unstable and unlearned men,