III. If those Theological Determinations that make up at this day amongst some men the greatest part of those Assertions, Positions, or Propositions, which are called Articles of Faith, or Truth, which are not delivered in the words that the Spirit of God teacheth, but in terms of Art, and in Answer unto Rules and ⟨p. 212⟩Notions, which the world might happily without any great disadvantage been unacquainted withal unto this day, had not Aristotle found them out, or stumbled on them, might be eliminated from the City of God, and Communion of Christians, and left for men to exercise their wits about who have nothing else to do, and the Doctrine of Truth which is according unto Godliness, left unto that Noble, Heavenly, Spiritual generous amplitude wherein it was delivered in the Scripture and believed in the first Churches, innumerable Causes of strife and Contentions would be taken away: but—ferry video meà gaudia ventis, small hopes have I to see any such impression and consent to befall the minds of concerned men; and yet I must confess, I have not one jot more, of the reuniting the Disciples of Christ in love and concord. But most men that profess any thing of Divinity, have learned it as an Art, or humane Science; out of the road, compass, and track where of, they know nothing of the mind of God; nay many scarce know the things in themselves and as they are to be believed, which they are passing skilful in, as they are expressed in their arbitrary terms of Art, which none almost understand but themselves. And is it likely that such men who are not a few in the world, will let go their skill and knowledge, and with them their reputation and advantage, and to sacrifice them all to the peace and agreement that we are seeking after? Some learn their Divinity out of the late, and Modern Schools, both in the Reformed and Papal Church; in both which a Science is proposed under that name, consisting in a farrago of Credible Propositions, asserted in terms suited unto that Philosophy that is variously predominant in them. What a kind of Theology this hath produced in the Papacy, Agricola, Erasmus, Vives, Jansenius, with innumerable other Learned men of ⟨p. 213⟩your own, have sufficiently declared. And that it hath any better success in the Reformed Churches, many things which I shall not now instance in, give me cause to doubt.
III. If those Theologicall Determinations that make up at this day amongst some men the greatest part of those Assertions, Positions, or Propositions, which are called Articles of Faith, or Truth, which are not delivered in the words that the Spirit of God teacheth, but in termes of Art, and in Answer unto Rules and ⟨p. 212⟩Notions, which the world might happily without any great disadvantage been unacquainted withall unto this day, had not Aristotle found them out, or stumbled on them, might be eliminated from the City of God, and Communion of Christians, and left for men to exercise their wits about who have nothing else to do, and the Doctrine of Truth which is according unto Godliness, left unto that Noble, Heavenly, Spirituall generous amplitude wherein it was delivered in the Scripture and beleived in the first Churches, innumerable Causes of strife and Contentions would be taken away: but—ferri video meà gaudia ventis, small hopes have I to see any such impression and consent to besall the minds of concerned men; and yet I must confess, I have not one jot more, of the reuniting the Disciples of Christ in love and concord. But most men that profess any thing of Divinity, have learned it as an Art, or humane Science; out of the road, compass, and track where of, they know nothing of the mind of God; nay many scarce know the things in themselves and as they are to be believed, which they are passing skilfull in, as they are expressed in their arbitrary termes of Art, which none almost understand but themselves. And is it likely that such men who are not a few in the world, will let go their skill and knowledge, and with them their repntation and advantage, and to sacrifice them all to the peace and agreement that we are seeking after? Some learn their Divinity out of the late, and Modern Schools, both in the Reformed and Papall Church; in both which a Science is proposed under that name, consisting in a farrago of Credible Propositions, asserted in termes suited unto that Philosophy that is variously predominant in them. What a kind of Theology this hath praduced in the Papacy, Agricola, Erasmus, Vives, Jansenius, with innumerable other Learned men of ⟨p. 213⟩your own, have sufficiently declared. And that it hath any better success in the Reformed Churches, many things which I shall not now instance in, give me cause to doubt.
