A warning to the flocks against wolves in sheeps clothing. Or, A faithful advice,…A warning to the flocks against wolves in sheeps cloathing. Or, A faithful advice,…

We are not unsensible, that one thing, which ha's much Exposed some Injudicious people among us, is, An opinion that Illiterate Men, may be Serviceable and Admirable Preachers. Now, inasmuch as the Jesuits, have given this among their Instructions to their Emissaries, To teach that Learning is needless in a Minister, and if they understand the Gospel, it is Sufficient, we are sorry that any of our people should be so Besotted, not to say, Bejesuited. When the Knowledge of the Tongues and Arts Revived, Religion had a Revival with it: And though some Unlearned men have been useful to the Interests of Religion, yet no man ever decried Learning, but what was, an Enemy ⟨p. 9⟩to Religion, whether he knew it or no▪ When our Lord, chose Fishermen to be Ministers, (which often is impertinently pleaded) He would not send them forth, until they had been a considerable while under His Tuition, (a better than the best in any College under Heaven!) and then also He Miraculously Furnished 'em with more Learning, than any of us, by seven Years Hard Study can attain unto. If God, should be provoked by the Unthankfulness of men, to send the Plague of an Unlearned Ministry upon poor New-England, soon will the Wild-Beasts of the Desartly there, the Houses will be full of doleful Creatures, and Owls will dwell there. Ordinarily, that man, who undertakes the Ministry of the Gospel, without some Education for it, is, we doubt, in as presumptuous an Error, as the unhappy Uzzah, that perished in his Error: though we also allow different measures, and places, for that Education. And that man was never worthy to Preach one Sermon, who did not feel, and would not own, that all the Learning that can be had, is little enough to accomplish an Able Minister of the New Testament.

We are not unsensible, that one thing, which ha's much Exposed some Injudicious people among us, is, An opinion that Illiterate Men, may be Serviceable and Admirable Preachers. Now, inasmuch as the Jesuites, have given this among their Instructions to their Emissaries, To teach that Learning is needless in a Minister, and if they understand the Gospel, it is Sufficient, we are sorry that any of our people should be so Besotted, not to say, Bejesuited. When the Knowledge of the Tongues and Arts Revived, Religion had a Revival with it: And though some Unlearned men have been useful to the Interests of Religion, yet no man ever decried Learning, but what was, an Enemy ⟨p. 9⟩