8. The senses and experience of all men, in all ages, are to be believed about their proper objects.

9. Men of activity, power, and great numbers, will have advantage for observance and success, above those that are modest, obscure, and few.

10. Yet men will still be men; and the rational nature will yield some friendly aspect towards the truth.

11. Those that are ignorant, and misled by passion, and carried down the stream, by men of malignity or faction, may come to themselves, when affliction, experience, and considerateness have had time to work; and may repent, and undo somewhat that they have done.

12. As sense will be sense, when faith hath done its best; so faith will be faith, when flesh or sense hath done its worst. 13. Men that fix on a heavenly, everlasting interest, will not be temporisers, and changed by the worldly mens' wills or cruelties.

14. When all men have tired themselves with their contrivances and stirs, moderation and peace must be the quiet state.

15. When all worldly wisdom hath done its utmost, and mens' endeavours are wringed with the greatest expectations; God will be God, and blast what he nilleth; and will overrule all things, to the accomplishment of his most blessed will. Amen.

On these suppositions it is, that the following Prognostications are founded; which I must admonish the reader, not to mistake for historical narratives: but, I exhort him to know what hath been, and what is, if he would know what will be; and to make sure of everlasting rest with Christ, when he must leave a sinful, restless world..

A

MORAL PROGNOSTICATION

OF WHAT MUST BE EXPECTED

IN THE CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM,

TILL THE

GOLDEN AGE RETURNS;.

OR, TILL

THE TIME OF TRUE REFORMATION AND UNITY.

1. MANKIND will be born in a state of infancy and nescience, that is, without actual knowledge.

2. Yea, with a nature that hath the innate dispositions to sloth, and to diverting pleasures and business; and more than so, to an averseness from those principles which are needful to sanctification, and heavenly wisdom. The carnal mind will have an enmity against God, and will not mind the things of the Spirit, nor be subject to God's law. (Rom. viii. 5-8.)

3. Sound learning, or wisdom, in things of so high a nature, as are the matters of Salvation, will not be attained without hard study, earnest prayer, and humble submission to instructions; and all this a long time patiently endured, or rather willingly, and delightfully performed.

4. And if the seeds of wisdom be not born with us, in a capacious disposition of understanding; but contrarily a natural unapprehensiveness blocks up the way; even time and labour, will never (without a miracle) bring any to any great eminency of understanding.

5. And they that have both capacity, and an industrious disposition, must have also sound, and able, and diligent teachers; or at least escape the hands of seducers, and of partial, factious guides.

6. There are few born with good natural capacities, much less with a special dispositive acuteness; and few that will be at the pains and patience, which the getting of wisdom doth require; and few that will have the happiness of sound and diligent teachers; but fewest of all that will have a concurrence of all these three.

7. Therefore there will be but few very wise men in the world; ignorance will be common, wisdom will be rare.

8. Therefore error or false opinions will be common. For unless men never think of the things of which they are ignorant, or judge nothing of them one way or other, they are sure to err, so far as they judge in ignorance. But when things of greatest moment are represented as true or false, to be believed or rejected, the most ignorant mind is naturally inclined to pass its judgment or opinion of them one way or other; and to apprehend them according to the light he standeth in, and to think of them as he is disposed. So that ignorance and error will concur.

9. He that erreth, doth think that he is in the right, and erreth not for to err, and to know that he erreth in judgment, is a contradiction, and impossible. (However in words and deeds a man may err, and know that he erreth.)

10. He that knoweth not, and that erreth, perceiveth not that evidence of truth, which should make him receive it, and which maketh other men receive it; and therefore knoweth not that indeed another is in the right, or seeth any more than he.

11. Especially when every man is a stranger to another's mind and soul, as to any immediate inspection: and therefore knoweth not another's knowledge, nor the convincing reasons of his judgment.

12. As no man is moved against his own errors, by the reasons which he knoweth not; so pride, self-love and partiality thence arising, incline all men naturally to be overvaluers of their own understandings, and so over-confident of all their own conceptions, and over-stiff in defending all their errors. As pride and selfishness are the firstborn of Satan, and the root of all positive evil in man's soul; so a man is more naturally proud of that which is the honour of a man, which is his understanding and goodness, than of that which is common to a beast, as strength, beauty, ornaments, &c. Therefore pride of understanding and good

ness oft live, when sordid apparel telleth you that childish pride of ornaments is dead. And this pride maketh it very difficult, to the most ignorant and erroneous, to know their ignorance and error, or so much as to suspect their own understandings.

13. He that seeth but few things, seeth not much to make him doubt, and seeth not the difficulties which should check his confidence and stiffness in his way.

14. He that seeth many things, and that clearly knoweth much; especially, if he see them in their order, and respects to one another, and leaveth out no one substantial part which is needful to open the signification of the rest.

15. He that seeth many things disorderly, and confusedly, and not in due method, and leaveth out some substantial parts, and hath not a digested knowledge, doth know much, and err much, and may make a bustle in the world of ignorants, as if he were an excellent, learned man; but hath little of the inward delight, or of the power and benefits of knowledge.

16. He that seeth many things but darkly, confusedly, and not in the true place and method, cannot reconcile truths among themselves; but is like a boy with a pair of tarrying irons, or like one that hath his clock or watch all in pieces, and knoweth not how to set them together. And therefore, is inclined to be a sceptic.

17. This sort of sceptics, differ much from humble Christians; and have oft as high thoughts of their understandings, as any others: for they lay the cause upon the difficulties in the objects, rather than on themselves: unless, when they incline to brutishness or Sadducism, and take man's understanding to be incapable of true knowledge, and so lay the blame on human nature as such, that is, on the Creator.

18. Few hope so much as to see the difficulty of things, and make them doubt, or sceptical. But far fewer know, so much as to resolve their doubts and difficulties: therefore, though (as Bishop Jewel saith of faithful Pastors) I say not that there will be few Cardinals, few Bishops, few Doctors, few Deans, few Jesuits, few Friars, (there will be enow of these,) yet there will be few wise, judicious Divines, and Pastors, even in the best and happiest countries.

19. Seeing he that knoweth not, or that erreth, knoweth

not that another knoweth, or is in the right, when he is in the wrong; therefore he knoweth not whose judgment to honour and submit to, if he should suspect or be driven from his own: and therefore is not so happy, as to be able to choose the fittest teacher for himself.

20. In this darkness therefore he either carnally casteth himself on the highest and most honoured in the world, where he hath the most advantages for worldly ends; or he followeth the fame of the time and country where he is, or he falleth in with the major vote of that party, whatsoever it be, which his understanding doth most esteem and honour; or else with some person that hath most advantage on him.

21. If any of these happen to be in the right, he will be also in the right materially, and may seem an orthodox, peaceable and praiseworthy man: but where they are in the wrong, he is contented with the reputation of being in the right, and of the good opinion of those whom he concurreth with; who flatter and applaud each other in the dark.

22. When wise men are but few, they can be but in few places; and therefore will be absent from most of the people, high or low, that need instruction. Besides, that their studiousness inclineth them, like Jerom, to be more retired than others, that know less.

23. This confidence in an erring mind, is not only the case of the Teachers, as well as of the Flocks; but is usually more fortified in them than in others: for they think that the honour of learning and wisdom, is due to their place, and calling, and name, and standing in the Universities; how empty soever they be themselves. And they take it for a double dishonour (as it is) for a Teacher to be accounted ignorant; and an injury to their work and office, and to the people's souls, that must by their honour be prepared to profit by them; and therefore, they smart more impatiently under any detection of their ignorance, than the common people do.

24. It is not mere honesty and godliness, that will suffice to save Ministers or people from this ignorance, injudiciousness and error; there having ever been among the very godly Ministers, a few judicious men, that are fit to investigate a difficult truth, or to defend it against a subtle adver sary, or to see the system of theological verities in their proper method, harmony and beauty.