spoil them through philosophy and vain deceit;" and in another place
he advises Timothy to "avoid profane and vain babblings, and
oppositions of science falsely so called;" that is, not to introduce
into the Christian doctrine the janglings of those vain
philosophers, which they would pass upon the world for science. And
the reasons he gives are, first, that those who professed them did
err concerning the faith; secondly, because the knowledge of them
did increase ungodliness, vain babblings being otherwise expounded
vanities or empty sounds; that is, tedious disputes about words,
which the philosophers were always so full of, and which were the
natural product of disputes and dissensions between several sects.

Neither had the primitive fathers any great or good opinion of the
heathen philosophy, as is manifest from several passages in their
writings; so that this vein of affecting to raise the reputation of
those sages so high Is a mode and a vice but of yesterday, assumed
chiefly, as I have said, to disparage revealed knowledge and the
consequences of it among us.

Now, because this is a prejudice which may prevail with some persons
so far as to lessen the influence of the Gospel, and whereas,
therefore, this is an opinion which men of education are likely to
be encountered with when they have produced themselves into the
world, I shall endeavour to show that their preference of heathen
wisdom and virtue before that of the Christian is every way unjust,
and grounded upon ignorance or mistake; in order to which I shall
consider four things:-

First, I shall produce certain points wherein the wisdom and virtue
of all unrevealed philosophy in general fell short and was very