system, first taken into religion, was thought to have given matter
for some early heresies in the Church. When disputes began to
arise, the Peripatetic forms were introduced by Scotus as best
fitted for controversy. And however this may now have become
necessary, it was surely the author of a litigious vein, which has
since occasioned very pernicious consequences, stopped the progress
of Christianity, and been a great promoter of vice; verifying that
sentence given by St. James, and mentioned before, "Where envying
and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work." This was
the fatal stop to the Grecians in their progress both of arts and
arms; their wise men were divided under several sects, and their
governments under several commonwealths, all in opposition to each
other, which engaged them in eternal quarrels among themselves,
while they should have been armed against the common enemy. And I
wish we had no other examples, from the like causes, less foreign or
ancient than that. Diogenes said Socrates was a madman; the
disciples of Zeno and Epicurus, nay, of Plato and Aristotle, were
engaged in fierce disputes about the most insignificant trifles.
And if this be the present language and practice among us Christians
no wonder that Christianity does not still produce the same effects
which it did at first, when it was received and embraced in its
utmost purity and perfection; for such wisdom as this cannot
"descend from above," but must be "earthly, sensual, devilish, full
of confusion and every evil work," whereas, "the wisdom from above
is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated,
full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without
hypocrisy." This is the true heavenly wisdom, which Christianity
only can boast of, and which the greatest of the heathen wise men
could never arrive at.