# Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning/Chapter 28

CHAP. XXVIII.
Of the Theological Learning of the Moderns.
To Philology I before added Divinity, and, as I hope to prove, not without Reason. As they relate to our Question, they both agree in this, that the Subject of them both is truly Ancient; and that it is impossible to become very excellent in either of them, without a familiar Conversation with those Original Books, to which the great Masters of both these Sciences do constantly appeal. Our Blessed Saviour did not reveal his Law by Halves to his Apostles, nor is the New Testament an imperfect Rule of Faith: The Old Testament likewise has constantly been at hand; and the Jews have, ever since their Return from the Babylonish Captivity, been scrupulously sollicitous to preserve the (f) Sir William Temple questions, p. 38. whether we have any Thing more ancient than the Augustan Age of the old Hebrew and Chaldæan Languages, that is Genuine. It may be said, that he designed to except the Old Testament; which I believe he did: However, there being no Restriction in his Words, he himself must own that it is loosly expressed.(f) Genuine Hebrew and Chaldee Text of the Old Testament, pure and uncorrupted, ​to succeeding Ages. Yet, though these, together with the Writings of the Greek and Latin Fathers, be Instruments without which no Divine can work; and though it seems almost impossible that any Man should be able to perform all the Duties of his Profession, that are incumbent upon him as a Scholar, without a competent Exactness in all these Things; yet it is very possible that Modern Divines, who make use of these Instruments, may be better Work-men than those Ancient Fathers, who furnished them with the greatest part.
Now, that there may be no Disputes about Terms mis-understood, it will be necessary to explain what is here meant by a perfect Divine; that is to say, such an one as may be a Standard whereon to found a Comparison. A perfect Divine ought to understand the Text of the Old and New Testament so exactly, as to have a clear Notion of every Book in general, and of the Grammatical Meaning of every Text in particular; that so he may be able to reconcile all Difficulties, and answer all Objections that may arise: He ought to understand the State of the Church, as to its Doctrine and Discipline, in its several Ages: He ought to be thoroughly versed in all the General Notions ​of Ethicks, taken in their utmost Extent, to enable him to resolve such Cases of Conscience as may occurr, with Judgment and Satisfaction; he ought to be a Master of all the Topicks of Perswasion which can ever lie in his Way, that so his Exhortations may please and convince those whom he designs to perswade at the same Time; last of all he ought to be able to answer all the Objections which may be, or have been raised against the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church, by its open or secret Enemies. These seem to be the necessary Qualifications of a Perfect Divine; it may perhaps, be questioned whether any Man did ever fully come up to this Description; neither is it necessary that any should, since the Question will be as perfectly answered by determining who have come the nearest to it, as by assigning any particular Person that ever quite reach'd up to it. For these Differences do not lie in a Mathematical Point, and I do not desire that any disputable things should ever be brought under Debate. One Qualification indeed, and that the greatest of all, I have omitted; but that relates not to the present Controversie, since we are not now enquiring who were the holiest Men, but who have been the greatest Masters ​of their Professions, the ancient Fathers or the Modern Divines.
The first thing required, is an exact Knowledge of the Text of the Old Testament. Herein even the LXX Interpreters themselves have often failed, as has been abundantly proved by Modern Criticks. The Copies they used were sometimes faulty, and since they did not mend those Faults, it is very probable they did not see them. It has been observed already, That scarce any of the Fathers understood Hebrew besides Origen and St. Hierom, who therefore were followed as Oracles by many of their Successors; even that alone will not suffice, because there are no other Books written in that Language: For which Reason Syriac, Chaldee, Samaritan and Arabic, have been studied by Modern Criticks; not to mention the Writings of the Rabbins and the Talmudists, to which the Ancients were utter Strangers. If we come to Particulars, who of the Ancients ever unravelled the Chronology of the Old Testament like Archbishop Usher, and Sir John Marsham? Though Eusebius's Chronicon is a standing Evidence how much he, and Julius Africanus before him, endeavoured to clear that Matter, which was of so great Use to confound the ​vain Pretences to Antiquity of those other Nations that were so very unwilling to yield to the Jews in this Particular. Who has ever given so rational and so intelligible an Account of the Design and Intent of the several parts of the ceremonial Law as Dr. Spencer? Who has acquainted the World with the Geography of Genesis, or the Natural History of the Bible, like Monsieur Bochart? These are much harder things than the lengthning of a fine-spun Allegory, or than a few moral Reflections which constitute the greatest part of the Ancient Comments. But the New Testament, you will say, was written in a Time that was nearer at Hand; and so was certainly better understood. Without doubt it was, by the First Fathers; for which Reason their Interpretations (g)(g) See Mr. Dodswell's Two First Dissertations upon S. Irenæus. and their Reasonings, if we could have recovered many of them would have been of infinite Value: But when once the Synagogue and the Church broke off all their Correspondence, when once the immediate Reasons of the first Establishment of many Parts of the Christian Discipline, and of great Numbers of Allusions to Jewish Customs and Traditions which are to be found in the New Testament, could only be known by Study and Reading, all which the first ​Christians knew without Study, as we do the Manners and Fashions of our own Age and Country, then the ancient Interpretations of the New Testament began to fail, and though some of them, S. Chrysostom's and Theodoret's especially, are in themselves, setting Antiquity aside, truly valuable; yet, for want of such a diffused Knowledge of Eastern Antiquities as was necessary, and which only could be had by a long Conversation with the Books that are written in those Languages, these admirable Commentators seem in several Places not to have found out the true Original of many things in the New Testament which have been discovered since.
To the next Thing, which is Skill in Ecclesiastical Antiquity, I have spoken already. The Third and the Fourth, which relate to a Divine as a Casuist, or as a Preacher, may be considered of together, wherein we of the present Age may, without Vanity, boast of having the best Books, and of them too the greatest Numbers, upon these Subjects, written in our own Language, and by our own Countrymen, of any People in the World. The Excellency of a Casuist is to give such Resolutions of Doubts and Questions proposed to him, as may both suit with the ​particular Circumstances of the Person who desires Satisfaction; and also may be perfectly agreeable to the Law of God. A Preacher then seems to perform his Office best, when he can at once instruct and move his Auditors; can raise their Passions, and inform their Judgment: That so every Sermon upon a Doctrinal Head may contain the Solution of a Case of Conscience. For the first of these; It is certain that many of the ablest of the Ancient Fathers were very excellent Casuists; as, indeed, every Man who has a right Judgment, an honest Mind, and a thorough Acquaintance with the Design of our Blessed Saviour, revealed in the Gospel, must of necessity be. And if, at this distance, many of their Decisions seem over-severe, there is as great, at least, if not greater Reason to suspect, that the Complaints now-a-days raised against them, may arise from our Degeneracy, as from their unwarrantable Strictness. But for the Ancient Way of Preaching, there is much more to be said. The great Handle by which an Hearer is enabled to carry along with him a Preacher's Arguments, is, Method and Order. Herein the Ancient Homilists are very defective: Flights of Rhetorick, which are more or less judiciously applied, ac​cording to the Abilities of the several Preachers, make up the greatest part of their Discourses: And, after Origen, most Men busied themselves in giving the People Allegorical Interpretations of Passages of Scriptures, which were infinite, according to the Fancies of those that used them. St. Chrysostom, indeed, reformed this Custom in the Greek Church: His Authority went very far; and his Interpretations were almost always Literal, and, suitably to his vast Genius, very judicious. But he that considers Preaching as an Art capable of Rules and Improvement, will find a mighty Difference between a just, methodical Discourse, built upon a proper Text of Scripture, wherein, after the Text is carefully explained, some one Duty or Doctrine of Religion, thence arising, is plainly proved by just and solid Arguments, from which such Topicks of Persuasion are drawn at last, as are the most likely to raise such an Affection, and engage those Passions in the Minds of all the Auditors as will please and move good Men, and silence, at least, if not persuade the Bad; and between a loose, paraphrastical Explication of a large Portion of Scripture, which ends at last in a general Ethical Harangue, which is the usual Method of most of ​St. Chrysostom's Homilies. Whereas by the former Method, strictly followed, very many of our English Sermons, especially those of the Great Men of our own Church, since the Restauration, are Solutions of the most difficult Questions in Divinity, and just Discourses upon the several Duties of the Christian Life; and this with so much Smoothness, so great Beauty of Language, and such a just Application of the greatest Ornaments of True and Masculine Eloquence, to Things at first View very often the most opposite, that the Hearer takes a Pleasure to think, that then he is most instructed, when he is best pleased. The Want of this Method in the Ancient Homilists, is the great Reason why they are so little read. It is not because they are hard to be understood; for an indifferent Skill in Greek and Latin is sufficient to go through with the greatest part of them: But Want of Method, great Multiplicity of Words, and frequent Repetitions, tire out most Readers: They know not how far they are got, but by the Number of the Leaves; and so having no Rest for their Minds to lean upon, when once they begin to be weary, they are ​soon disgusted. If therefore these Inconveniences are, in a great Measure, avoided by Modern Preachers, their Sermons are, in their Kind, more perfect, though the Matter which both of them work upon be the same. And if these Things be the Effects of great Study, and of an exact Judgment, at least in those who contributed the most to so great an Alteration, then this also may come in as a proper Evidence of the Increase of Modern Learning; and with much more Reason than those Things which only tend to divert a Man when he is unfit for serious Business. Who those are who have succeeded the Hookers, the Chillingworths, the Sandersons, and the Hammonds of this last Age, to such excellent purpose for the present, and those that shall come after, I need not name; but shall rather conclude with that Saying in Velleius Paterculus, upon a not much unlike Occasion; Vivorum ut admiratio magna, ita censura difficilis est.
The last Thing which I mentioned as necessary for a Divine, is, To be able to answer such Objections as have been, or may be raised against the Christian Faith. Of the Controversies which ​have arisen among Christians, and the Adversaries with whom they have been obliged to engage, there are in the present Account two Sorts; those which the Ancient Fathers were concerned with, and those that appeared since. Of the Latter it may, possibly, seem hard to pass a Judgment, since one cannot well say how Men would have managed Disputes which never came in their Way. The former may also be sub-divided into those which have been renewed in our own Time; and those of which we have only the Memory in Ancient Books. So that one is rather to consider how Controversies were handled in general, and so inferr how these Modern ones would have been managed, had there been an Occasion, which have only engaged the Wits and Passions of later Ages.
It is evident, that in their first Dispures with the Gentiles, the old Apologists did, with great Accuracy, expose both the Follies of their Worship, and the Vanity of their Philosophy: They opened the Christian Religion with great Clearness; they showed the Grounds of their Belief, and proved its Reasonableness upon such Principles as were both solid in themselves, and sui​table to the Ways of Arguing, and the peculiar Notions of all their several Adversaries. Afterwards, when the Mysteries of the Christian Religion were so eagerly debated, in Ages wherein they feared no Foreign Force, they shewed as great Subtilty in their Arguments, and as great Dexterity in shifting off the Sophisms of their Opponents, as have ever been shewed in later Times. So that thus far the Moderns seem to have little Advantage: And, indeed, the Books that were written in Defence of the Christian Religion were very admirable: But in the Controversies that were managed amongst themselves, there seem to be, many Times, as visible Signs of too great a Subtilty, as of a judicious Understanding of the Point in hand: They used little Method in ranging their Arguments, and rarely stated the Question in plain and short Terms; which made them often multiply Words to a tedious Length, that both tired the Readers, and darkned the Dispute. That all these Faults are too often found in the Polemical Discourses of the Moderns, is most certain: But Comparisons are always laid between the ablest Men of both Sides. ​The Modern Defences of the Doctrines of the Trinity, and the Incarnation, may be compared with the old Defences of the same Doctrines against the Arians, and other Ancient Hereticks. If Hereticks may be compared with Hereticks, there is no Question but the Socinians are much abler Disputants than the Arians and Eunomians of old: They have collected every Thing that could look like an Argument; they have critically canvassed every Text of Scripture which anciently was not so Grammatically understood as now it is, and have spared no Pains nor Art to wrest every Thing that, with any Shew of Reason, could be drawn to their Side: They have refined upon the Philosophical Notions of God, and of his Attributes; and have taken great Care not to confound their Readers, or themselves, with Want of Method, or a Multiplicity of Words. Such able Adversaries have not failed of as able Opponents. And when Men of Skill manage any Dispute, whatsoever it be, they will teach one another the Art of Reasoning, even though before-hand they should not well have understood it, when their Debates continue to any ​Length. Whence also it has followed, that though these Great Men, who have defended our Faith against such subtile Adversaries would have shewn their Skill equally upon any other Subject which they should have undertook; yet upon these Questions, the Truth would otherwise have never been so perfectly known.
And here it ought to be observed, that the Art of making Controversies easie and intelligible, even though the Arguments should be all the same that had formerly been urged, shews much greater Skill, and a more thorough Understanding of those Matters, than had been discovered before: For, he that makes another understand a Thing in few Words, has a more clear and comprehensive Knowledge of that Thing, than another Man who uses a great many. Such a Man's Excursions, if he has a Mind at any Time to go out of the Way, or to enlarge, for the Ease of those who love to have Things expressed in an Homilitical Manner, will never tire; because, having his Point still in view, he will take Care that his Readers or Auditors shall always know where he is. Hence it is, that there are many Ser​mons in our Language, upon the most abstruse Questions in the Christian Religion, wherein English Readers who never read Fathers nor School-men; whose Heads have never been filled with Terms of Art, and Distinctions many Times without a Difference, may both in few, and clear Propositions, know what they are to believe, and at the same Time know how to defend it. Hereby in all our Controversies with Papists, Socinians, and Dissenters, many admirable Discourses have been written, wherein one sees the Question rightly stated, presently brought to an Head, and accurately proved by such Arguments as its particular Nature may require. It cannot be denied, but a good deal of this Methodical Exactness was at first owing to the School-men; but they are Moderns here: And if their Writings have some Excellencies, which the elegant Composures of more learned Ages want, this also affords us a convincing Argument, that Mankind will, in something or other, be always improving; and that Men of working Heads, what Subject soever they handle, though they live in Times when they have none but barbarous Patterns to ​copy after, will do many things which politer People did not know, or else over-look'd.
Upon this Occasion, I cannot but take Notice that the Moderns have made clearer and shorter Institutions of all Manner of Arts and Sciences than any which the Ancients have left us. I have already instanced in the Method, whereto all the Parts of Natural History have been reduced. It is evident, That Method in all those things must be the Effect of a Comprehensive Knowledge of the Bodies so ranged and of a nice Comparison of every several Body and Animal one with another, since otherwise their mutual Differences and Agreements cannot possibly be adjusted; the same has been done in Anatomy, in Chymistry, in all parts of Physicks and Mathematicks: How confused many Times, and always lax are Galen's Anatomical Discourses in Comparison of Bartholin's, Diemerbroeck's and Gibson's? Monsieur Perrault has observed already (h)(h) Parallele des Anciens & des Modernes, Dialog. III. Pag. 251-257. that Aristotle expressed himself so obscurely in his Physical Discourses, that his Meaning is almost as variously represented as there have been Commen​tators who have written upon him; whereas no Man ever doubted of the precise meaning of the Writings of Des Cartes and Rohault, though all Men are not of their Opinion. In Mathematicks the thing is yet more visible; how long and tedious are Euclid's Demonstrations, either in Greek, or as they are commented upon by Clavius, in Comparison of Tacquet's or Barrow's? Tacquet has made Astronomy intelligible with a very little Help; which before was not to be attained without a Master, and a World of Patience; the same has Varenius done in the Mathematical Part of Geography, Tacquet in Practical Geometry, Opticks, and Catoptricks. The Doctrine of the Conic Sections in Apollonius Pergæus is so intricate, the Demonstrations are so long and so perplexed, that they have always deterred all but First-Rate Geometers: This Pensioner De Witte, has made so easie in his Elements of Curve Lines (i)(i) Annexed to the last Editions of Des Cartes's Geometry., that it is readily mastered by any Man who has read the First Six Books of Euclid. Such Abridgments save Abundance of Labour, and make Knowledge pleasant to those, who in the last Age were so exceedingly frightned with the ​Thoughts of the Difficulty of these Studies, that Sir Henry Savile made as formal a Business of his Prelections upon the Definitions, Axioms, and VIII First Propositions of the First Book of Euclid, which may be thoroughly comprehended by a Man of ordinary Parts in Two Hours Time, by the Help of Tacquet's Elements, as a Man would now of Lectures upon the hardest Propositions, in Mr. Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. To these judicious Abridgements the wonderful Increase of this Part of Knowledge, for these last LXX Years is in a great Measure to be attributed; and though Methodizers and Compilers of Systems have very often the hard Fate to be undervalued by those who have been Inventors themselves; yet, in Mathematical Sciences the Case is something different; for things cannot be abbreviated here, without an almost intuitive Knowledge of the Subjects then to be abridged, and brought into one View. In Moral, or Historical Discourses, an Epitomizer immediately sees what is either in its self superfluous, or not to his particular Purpose; and so when he has cut it off, what remains is in ​some sort intire, and may be understood without the rest, so that there is no Harm done: But here that will by no means suffice, for the most verbose Mathematicians rarely ever said any thing for saying Sake, theirs being Subjects in which Figures of Rhetorick could have no sort of Place, but they made every Conclusion depend upon such a Chain of Premises already proved, that if one Link were broke, the whole Chain fell in Pieces; and therefore, he that would reduce those Demonstrations into a narrower Compass, must take the whole Proposition a new in Pieces, must turn it several Ways, must consider all the Relations which that Line, or that Solid has to other Lines or Solids, must carefully have considered how many several Ways it can be generated, before he can be able to demonstrate it by a shorter Method, and by other Arguments, than those by which it was proved before; in short, he must in a Manner be able to invent the Proposition of himself, before he can put it into this new Dress; for which Reason, Tacquet, Barrow, and De Witte, have been reckoned amongst the Principal Geometers of the ​Age, as well as for their other Inventions in Geometry. Tschirnhaus's Medicina Mentis will give a clear Idea of many things relating to this Matter:
And now, having gone through the several Parts of the Parallel which I proposed at first to make, I shall close all with Sir William Temple's Words a little altered. (k)(k) Pag. 130. 'Though Thales, Pythagoras, Democritus, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle and Epicurus, may be reckoned amongst the First mighty Conquerours of Ignorance, in our World; and though they made great Progresses in the several Empires of Science, yet not so great in very many Parts, as their Successors have since been able to reach. These have pretended to much more, than barely to learn what the others taught, or to remember what they invented; and being able to compass that it self, have set up for Authors upon their own Stocks, and not contenting themselves only with commenting upon those Texts, have both copied after former Originals already set them, and have added Originals of their own in many things of a much greater Value."
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