7. But what do you infer from their _fewness_? That because they are _few_, therefore God cannot _work by them_? Upon what scripture do you ground this? I thought it was _the same to him, to save by many or few_. Upon what reason? Why cannot God save ten thousand souls by one man, as well as by ten thousand? How little, how inconsiderable a circumstance is number before God? Nay, is there not reason to believe, that whensoever God is pleased to work a great deliverance, spiritual or temporal, he may first say, as of old, _The people are too many for me to give the_ Midianites _into their hands_? May he not purposely chuse _few_ as well as inconsiderable instruments, for the greater manifestation of his own glory? Very _few_, I grant, are the instruments now employed: yet a great work is wrought already. And the fewer they are by whom this large harvest hath hitherto been gathered in, the more evident must it appear to unprejudiced minds, that the work is not of man, but of God.
8. “But they are not only few, but _unlearned_ also.” This is a grievous offence; and is by many esteemed a sufficient _excuse_, for not acknowledging the work to be of God.
The ground of this offence is partly true. Some of those who now preach are _unlearned_. They neither understand the antient languages, nor any of the branches of philosophy. And yet this objection might have been spared, by many of those who have frequently made it: because _they_ are _unlearned_ too (though accounted otherwise.) They have not themselves the very thing they require in others.
* Men in general are under a great mistake with regard to what is called “The Learned World.” They do not know, they cannot easily imagine, how little _learning_ there is among them. I do not speak of _abstruse learning_; but of what all divines, at least of any note, are supposed to have viz. The knowledge of the _tongues_, at least _Latin_, _Greek_ and _Hebrew_, and of the common _arts_ and _sciences_.
* How few men of learning, so called, understand _Hebrew_? Even so far as to read a plain chapter in _Genesis_? Nay, how few understand _Greek_? Make an easy experiment. Desire that grave man, who is urging this objection, only to tell you the _English_ of the first paragraph that occurs in one of _Plato’s dialogues_? I am afraid we may go farther still. How few understand _Latin_? Give one of them an _epistle_ of _Tully_, and see how readily he will explain it, without his _dictionary_. If he can hobble through that, it is odds but a _georgick_ in _Virgil_, or a _satire_ of _Persius_ sets him fast.
* And with regard to the _arts_ and _sciences_: How few understand so much as the general principles of _Logick_? Can one in ten of the clergy (O grief of heart!) or of the _masters_ of _arts_ in either university, when an argument is brought, tell you even the _mood_ and _figure_ wherein it is proposed? Or _compleat_ an _Enthymeme_? Perhaps, you do not so much as understand the term: supply the _premiss_ which is wanting, in order to make it a full _categorical syllogism_. Can one in ten of them demonstrate a _problem_ or _theorem_ in _Euclid’s Elements_? Or define the common terms used in _metaphysicks_? Or intelligibly explain the first principles of it? Why then will they _pretend_ to that learning, which they are conscious to themselves they have not? Nay, and censure others who have it not, and do not _pretend_ to it? Where are sincerity and candour fled?
* It will easily be observed, that I do not depreciate _learning_ of any kind. The knowledge of the _languages_ is a valuable talent; so is the knowledge of the _arts_ and _sciences_. Both the one and the other may be employed to the glory of God, and the good of men. But yet I ask, Where hath God declared in his word, that he _cannot_, or _will not_ make use of men that have it not? Has _Moses_, or any of the prophets affirmed this? Or our Lord? Or any of his apostles? You are sensible all these are against you. You know the apostles themselves, all except St. _Paul_, were ανδρες αγραμματοι και ιδιωται· common, unphilosophical, unlettered men.