Arguments of those of the society examined, who may depreciate human knowledge—This depreciation did not originate with the first Quakers—with Barclay—Penn—Ellwood—but arose afterwards—Reputed disadvantages of a classical education—Its heathen mythology and morality—Disadvantages of a philosophical one—Its scepticism—General disadvantages of human learning—Inefficiency of all the arguments advanced.
Having shewn the advantages, which generally accompany a superior education, I shall exhibit the disadvantages which may be thought to attend it, or I shall consider those arguments, which some persons of this society, who have unfortunately depreciated human learning, though with the best intentions, might use against it, if they were to see the contents of the preceding chapter.
But, before I do this, I shall exonerate the first Quakers from the charge of such a depreciation. These exhibited in their own persons the practicability of the union of knowledge and virtue. While they were eminent for their learning, they were distinguished for the piety of their lives. They were indeed the friends of both. They did not patronize the one to the prejudice and expulsion of the other.[53]
[Footnote 53: George Fox was certainly an exception to this as a scholar. He was also not friendly to classical learning on account of some of the indelicate passages contained in the classical authors, which he and Farley and Stubbs, took some pains to cite, but, if these had been removed, I believe his objections would have ceased.]
Barclay, in his celebrated apology, no where condemns the propriety or usefulness of human learning, or denies it to be promotive of the temporal comforts of man. He says that the knowledge of Latin, Greek and Hebrew, or of logic and philosophy, or of ethics, or of physics and metaphysics, is not necessary. But not necessary for what? Mark his own meaning. Not necessary to make a minister of the Gospel. But where does he say that knowledge, which he himself possessed to such a considerable extent, was not necessary, or that it did not contribute to the innocent pleasures of life? What would have been the character of his own book, or what would have been its comparative value and usefulness, if he had not been able to quote so many authors to his purpose in their original texts, or to have detected so many classical errors, or to have introduced such apposite history, or to have drawn up his propositions with so much logical and mathematical clearness and precision, or if he had not been among the first literary characters of his day?
William Penn was equally celebrated with Barclay as a scholar. His works afford abundant proof of his erudition, or of the high cultivation of his mind. Like the rest of his associates, he was no advocate for learning, as a qualification for a minister of the Gospel, but he was yet a friend to it, on the principle, that it enlarged the understanding, and that it added to the innocent pleasures of the mind. He entreated his wife, in the beautiful letter which he left her, before he embarked on his first voyage to America, "not to be sparing of expence in procuring learning for his children, for that by such parsimony all was lost that was saved." And he recommended also in the same letter the mathematical or philosophical education which I have described.
Thomas Ellwood, a celebrated writer among the early Quakers, and the friend of the great John Milton, was so sensible of the disadvantages arising from a want of knowledge, that he revived his learning, with great industry, even after he had become a Quaker. Let us hear the account which he gives of himself in his own Journal. "I mentioned before, says he, that, when I was a boy, I made some progress in learning, and that I lost it all again before I came to be a man. Nor was I slightly sensible of my last therein, till I came amongst the Quakers. But then I both saw my loss, and lamented it; and applied myself with the utmost diligence, at all leisure times to recover it. So false I found that charge to be, which in those times was east as a reproach upon the Quakers, that they despised and decried all human learning, because they denied it to be essentially necessary to a Gospel ministry, which was one of the controversies of those times."
"But though I toiled hard, and spared no pains to regain what I had once been master of, yet I found it a matter of so great difficulty, that I was ready to say, as the noble eunuch to Philip, in another case, how can I, unless I had some man to guide me?"
"This I had formerly complained of to my especial friend Isaac Pennington, but now more earnestly; which put him upon considering and contriving a means for my assistance."
"He had an intimate acquaintance with Dr. Paget, a physician of note in London, and he with John Milton, a gentleman of great note for learning, throughout the learned world, for the accurate pieces he had Written on various subjects and occasions."