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Courtesy of Puritan Heart

Blog Owner’s Note: King James I was called the Wisest Fool in Christendom because he knew the Bible inside out, having been taught by some of the best of the Scots Covenanters.  Yet, he was one of the wickedest kings to rule England, his head knowledge only served for him to have a worse eternal punishment, because the hottest place in heaven the Bible teaches is for those whose great sin was one of spiritual wickedness. i.e. hypocrisy.

1. A man may have great knowledge in the letter of the Scripture, and yet not understand the necessary and saving doctrines in it. The doctrine of regeneration was laid down in the whole Old Testament, though not in that term. Let us take heed how we read the Scriptures; not to trouble our heads with needless and curious questions, but with the main mysteries of religion. What could all Nicodemus his knowledge profit him, if it had been ten thousand times more, without the knowledge of this doctrine, and the experience of it!

2. Nothing is more an enemy to the saving knowledge of gospel mysteries than a priding ourselves in head knowledge. Nicodemus his coming by night was not only from fear, but pride, that he might not be thought ignorant by the people. Humble men have the soundest knowledge: ‘The meek will he teach his way,’ Ps. xxv. 9.

3. How low was the interest of God in the world at that time! How had ignorance and error thrust the knowledge of God out of other parts of the world, when it languished so much in the church! How simple must the poor people be when the students in Scripture were no wiser! It is a thing to be bewailed amongst us, that wrangling knowledge has almost thrust out spiritual. And when Christians meet, their discourses are more about unnecessary disputes than these saving mysteries of Christianity, which might produce elevations of heart to heaven.
—The Works of Stephen Charnock