Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/376

 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