Quest. CLXXIII. What particular directions for order of studies, and books should be observed by young students?

Because disorder is so great a disadvantage to young students, and because many have importuned me to name them some few of the best books, because they have no time to read, nor money to buy many, I shall here answer these two demands.

I. The order of their studies is such as respecteth their whole lives, or such as respecteth every day. It is the first which I now intend.

Direct. 1. The knowledge of so much of theology as is necessary to your own duty and salvation, is the first thing which you are to learn, (when you have learnt to speak). Children have souls to save; and their reason is given them to use for their Creator's service and their salvation. 1. They can never begin to learn that too soon which they were made and redeemed to learn, and which their whole lives must be employed in practising. 2. And that which absolute necessity requireth, and without which there is no salvation. 3. And that which must tell a man the only ultimate end which he must intend, in all the moral actions of his life. For the right intention of our end is antecedent to all right use of means; and till this be done, a man hath not well begun to live, nor to use his reason; nor hath he any other work for his reason, till this be first done. He liveth but in a continual sin, that doth not make God and the public good, and his salvation his end. that would not have children begin with have them serve the devil and the flesh. first and last, and all.

Therefore they divinity, would God must be our

Not that any exact or full body or method of divinity is to be learnt so early. But 1. The baptismal covenant must be well opened betime, and frequently urged upon their hearts. 2. Therefore the creed, the Lord's prayer, and decalogue, must be opened to such betime; that is, they must be wisely catechised. 3. They must be taught the Scripture history, especially Genesis and the Gospel of Christ. 4. They must with the other Scriptures, read the most plain and suitable books of practical divines (after named). 5. They must be kept in the company of suitable, wise, and

exemplary Christians, whose whole conversation will help them to the sense and love of holiness; and must be kept strictly from perverting, wicked company. 6. They must be frequently, lovingly, familiarly, yet seriously, treated with about the state of their own souls, and made to know their need of Christ and of his Holy Spirit, of justification and renovation. 7. They must be trained up in the practice of godliness, in prayer, pious speeches, and obedience to God and man. 8. They must be kept under the most powerful and profitable ministers of Christ that can be had. 9. They must be much urged to the study of their own hearts; to know themselves; what it is to be a man, to have reason, freewill, and an immortal soul: what it is to be a child of lapsed Adam, and an unregenerate, unpardoned sinner: what it is to be a redeemed, and a sanctified, justified person, and an adopted heir of life eternal. And by close examination to know which of these conditions is their own; to know what is their daily duty; and what their danger, and what their temptations and impediments, and how to

escape.

For if once the soul be truly sanctified, then, 1. Their salvation is much secured, and the main work of their lives is happily begun, and they are ready to die safely whenever God shall call them hence. 2. It will possess them with a right end, in all the studies and labours of their lives; which is an unspeakable advantage, both for their pleasing of God and profiting of themselves and others; without which they will but profane God's name and Word, and turn the ministry into a worldly, fleshly life, and study and preach for riches, preferment, or applause, and live as he, Luke xii. 18, 19. "Soul, take thy ease, eat, drink, and be merry;" and they will make theology the way to hell, and study and preach their own condemnation. 3. A holy heart will be always under the greatest motives; and therefore will be constantly and powerfully impelled (as well in secret as before others) to diligence in studies and all good endeavours. 4. And it will make all sweet and easy to them, as being a noble work, and relishing of God's love, and the endless glory to which it tendeth. A holy soul will all the year long be employed in sacred studies and works, as a good stomach at a feast, with constant pleasure! And then O how happily will all

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go on! When a carnal person with a dull, unwilling, weary mind, taketh now and then a little, when his carnal interest itself doth prevail against his more slothful, sensual inclinations; but he never followeth it with hearty affections, and therefore seldom with good success. 4. And a holy soul will be a continual treasury and fountain of holy matter, to pour out to others, when they come to the sacred ministry; so that such a one can say more from the feeling and experience of his soul, than another can in a long time gather from his books. 5. And that which he saith will come warm to the hearers, in a more lively, experimental manner, than usual carnal preachers speak. 6. And it is more likely to be attended by a greater blessing from God. 7. And there are many controversies in the church, which an experienced, holy person, ('cæteris paribus') hath great advantage in, above all others, to know the right, and be preserved from errors.

II.

Direct. 11. Let young men's time (till about eighteen, nineteen, or twenty,) be spent in the improvement of their memories, rather than in studies that require much judgment.' Therefore let them take that time to get organical knowledge; such as are the Latin and Greek tongues first and chiefly, and then the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic; with the exactest acquaintance with the true precepts of logic: and let them learn some epitome of logic without book. In this time also let them be much conversant in history, both civil, scholastical, (of philosophers, orators, poets, &c.) and ecclesiastical. And then take in as much of the mathematics as their more necessary studies will allow them time for; (still valuing knowledge according to the various degrees of usefulness).

Direct. 111. When you come to seek after more abstruse and real wisdom, join together the study of physics and theology; and take not your physics as separated from or independent on theology, but as the study of God in his works, and of his works as leading to himself. Otherwise you will be but like a scrivener or printer, who maketh his letters well, but knoweth not what they signify.

Direct. IV. Unite all 'ovroλoyía' or knowledge of real en tities into one science; both spirits and bodies; God be

ing taken in as the first and last, the original, director and end of all and study not the doctrine of bodies alone, as separated from spirits; for it is but an imaginary separation, and a delusion to men's minds. Or if you will call them by the name of several sciences, be sure you so link those severals together that the due dependance of bodies on spirits, and of the passive natures on the active may still be kept discernible; and then they will be one while you call them divers.

Direct. v. When you study only to know what is true, you must begin at the Primum cognoscibile,' and so rise in ordine cognoscendi :' but when you would come to see things in their proper order, by a more perfect, satisfying knowledge, you must draw up a synthetical scheme, ‘juxta ordinem essendi,' where God must be the first and last; the first efficient Governor and End of all.

Direct. vi. Your first study of philosophy therefore should be, of yourselves; to know a man. And the knowledge of man's soul is a part so necessary, so near, so useful, that it should take up both the first and largest room in all your physics, or knowledge of God's works: labour therefore to be accurate in this.

Direct. VII. With the knowledge of yourselves join the knowledge of the rest of the works of God; but according to the usefulness of each part to your moral duty; and as all are related to God and you.

Direct. vIII. Be sure in all your progress that you keep a distinct knowledge of things certain and things uncertain, searchable and unsearchable, revealed and unrevealed; and lay the first as your foundation, yea, rather keep the knowledge of them as your science of physics by itself, and let no obscurity in the rest cause you to question certain things; nor ever be so perverse as to try things known, by things unknown, and to argue á minús notis.' Lay no stress on small or doubtful things.

Direct. Ix. Metaphysics as now taken is a mixture of organical and real knowledge; and part of it belongeth to logic (the organical part), and the rest is theology, and pneumatology, and the highest parts of ontology, or real science.

Direct. x. In studying philosophy, 1. See that you nei

ther neglect any helps of those that have gone before you, under pretence of taking nothing upon trust, and of studying the naked things themselves; (for if every man must begin all anew, as if he had been the first philosopher, knowledge will make but small proficiency). 2. Nor yet stick in the bare belief of any writer whatsoever, but study all things in their naked natures and proper evidences, though by the helps that are afforded you by others. For it is not science, but human belief, else, whoever you take it from.

Direct. XI. So certain are the numerous errors of philosophers, so uncertain a multitude of their assertions, so various their sects, and so easy is it for any to pull down much which the rest have built, and so hard to set up any comely structure that others in like manner may not cast down; that I cannot persuade you to fall in with any one sort or sect, who yet have published their sentiments to the world. The Platonists made very noble attempts in their inquiries after spiritual beings; but they run into many unproved fanaticisms, and into divers errors, and want the desirable helps of true method. The wit of Aristotle was wonderful for subtilty and solidity; his knowledge vast; his method (oft) accurate; but many precarious, yea, erroneous conceptions and assertions, are so placed by him, as to have a troubling and corrupting influence into all the rest the Epicureans or Democratists, were still and justly the contempt of all the sober sects; and our late Somatists that follow them, yea, and Gassendus, and many that call themselves Cartesians, yea, Cartesius himself, much more Berigardus, Regius and Hobbes, do give so much more to mere matter and motion, than is truly due, and know or say so much too little of spirits, active natures, vital powers, which are the true principles of motion, that they differ as much from true philosophers, as a carcase or a clock from a living man. The Stoics had noble ethical principles, and they (and the Platonists with the Cynics,) were of the best lives; but their writings are most lost, and little of their physics fully known to us, and that also hath its errors. Patricius is but a Platonist so taken with the nature of light, as insisting on that in fanatical terms, to leave out a