A Christian Directory Volume I Part 66

_Direct._ I. Let it be your first and most serious study to make sure that you are regenerate, and sanctified by the Holy Ghost, and justified by faith in Christ, and love G.o.d above all, as your reconciled Father, and so have right to the heavenly inheritance.

For, 1. You are nearest to yourselves, and your everlasting happiness is your nearest and your highest interest: what will it profit you to know all the world, and to lose your own souls? to know as much as devils, and be for ever miserable with devils?

2. It is a most doleful employment to be all day at work in Satan's chains! to sit studying G.o.d and the holy Scriptures, while you are in the power of the devil, and have hearts that are at enmity to the holiness of that G.o.d and that Scripture which you are studying! It is a most preposterous and incongruous course of study, if you first study not your own deliverance. And if you knew your case, and saw your chains, your trembling would disturb your studies.

3. Till you are renewed you study in the dark, and without that internal sight and sense, by which the life, and spirit, and kernel of all that you study must be known. All that the Scripture saith of the darkness of a state of sin, and of the illumination of the Spirit, and of the marvellous light of regenerate souls, and of the natural man's not receiving the things of the Spirit, and of the carnal mind that is enmity against G.o.d, and is not subject to his law, nor can be;[316] all these and such other pa.s.sages are not insignificant, but most considerable truths from the Spirit of truth. You have only that light that will show you the sh.e.l.l, and the dead letter, but not the soul, and quickening sense, of any practical holy truth. As the eye knoweth meat which we never tasted, or as a mere grammarian, or logician, readeth a law book, or physic book, (who gather nothing out of them that will save a man's estate or life,) so will you prosecute all your studies.

4. You are like to have but ill success in your studies, when the devil is your master, who hateth both you, and the holy things which you are studying. He will blind you, and pervert you, and possess your minds with false conceits, and put diverting, sensual thoughts into you, and will keep your own souls from being ever the better for it all.

5. You will want the true end of all right studies, and set up wrong ends; and therefore whatever be the matter of your studies, you are still out of your way, and know nothing rightly, because you know it not as a means to the true end. (But of this anon.)

_Direct._ II. When you have first laid this foundation, and have the true principle and end of all right studies, be sure that you intend this end in all, even the everlasting sight and love of G.o.d, and the promoting his glory, and pleasing his holy will; and that you never meddle with any studies separated from this end, but as means thereto, and as animated thereby.

If every step in your journey is but loss of time and labour, which is not directed to your journey's end; and if all that you have to mind or do in the world, be only about your end or the means; and all creatures and actions can have no other moral goodness, than to be the means of G.o.d your ultimate end; then you may easily see, that whenever you leave out G.o.d as the end of any of your studies, you are but sinning, or doting; for in those studies there can be no moral good, though they may tend to your knowledge of natural good and evil. And when you think you grow wise and learned men, and can dispute and talk of many things, which make to your renown, while your "wills consent not to the wholesome words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the doctrine which is according to G.o.dliness; you are proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railing, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, supposing that gain is G.o.dliness: from such turn away,"

1 Tim. vi. 3-6. As there is no knowledge but from G.o.d, so it is not knowledge but dotage if it lead not unto G.o.d.

_Direct._ III. See therefore that you choose all your studies according to their tendency to G.o.d your end, and use them still under the notion of means, and that you estimate your knowledge by this end, and judge yourselves to know no more indeed, than you know of G.o.d and for G.o.d: and so let practical divinity be the soul of all your studies.

Therefore, when life is too short for the studies of all things which we desire to know, make sure of the chief things, and prefer those studies which make most to your end; spend not your time on things unprofitable to this end; spend not your first and chiefest time on things unnecessary to it; for the near connexion to G.o.d the end, is it that enn.o.bleth the matter of your studies. All true knowledge leads to G.o.d; but not all alike: the nearest to him is the best.[317]

_Direct._ IV. Remember that the chief part of your growth in knowledge, is not in knowing many smaller things, of no necessity; but in a growing downwards in a clearer insight into the foundation of the christian faith, and in taking better rooting than you had at your first believing; and in growing upward into a greater knowledge of G.o.d, and into a greater love of him, and heavenly-mindedness, and then in growing up to greater skill, and ability, and readiness to do him service in the world.

Know as much as you can know of the works of G.o.d, and of the languages and customs of the world; but still remember, that to know G.o.d in Christ better, is the growth which you must daily study: and when you know them most, you have still much more need to know better these great things which you know already, than to know more things which you never knew. The roots of faith may still increase, and the branches and fruits of love may be still greater and sweeter! As long as you live, you may still know better the reasons of your religion, (though not better reasons,) and you may know better how to use your knowledge. And whatever you know, let it be that you may be led up to know G.o.d more, or love him more, or serve him better.

_Direct._ V. With fear and detestation watch and resolve against all carnal, worldly ends; and see that your hearts be not captivated by your fleshly interest; nor grow to a high esteem of the pleasures, or profits, or honours of this world, nor to relish any fleshly accommodations, as very pleasant and desirable: but that you take up with G.o.d and the hopes of glory as your satisfying portion, and follow Christ as cross-bearers, denying yourselves, and dead to the world, and resolved and prepared to forsake all for his sake.

These are words that you can easily say yourselves; but these are things that are so hardly learned, that many of the most learned and reverend perish for want of being better acquainted with them (and I shall never take that man to be wisely learned, that hath not learned to escape d.a.m.nation). Christ's cross is to be learned before your alphabet. To impose the cross is quickly learned, but to learn to bear it is the difficulty. To lay the cross on others is to be the followers of Pilate; but to bear it when it is laid on us, is to be the followers of Christ. If you grow corrupted with a love of honour, and riches, and preferment, and come to the study of divinity with a fleshly, worldly mind and end, you will but serve Satan while you seem to be seeking after G.o.d, and d.a.m.n your souls among the doctrines and means of salvation, and go to G.o.d for materials to chain you faster to the devil, and steal a nail from divinity to fasten your ears unto his door. And you little know how Judas's gain will gripe and torment the awakened conscience! and how the rust will witness against you, and how it will eat your flesh as fire, James v. 3.

_Direct._ VI. Digest all that you know, and turn it into holy habits, and expect that success first on yourselves, which if you were to preach you would expect in others. Remembering that knowing is not the end of knowing; but it is as eating to the body, where health, and strength, and service are the end.[318]

Every truth of G.o.d is his candle which he sets up for you to work by; it is as food that is for life and action. You lose all the knowledge which ends in knowing. To fill your head and common-place book is not all that you have to do. But to fortify, and quicken, and inflame your hearts. Good habits are the best provision for a preacher. The habits of mind are better than the best library. But if the habits of heavenly love, and life in the heart, do not concur, the heart and life of a preacher and a scholar are wanting still, for all your knowledge. Study Paul's words, 1 Cor. viii. 1, "Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth." If he had said that knowledge edifieth others, and charity saveth ourselves, he would have said nothing that is strange. But even as to edification charity hath the precedency.

_Direct._ VII. Yea, see that you excel the unlearned as much in holiness as you do in knowledge: unless you will persuade them that your knowledge is a useless, worthless thing; and unless you would be judged as unprofitable servants.

Every degree of knowledge is for a further degree of holiness: ten talents must be improved to ten more. They that know and do not, are beaten with many stripes. The devil's scholars look on the G.o.dly that are unlearned with hatred and disdain, and preach to their discouragement and disgrace, and strive to set and keep true G.o.dliness in the stocks. But Christ's ministers love holiness wherever they see it, and are ashamed to think that the unlearned should be more holy and heavenly than they; and strive to go beyond them as much in the use and ends of knowledge, as in knowledge itself; and with Austin lament, that while the unlearned take heaven by violence, the learned are thrust out into h.e.l.l, as thinking it is their part to know and teach, and other men's to practise.

_Direct._ VIII. Cast not away a moment of your precious time in idleness, or impertinencies; but follow your work diligently, and with all your might.

I mean not that you should overdo, and overthrow your brains and bodies, nor forbear such sober exercise as is most necessary to your health; for a sick body is an ill companion for a student, and much more a crazed brain. But time-wasters are lovers of pleasure or idleness, more than of knowledge and holiness: and wisdom falleth not into idle, sluggish, dreaming souls. If you think it not worth your painfullest and closest studies, you must take up with idle ignorance, and go abroad with swelling t.i.tles and empty brains, as the deceivers and the scourgers of the church.

_Direct._ IX. Keep up a delight in all your studies, and carry them on not in an unwilling weariness: and, if it be not by notable error in matter or method, gratify your delight with such things as you are best pleased with, though they bring some smaller inconvenience; because else your weariness may bring much more.

I know that a delight in sin and vanity is not to be gratified; and force must be used with a backward mind in case of necessity and weight. But if it be but in the variety of subjects, and the choice of pleasing studies which are profitable, though simply some other might be fitter, something is to be yielded to delight. But especially the heart must be got to a delight in holy things: and then, time will be improved; the memory will be helped; much will be done; and you will persevere; and it will preserve the mind from temptations to needless recreations, and from the deadly plague of youthful l.u.s.ts, when your daily labour is a greater pleasure to you.

_Direct._ X. Get some judicious man to draw you up the t.i.tles of a threefold common-place book: one part for definitions, axioms, and necessary doctrines; another part for what is useful for ornament and oratory; and another for references as a common index to all the books of that science which you read: for memory will not serve for all.

Ordinarily students have not judgment enough to form their own common-place books till they are old in studies, and have read most of the authors which they would remember; and therefore the young must here have a judicious helper. And when they have done, injudiciousness will be apt to fill it with less necessary things, and to make an unmeet choice of matter, if they have not care and an instructor.

_Direct._ XI. Highly esteem a just method in divinity, and in all your studies; and labour to get an accurate scheme or skeleton, where at once you may see every part in its proper place. But remember that if it be not sound, it will be a snare; and one error in your scheme or method will be apt to introduce abundance more.[319]

It is a poor and pitiful kind of knowledge, to know many loose parcels, and broken members of truth, without knowing the whole, or the place and the relation which they have to the rest. To know letters and not syllables, or syllables and not words, or words and not sentences, or sentences and not the scope of the discourse, are all but an unprofitable knowledge. He knoweth no science rightly that hath not anatomized it, and carrieth not a true scheme or method of it in his mind. But among the many that are extant, to commend any one to you which I most esteem, or take to be without error, is more than I dare do.

_Direct._ XII. Still keep the primitive, fundamental verities in your mind, and see every other truth which you learn as springing out of them, and receiving their life and nourishment from them: and still keep in your minds a clear distinction between the truths of several degrees, both of necessity, and certainty, always reducing the less necessary to the more necessary, and the less certain to the more certain, and not contrarily.[320]

If G.o.d had made all points of faith, or Scripture revelation, of equal necessity, our baptism would not only have mentioned our belief in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; nor should we ever have seen the ancient creed, nor the ten commandments. And if all points were of equal evidence, and plainness, and certainty to us, we should not have some so much controverted above others: "Some things" in Scripture are "hard to be understood," but not "all things," 2 Pet. iii. 16. To pretend that any truth is more necessary than it is, doth tend to uncharitableness and contention: and to say that any is less necessary than it is, doth tend to the neglect of it, and to the danger of souls. To pretend any point to be more plain and certain than it is, doth but show our pride and ignorance. But to set up uncertain and unnecessary points, and make a religion of them, and reduce things certain or necessary to them, this is the method of turbulent heretics.

_Direct._ XIII. Take nothing as universally necessary in religion, which was not so taken in the days of the apostles, and primitive church; and take that for the safest way to heaven which the apostles went who certainly are there: value the apostolical purity, simplicity, charity, and unity; and follow not them that by being wise and pious overmuch, corrupt our sacred pattern by their additions, and fill the church with uncharitableness and strife.

If it were not a thing too evident that dominion and riches go for religion with them, and gain for G.o.dliness, and honour and money instead of argument, it would be a most stupendous wonder that so many learned men should be found among christians in the world, to hinder the peace and unity of the church, as do it vehemently and implacably in the church of Rome; when so easy a thing, and so reasonable, would unite almost all the christian world, as is the requiring no more as necessary to our union, than what was made necessary in the days of the apostles, and the obtruding nothing as necessary to salvation, which the apostles and primitive church were saved without. This easy, reasonable thing, which no man hath any thing of seeming sense and weight to speak against, would end all the ruinating differences among christians.

_Direct._ XIV. Be desirous to know all that G.o.d would have you know, and be willing to be ignorant of all that G.o.d would have you ignorant of; and pry not into unrevealed things; and much less make them the matter of any uncharitable strife.

Abundance of contentious volumes between the Dominicans, and Jesuits, and many others, are stuffed with bold inquiries, wranglings, or determinations of unsearchable mysteries, utterly unknown to those that voluminously debate them, and never revealed in the word or works of G.o.d. Keep off with reverence from concealed mysteries. Talk not as boldly of the divine influx, and the priority, posteriority, dependence or reason of G.o.d's decrees, as if you were talking of your common affairs. Come with great reverence when you are called of G.o.d to search into those high and holy truths, which he hath revealed. But pretend not to know that which is not to be known. For you will but discover your ignorance and arrogance, and know never the more, when you have doted about questions never so long.

_Direct._ XV. Avoid both extremes, of them that study no more but to know what others have written and held before them, and of them that little regarded the discoveries of others. Learn all of your teachers and authors that they can teach you; but make all your own, and see things in their proper evidence; and improve their discoveries by the utmost of your diligence; abhorring a proud desire of singularity, or to seem wiser than you are.

Most students through slothfulness look no further for knowledge than into their books; and their learning lieth but in knowing what others have written, or said, or held before them; especially where the least differing from the judgment of the party which is uppermost or in reputation, doth tend to hazard a man's honour, or preferments, there men think it dangerous to seem to know more than is commonly known; and therefore think it needless to study to know it. Men are backward to take much pains to know that which tendeth to their ruin to be known, but doth them no harm while they can but keep themselves ignorant of it: which makes the opposed truth have so few entertainers or students among the papists, or any that persecute or reproach it.

And others discerning this extreme, do run into the contrary; and under pretence of the loveliness of truth, and the need of liberty of judging, do think the edifying way is first to pull down all that others have built before them, and little regard the judgment of their predecessors, but think they must take nothing on trust from others, but begin all from the very ground themselves. And usually their pride makes them so little regard the most approved authors, that they have not patience to read them till they thoroughly understand them; but reject that which is received, before they understand it, merely because it was the received way: and while they say, that nothing must be taken upon trust, they presently take upon trust themselves that very opinion, and with it the other opinions of those novelists that teach them this. And believing what such say in disgrace of others, withal they believe what they hold in opposition to those that they have disgraced. But it is easy to see how sad a case mankind were in, if every man must be a fabricator of all his knowledge himself, and posterity should be never the better for the discoveries of their ancestors; and the greatest labours of the wisest men, and their highest attainments, must be no profit to any but themselves. Why do they use a teacher, if they must do all themselves? If they believe not their tutors, and take nothing on trust, it seems they must know every truth before they will learn it: and what difference is there between believing a tutor and an author? And is not that more credible which upon long experience is approved by many nations and ages, than that which is recommended to you but by one or few? These students should have made themselves an alphabet or grammar, and not have taken the common ones on trust. It is easier to add to other men's inventions, than to begin and carry on all ourselves. By their course of study, the world would never grow wiser; but every age and person be still beginning, and none proceed beyond their rudiments.

_Direct._ XVI. Be sure you make choice of meet teachers and companions for your studies and your lives; that they be such as will a.s.sist you in the holy practice of what you know, as well as in your knowledge: and shun as a plague the familiarity, 1. Of sensual, idle, brutish persons. 2. And of carnal, ambitious ones, who know no higher end than preferment and applause. 3. And of proud, heretical, contentious wits, whose wisdom and religion are nothing but censuring, reproaching, and vilifying them that are wiser and better than themselves.

Bad company is the common ruin of both: their own sensuality is easily stirred up by the temptations of the sensual; and their consciences overborne by the examples of other men's voluptuous lives. It imboldeneth them to sin, to see others sin before them; as cowards themselves are drawn on in an army to run upon the face of death, by seeing others do it, and to avoid the reproach of cowardice; and the noise of mirth and ranting language, are the drums and trumpets of the devils, by which their ears are kept from hearing the cries of wounded, dying men, the lamentations of those that have found the error of that way. And there is in corrupted nature so strong an inclination to the prosperity and vain-glory of the world, that makes them quickly take the bait, especially when the devil doth offer it them by a fit instrument, which shall not deter them, as it would do if he had offered it them himself. It is a pleasant thing to flesh and blood to be rich and great, and generally applauded; and a grievous thing to be poor, and despised, and afflicted.[321] The rawness also and unsettledness of youth, who want well furnished understandings and experience, is a great advantage to heretics and deceivers, who still sweep many such away, wherever they come and have but opportunity.

Children are "easily tossed up and down, and carried to and fro with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning sleight and subtlety of them that lie in wait to deceive," Eph. iv. 14. Deceivers have their methods; and methods are the common instruments of deceit, which are not easily detected by the unexperienced. On the contrary, the benefit of wise, and staid, and sober, and peaceable, meek, humble, holy, heavenly companions, is exceeding great, especially to youth! Such will lead them in safe paths, and be still preserving them, and promoting the most necessary parts of knowledge, and quickening them to holy practice, which is the end of all.

_Direct._ XVII. In all your studies be jealous of both extremes; and distinctly discern which are the extremes, that you run not into one while you avoid the other. And be especially careful, that you imagine not co-ordinates or subordinates to be opposites; and throw not away every truth, which you cannot presently place rightly in the frame, and see it fall in agreeably with the rest; for a further insight into true method (attained but by very few) may reconcile you to that which now offendeth you. What G.o.d hath joined together, be sure that you never put asunder; though yet you cannot find their proper places.[322]

There is scarce any error more common among students, than supposing those truths to be inconsistent, which indeed have a necessary dependence on each other; and a casting truth away as error, because they cannot reconcile it to some other truth. And there is nothing so much causeth this, as want of a true method. But that hath no method considerable, or after much curious labour hath fallen upon a false method, or a method that in any one considerable point is out of joint, will deal thus by many certain truths: as an ignorant person that is to set all the scattered parts of a clock or watch together, if he misplace one, will be unable rightly to place all the rest; and then, when he finds that they fit not the place which he thinks they must be in, he casteth them away, and thinks they are not the right, and is searching for or maketh something else to fit that place. False method rejecteth many a truth.

And, unless it be in loving G.o.d, or other acts of the superior faculties, about their ultimate end and highest object, there is scarce any thing in mortality but hath its extremes. And where they are not discerned, they are seldom well avoided. And usually narrow-sighted persons are fearful only of one extreme, and see no danger but on one side; and therefore are easily carried, by avoiding that, into the contrary.

I think it not unprofitable to instance in several particular cautions, that you imitate not them that put asunder what G.o.d hath conjoined, and cast not away truth as oft as you are puzzled in the right placing or methodizing it.

_Instance_ I. The first and second causes are conjoined in their operations, and therefore must not be put asunder. If the way of influx, concourse, or co-operation be dark and unsearchable to you, do not deny that it is, because you see not how it is. The honour of the first and second cause also are conjunct, according to their several interests in the effects: do not therefore imagine, that all the honour ascribed to the second cause is denied or taken away from the first; for then you understand not their order: otherwise you would see, that as the second causeth independence on the first, and insubordination to it, and hath no power but what is communicated by it, so it hath no honour but what is received from it; and that it is no less honour for the first cause to operate mediately by the second, than immediately by itself: and that there is no less of the power, wisdom, or goodness of G.o.d, in an effect produced by means and second causes, than in that which he produceth of himself only, without them: and that it is his goodness to communicate a power of good to his creatures, and the honour of working and causing under him: but he never loseth any thing by communicating, nor hath the less himself by giving to his creatures: for if all that honour that is given to the creature were taken injuriously from G.o.d, then G.o.d would never have made the world, nor made a saint; and then the worst creatures would least dishonour G.o.d: then he would not s.h.i.+ne by the sun, but by himself immediately: and then he would never glorify either saint or angel. But on the contrary, it is G.o.d's honour to work by adapted means; and all their honour is truly his; as all the commendation of a clock or watch is given to the workman. And though G.o.d do not all so immediately, as to use no means or second causes; yet is he never the further from the effect, but, _immediatione virtutis et suppositi_, is himself as near as if he used none.

_Instance_ II. The special providence of G.o.d, and his being the first universal cause, are conjunct with the culpability of sinners; and no man must put these asunder. Those that cannot see just how they are conjoined, may be sure that they are conjoined. It is no dishonour to an engineer that he can make a watch which shall go longer than he is moving it with his finger. Nor is it a dishonour to our Creator, that he can make a creature which can morally determine itself to an action as commanded or forbidden, without the predetermination of his Maker, though not without his universal concourse necessary to action as action. If Adam could not do this through the natural impossibility of it, then the law was, that he should die the death if he did not overcome G.o.d, or do that which was naturally impossible; and this was the nature of his sin. Few dare say, that G.o.d cannot make a free, self-determining agent; and if he can, we shall easily prove that he hath; and the force of their opposition then is vanished.

_Instance_ III. The omniscience of G.o.d, and his dominion, government, and decrees, are conjunct with the liberty and sin of man: yet these by many are put asunder: as if G.o.d must either be ignorant or be the author of sin! As if he made one poor, by decreeing to make another rich! As if he cannot be a perfect governor, unless he procure all his subjects perfectly to keep his laws! As if all the fault of those that break the law, were to be laid upon the maker of the law! As if all G.o.d's will _de debito_ were not effective of its proper work, unless man fulfil it in the event! And as if it were possible for any creature to comprehend the way of the Creator's knowledge.

_Instance_ IV. Many would separate nature and grace, which G.o.d the author of both conjoineth. When grace supposeth nature, and in her garden soweth all her seed, and exciteth and rectifieth all her powers; yet these men talk as if nature had been annihilated, or grace came to annihilate it, and not to cure it. As if the leprosy and disease of nature were nature itself! And as if natural good had been lost as much as moral good! As if man were not man till grace made him a man!

_Instance_ V. Many separate the natural power of a sinner from his moral impotency, and his natural freedom of will from his moral servitude, as if they were inconsistent, when they are conjunct. As if the natural faculty might not consist with an evil disposition; or a natural power with an habitual unwillingness to exercise it aright.

And as if a sinner were not still a man.

_Instance_ VI. Many separate general and special grace and redemption, as inconsistent, when they are conjunct; when the general is the proper way and means of accomplis.h.i.+ng the ends of the special grace, and is still supposed. As if G.o.d could not give more to some, if he give any thing to all. Or as if he gave nothing to all, if he give more to any. As if he could not deal equally and without difference with all as a legislator, and righteously with all as a judge, unless he deal equally and without difference with all as a benefactor, in the free distribution of his gifts. As if he were obliged to make every worm and beast a man, and every man a king, and every king an angel, and every clod a star, and every star a sun!

_Instance_ VII. Many separate the glory of G.o.d and man's salvation, G.o.d and man, in a.s.signing the ultimate end of man! As if a moral intention might not take in both! As if it were not _finis amantis_; and the end of a lover were not union in mutual love! As if love to G.o.d may not be for ever the final act, and G.o.d himself the final object: and as if, in this magnetic closure, though both may be called the end, yet there might not in the closing parties be an infinite disproportion, and only one be _finis ultimate ultimus_.

_Instance_ VIII. Yea, many would separate G.o.d from G.o.d, while they would separate G.o.d from heaven, and say that we must be content to be shut out of heaven for the love of G.o.d; when our heaven is the perfect love of G.o.d. And so they say in effect, that for the love of G.o.d we must be content to be shut out from the love of G.o.d.