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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

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.

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'ovroλoyia' or knowledge of real en tities into one science; both spirits and bodies; God be

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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. vII. 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. 1x. 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

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great deal more that must be conjoined. Telesius doth the like by heat and cold, heaven and earth, and among many observable things, hath much that is unsound and of ill consequence. Campanella hath improved him, and hath many hints of better principles (especially in his primalities) than all the rest but he fanatically runs them up into so many unproved and vain, yea, and mistaken superstructures, as that no true body of physics can be gathered out of all his works. The attempt that pious Commenius hath made in his small manual hath much that is of worth; but far short of accurateness. The Hermetical philosophers have no true method of philosophy among them; and to make their three or five principles to be so many elements, or simple bodies, constituting all compounds, and form up a system of philosophy on their suppositions, will be but a trifle and not to satisfy judicious minds; especially considering how defective their philosophy is made by their omissions. Lullius and his followers fit not their method to the true order of the matter. Scaliger, Scheggius, Wendeline and Sennertus (especially in his Hypomnemata) were great men, and have many excellent things; but too much of Aristotle's goeth for current with them. My worthy, learned and truly pious friend Mr. Sam. Gott in his new book on Gen. i. hath many excellent notions, and much that is scarce elsewhere to be met with: but the tedious paragraphs, the defect of method, and several unproveable particulars, make it like all human works imperfect.

Therefore if I must direct you according to my judgment, I must advise you, 1. To suppose that philosophers are all still in very great darkness, and there is much confusion, defectiveness, error and division, and uncertainty among them. 2. Therefore addict not yourselves absolutely to any sect of them. 3. Let your first studies of them all leave room for the changing of your judgment, and do not too hastily fix on any of their sentiments as sure, till you have heard what others say, and with ripened understandings have deeply and long studied the things themselves. 4. Choose out so much of the certainties and useful parts of physics as you can reach to, and make them know their places in subserviency to your holy principles and ends;

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