DIRECTIONS FOR READING OTHER BOOKS.
BECAUSE God hath made the excellent, holy writings of his servants,
the singular blessing of this land and age; and many a one may have a
good book, even any day or hour of the week, that cannot at all have a
good preacher;[50] I advise all God's servants to be thankful for so
great a mercy, and to make use of it, and be much in reading: for
reading, with most, doth more conduce to knowledge than hearing doth,
because you may choose what subjects and the excellentest treatises
you please; and may be often at it, and may peruse again and again
what you forget, and may take time as you go to fix it on your mind:
and with very many it doth more than hearing also to move the heart,
though hearing of itself in this hath the advantage; because lively
books may be easilier had than lively preachers. Especially these
sorts of men should be much in reading: 1. Masters of families, that
have more souls to care for than their own. 2. People that live where
there is no preaching, or as bad or worse than none. 3. Poor people,
and servants, and children, that are forced on many Lord's days to
stay at home, whilst others have the opportunity to hear. 4. And
vacant persons that have more leisure than others have. To all these,
but especially masters of families, I shall here give a few
directions.
_Direct._ I. I presuppose that you keep the devil's books out of
your hands and house. I mean cards, and idle tales, and play-books,
and romances or love-books, and false, bewitching stories, and the
seducing books of all false teachers, and the railing or scorning
books which the men of several sects and factions write against each
other, on purpose to teach men to hate one another, and banish love:
for where these are suffered to corrupt the mind, all grave and useful
writings are forestalled; and it is a wonder to see how powerfully
these poison the minds of children, and many other empty heads. Also
books that are written by the sons of Korah, to breed distastes and
discontents in the minds of the people against their governors, both
magistrates and ministers. For there is something in the best rulers,
for the tongues of seditious men to fasten on, and to aggravate in the
people's ears; and there is something even in godly people, which
tempteth them too easily to take fire and be distempered before they
are aware; and they foresee not the evil to which it tendeth.
_Direct._ II. When you read to your family, or others, let it be
seasonably and gravely, when silence and attendance encourage you to
expect success; and not when children are crying or talking, or
servants bustling to disturb you. Distraction is worst in the greatest
businesses.
_Direct._ III. Choose such hooks as are most suitable to your
state, or to those you read to.[51] It is worse than unprofitable to
read books for comforting troubled minds, to those that are blockishly
secure, and have hardened, obstinate, unhumbled hearts. It is as bad
as to give medicines or plasters contrary to the patient's need, and
such as cherish the disease. So is it to read books of too high a
style or subject, to dull and ignorant hearers. We use to say, That
which is one man's meat, is another man's poison. It is not enough
that the matter be good, but it must be agreeable to the case for
which it is used.
_Direct._ IV. To a common family begin with those books, which at
once inform the judgment about the fundamentals, and awaken the
affections to entertain them and improve them. Such as are treatises
of regeneration, conversion, or repentance: to which purpose I have
written myself, The Call to the Unconverted;--The Treatise of
Conversion;--Directions for a Sound Conversion;--A Treatise of
Judgment;--A Sermon against making Light of Christ;--True
Christianity;--A Sermon of Repentance;--Now or Never;--A Saint or a
Brute; with others; which I mention, not as equalling them with
others, but as those which I am more accountable for. On this subject
these are very excellent: Mr. R. Allen's Works;--Mr. Whateley on the
New Birth;--Mr. Swinnock of Regeneration;--Mr. Pinks's five
Sermons;--most of Mr. Hooker's Sermons;--Mr. J. Rogers's Doctrine of
Faith;--Mr. Dent's Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven;--most of Mr.
Perkins's and Mr. Bolton's Works, and many the like.
_Direct._ V. Next these, read over those books which are most suited
to the state of young christians for their growth in grace, and for
their exercise of faith, and love, and obedience, and for the
mortifying of selfishness, pride, sensuality, worldliness, and other
the most dangerous sins. My own on this subject are, my Directions for
Weak Christians;--my Saints' Rest;--A Treatise of Self-denial;--another
of The Mischiefs of Self-ignorance;--Life of Faith;--Of Crucifying the
World;--The Unreasonableness of Infidelity;--Of Right Rejoicing, &c.
To this use these are excellent: Mr. Hildersham's Works;--Dr.
Preston's;--Mr. Perkins's;--Mr. Bolton's--Mr. Fenner's;--Mr.
Gurnall's;--Mr. Anthony Burgess's Sermons;--Mr. Lockier on the
Colossians; with abundance more that God hath blessed us with.
_Direct._ VI. At the same time labour to methodize your knowledge; and
to that end read first and learn some short catechism, and then some
larger (as Mr. Ball's, or the Assembly's, larger); and next some body
of divinity (as Amesius's Marrow of Divinity and Cases of Conscience,
which are Englished). And let the catechism be kept in memory while
you live, and the rest be thoroughly understood.
_Direct._ VII. Next read (to yourselves or families) the larger
expositions of the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Ten Commandments; such as
Perkins, Bishop Andrews on the Commandments, and Dod, &c.; that your
understanding may be more full, particular, and distinct, and your
families may not stop in generals, which are not understood.
_Direct._ VIII. Read much those books which direct you in a
course of daily communion with God, and ordering all your
conversations. As Mr. Reyner's Directions;--The Practice of
Piety;--Mr. Palmer's; Mr. Scudder's;--Mr. Bolton's Directions;--and my
Divine Life.
_Direct._ IX. For peace, and comfort, and increase of the love of
God, read Mr. Symmond's Deserted Soul, &c.;--and his Life of
Faith;--all Dr. Sibbs's Works;--Mr. Harsnet's Cordials;--Bishop Hall's
Works, &c.:--my Method for Peace, and Saints' Rest, &c.
_Direct._ X. For the understanding of the text of Scripture, keep
at hand either Deodate's, or the Assembly of Divines, or the Dutch
Annotations; with Dr. Hammond's, or Dickson's and Hutchinson's Brief
Observations.
_Direct._ XI. For securing you against the fever of uncharitable
zeal and schism, and contentious wranglings and cruelties for
religion's sake, read diligently Bishop Hall's Peacemaker (and other
of his books);--Mr. Burrough's Irenicon;--Acontius's Stratagems of
Satan;--and my Catholic Unity;--Catholic Church;--Universal Concord,
&c.
_Direct._ XII. For establishing you against popery, on the
soundest grounds, not running in the contrary extreme, read Dr.
Challoner's Credo Ecclesiam, &c.;--Chillingworth;--Dr. Field of the
Church, &c.;--and my True Catholic;--and my Key for Catholics;--and my
Safe Religion;--and Windingsheet for Popery;--and Disputation with Mr.
Johnson.
_Direct._ XIII. For especial preparation for affliction,
sufferings, sickness, death, read Mr. Hughes's Rod;--Mr. Lawrence's
Christ's Power over Sicknesses;--Mr. S. Rutherford's Letters, &c.;--my
Treatise of Self-denial;--the Believer's Last Work;--the Last Enemy
Death;--and the Fourth Part of my Saints' Rest. I will add no more,
lest they seem too many.
[50] Xenophon primus omnium quae dicebantur, notis excepta in
publicium edidit. Laert. in Xenoph.
[51] Saith Aristippus, (in Laert.) As they are not the health-fullest
that eat most, so are they not the learnedest that read most, but they
that read that which is most necessary and profitable.