Make careful choice of the books which you read. Let the Holy Scriptures
ever have the pre-eminence, and next them, the solid, lively, heavenly
treatises which best expound and apply the Scriptures: and next those,
the credible histories, especially of the Church, and tractates upon
inferior sciences and arts: but take heed of the poison of the writings
of false teachers, which would corrupt your understandings: and of vain
romances, play-books, and false stories, which may bewitch your
fantasies and corrupt your hearts.
To a very judicious able reader, who is fit to censure all he reads,
there is no great danger in the reading of the Books of any seducers: it
doth but show him how little and thin a cloak is used to cover a bad
cause. But alas, young soldiers, not used to such wars, are startled at
a very sophism, or at a terrible threatening of damnation to dissenters
(which every censorious sect can use) or at every confident triumphant
boast, or at everything that hath a fair pretence of truth or
godliness.... Meddle not therefore with poison, till you better know how
to use it, and may do it with less danger; as long as you have no need.
As for play-books, and romances, and idle tales, I have already showed,
in my _Book of Self-denial_, how pernicious they are, especially to
youth, and to frothy, empty, idle wits, that know not _what a man is_,
nor what he hath to do in the world. They are powerful baits of the
Devil, to keep more necessary things out of their minds, and better
books out of their hands, and to poison the mind so much the more
dangerously, as they are read with more delight and pleasure.--R.
BAXTER. _Christian Directory._