2. Do I understand _Greek_ and _Hebrew_? Otherwise how can I undertake (as every minister does) not only to explain books which are written therein, but to defend them against all opponents? Am I not at the mercy of every one who does understand, or even pretends to understand the original? For which way can I confute his pretence? Do I understand the language of the Old Testament? Critically? At all? Can I read into _English_ one of _David’s psalms_? Or even the first chapter of _Genesis_? Do I understand the language of the New Testament? Am I a critical master of it? Have I enough of it even to read into _English_ the first chapter of St. _Luke_? If not, how many years did I spend at school? How many at the university? And what was I doing all those years? Ought not shame to cover my face?
*3. Do I understand _my own office_? Have I deeply considered before God the character which I bear? What is it to be an ambassador of Christ? An envoy from the King of heaven? And do I know and _feel_ what is implied in _watching over the souls_ of men, _as he that must give account_?
Do I understand so much of profane _history_ as tends to confirm and illustrate the sacred? Am I acquainted with the antient _customs_ of the _Jews_ and other nations mentioned in scripture? Have I a competent knowledge of _chronology_, that at least which refers to the sacred writings? And am I so far (if no farther) skilled in _geography_, as to know the situation, and give some account of all the considerable places mentioned therein?
5. Am I a tolerable master of the _sciences_? Have I gone through the very gate of them, _logic_? If not, I am not likely to go much farther, when I stumble at the threshold. Do I understand it, so as to be ever the better for it? To have it always ready for use? So as to apply every rule of it, when occasion is, almost as naturally as I turn my hand? Do I understand it at all? Are not even the _moods_ and _figures_ above my comprehension? Do not I poorly endeavour to cover my ignorance, by affecting to laugh at their barbarous names? Can I even reduce an _indirect_ mood to a _direct_? An _hypothetic_ to a _categorical_ syllogism? Rather, have not my stupid indolence and laziness, made me very ready to believe what the little wits and pretty gentlemen affirm, “That logic is good for nothing?” It is good for this at least (wherever it is understood) to make people _talk less_; by shewing them both what is, and what is not to the point; and how extremely hard it is to _prove_ any thing. Do I understand _metaphysics_? If not the depths of the schoolmen, the subtleties of _Scotus_ or _Aquinas_, yet the first rudiments, the general principles of that useful _science_? Have I conquered so much of it, as to clear my apprehension and range my ideas under proper heads? So much as enables me to read with ease and pleasure as well as profit, Dr. _Henry More_’s Works, _Malebranche’s Search after Truth_, and Dr. _Clark’s Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God_? Do I understand _natural philosophy_? If I have not gone deep therein, have I digested the general grounds of it? Have I mastered _Gravesande_, _Keil_, Sir _Isaac Newton’s Principia_, with his _Theory of Light and Colours_? In order thereto, have I laid in some stock of _mathematical_ knowledge? Am I master of the mathematical A B C, of _Euclid’s Elements_? If I have not gone thus far, if I am such a novice still, what have I been about ever since I came from school?
6. Am I acquainted with the _fathers_? At least with those venerable men, who lived in the earliest ages of the church? Have I read over and over the golden remains of _Clemens Romanus_, of _Ignatius_ and _Polycarp?_ And have I given one reading, at least, to the works of _Justin Martyr_, _Tertullian_, _Origen_, _Clemens Alexandrinus_ and _Cyprian_?
7. Have I any knowledge of the _world_? Have I studied _men_ (as well as books) and observed their tempers, maxims and manners? Have I learned, to _beware of men_? To add the wisdom of the serpent to the innocence of the dove? Has God given me by nature, or have I acquired, any measure of the _discernment of spirits_? Or of its near ally, _prudence_, enabling me on all occasions to consider all circumstances, and to suit and vary my behaviour according to the various combinations of them? Do I labour never to be rude or ill-mannered? Not to be remarkably wanting in _good-breeding_? Do I endeavour to copy after those who are eminent for address and easiness of behaviour? Am I (tho’ never light or trifling, either in word or action, yet) _affable_ and _courteous_ to all men? And do I omit no means which is in my power, and consistent with my character, of _pleasing all men_ with whom I converse, _for their good, to edification_?