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 God, and is not subject to his law, nor can be;[316] all these and such other passages are not insignificant, but most considerable truths from the Spirit of truth. You have only that light that will show you the shell, 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 God, 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 God your ultimate end; then you may easily see, that whenever you leave out God 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 godliness; 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 godliness: from such turn away," 1 Tim. vi. 3-6. As there is no knowledge but from God, so it is not knowledge but dotage if it lead not unto God.
_Direct._ III. See therefore that you choose all your studies according to their tendency to God 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 God and for God: 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 God the end, is it that ennobleth the matter of your studies. All true knowledge leads to God; 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 God, 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.