Directions for weak distempered Christians, to grow up to a confirmed state of grace…

But here I must give you this further advice. 1. That you proceed in due order, from the fundamental points to those that lye next them; & do not overpass the points of next necessity and weight, and go to higher and less needful matters, before you are ready for them. 2. And also see that you receive all following truths that are taught you, as flowing from the foundation, and conjoined with it. Disorderly proceedings have unspeakably wronged the souls of many thousands, when they are presently upon controversies and smaller matters, before they understand abundance of more necessary things that must be first understood. This course doth make them lose their labour, and worse; it deceiveth the understanding instead of informing it: and thereupon it perverts the will it self, and turns men to an heretical, proud, or perverse frame of spirit; and then it must needs mislead their practises, and cause them like deluded men to be zealous in doing mischief, while they think they are doing good. In common matters you can see, that you must learn and do things in their due order, or else you will but make fools of your selves. Will you go to the top of the stairs or ladder, without beginning at the lower steps? Will you sow your ground before you manure or plough it? or can you reap before you sow it? Will you ride your colt before you break him? Will your rear an house before you frame it? Or will you teach your children Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin, before they learn English? or to read the hardest books before they learn the easiest? or can they read before they learn to spell, or know their letters? No more can you learn ⟨p. 104⟩the difficult controversies in divinity (as about the exposition of obscure Prophesies, or doctrinal doubts,) till you have taken up before you those many great and necessary truths that lye between. It would make a wise man pity them and be ashamed to hear them, when young raw self-conceited Professors, will fall into confident expositions of Daniel, the Revelations, or the Canticles, or such like, or into disputes about freewill, or predestination, or about the many controversies of the times, when, alas, they are ignorant of a hundred truths (about the Covenants, Justification, and the like) which must be known before they can reach the rest!

But here I must give you this further advice. 1. That you proceed in due order, from the fundamental points to those that lye next them; & do not overpass the points of next necessity and weight, and go to higher and less needful matters, before you are ready for them. 2. And also see that you receive all following truths that are taught you, as flowing from the foundation, and conjoyned with it. Disorderly proceedings have unspeakably wrong'd the souls of many thousands, when they are presently upon controversies and smaller matters, before they understand abundance of more necessary things that must be first understood. This course doth make them lose their labour, and worse; it deceiveth the understanding instead of informing it: and thereupon it perverts the will it self, and turns men to an heretical, proud, or perverse frame of spirit; and then it must needs mislead their practises, and cause them like deluded men to be zealous in doing mischief, while they think they are doing good. In common matters you can see, that you must learn and do things in their due order, or else you will but make fools of your selves. Will you go to the top of the stairs or ladder, without beginning at the lower steps? Will you sow your ground before you manure or plow it? or can you reap before you sow it? Will you ride your colt before you break him? Will your rear an house before you frame it? Or will you teach your children Hebrew, and Greek, and Latine, before they learn English? or to read the hardest books before they learn the easiest? or can they read before they learn to spell, or know their letters? No more can you learn