Manuductio ad ministerium. Directions for a candidate of the ministry

Abundance has been written, to recommend, The Study of the FATHERS: And it has been recommended by none more than some Neotericks and Innovators, who have had very Indirect Intentions in it, and hoped that the Fathers might help them with some Traditions, where the Scriptures failed them. What Attempts have there been therefore to set the Epistles of Ignatius almost on ⟨p. 88⟩the Level with the Epistles of our Inspired Apostles; while after all the learned Impertinences, wherewith some would maintain the larger, and some the lesser Copies of those Epistles, and painful Disputations, on the Problem, How many of them are Genuine; They are all of them Impostures, and not worthy of any Notice with you. What ado has there been, to set up, The Apostolical Constitutions as the most Valuable Part of the New Testament; when they are evidently despicable and detestable Forgeries; and the Collections of some Ignorant Arian in the Fifth Century? You may be sure, that in the Study of the Fathers, I shall at least advise you to so much Knowledge of them, as Daily in his Excellent Book of, The Use of the Fathers, will instruct you in. But, tho' the Fathers had such Errors, that we may most sensibly Bless GOD, for His granting us the Scriptures, to be on all Accounts Better and Safer Guides unto us, and the Fathers themselves do times without Number urge us to take none but the Scriptures for our Guides, and their notorious Deficiencies in several Points of Literature, laid them under Disadvantages enough to pall and spoil our Adoration of them! Nevertheless, there are those Writings of the Fathers, which I would have you no Stranger to. If you bestow a Perusal upon, the Epistles of Clemens Romanus, and the Apologies of Justin Martyr, and of Tertullian, and the Book of Origen against Celjus, you will do what I would have you to do. And I am willing you should look upon the Dialogue of Minutius Faelix as one of the most celebrated Monuments of Antiquity. But how can I persuade you to peruse all the Folio-Volumes, ⟨p. 89⟩of both the Greek and Latin Fathers? Indeed. I look on Theodoret, as the best Expositor of the Bible among all the Fathers; and there are very Notable and Refined Expositions often occurring in him; Yet I shall direct you to do little more than Consult him upon Occasion. I value Chrysostom almost as much as much as they tell us Aquinas did:

Abundance has been written, to recommend, The Study of the FATHERS: And it has been recommended by none more than some Neotericks and Innovators, who have had very Indirect Intentions in it, and hoped that the Fathers might help them with some Traditions, where the Scriptures failed them. What Attempts have there been therefore to set the Epistles of Ignatius almost on