592 AN HUMBLE ATTEMPT, &C. place, which furnish the mind with knowledge for the work of a minister; for though it is known you have passed-through the several stages of science in your younger years, and have made a good improvement in them, yet a review of many of themwill be found needful, and an increase in some (so far as leisure per- mits) may be proper and useful, even through the whole course of life. Among these some are necessary to improve the reason- ing faculty, to teach us to distinguish truth from falsehood, and to judge aright concerning any subjects that are proposed to us ; such are the art of logic,. which gives us rules for judging and reasoning, and some of the speculative principles of the mathe- matics, particularly the demonstrations of geometry,. and the inferences or corollaries that are drawn from them, wherein we have the clearest and. fairest examples to teach us reasoning by the practice of it. And as all arts and sciences have a connection with and in- fluenceupon each other, so for a divine as well as for a physician, it is needful there should be some knowledge of nature and the powers of it in the heavens and earth, in the air and water, that we may thereby learn and teach more of the glories of our Cre- ator, and more easily distinguish between what is natural and what is miraculous. This will enable us also to think and speak more justly almost upon any subject which occurs in our private reading, in our public ministry, or in our daily conversation ; and particularly it is useful, if not necessary for a minister to have some acquaintance with human nature, in the two consti- tuent parts of it, soul and body, and in the powers and passions of mankind, that we may better distinguish how far particular actions are natural and mechanical, and how far they are volun- tary and moral, virtuous or sinful; how far they are influenced by flesh and blood, and how far they are under the government of the will, which is of great importance in order to judge right in many cases of conscience, and to give directions for the moral or religious life. It is needful also, and ofconsiderable moment, that a divine should be acquainted-with the arts of method and of oratory, the one to range our thoughts and discourses in due order, and to set the things of God before men in the plainest, the most conspi- cuous and convincing light ; and the other to win upan the hearts of the hearers, and to lead them by a sweet and powerful' influence on their affectians, into the love and practice of religion. There are other parts of science whichare necessary for ministers to be well acquainted with, and particularly those which are the foundations of all religion ; such as the knowledge of God and his attributes by the light of nature and reason, the knowledge of n:an as a creature of God, in his natural dependanee upan his. Creator, and in his moral relations both to God and his fellow-
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