Chapter 126 of 325

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Scott’s Letters and Papers, pp. 309, 310. ‘I wish every clergyman’—said Mr. Richmond—‘to have a mind stored with useful literature, every particle of which should be consecrated to the study of the Bible and the souls of men.’ ‘I abhor’—said Baxter (Narrative of his Life) ‘the folly of those unlearned persons, who revile or despise learning, because they do not know what it is; and I do not take any piece of true learning to be useless. And yet my soul approves of the resolution of holy Paul, who determined to know nothing among his hearers (to comparatively value no other wisdom but the knowledge of a crucified Christ).’ ‘I carried along with me in all my studies this great design; namely, of improving them and the knowledge acquired by them for the honour of God’s name, and the greater discovery of his wisdom, power, and truth; and so translated my secular learning into an improvement of Divine knowledge. And had I not practised this design in my acquisitions of human learning, I would have concluded that my time was misspent: because I ever thought it unworthy of a man that had an everlasting soul, to furnish it only with such learning as would either die with his body, and so become unuseful for his everlasting state, or that in the next moment after death it would be attained, without labour or toil in this life.’ Judge Hale’s account of the Good Steward. Many of us might profitably sit at the feet of this distinguished Christian layman.

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