them. Yea, further, where you find the scriptures and your authors
agree, yet believe it for the sake of scripture's authority. I honor
the godly as Christians, but I prefer the Bible before them; and
having that still with me, I count myself far better furnished than
if I had, without it, all the libraries of the two universities.
Besides, I am for drinking water out of my own cistern: what God
makes mine by the evidence of his word and Spirit, that I dare make
bold with. Wherefore, seeing, though I am without their learned
lines, yet well furnished with the words of God, I mean the Bible, I
have contented myself with what I have there found; and having set
it before your eyes,

I pray read and take, sir, what you like best; And that which you
like not, leave for the rest.

Read, and read again, and do not despair of help to understand
something of the will and mind of God, though you think they are
fast locked up from you. Neither trouble your heads though you have
not commentaries and expositions; pray and read, and read and pray;
for a little from God is better than a great deal from men: also
what is from men is uncertain, and is often lost and tumbled over
and over by men; but what is from God is fixed as a nail in a sure
place. There is nothing that so abides with us, as what we receive
from God; and the reason why Christians at this day are at such a
loss as to some things, is because they are content with what comes
from men's mouths, without searching and kneeling before God to know
of him the truth of things. Things that we receive at God's hand
come to us as things from the minting-house, though old in
themselves, yet new to us. Old truths are always new to us, if they
come to us with the smell of heaven upon them.