A Learned Treatise in Three Parts, Title page – To the reader
A LEARNED TREATISE: In three parts,
1 The Definition of Divinity.
2 The Diſtribution of Divinity.
3 The Happineſſe of Man:
As it was Scholaſtically handled by JOHN STOUGHTON D.D. in Immanuell Colledge Chappell in Cambridge, while he was fellow there:
And now publiſhed according to the Copy left under his own hand.
LONDON, Printed by Ric. Hodgkinſon for John Bellamy, Daniel Frere and Ralph Smith. 1640.
To the Reader.
Chriſtian Reader:
THis inſuing diſcourſe concerning the Definition and Diſtribution of Divinity, and the Happineſſe of Man, was left perfected by the Author, under his own hand, as you have it here preſented to you.: The Author in the former Sermon laying down an exact Syſteme of Divinity and entring upon the explication of it, it might have been expected according to the method of Art, that he ſhould have begun with the Definition of it. But he did purpoſly omit it there, becauſe it was an Argument too Scholaſticall, for a popular Auditory, but he having finiſhed this in the Ʋniverſitie in an exerciſe appointed for the trayning up of the ſons of the Prophets, I thought it fit not to conceale it, but to inſert it in this place, that ſo the treatiſe might be the more comple at: If it doe in ſome things exceed the capacity of the ordinary Reader, he muſt remember that the Argument it ſelf is more Scholaſticall then popular, yet much of it may be uſefull to moſt, and all of it delightfull and profitable to the ingenious Scholar, to whom it will be the more profitable if he do peruſe the reſt of the Treatiſes: Divinity is a practicall Art, not only ſpeculative, and ſo the end of it is operation: He is the beſt Schollar, and beſt underſtands what Divinity is, that hath learned to know and worſhip God ſo, that he may live well here and happily hereafter: If in this Treatiſe or thoſe other Sermons, to which this is annexed, things doe not fall out to thy mind, divide the blame betwixt the Printer and Tranſcriber, and rather lay it upon the publiſher then the Author: So I reſt,
Thine in the Lord, A. B.