There is a three-fold order, or there are three partes of the studie of diuinitie.
THE first is a Catecheticall institution, or briefe summe of Christian doctrine, which is called a Catechisme, and is a briefe explication of the generall pointes of the same doctrine. This part is necessarie. For both the learned and vnlearned ought to know the foundation of religion.
The second, a handling of common places, or cōmon places, which contein a larger explication of euery point, and of hard quaestions, together with their subdiuisions, reasons, and argumentes.
The third, a diligent meditation of the scripture, or holy writte. This is the highest degree, for which we learne all the rest: to wit, that we may come furnished to the reading, vnderstanding, and propounding of the holy Scripture. Those former partes are taken out of the Scripture: and a∣gaine common places do lead vs vnto the Scripture, which is as it were a rule, by which they are directed.
* 1.1A CATECHISME is a briefe doctrine, framed for youth & the ruder sort, con∣teining in it the summe of the doctrine of the Law & Gospel, or of Christian re∣ligion, which being deliuered, is requi∣red againe at the handes of the auditors. It is so called of a Greek woord, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, which signifieth to resound, or to returne a voice back a∣gain Eccho-like: because that children did by mouth make rehearsall of those thinges which were asked them, and