38 Bacon 



violating at all the truth of the story or letter,) an image of 

 the two estates, the contemplative state and the_actiye 

 jstate, figured in the two persons of AbeJL_ajid_Cd n &amp;gt; andln 

 TheTtwo simplest and most primitive trades of life ; that of 

 the shepherd, (who, by reason of his leisure, rest in a place, 

 and living in view of heaven, is a lively image of a contem 

 plative life,) and that of the kusbandman: 1 where we see 

 again the javour andjglection of God_went~to the shepherd. 

 and not to the tiller of the ground. 



So in the age before the flood, the holy records within 

 those few memorials which are there entered and registered 

 have vouchsafed to mention and honour the name of the 

 inventors and authors of music and works in metal. 2 In 

 the age after the flood, the first greatjudgment ofiGodjipon 

 the ambiHon of man was the..confusion oltongujssT^whereby 

 the open trade and intercourse of learning_and knowledge 



To descend t o_Moses thelawgi ver , and Godlls_first_pen : 

 he is adorned by the bcripture~s~~with this addition and 

 commendation, That he was seen in all the learning of the 

 Egyptians ; 4 which nation, we know, was one of the most 

 ancient schools of the world: for so Plato brings in the 

 Egyptian priest saying unto Solon: You Grecians are ever 

 children ; you have no knowledge of antiquity, nor antiquity 

 of knowledge? Take a view of the cejetaonjal law.ol Moses ; 

 you shall find, besides the prefiguration of Christ, th|_badge 

 or difference of the people of God, the exercise and impres^ 

 sion of obedience, and other divine uses and fruits thereof, 

 that some of the most learned Rabbins have travailed 

 profitably and profoundly to observe, some of them a natural, 

 some of them a moral sense, or reduction of many of the 

 ceremonies and ordinances. As in the law of the leprosy^ 

 where it is said, // the whiteness have overspread the flesh, the ^ 

 patient may pass abroad for clean ; but if there be any whole 

 flesh remaining, he is to be shut up for unclean ; 6 one of them 

 noteth a principle of nature, that putrefaction is more con 

 tagious before maturity than after : and another noteth a 

 position of moral philosophy, that men abandoned to vice 

 do not so much corrupt manners, as those that are half good 



1 Gen. iv. 2. 2 iv. 21, 22. 



3 xi. * Act. Ap. vii. 22. 



5 Plat. Tim. iii. 22. s Levit. xiii. 12-14. 



