CRS 
cary. 
GSR ey eer ean Oe ma 
Pi le THE FIRST BOOK. 5 
IL 4. Te the entrance to the former of these, to clear 
the way, and as it were to make silence, to have 
the true testimonies concerning the dignity of learning to 
be better heard, without the interruption of tacit objec- 
tions ; I think good to deliver it from the discredits and 
disgraces which if hath received, all trom ignorance; but 
ignorance severally disguised; appearing. sometimes in 
\) the zeal and jealousy of divines; sometimes in the severity 2) 
and arrogancy of politiques ; and sometimes in the errors 
and ind imperfections of leafned men themselves. ie? 
2. 1 hear the former sort” say, that knowledge is of 
those things which are to be accepted of with great limita- 
tion and caution: that the aspiring to overmuch know- 
ledge was the original temptation and sin whereupon 
Zaued Hea OF easy hat WROWSALE MATE TN some= 
what of the™ serpent, and therefore where it entereth into 
a man it makes him swell; Scceniia inflat: that Salomon” ¥? 
gives a censure, That there ts no end of making books, and 
that much reading ts weariness of the flesh; and again in 
another place, Zhat in spacious knowledge there ts much * © 
contristation, and that he that increaseth knowledge increaseth 
anxtely ; that Saint Paul gives a caveat, That we be not * « 
spotled through vain philosophy : that experience demon- 
strates how learned men have been arch-heretics, how 
learned times have been inclined to atheism, and how the 
contemplation of second causes doth derogate from our 
dependence upon God, who is the first cause. 
3. To discover then the ignorance and error of this 
opinion, and the misunderstanding in the grounds thereof, 
it may well appear these men do not observe or consider 
that it was not the pure knowledge of nature and uni- 
versality, a knowledge by the light whereof man did give 
names unto other creatures in Paradise, as they were % ~ 
> 
