42 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



a^e after the flood, the first great judgment of God upon the-/ 

 ambition of man was the confusion of tongues; whereby the. 

 open trade and intercourse of learning and knowledge was-- 

 chiefly imbarred. 



(9) To descend to Moses the lawgiver, and God s first pen : 

 he is adorned by the Scriptures with this addition and com 

 mendation, &quot;That he was seen in all the learning of the 

 Egyptians,&quot; 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, &quot;You Grecians are ever children; 

 you have no knowledge of antiquity, nor antiquity of know- 

 led^e &quot; Take a view of the ceremonial law of Moses; you 

 shall find, besides the prefiguration of Christ, the badge or 

 difference of the people of God, the exercise and impression of 

 obedience, and other divine uses and fruits thereof, that some 

 of the most learned Eabbins 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, 

 &quot;If the whiteness have overspread the flesh, the patient may 

 pass abroad for clean ; but if there be an} whole flesh remain 

 ing he is to be shut up for unclean ; &quot; one of them noteth a 

 principle of nature, that putrefaction is more contagious 

 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 and half evil. So 

 in this and very many other places in that law, there is to 

 be found, besides the theological sense, much aspersion of 



P (10)So y likewise in that excellent book of Job, if it be 

 revolved with diligence, it will be found pregnant and swelling 

 with natural philosophy ; as for example, cosmography, and 

 the roundness of the world, Qui extendit aquilonem super 

 vacuum et appendit terrain super nihilum; wherein the pensile- 

 ness of the earth, the pole of the north, and the finiteness or 

 convexity of heaven are manifestly touched, bo again, matte 

 of astronomy : Spiritus ejus ornavit ccdos, et obstetricante manu 

 ems eductus est Coluber tortuosus. And in another place, 

 Ifunquid conjungere valebis micantes Stellas Pleiadas out 

 qyrum Arcturi poteris dissipare ? Where the fixing of 1 

 stars, ever standing at equal distance, is with great elegancy 

 noted And in another place, Quifacit Arcturum, et Orwna, 

 et Hyadas, et interwra Austri ; where again he takes knowledge 

 of the depression of the southern pole, calling it the secrets of 

 the south, because the southern stars were in that climate 



