THE FIRST BOOK. 45 



knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God ; &quot; laying before 

 us two books or volumes to study, if we will be secured from 

 error : first the Scriptures, revealing the will of God, and then 

 the creatures expressing His power ; whereof the latter is a key 

 unto the former : not only opening our understanding to 

 conceive the true sense of the Scriptures by the general notions 

 of reason and rules of speech, but chiefly opening our belief, 

 in drawing us into a due meditation of the omnipotency of 

 God, which is chiefly signed and engraven upon His works. 

 Thus much therefore for divine testimony and evidence con 

 cerning the true dignity and value of learning. 



VII. (1) As for human proofs, it is so large a field, as in a 

 discourse of this nature and brevity it is fit rather to use choice 

 of those things which we shall produce, than to embrace the 

 variety of them. First, therefore, in the degrees of human 

 honour amongst the heathen, it was the highest to obtain to a 

 veneration and adoration &t a God. This unto the Christians 

 is as the forbidden fruit. But we speak now separately of 

 human testimony, according to which that which the Grecians 

 call apotheosis, and the Latins relatio inter divos was the 

 supreme honour which man could attribute unto man, specially 

 when it was given, not by a formal decree or act of state (as it 

 was used among the Roman Emperors), but by an inward assent 

 and belief. Which honour, being so high, had also a degree or 

 middle term ; for there were reckoned above human honours, 

 honours heroical and divine : in the attribution and distribution 

 of which honours we see antiquity made this difference ; that 

 whereas founders and uniters of states and cities, lawgivers, 

 extirpers of tyrants, fathers of the people, and other eminent 

 persons in civil merit, were honoured but with the titles of 

 worthies or demigods, such as were Hercules, Theseus, Minos, 

 Romulus, and the like ; on the other side, such as were in 

 ventors and authors of new arts, endowments, and commodities 

 towards man s life, were ever consecrated amongst the gods 

 themselves, as was Ceres, Bacchus, Mercurius, Apollo, and 

 others. And justly ; for the merit of the former is confined 

 within the circle of an age or a nation, and is like fruitful 

 showers, which though they be profitable and good, yet serve 

 but for that season, and for a latitude of ground where they 

 fall ; but the other is, indeed, like the benefits of heaven, 

 which are permanent and universal. The former again is 

 mixed with strife and perturbation, but the latter hath the 

 true character of Divine Presence, coming in aura leni, without 

 noise or agitation. 



(2) Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in 



