A 



5O j OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [VI. 14. 



he designed to obliterate and extinguish the memory 

 of heathen antiquity and authors. But contrariwise it was 

 the Christian church, which, amidst the inundations of the 

 Scythians on the one side from the north-west, and the 

 Saracens from the east, did preserve in the sacred lap and 

 bosom thereof the precious relics even of heathen learn 

 ing, which otherwise had been extinguished as if no such 

 thing hadever been. 



15. And we see before our eyes, that in the age ot 

 ourselves and our fathers, when it pleased God to call 

 the Church of Rome to account for their degenerate 

 manners and ceremonies, and sundry doctrines obnoxious 

 and framed to uphold the same abuses ; at one and the 

 same time it was ordained by the Divine Providence, that 

 there should attend withal a renovation and new spring 

 of all other knowledges. And, on the other side we see 

 the Jesuits, who partly in themselves and partly by the 

 emulation and provocation of their example, have much 

 quickened and strengthened the state of learning, we see 

 (I say) what notable service and reparation they have done 

 to the Roman see. 



1 6. Wherefore to conclude this part, let it be observed, 

 that there be two principal duties and services, besides 

 ornament and illustration, which philosophy and human 

 learning do perforn^ to faith and religion. The one, 

 because they are an effectual inducement to the exalt 

 ation of the glory of God,_ For as the Psalms and other 

 scriptures do often invite us to consider and magnify the 

 great and wonderful works of God, so if we should rest 

 only in the contemplation of the exterior of them as they 

 first offer themselves to our senses, we should do a like 

 injury unto the majesty of God, as if we should judge 

 or construe of the store of some excellent jeweller, .by 



