NOTE I. [xvii] 



fecteth; but in sciences the first author goeth farthest, and 

 time leeseth and corrupteth, &c. And therefore, although the 

 position be good, Oportet discentem credere, yet it must be 

 coupled with this, Oportet edoctum judicare ; for disciples do 

 owe unto masters only a temporary belief, and a suspension of 

 their own judgment until they be fully instructed, and not an 

 absolute resignation, or perpetual captivity : and therefore, to 

 conclude this point, 1 will say no more, but so let great authors 

 have their due as time, which is the author of authors, be not 

 deprived of his due, which is, further and further to discover 

 truth. 



So too Hooker says, For men to be tied and led by autho 

 rity, as it were, with a kind of captivity of judgment, and 

 though there be reason to the contrary, not to listen unto it, 

 but to follow like beasts the first in the herd, they know not nor 

 care not whither, this were brutish. 



Again, that authority of men should prevail with men either 

 against or above reason, is no part of our belief. Companies 

 of learned men, be they never so great and reverend, are ,to 

 yield unto reason ; the weight whereof is no whit prejudiced by 

 the simplicity of his person which doth allege it, but being 

 found to be sound and good, the bare opinion of men to the 

 contrary, must of necessity stoop and give place. 



Lord Clarendon, in his Essay on the Respect due to Anti 

 quity, says, 



&quot; There is not, it may be, a greater obstruction in the in 

 vestigation of truth, or the improvement of knowledge, than the 

 too frequent appeal, and the too supine resignation of our un 

 derstanding to antiquity ; but what, then, shall antiquity be 

 despised by us, and the great learning and piety of the first 

 lights, the reverend fathers of the church, be undervalued, and 

 their judgment looked upon without reverence? God forbid. 

 We resort to antiquity as the best evidence of what was then 

 done, and think we have the same liberty in the perusal of the 

 monuments thereof, those conduits which convey the informa 

 tion of what was then done to us, as in other history. And 

 VOL v. d 



