THE FIRST BOOK 43 



the learning of the Egyptians ; 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, * You Grecians are ever children ; you have no 

 knowledge of antiquity, nor antiquity of knowledge. 

 Take a view of the ceremonial law of Moyses ; you shall 

 find, besides the prefiguration of Christ, the badge or 

 difference of the people of God, the exercise and impres 

 sion of obedience, and other divine uses and fruits 

 thereof, that some of the most learned Rabbins 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, * If the 

 whiteness have overspread the flesh, the patient may 

 pass abroad for clean ; but if there be any whole flesh 

 remaining, he is to be shut up for unclean ; 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 philosophy. 



10. So 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 pensileness of the earth, 

 the pole of the north, and the finiteness or convexity 

 of heaven are manifestly touched. So again, matter 

 of astronomy ; Spiritus ejus ornavit caelos, et obstet- 

 ricante manu eius eductus est Coluber tortuosus. 

 And in another place, * Nunquid conjungere valebis 

 micantes Stellas Pleiadas, aut gyrum Arcturi poteria 

 dissipare ? Where the fixing of the stars, ever 

 standing at equal distance, is with great elegancy 

 noted. And in another place, * Qui facit Arcturum. 



