54 ADVANCEMENT OP LEARNING. fBOOK I. 



bered, &quot; Fidelia vulnera amantis, dolosa oscula malignantis. 

 However, we will gain credit for our commendations, as 

 we have been severe in our censures. It is, notwithstand 

 ing, far from our purpose to enter into fulsome laudations of 

 learning, or to make a hymn to the muses, though we are 

 of opinion that it is long since their rites were celebrated ; 

 but our intent is to balance the dignity of knowledge in the 

 scale with other things, and to estimate their true values 

 according to universal testimony. 



Next, therefore, let us seek the dignity of knowledge in 

 its original ; that is, in the attributes and acts of God, so far 

 as they are revealed to man, and may .be observed with sobriety. 

 But here we are not to seek it by the name of learning; for 

 all learning is knowledge acquired, but all knowledge in God 

 is original : we must, therefore, look for it under the name 

 of wisdom or sapience, as the Scriptures call it. 



In the work of creation we see a double emanation of 

 virtue from God ; the one relating more properly to power, 

 the other to wisdom ; the one expressed in making the 

 matter, and the other in disposing the form. This being 

 supposed, we may observe that, for anything mentioned in 

 the histoiy of the creation, the confused mass of the heavens 

 and earth was made in a moment ; whereas the order and 

 disposition of it was the work of six days : such a mark of 

 difference seems put betwixt the works of power and the 

 works of wisdom ; whence, it is not written that God said, 

 &quot; Let there be heaven and earth,&quot; as it is of the subsequent 

 works; but actually, that &quot;God made heaven and earth;&quot; 

 the one carrying the style of a manufacture, the other that 

 of a law, decree, or counsel. 



To proceed from God to spirits. We find, as far as credit 

 may be given to the celestial hierarchy of the supposed 

 Dionysius the Areopagite, the first place is given to the 

 angels of love, termed Seraphim ; the second, to the angels 

 of light, called Cherubim ; and the third and following 

 places to thrones, principalities, and the rest, which are all 

 angels of power and ministry ; so that the angels of know- 



toria Literaria Srriptorum Ecclesiasticorum,&quot; Father Simon, and 

 Mabillon. Ed. 

 c rov. xxvii. & 



