THE FIRST BOOK. 45 



commandment of wits and means, whereby nothing needeth 

 to be hidden from them. 



Neither did the dispensation of God vary in the times 

 after our Saviour came into the world ; for our Saviour him 

 self did first show his power to subdue ignorance, by his 

 conference with the priests and doctors of the law, before lie 

 showed his power to subdue nature by his miracles. And 

 the coming of the Holy Spirit was chiefly figured and ex 

 pressed in the similitude and gift of tongues, which are but 

 vehicula scientice : [the carriers of knowledge.] 10 



So in the election of those instruments, which it pleased 

 God to use for the plantation of the faith, notwithstanding 

 that at the first he did employ persons altogether unlearned, 

 otherwise than by inspiration, more evidently to declare his 

 immediate working, and to abase all human wisdom or know 

 ledge ; yet, nevertheless, that counsel of his was no sooner 

 performed, but in the next vicissitude and succession lie did 

 send his divine truth into the world, waited on with other 

 learnings, as with servants or handmaids : for so we see 

 St. Paul, who was the only learned amongst the Apostles, 20 

 had his pen most used in the Scriptures of the New 

 Testament. 



So again, we find that many of the ancient bishops and 

 fathers of the Church were excellently read, and studied in 

 all the learning of the heathen ; insomuch, that the edict of 

 the Emperor Julianus, whereby it was interdicted unto 

 Christians to be admitted into schools, lectures, or exercises 

 of learning, was esteemed and accounted a more pernicious 

 engine and machination against the Christian Faith, than 

 were all the sanguinary prosecutions of his predecessors ; 30 

 neither could the emulation and jealousy of Gregory the first 

 of that name, Bishop of Rome, ever obtain the opinion of 

 piety or devotion ; but contrariwise received the censure of 

 humour, malignity, and pusillanimity, even amongst holy 

 men ; in that he designed to obliterate and extinguish the 

 memory of heathen antiquity and authors. But contrariwise, 



