ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 71 



could Gregory the First, bishop of Home, ever obtain the 

 opinion of devotion even among the pious, for designing, 

 though otherwise an excellent person, to extinguish the 

 memory of heathen antiquity. 93 But it was the Christian 

 Church which, amid the inundations of the Scythians from 

 the northwest and the Saracens from the east, preserved in 

 her bosom the relics even of heathen learning, which had 

 otherwise been utterly extinguished. And of late years 

 the Jesuits, partly of themselves and partly provoked by 

 example, have greatly enlivened and strengthened the state 

 of learning, and contributed to establish the Koman See. 



There are, therefore, two principal services, besides orna 

 ment and illustration, which philosophy and human learning 

 perform to faith and religion, the one effectually exciting 

 to the exaltation of God s glory, and the other affording 

 a singular preservative against unbelief and error. Our 

 Saviour says, &quot;Ye err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the 

 power of God ; 94 thus laying before us two books to study, 

 if we will be secured from error; viz., the Scriptures, which 

 reveal the will of God, and the creation, which expresses 

 his power; the latter whereof is a key to the former, and 

 not only opens our understanding to conceive the true sense 

 of the Scripture by the general notions of reason and the 

 rules of speech, but chiefly opens our faith in drawing us 

 to a due consideration of the omnipotence of God, which 

 is stamped upon his works. And thus much for Divine 

 testimony concerning the dignity and merits of learning. 



Next for human proofs. Deification was the highest 

 honor among the heathens; that is, to obtain veneration 

 as a god was the supreme respect which man could pay to 

 man, especially when given, not by a formal act of state as 

 it usually was to the Koman emperors, but from a volun 

 tary, internal assent and acknowledgment. This honor 

 being so high, there was also constituted a middle kind, 

 for human honors were inferior to honors heroical and di- 



* 3 Gibbon, vol. iv. c. 45. 94 Matt. xxii. 29. 



