THE FIRST BOOK. 47 



power ; whereof the latter is a key unto the former : not 

 only opening our understanding to conceive the true sense of 

 the Scriptures, by the general notions of reason and rules of 

 speech ; but chiefly opening our belief, in drawing us into a 

 due meditation of the omnipotency of God, which is chiefly 

 signed and engraven upon his works. Thus much therefore 

 for divine testimony and evidence concerning the true dignity 

 and value of learning. 



As for human proofs, it is so large a field, as, in a discourse 10 

 of this nature and brevity, it is fit rather to use choice 

 of those things which we shall produce, than to embrace 

 the variety of them. First, therefore, in the degrees 

 of human honour amongst the heathen, it was the highest to 

 obtain to a veneration and adoration as a God. This unto 

 the Christians is as the forbidden fruit. But we speak now 

 separately of human testimony : according to which, that 

 which the Grecians call apotheosis, and the Latins relatio inter 

 divos, [deification,'] was the supreme honour which man could 

 attribute unto man : especially when it was given, not by a 20 

 formal decree or act of state, as it was used among the Koman 

 emperors, but by an inward assent and belief. Which 

 honour, being so high, had also a degree or middle term : for 

 there were reckoned, above human honours, honours heroical 

 and divine : in the attribution and distribution of which 

 honours, we see, antiquity made this difference : that whereas 

 founders and uniters of states and cities, lawgivers, extirpers 

 of tyrants, fathers of the people, and other eminent persons 

 in civil merit, were honoured but with the titles of worthies 

 or demi-gods ; such as were Hercules, Theseus, Minos, 30 

 Romulus, and the like : on the other side, such as were 

 inventors and authors of new arts, endowments, and com 

 modities towards man's life, were ever consecrated amongst 

 the gods themselves ; as were Ceres, Bacchus, Mercurius, 

 Apollo, and others : and justly ; for the merit of the former 

 is confined within the circle of an age or a nation ; and is like 



