ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 27 



sent out his divine truth into the world, attended with other 

 parts of learning as with servants or handmaids ; thus St. Paul, 

 who was the only learned amongst the apostles, had his pen 

 most employed in the writings of the New Testament. 



Again, we find that many of the ancient bishops and fathers 

 of the Church were well versed in all the learning of the 

 heathens, insomuch that the edict of the Emperor Julian pro- 

 hibiting Christians the schools and exercises, was accounted a 

 more pernicious engine against the faith than all the sanguinary 

 persecutions of his predecessors.*: Neither could Gregory I, 

 bishop of Rome, ever obtain the opinion of devotion even 

 among the pious, for designing, though otherwise an excellent 

 person, to extinguish the memory of heathen antiquity .* But 

 it was the Christian Church which, amidst 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 Roman see. 



There are, therefore, two principal services, besides ornament 

 and illustration, which philosophy and human learning perform 

 to faith and religion, the one effectually exciting to the exalta- 

 tion of God's glory, and the other affording a singular preserva- 

 tive against unbelief and error. Our Saviour says, " Ye err, 

 not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God ;" 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 Roman 

 emperors, but from a voluntary, internal assent and ac- 

 knowledgment. This honor being so high, there was also con- 



