The First Book 41 



of piety or devotion ; but contrariwise received the censure 

 of humour, malignity, and pusillanimity, even amongst holy 

 men ; in that he designed to obhterate and extinguish th e 

 memory of heathen antiquity and authors ! But contrari- 

 wise, it was the Christian Church, which, amidst the inunda- 

 tions of the Scythians on the one side from the north-west, 

 and the Saracens from the east, did preserve in the sacred 

 lap and bosom thereof the precious rehcs even of heathen 

 learning, which otherwise had been extinguished as if no 

 such thing had ever been. 



15. And we see before our eyes, that in the age of ourselves 

 and our fathers, when it pleased God to call the Church of 

 Rome to account for their degenerate manners and cere- 

 monies, and sundry doctrines obnoxious and framed to 

 uphold the same abuses ; at one and the same time it was 

 ordained by the Divine Providence that there should attend 

 withal a renovation and new spring of all other knowledges. 

 And on the other side we see the Jesuits , (who partly in 

 themselves, and partly by the emulation and provocation 

 of their example, have much quickened and strengthened 

 the state of learning,) we see, I say, what notable service 

 and reparation they have done to the Roman see. 



16. Wherefore, to conclude this part, let it be observed, that 



perform to faith and rehgion . The^piigi because they 

 efiectual inducement to tne exaltation of the glory of God: 

 for as the Psalms and other Scriptures do often invite us to 

 consider and magnify the great and wonderful works of 

 God,^ so if we should rest only in the contemplation of the 

 exterior of them, as they first offer themselves to our senses, 

 we should do a hke injury unto the Majesty of God, as if 

 we should judge or construe of the store of some excellent 

 jeweller, by that^aly which is set out toward the street in 

 his shop. The c^ther ^ because they minister a singular help 

 and preservative against unbelief and error: for our Saviour 

 saith, You err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of 

 God ; ^ laying before us two books or volumes to study, if 



the Palatine Library is now rejected; but as to his aversion to pro- 

 fane letters there can be no doubt. Milman's Latin Christianity, 

 bk. iii. c. 7. 



» Ps. xix. civ. • Matt. xxii. 29. 



