30 ADVANCEMENT OF LEABNING. [liOOK I. 



St. Paul cautions against being spoiled throiigli vain pliilo- 

 Kophy:"g 5. "That experience shows learned men have been 

 heretics; and learned times inclined to atheism; and that 

 the contemplation of second causes takes from our depend- 

 ence upon God, who is the first." 



To this we answer, 1. It was not the pure knowledge of 

 nature, by the light whereof man gave names to all the 

 creatures in Paradise, agreeable to their natures, that occa- 

 sioned the fall ; but the proud knowledge of good and evil, 

 Avith an intent in man to give law to himself, and depend no 

 more upon God. 2. Nor can any quantity of natural know- 

 ledge puff up the mind; for nothing fills, much less distends 

 the soul, but God. Whence as Solomon declares, " That the 

 eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing ;"i' 

 so of knowledge itself he says, " God hath made all things 

 beautiful in their seasons; also he hath placed the world in 

 nvan's heart ; yet cannot man find out the work which God 

 worketh from the beginning to the end;"^ hereby declaring 

 plainly that God has framed the mind like a glass, capable of 

 the image of the universe, and desirous to receive it as the 

 eye to receive the light ; and thus it is not only pleased with 

 the variety and vicissitudes of things, but also endeavours to 

 find out the laws they observe in their changes and altera- 

 tions. And if such be the extent of the mind, there is no 

 danger of filling it with any quantity of knowledge. But it 

 is merely from its quality when taken without the true cor' 

 rective, that knowledge has somewhat of venom or malignity. 

 The corrective which renders it sovereign is charity, for 

 according to St. Paul, " Knowledge puffeth up, but charity 

 buildeth." ^ 3. For the excess of writing and reading books, 

 the anxiety of spirit proceeding from knowledge, and the 

 admonition, that we be not seduced by vain philosophy; when 

 these passages are rightly understood, they mark out the 

 boundaries of human knowledge, so as to comprehend the 

 universal nature of things. These limitations are three : the 

 first, that we should not place our felicity in knowledge, so 

 as to forget mortality ; the second, that we use knowledge 

 S'3 as to give ourselves ease and content, not distaste and 

 repinijig; and the third, that we f resume not by the con- 



« 1 Cor. viii. 1. •• Eccles. i. 8. 



« Eccles. iii. 11. k 1 Cor. viii. 1, 



