68 ADVAT^CEMENT OF LEimTlXG. [boOIC I. 



dmrdi which, amidst the inundations of the Scytliians from 

 the north-west 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 learn- 

 ing, and contributed to establish the Roman 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 Sa- 

 viour 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 con- 

 cerning the dignity and merits of learning. 



Next for human proofs. Deification was the highest 

 honour 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 acknowledgment. This honour being 

 30 high, there was also constituted a middle kind, for human 

 honours were inferior to honours heroical and divine. An- 

 'dquity observed this difference in their distribution, that 

 whereas founders of states, lawgivers, extirpers of tyrants, 

 fathers of the people, and other eminent persons in civil 

 merit, were honoured but with the titles of heroes, or demi- 

 gods, such as Hercules, Theseus, Minos, Romulus, &c. In- 

 ventors, and authors of new arts or discoveries for the service 

 of human life, were ever advanced amongst the gods, as in the 

 case oi Cerea^ Bacchus, Mercury, Apollo, and others. And this 



^ Matt. xxii. 29. 



