I.] ADVANCEMENT OF LEARXIKG. 123 



other things, and to take the true value thereof by testimonies and 

 arguments divine and human. 



First therefore, let us seek the dignity of knowledge in the arche 

 type or first platform, which is the attributes and acts of God, as far 

 as they are revealed to man, and may be observed with sobriety ; 

 wherein we may not seek it by the name of learning ; for all learning 

 is knowledge acquired, and all knowledge in God is original ; and 

 therefore we must look for it by another name, that of wisdom or 

 sapience, as the Scriptures call it. 



It is so then, that in the work of the creation we sec a double 

 emanation of virtue from God ; the one referring more proj&amp;gt;crly to 

 power, the other to wisdom ; the one expressed in making the subsis 

 tence of the matter, and the other in disposing the beauty of the form. 

 This being supposed, it is to be observed, that, for anything which 

 appearcth in the history of the Creation, the confused mass and matter 

 of heaven and earth was made in a moment ; and the order and dis 

 position of that chaos, or mass, was the work of six days ; such a 

 note of difference it pleased God to put upon the works of power, and 

 the works of wisdom : wherewith concurrcth, that in the former it is 

 not set down that God said, &quot; Let there be heaven and earth,&quot; as it is 

 set down of the works following ; but actually, that God made heaven 

 and earth : the one carrying the stile of a manufacture, and the other 

 of a law, decree, or council. 



To proceed to that which is next in order, from God to spirits. We 

 find, as far as credit is to be given to the celestial hierarchy of that 

 supposed Dionysius the senator of Athens, the first place or degree is 

 given to the angels of love, which are termed Seraphim ; the second 

 to the angels of light, which arc termed Cherubim ; and third, and so 

 following places, to thrones, principalities, and the rest, which are all 

 angels of power and ministry ; so as the angels of knowledge and 

 illumination are placed before the angels of office and domination. 



To descend from spirits and intellectual forms to sensible and ma 

 terial forms ; we read the first form that was created was light, which 

 hath a relation and correspondence in nature and corporal things to 

 knowledge in spirits and incorporal things. 



So in the distribution of days, we see, the day wherein God did rest, 

 and contemplate his own works, was blessed above all the days where 

 in he did effect and accomplish them. 



After the creation was finished, it is set down unto us, that man was 

 placed in the garden to work therein ; which work, so appointed to him, 

 could be no other than work of contemplation ; that is, when the end 

 of the work is but for exercise and experiment, not for necessity ; for 

 there being then no rclucfation of the creature, nor sweat of the brow, 

 man scmploymcnt must of consequcncehave been matter of delight in the 

 experiment, and not matter of labour for the use. Again, the first acts 

 which man performed in paradise, consisted of the two summary parts 

 of knowledge; the view of creatures, and the imposition of names. 

 As for the knowledge which induced the fall, it was, as was touched 

 before, not the natural knowledge of creatures, but the moral know- 



