124 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Book 



ledge of good and evil ; wherein the supposition was, that God s com 

 mandments or pronibitions were not the originals of good and evil, but 

 that they had other beginnings, which man aspired to know, to the 

 end to make a total defection from God, and to depend wholly upon 

 himself. 



To pass on : in the first event or occurrence after the fall of man, 

 we see, as the Scriptures have infinite mysteries, not violating at all 

 the truth of the story or letter, an image of the two estates, the con 

 templative state, and the active state, figured in the two persons of 

 Abel and Cain, and in the two simplest and most primitive trades of 

 life, that of the shepherd, who, by reason of his leisure, rest in a place, 

 and living in view of heaven, is a lively image of a contemplative life ; 

 and that of the husbandman ; where we see again the favour and elec 

 tion of God went to the shepherd, and not to the tiller of the ground. 



So in the age before the flood, the holy records within those few 

 memorials, which are there entered and registered, have vouchsafed to 

 mention, and honour the name of the inventors and authors of music, 

 and works in metal. In the age after the flood, the first great judg 

 ment of God upon the ambition of man was the confusion of tongues ; 

 whereby the open trade and intercourse of learning and knowledge was 

 chiefly imbarred. 



To descend to Moses thelawgiver, and God s first pen : he is adorned 

 by the Scriptures with this addition and commendation, that he was 

 &quot;seen in all the learning of the /Egyptians ;&quot; which nation, we know, 

 was one of the most ancient schools of the world : for so Plato brings 

 in the vKgyptian priest saying unto Solon, &quot;You Grecians are ever 

 children; you have no knowledge of antiquity, nor antiquity of know 

 ledge.&quot; Take a view of the ceremonial law of Moses ; you shall find, 

 besides the prefiguration of Christ, the badge or difference of the 

 people of God, the exercise and impression of obedience, and other 

 divine uses and fruits thereof, that some of the most learned Rabbins 

 have travelled profitably, and profoundly to observe, some of them a 

 natural, someof them a m oral sense, or reduction of many of the 

 ceremonies and ordinances. As in the law of the leprosy, where it is 

 said, &quot; If the whiteness have overspread the flesh, the patient may pass 

 abroad for clean ; but if there be any whole flesh remaining, he is to 

 be shut up for unclean :&quot; one of them noteth a principle of nature, that 

 putrefaction is more contagious before maturity, than after : and another 

 noteth a position of moral philosophy, that men. abandoned to vice, 

 do not so much corrupt manners, as those that are half good and half 

 evil. So in this, and very many other places in that law, there is to 

 be found, besides the theological sense, much aspersion of philosophy. 



So likewise in that excellent book of Job, if it be revolved with dili 

 gence, it will be found pregnant and swelling with natural philosophy ; 

 as for example, cosmography and the roundness of the \vorld : &quot; Qui 

 extendit aquilonem super vacuum, etappendit terram super nihilum ; &quot; 

 \yherein the pcnsileness of the earth, the pole of the north, and the 

 finiieness or convexity of heaven are manifestly touched. So again, 

 mattct of astronomy : &quot;Spiritus ejus ornavit ccelus, et obstetrican e 



