1 20 AD VANCEKIENT OF LEARNING. [Book 



So again, we find that many of the ancient bishops and fathers of 

 the Church were excellently read and studied in all the learning of the 

 heathen; insomuch, that the edict of the emperor Julianus, whereby 

 it was interdicted unto Christians to be admitted into schools, lectures, 

 or exercises of learning, was esteemed and accounted a more pernicious 

 engine and machination against the Christian faith, than were all the 

 sanguinary prosecutions of his predecessors ; neither could the emu 

 lation and jealousy of Gregory, the first of that name, bishop of Rome, 

 ever obtain the opinion of piety or devotion ; but contrariwise received 

 the censure of humour, malignity, and pusillanimity, even amongst 

 holy men ; in that he designed to obliterate and extinguish the memory 

 of heathen antiquity and authors. But contrariwise it was the Christian 

 Church, which, amidst the inundations 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 relicks even of heathen 

 learning, which otherwise had been extinguished, as if no such thing 

 had ever been. 



And we sec 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 ceremonies, 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. 

 Wherefore, to conclude this part, let it be observed, that there be 

 two principal duties and services, besides ornament and illustration, 

 which philosophy and human learning do perform to faith and religion. 

 The one, because they arc an effectual inducement to the 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 like 

 injury unto the majesty of God, as if we should judge or construe of 

 the store of some excellent jeweller, by that only which ; s set out 

 towards the street in his shop. The other, because they minister a 

 singular help and preservative against unbelief and error ; for our 

 Saviour saith, &quot; You err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of 

 God ;&quot; laying before us two books or volumes to study, if we will be 

 secured from error ; first, the Scriptures, revealing the will of God ; 

 and then the creatures, expressing his power : whereof the latter is a 

 key unto the former : not only opening our understanding to conceive 

 the true sense of the Scriptures, by the general notions of reason and 

 rules of speech ; but chiefly opening our belief, in drawing us into a 

 due meditation of the omnipotency of God, which is chiefly signed and 

 engraven upon his works. Thus much therefore for divine testimony 

 and evidence, concerning the true dignity and value of learning. 



