works, was blessed above all the days wherein 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 work is but for exercise and experiment, not for necessity; for there being then no reluctation of the creature, nor sweat of the brow, man's employment must of consequence have 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 knowledge of good and evil; wherein the supposition was, that God's commandments or prohibitions 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 contemplative 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 election 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 judgment 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 the lawgiver, and God's first pen: he is adorned by the Scriptures with this addition and commendation, that he was " seen in all the learning of the Egyptians;" which nation, we know, was one of the most ancient schools of the world for so Plato brings in the Egyptian priest saying unto Solon: "You Grecians are ever chil

dren; you have no knowledge of antiquity, nor antiquity of knowledge." 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, some of them a moral sense, or reduction of many of the ceremonies and ordinances. As

in the law of the leprosy, where it is said, "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 un"clean;" 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.

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So likewise in that excellent book of Job, if it be revolved with diligence, it will be found pregnant and swelling with natural philosophy; as for example, cosmography, and the roundness of the world, Qui extendit aquilonem super vacuum, et appendit "terram super nihilum ;" wherein the pensileness of the earth, the pole of the north, and the finiteness or convexity of heaven are manifestly touched so again, matter of astronomy; "Spiritus ejus ornavit "cœlos, et obstetricante manu ejus eductus est Colu"ber tortuosus." And in another place; "Nunquid "conjungere valebis micantes stellas Pleiadas, aut gyrum Arcturi poteris dissipare?" Where the fixing of the stars, ever standing at equal distance, is with great elegancy noted. And in another place, "Qui facit Arcturum, et Oriona, et Hyadas, et inte"riora Austri," where again he takes knowledge of the depression of the southern pole, calling it the secrets of the south, because the southern stars

were in that climate unseen. Matter of generation; "Annon sicut lac mulsisti me, et sicut ca

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seum coagulasti me?" &c. Matter of minerals; "Habet argentum venarum suarum principia: et auro locus est in quo conflatur, ferrum de terra tollitur, et lapis solutus calore in æs vertitur:" and so forwards in that chapter.

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So likewise in the person of Solomon the king, we see the gift or endowment of wisdom and learning, both in Solomon's petition, and in God's assent thereunto, preferred before all other terrene and temporal felicity. By virtue of which grant or donative of God, Solomon became enabled, not only to write those excellent parables, or aphorisms concerning divine and moral philosophy; but also to compile a natural history of all verdure, from the cedar upon the mountain to the moss upon the wall, (which is but a rudiment between putrefaction and an herb,) and also of all things that breathe or move. Nay, the same Solomon the king, although he excelled in the glory of treasure and magnificent buildings, of shipping and navigation, of service and attendance, of fame and renown, and the like, yet he maketh no claim to any of those glories, but only to the glory of inquisition of truth; for so he saith expressly, The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to find it out;" as if, according to the innocent play of children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide his works, to the end to have them found out; and as if kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be God's playfellows in that

game; considering the great commandment of wits and means, whereby nothing needeth to be hidden from them.

Neither did the dispensation of God vary in the times after our Saviour came into the world; for our Saviour himself did first shew his power to subdue ignorance, by his conference with the priests and doctors of the law, before he shewed his power to subdue nature by his miracles. And the coming of the Holy Spirit was chiefly figured and expressed in the similitude and gift of tongues, which are but "vehicula scientiæ."

So in the election of those instruments, which it pleased God to use for the plantation of the faith, notwithstanding that at the first he did employ persons altogether unlearned, otherwise than by inspiration, more evidently to declare his immediate working, and to abase all human wisdom or knowledge; yet, nevertheless, that counsel of his was no sooner performed, but in the next vicissitude and succession he did send his divine truth into the world, waited on with other learnings, as with servants or handmaids: for so we see St. Paul, who was the only learned amongst the apostles, had his pen most used in the Scriptures of the New Testament.

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,