there is no Power on Earth which fets up its Throne and Chair of State, as it were, in the Spirits and Souls of Men, and in their Thoughts, and Imaginations, their Affent alfo and Belief, but Learning and Knowledge, And therefore we fee the deteftable and extreme Pleasure that Arch-Hereticks, Falfe Prophets, and great Impoftors, are ravish'd, and tranfported with, when once they find that they have begun to reign in the Faith and Confciences of Men; indeed fo great, that he that has once tafted it, can hardly be brought by any Perfecution or Torment, to relinquish and abandon his Sovereignty. And as this is that which is called in the Revelations, The Depth or Profoundness of Satan; fo on the contrary, a juft and lawful Sovereignty over Men's Minds, eftablished by the mere Evidence, and moft delightful Recommendation of Truth, approaches certainly as near as poffible to the Similitude of the Divine Power,

AS to Fortunes and Honours, the Munificence of Learning is not fo confined to the Inriching and Adorning of whole Kingdoms and Commonwealths, as not likewise to amplify and advance the Fortunes and Estates of private Perfons. For it is an ancient Obfervation, That Homer bas given more Men their Living, than Sylla, Cæfar, or Auguftus; notwithstanding their numerous Largeffes,

Do

Donatives, and Diftributions of Lands. Certainly, it is hard to fay, whether Arms or Letters have advanced greater Numbers. And in cafe of Sovereignty, we fee, that if Arms, or Right of Inheritance, have carried away the Kingdom, yet Learning has generally carried the Priesthood, which has ever stood in Competition with Empire.

AGAIN, if you confider the Delight and Pleasure of Knowledge, affuredly it far furpaffes all other Pleasures. For what? Shall, it may be, the Pleasures of the Affecti ons as far exceed the Delights of the Senses, as the happy obtaining of a Defire, does a Song, or a Supper: And fhall not, by the fame Gradation, the Pleafures of the Intellect tranfcend thofe of the Affections? To all other Pleasures Satiety is Neighbour; and after they have been used, and are grown a little ftale, their Verdure and Beauty fades; whereby we are inftructed, that they were not truly pure and fincere Pleasures, but Shadows only, and Fallacies of Pleasures, and that it was the Novelty which pleas'd, rather than the Quality: Whence voluptuous Men often turn Monks; and the declining Age of ambitious Princes is commonly fad, and befieg'd with Melancholy. But in Knowledge there is no Satiety, but Enjoyment and Appetite are perpetually interchangeable; fo that this Delight muft needs be good in

Infolence, whilft it fuggefts all Dangers and Doubts together with the Thing it felf; ballances the Weight of Reasons and Arguments on both fides; turns back the first Öffers and pleafing Conceits of the Mind as fufpected, and teaches us not to tread a Step without fearching, as it were, and examining our Way.

THE fame extirpates vain and exceffive Admiration, which is the very Root of all Weakness. For we admire Things, either because they are New, or because they are Great. As for Novelty, there is no Man that is throughly Learned and Contemplative, but hath This printed upon his Heart, Nil novi fuper terram, (there is nothing new under the Sun) Neither will any Man much marvel at the Play of Puppets, that puts his Head behind the Curtain, and fees the Inftruments and Wires that caufe the Motion. For Greatness; as Alexander the Great, after he had been used to mighty Battels, and Conquefts in Afia, receiving fometimes Letters out of Greece, of fome Expeditions and Scuffles there, which were commonly for a Bridge, or Caftle, or for the taking of fome Town at the moft, was wont to fay; It Seemed to him, that News was brought him of the Battels of the Frogs, and the Mice, that Homer talks of: So certainly to a Man that

con

contemplates the univerfal Frame of Nature, the Globe of the Earth with the Men upon it (fetting afide the Divinity of their Souls) will feem nothing greater than a Hillock of Ants, fome of which creep and run. up and down with Grains of Corn, others with their Eggs, fome empty, all here and there about a little Heap of Duft.

AGAIN, Learning takes away, or at leaft mitigates the Fear of Death, and of adverse Fortune, which is one of the greatest Impediments to Virtue and Manners. For if a Man's Mind be seasoned, and deeply dyed with the Contemplation of Mortality, and the corruptible Nature of Things, he will be of Epictetus's Sentiment; who going out one Day, and feeing a Woman weeping for her Pitcher, that was broke; and going out the next Day, and feeing another Woman lamenting the Death of her Son, faid; Heri, vidi fragilem frangi; Hodie, vidi mortalem mori: Tefterday I saw a brittle Thing broke ; to Day I faw a mortal Thing die.

Where

fore Virgil did excellently, and very wifely, in coupling the Knowledge of Caufes and the Conqueft of all Fear, together, as Concomitants;

Felix qui potuit rerum cognofcere caufas, Quiq; metus omnes & inexorabile fatum Subjecit pedibus, ftrepitumq; Acherontis avari. K 3

Happy

Happy the Man, who, ftudying Nature's Laws, Thro' known Effects can trace the fecret Caufe ; His Mind poffeffing in a quiet State, Fearless of Fortune, and refign'd to Fate..

Dryden.

'TWOULD be too tedious to run over the particular Remedies, which Learning minifters to all the Diseases of the Mind, fome times purging out the ill Humours, fometimes opening Obftructions, fometimes helping Digeftion, fometimes exciting Appetite, often healing its Wounds and Ulcers, and the like. Wherefore I will conclude with that which feems to be the Sum of all, which is, that Learning difpofes and inclines the Mind, never to acquiefce wholly, and to continue fix'd and benumb'd as it were in its own Defects, but to be ftill rouzing it felf, and breathing after Growth and Advancement, The illiterate Man knows not what it is to defcend into himself, or to call himself to Account, or the Pleasure of that Life, which is fenfible of its growing every Day better: If he chance to have any Virtue, he'll be boafting of it to be fure, and will expofe it every where to full View, and perhaps make a dexterous Ufe of it, to his own Advantage, but neglects to improve and increase it. Again if he labour under any Imperfection,

he