LEARNING AND KNOWLEDGE Recommended to the SCHOLARS OF Brentwood School In ESSEX; IN A SERMON PREACHED At their First FEAST, June 29. 1682.  
By William pain, M. A. Rector of St. Marry White-chappel, and Fellow of the ROYAL SOCIETY.  
Published at the earnest desire of the STEWARDS.  
LONDON, Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Churchyard. 1682.   

To his Honoured MASTER, Mr. Barnard, of Brentwood School in Essex.  
SIR,  
AS you were pleased to command me this School Exercise, which like other Truants you know I was forced to make in haste, so since you are resolved to show it the World I must desire you to let it know, that you, and the Stewards and those others who heard it, had much better thoughts of it than I myself had, or can yet have the comfort of; and that it goes to the Press not out of any wanton inclination it has that way, but merely to please its Friends, though it should happened to be ruined by it.  
I thought it inconsistent with my duty to deny you the first fruits however green or raw of your own School, and of what you have so great a Title to in the whole; And for your sake I know all my Schoolfellows will receive it with kindness and candour. 'Twas for their use I designed it, and calculated it wholly for the Meridian of Brentwood, and if any others should chance to read it, and not consider it was Preached chief to young Scholars, they may very much injure me, if they will not give me leave to entertain those with something more freedom than I would Mourners at a Funeral, and no wise and good man can be concerned to see folly and irreligion exposed and made ridiculous.  
There is one thing I must beg even my Schoolfellows pardon in, and that is, that I treated them neither with Greek or Latin, but besides that they are grown dishes much out of Fashion at such entertainments, I knew they had enough of those at Brentwood, and the School I thought was a more proper place for them than the Pulpit; and that they are better afterwards digested into sense than brought up whole again; as Epictetus, his Sheep brought their wool and their milk to their Keepers, but not the hay and fodder they had given them. I have no more to say for myself, or my Sermon, but that both the Preaching and Publishing it were designed to be some way or other serviceable to Religion and Learning, and to express my grateful resentments of the kindness I have ever received from you, and to assure you and the World, that I am,  
SIR, Your most obliged and humble Servant, W. pain.   

PROV. 1.7. latter part Fools despise Wisdom and Instruction.  
THose who have best considered and understood the World, the Ancient as well as the New Philosophers, have always made one system of it, and represented it not only as an aggregate and heap of Being's, but as one Compacted and Beautiful, and well composed Body, of which we were all the lesser Parts and Members: And though they seem to have too straight and narrow thoughts of God and his Creation, who think he made the whole Universe, the Sun and Moon and whole host of Heaven only for the benefit of this lower Earth, this little point in respect of the vast expansum that is above, yet it's more than probable they were all designed, and all the numerous creatures in them to be subservient and useful to the whole and to one another, in due proportion and fitness they are mutually to correspond and serve each other, and keep such exact harmony as the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 has tuned and ordered them for. Mankind 'tis certain were made for mutual help, advantage, and assistance to each other, & do therefore naturally fall into Societies and combinations that may better promote their own private and the public good; they find it necessary to enter into several Companies and Corporations, that they may carry on all good offices, and beneficial commerce with one another, & thereby increase the common Stock of happiness in which their own is included. However the Hobbists have slandered humane nature, and drawn a false picture of it from themselves, and their own ill tempers, and made it a timorous and yet a ravenous Monster with long fangs and talons, sharp teeth and claws ready to devour and pray upon its own kind, yet that in itself is very tame and gentle and good natured, inclined to love and sociableness, and there is nothing more agreeable to it, nor more delightful than mutual friendship and kindness; to this Nature has tied us by the first and the fastest ligaments even those in our Mother's Womb, those vasa umbilicalia, by which we are united to our Parents as well as nourished by them; and as we cannot be born out of society, and in such a wild state of nature as they would suppose us, so these ties of Birth and Blood do most strongly bind and fasten us together as far as they reach: And the next cement of friendship to this of nature, if not a stronger, is that of an acquaintance, and society in our first tender years, the having our first sprightly Spirits mixed as it were and fermented together. The kind impressions that were then made upon us when we were soft and fluid, harden afterwards and become firm as in Adamant; like characters cut upon the young and tender bark, they continue and grow greater as the tree increases: Friendship which is thus early planted in the same mould, roots the deeper, and grows the stronger, and is ready ever after to clasp and embrace its old associates with the greatest confidence and satisfaction. 'Tis this Gentlemen and Schoolfellows, has brought us here together, and first to the Temple and the House of God, the School of all Virtue and Religion; that as the Ancients used to confirm friendship with Sacrifices, and owed Learning and Letters to be the gift and invention of their Gods, and therefore their Priests even from the Egyptians, were the great preservers of them, so for both those accounts we should begin with Religion: And as that is the best guaranty of all friendship and society, without which they are all but so many Treacherous Associations against Heaven, so we cannot surely but have a just sense of it when we consider how Providence in a few years has brought us at least some of us, through unseen ways to our present circumstances and condition; when we see the great advantages we have had by the Blessing of God, from our first early and happy Education, and the great reason we have to give Heaven our most hearty Thanks, that we were not of the number of Solomon's Fools, who despise Wisdom and Instruction.  
None of those are here, they are without ploding to get money, they are minding things as they think, of more necessary importance, and lading themselves with thick clay, they are for no wisdom but with an inheritance, nor for any instruction but how to Thrive or grow Rich, they care for nothing further in Grammar than that of meum and tuum, nor are for any Latin but a noverint Vniversi, and above all Printing they admire King Pergamus his way, the writing upon Parchment, and they keep no other Books but such by them, with all the various titles and editions of Leases, Mortgages, and Purchases; and those they are well read in, and understand without a Dictionary. And thus with full Pockets and empty Heads, with Gold in their Bags, perhaps about their Necks, and Led in their Skulls, these laden Asses despise and spurn at Learning, because it has not always such Rich trappings as themselves.  
But the best sort of Tools, they say, to get Money are made of Lead, or at least a great mixture of that Metal; and the finer Oars are nothing so serviceable to that purpose.  
And there are a sort of the dullest and most scraping Animals who live always in earth, and have but very little or no eves.  
But there are more Mercuinal Fools, who are abroad Travelling to learn French before they can well read or spell English, their careful Mother's thought Latin not so good a Language to make a leg with, and that Greek might be apt to make the Child stammer, so she sends them early abroad to learn the more important arts of dressing and wearing Feathers, of making Court and Address; and so their Learning ever after lies in combing their wigs, and putting on their Cravats, and they prove eternal Students upon their own Looking-glasses; they shrug and throw their Heads modishly, and tread much more exactly than they think; but all Learning they contemn, because 'tis bald and wears ruff, and cannot fancy the Muses because they are ill dressed; with great judgement they prefer a French face before Virgil and Homer, and see more wit in Scaramouchies face than in all the Ancients put together, and despise all the Greek and the Roman Histories in respect of the amours of the French Court. One of these men would fain be an Atheist but he has not skill to read Lucretius, and so is fain to be a small retailer at Atheism and Profaneness, as he picks it up in little parcels from a Play or a Lampoon; and that we may be well assured that he despises nothing like Learning unless it be Religion, he thinks nothing in the World so contemptible as a Parson and a Schoolmaster, and next to himself he thinks nothing so accomplished as a Dancing-master or a Player, and who of all these is the worthier man we must leave it as a dispute among themselves. But lest showing you the Picture of these Fools should make us too merry, let us seriously consider the real good and excellency that accrues from that Wisdom and Instruction that they despise, and I shall endaevour to represent that to you upon these four accounts.  

1. As it improves a man's own mind.  
2. As it fits him to do good in the World.  
3. As it entertains a man's Time and his Life with the greatest pleasure.  
4. As it is useful to the concerns of Religion.   
1. As it improves a man's own mind. It is a very probable opinion of the Wisest men and Philosophers, that humane Souls are all equal, that Nature like a just and impartial Mother, as she has made us all out of the same clay, the same Flesh and Blood, so she has equally divided Reason and Understanding amongst us as a common Portion, and given us intellectual powers and faculties of the same size and bigness, and that which makes them so much differ at so great a rate, that the souls of some men seem to be at as high a pitch above the lowest of others, as they do above the best sort of Brutes, is besides the various temperament of the Body and contexture of the Brain from their Education. 'Tis this which cultivates and improves the Soil into Riches and Fruitfulness, that would all without it be barren and wilderness; and carves & works the same wood into a piece fit to adorn the Temple of God, or the Palaces of Princes, that would else have been but an heavy block, and useless log: As Naturalists tell us those active and spirituous parts that are in most Bodies are locked up and imprisoned until they are freed and unloosed by heat and such like exaltations; so that reason which is in human minds sunk and oppressed with heavy matter is to be excited & sublimed by a course of study and learned preparations; and this it is sometimes in so high a degree, that the strongest Spirits of wit and reason have been drawn off from the lees as it were of mankind and the lowest parts; and some who gave no manner of promises at first, yet by means of a kindly Education have blown and ripened though perhaps more slowly, yet to considerable improvements; so that one would think that these after they became Proselytes to Learning had as the Jews imagined of the proselytes to their Religion, a New soul put into them.  
Reason is the greatest perfection of humane Nature, but like a Diamond it is naturally rough until Education polish and well set it, and without that we see how it sinks into brutish sottishness in the untaught and uncivilized part of mankind.  
There can be nothing so perfective of our beings, so much worth our utmost care and desires as a wise and well improved mind, a defect of reason and understanding is the greatest blemish of humane nature beyond that of the worst deformity; and their is nothing so low and contemptible in the opinion of every one as to be a Fool and a Blockhead; he that can endure if not boast himself to be Vicious and Debauched cannot bear that, and though our age has endeavoured as much as it can to make vice creditable, and lessen the virtuous and moral improvements of the mind, yet it has kept so much of humanity as to give the greatest Honour, even above every thing else, to wit and good understanding.  
And what is that, but a filling the mind with true conceptions and lively ideas, the storing and enriching it with the best knowledge of things, and the most curious Images and Pictures of them, the enlarging and opening it to the Noblest truths, and letting it see and behold all things that God and Nature has set round about it.  
These are some crawling Souls that look only downward, and mind nothing but what is just under their feet, Creatures that are concerned no further than their own sty and troughr, and have no larger compass for their thoughts than the kennel they sleep in; and how shrunk and little do their minds grow, how do they shrivel and dry up to nothing; I will not say how ill was reason bestowed upon them, but how ill do they use that greatest gift of God to men, and hid that noble Talon in a Dunghill. How is their soul only like Salt to keep their Body sweet, and preserve the hog from stinking; how would it tempt one to think that was even material, and like the anima brutorum.  
It has been the conceit of many that the soul is but a rasa tabula, a kind of fair unwritten Paper till it has received impressions from without, and in these men it continues a perfect blank, or at least 'tis only a little seroled with some odd marks, and here and there blotted and blurred over; 'Tis only Wisdom and Instruction that fill it with fair and excellent Characters, that writ things upon it in their natural shape and order, that draw them to the Life, and in their true colours and postures, and describe upon it the greatest remarks and concerns that are or have been in the World: And by these means make it instead of a dark and hollow Cave, filled only with damps & ugly spectres, a pleasant and delightful Storehouse of the richest truth and the choicest knowledge.  
2. As it fits a man to do good i'the World, and I think it deserves not the name of Wisdom that does not some way or other do that; if a man's Learning be only about toys and trifles, however odd and pretty he may contrive them, and be not an instrument that will serve to any useful purposes for mankind; if instead of making a little City great with Themistocles, it teach him only to play on the fiddle; if it be only a critical knowing words without things, a making Elymologies and Cognations with those that are no way related, a contriving nice terms and distinctions to lose plain sense, a studying Judiciary Schemes, and fanciful Cabalas, and mysterious Zoars, 'tis then only a more Learned sort of folly and ignorance; he that Studies hard only for those things, is much like him that should Travel over a great part of the World to make a collection of the tails of Monkeys, or the fins of flying Fishes. Mankind is like to be more benefited by the labours of a Porter, or a Ploughman, than by such trifling and useless pedantry: But those things which are most beneficial to the World, which really conduce to the comfort, and welfare, and happiness of Mankind, are best carried on by the help of the truest Learning, and best Knowledge; Physic that preserves our health, and restores it, is founded in natural Knowledge and Philosophy; Navigation that brings us all the Conveniences and Riches of the World in Astronomy and Geometry, the knowledge of Law and Government upon that of Ancient Codes and Histories, as well as modern; and Divinity itself upon almost all others, and especially the knowledge of true Morals, of Tongues, and Ecclesiastical Antiquity; without which, instead of Physicians and Merchants, we should have only Mountebanks and Pedlars; and instead of Lawyers and Divines, only Pettifoggers and Divinity Quacks.  
And in all things whatsoever the more dextrous and ready and nimble any part is, the more subservient will it be to the uses of the whole Body; and Knowledge in general is the same thing to Practise that Sight is to Walking, it shows us the realities of things, and dispels the shadows and false conceptions of them, and lets us see how to handle and take right hold of them, and manage them by the truest measures of Prudence; it sets us in the right and nearest way to such an end, and lets us see the difficulties before us, and the best means to escape them; it regulates us in our practice by right rules and methods, and manages and orders all circumstances to suit best with the design it proposes; & though some men who are carried into the shady and solitary parts of Knowledge and Speculation, are by disuse rendered unfit for an active Life, yet where Learning and Knowledge, and an active Mind happen to meet, 'tis they that do the great things, and much greater in such a conjunction than they could do asunder; and though without that we have some instances of useful men, and great exploits, yet 'tis but as we have of great Cures done by Empirics, 'tis good Skill joined with Experience that is much more valuable.  
The most useful persons to Mankind have been the men of Wisdom and Learning, witness not only the Inventors of Arts & Letters, the Egyptian Thoth or Hermes, the Grecian Orpheus and Palamedes, and other celebrated names, but the best Lawgivers that have made whole Kingdoms happy by their Wise instruons, Lycurgus, and Solon, and Numa; and above all Moses, brought up in all the Learning of the Egyptians; and to the honour of Learning, and those who have been the Teachers of it, it is observed that where Princes have had the fortune of good Tutors and Instructors, they have made themselves and their Kingdoms both great; Such as Charles the Great who had Alcuinus for his Master, a Disciple of Bede; Honorius and Arcadius who had Arsenius, Otho the Emperor who had Gilbertus Floriacensis, and Charles the Fifth who had Adrian the Sixth; and so sensible were those great men of the benefits they had by their Education, that in gratitude to their Masters, some procured Statues for them; as Mark Antony did for Junius Rusticus, and Gratian the Emperor made his Tutor Ausonius' Consul, and Alexander owned himself as much obliged to Aristotle as to Philip his Father.  
The happiness of Rome under Nero's minority is justly ascribed to Seneca, and that of Gordianus to his Tutor Misitheus; and this observation is true, both nearer us at home, and as far back as Joseph and Pharaoh, and the foundation of the Italian Commonwealths by Zaleucus and Charondas, who were the Disciples of Pythagoras, justifying that saying of Plato, that those Commonwealth's were happy where either Philosophers governed, or their Governors Philosophized: And 'tis certain those Kingdoms have been always the most famous even for Arms too, who have been so for Learning and Sciences, and when Rome decayed in the latter of these, it did in the former; and was overrun by the barbarous and Northern Nations, when it was itself growing barbarous.  
3. I shall consider the excellency of Learning and Knowledge, as it entertains a man's life, and his time with the greatest pleasure: Thus Knowledge like Light is not only useful and necessary to the doing business, and transacting our affairs, but 'tis infinitely pleasant and delightful in itself, and were it only so, it were no way to be despised; as no man would be willing to be blind, though he had not much to do.  
Our minds are busy and active things, apt to be wearied and tired with the same objects, and can quickly exhaust all the sweetness and virtue out of them, and must be still in quest of fresh entertainment for themselves; or else like cloyed and surfeited Stomaches they will turn all they have into nausea and loathing; and 'tis Knowledge alone that can feed them with new dainties & repasts, and furnish them with infinite variety of sound & manly pleasures, that shall never grow flat and languid, nor satiate and overcome us.  
'Tis certain there is no appetite more strong, nor the fatisfaction of it more pleasant than that of Knowledge, the thirst of it increases with drinking, and yet every sip and taste is extremely delicious, and has transported even Wise men beyond Wine, or Raptures; with great ardour and impetus does our mind's court and embrace it, and find infinite pleasure in every enjoyment of it, and all its conceptions are brought forth, if not with ease, yet with joy and ecstasy; so that whole hecatombs have been offered at the birth of a new notion, or piece of knowledge; more was Archimedes transported with his Problem, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, than the Priests, or others, at their most jovial Bacchanals: And not only in some sudden rapturous effects does it outdo all the lower pleasures of Sensuality, but it entertains the mind with a calm and even, a lasting and abiding pleasure, or rather a constant variety of pleasures. What can more divert and please our thoughts than to look back sometimes upon the Ages that are past, to acquaint oneself with the transactions and affairs that have busied the world, to view the distant Scenes, and the thronged Theatre of Ancient times, and consider all the Parts of the great Fable and Drama that Mankind has been ever acting; and not to be always Children, as Tully calls it, and know only what is present and in their days; or at furthest, have no other History than at the beginning of an Almanac: I will not mention the pleasure of looking forwards to Ages to come, though the immoderate desire of that shows how pleasant even the forbidden Fruits of the Tree of Knowledge are, but without the help either of Stars or Familiars, a Wise man may make such conjectures of Futurity as are useful to him, and the wise observing what is past, is the best Scheme can be erected to know what is to come.  
How delightful is it safely to travel over all the Earth, the great Cities and the vast Mountains, the mighty Deep and the pleasant Plains and Rivers, and take a prospect of the whole and large Field of Nature, and all the variety upon it; to converse now and then with the wisest Nations, and with the barbarous, and see their Customs and Manners, and whatever is worthy a curious enquiry. How pleasant is it to Survey the whole beautiful and regular frame of the Universe, to look into the secret treasuries of the Earth, to see its fruitful Bowels dissected and laid open before us, all the riches of Nature ransacked in its Mines and Minerals, and to have a view of all its choice Pieces and excellent Draughts, and understand the fine and curious way by which it works them; to enter into its Laboratory, and see the course of Chemistry it goes through in every Animals body, and the wonderful Mechanism of every Part and Member; to look into ourselves, and see the delicate Clockwork that moves our Hands and our Feet, and the fine laid Pipes and Water-works that convey the Serum, and the Blood and Spirits from their proper Conduits: Nay to ascend into the very Heavens, and with a quick and nimble thought pass through all the Spheres and Vortices, and see how they are made, and in what Lines they move; what Order and Harmony they keep, and how the great Geometer has made all things in Weight and Measure, with the best counsel and contrivance: What can be equal to all these pleasures of Wonder and Admiration, Learning and Knowledge? This is one of the noblest Entertainments that God designed man to enjoy in this World, to contemplate the Works of the Creation, and 'tis one of those Pleasures which God himself enjoyed, when he survey d his own Creation, and saw that it was Good; and agreeable to the ideas of his own wise mind; there are none but must be sensible of this, unless a gross Ignorance spoil their Palate, and like the Chaonian Clown, they care for no other Meat or Entertainment but Acorns, and what they have been used to in there own Cottage, and think nothing relishes with any true gusto, but rank Garlic and Onions.  
4. I shall consider the Good and Execllency of Learning as it is useful to the concerns of Religion, and then it becomes the truest Wisdom, when it has any tendency, any way to serve Religion, without which we are Fools in the main, and shall be found so at last, and at the foot of the account.  
There are some indeed, that think Learning an Enemy to Religion, and that 'tis better bred up under a devout Ignorance, And then Heathenism, would have been a better Mother of Devotion than Christianity; but whatever thoughts these Men have of Learning which we shall see anon, I am afraid they have no great kindness for Religion, 'tis to be feared they have no good designs upon it who thus keep it in the dark, 'tis there they Prostitute and corrupt it, and make it yield to their base, lewd, and villainous designs, and indeed such a thing as they have made of it, the only way to make men devoutly adore it, is not to understand it; the Light would betray their false wares, and discover the base Coin they would put off, however Infallibility have stamped and counterfeited it: but these men and their friends are often crying out against too many Schools, and too much Learning, as the means to make men pert and conceited, eternal disputers in Religion, setters up of sects and parties, and so think themselves wiser than their Teachers, or their Governors; If they do so, I am sure 'tis the fault of their Ignorance, and not of their Learning; all those mischiefs proceed not from having, but wanting a good understanding; and I am afraid the lessening Schools, and suppressing Learning, is not the best way to remedy that; but as one of the wisest Enemies to Christianity, Julian, thought this the most likely way utterly to destroy it. And if Princes must use this way to keep their People quiet and orderly, then to prevent mutinies and quarrelling, and seditious breaking the Peace; they may as well blindfold them or put out their eyes, by which they would be forced to live quietly, but things are come to a very hard pass if men must become a sort of stupid brutes, that they may be the better managed, and in order to bear the bit and bridle, must not exercise and improve their Reason: 'Tis certain if they had not Eyes, nor Hands, nor Legs, they would not be so well fitted to do mischief, but no more would they likewise to do good, and therefore 'tis not advisable to destroy a manifest good thing, for an accidental inconvenience that may sometimes happen from it, not with the Thracians to cut down all the Vines in their Country to avoid Drunkenness, nor with the Turkish and the Popish Policy, to destroy Learning and Knowledge, to make men more Governable and Religious. But because if Learning were any way prejudicial to Religion, all its other uses and excellencies, would signify very little, and it would be improper for me to recommend it to you in this place, I shall particularly show its manifest usefulness to that, as it destroys the greatest Enemies to it, which are these: Atheism, Profaneness, Popery and Fanaticism.  
1. Atheism, and yet that has been laid to the Charge of being great Scholars, but very unjustly, tho' we should reckon Epicurus, Vaninus, and Hobbs, among the Atheists, 'tis certain, they were none of the great Clerks of their Age, and 'twas chief their singularity and boldness to confront the natural sense, and universal opinion of all wise men, that made them considerable or taken notice of, they might have passed else unobserved, and unregarded in the common crowd: and we very well know, that most of their Followers in our Age can scarce understand, and often are not able to read them, unless for the common benefit of Atheism, they are translated into their Mother's Tongue; and by those helps he that resolves to be lewd and debauched, thinks it best to set up for a wit and an Atheist, and to laugh at the Contradiction of spiritual Substances, and immaterial beings, and he can concieve nothing but matter and motion, and will not let the Priests inpose any thing upon him, that he can't understand; but had this man but a little more Learning and Sense, he would presently find, that 'tis as easy to understand spirit as matter, and that there are nigh as many difficulties in the most ordinary Phaenomina of Nature, as in the Mysteries of Religion, and that he can as little give a full Account of the most obvious things, the colour of grass, or his own hair, the natural paints of Flowers, the Species and Seeds of Fruits, his own Figure, Shape, and the like; as how Spirits think, and move, and converse without a Body; and that a Man may as much lose himself in those things the further he goes on, and must at last stop at the Will of the First Cause, as in the other; and 'tis as easy to conceive an infinite God, as infinite Matter or Space, and how he is present in all places and yet has no parts, as how Matter is made either of divisibles or indivisibles, how the Centre is equal to the Circumference, and how two Lines may approach nearer one another? and yet never touch, tho' drawn in infinitum: so much Learning as will make a good Philosopher will spoil an Atheist, and the right knowledge of Nature; will bring him to the knowledge of a God, when he sees in every part of it the footsteps not of Chance, but of wise Counfel; and by considering that, he will find the nature of good and evil to be as certain and immutable, as that of a Circle or triangle: and if he go on to read Books, he will find that all the wise Men that ever were in the world, have been against Atheism, that the belief of a God has been the belief of all ages and nations, of the wisest and the freest thinkers, as well as the unlearned and ignorant, and that there have been few such Monsters of Men as have denied it.  
2. Profaneness and debauchery, which you have observed I am sure the smallest proficients in Learning, and the most idle truants from their Book, to be most apt to fall into; Alas 'tis much more easy to discourse loosely and idly, then coherently and to the purpose, to be fluent in fashionable oaths then in any true eloquence, to talk Ribaldry and Profaneness, than sense and reason; and therefore you shall often find, that he who could hardly be brought to construe Cato at School, shall afterwards out of spite and revenge, despise and laugh at all Virtue and Morality; and he who could never read the Greek Testament, shall become a notable Jester up the Bible in English; and the raw and simple Fop, that has not the Learning of the meanest Curate, shall be confidently drolling upon God and Religion, and exercising his wit and raillery, such as it is, upon all the Learned Men in black; Now had this witty dunce ever had the skill or the patience, to Study and know what Learning was, he would have had more esteem for it where e'er it is, and have known how to put it to a better use. And tho' I shall not reckon either Greek or Latin, no nor Hebrew, neither Aristotle, or Cartes, or Averro, among the Instruments of Conversion, or the ordinary means of Grace; yet I am confident that the applying a Man's mind to study, and employing it in the business of Learning and Knowledge, will both take him off and divert him from most of that lewdness and debauchery, that idle and unemployed and active minds fall into; and will help to fix the quicksilver, and settle the extravegancies they are inclined to; and turn that lose, and wild, and frothy humour, which is the usual vehicle of Profaneness and effect of Idleness, into solid and consistent Sense and Learning; and that is the best prepared seedplot and nursery for true Religion.  
3. Popery, which sprang up in the darkest, and most barbarous Ages of Christianity; in the Night when men were asleep, the Enemy sowed those tares in the Church that have since overrun the true Corn; when Learning degenerated into fabulous Legends, and Monkish Stories, when it was suspected to be a good Latinist, and almost Heresy to understand Greek; then they foisted in those false and spurious Readins into the Ancients, and put out feigned Books under false Names, and took the advantage of an ignorant and undiscerning Age, as dishonest persons do of the Night, or the duskish twilight; and when it was become an Heresy to believe the Antipodes, it was a good time to make Purgatory, or Transubstantiation, an Article of Faith; and even now in those Countries which are the truest vassals to the Popedom, the decay of Learning is very manifest, so that there is little of Greek in Italy, and scarce any at all in Spain, the Scool-Men and the Canonists, making up almost all the Learning amongst them, and 'tis not to be doubted that the restoring Learning by Erasmus, and others about his time, made great way for the Reformation, and disposed the world very much to receive it; and that Learning, and free Philosophy, and exammination of things which has been the temper of the world ever since, has not a little thratened and affrighted them, and they sufficiently showed their dislike of it in the usage of Galileo: it being their whole design to keep men's minds in Ignorance and Captivity, in Darkness and Slavery, and by no means to allow that liberty of thinking, and reasoning, of enquiring, examining and judging, which the Reformation doth.  
4. Learning as 'tis an Enemy to Popery so 'tis no friend to Faniticism, every one knows, that grows out of an unskilful Head that has great heat in it but without light; Enthusiasm is a kind of Spiritual Frenzy and Religious madness, that proceeds from a great Zeal that puts the Blood and Spirits into an Extraordinary Ferment and Commotion, and has but very little knowledge to slake and cool, and govern them; and next to the Applications of Physic and letting Blood, there is nothing will so certainly cure it as sober Learning and Instruction; this clears the mind of all those fumes that disturb it, and dispels those dark Images and Representations of things that are before it, all those Phantasms and Chimaeras like Spirits and Hobgoblins vanish at the approach of Light and Day, and haunt and disturb People only in the dark. The Enthusiasts and pretenders to Inspirations, have been always the great decryers of Humane Learning under the name of vain Philosophy, as being sensible that nothing does more tend to abate the excesses and allay the violences of their Enthusiastic Fervors, than this doth, and then I am sure nothing can be more serviceable to Religion than that which prevents one of the worst diseases it is subject to, A Spiritual Hectic and Consumption.  
I shall crave leave to add but one thing more to show not only the serviceableness but the absolute necessity of Learning to Religion, and that is this, Religion that was taught by God, and delivered from Heaven is contained and transmitted down to us in such Books and Records as do necessarily require Learning to understand them, not only the skill in Languages as a Key to unlock and decipher the meaning of those Holy Books, and the peculiar Idiotisms and Proprieties of those Languages, without which we have only the sound and not the sense of them, but the knowledge of Times and of Places, and the Customs and Manners of those People to whom many things in Holy Scripture do immediately relate, and their true meaning cannot be understood without them; one of the great Causes of misinterpreting, and mistaking the sense of Holy Scripture, is the taking it as a Book writ in our Times, and not many Ages ago, and the thinking nothing necessary to understand and manage the Bible, but a vulgar Translation, and a large Concordance; when some of the most considerable things in it, not only the Prophecies of the Messiah and the time of his coming, but the nature of the two Sacraments nay that of our Saviour's Sacrifice and satisfaction, cannot well be understood without knowing the Jewish and the Heathen Notion about Sacrifices, and yet 'tis that upon which the whole Gospel oeconomy does mightily depend. Indeed the great and necessary lines of Morality are so plain not only there, but even on the hearts of all Men that they need not much Comment; but the understanding all the parts of those Holy Books, (part of which is the most ancient Writing we know of) and all the several Revelations and particular matters contained in them, is a Work of the greatest and the most valuable Learning.  
But I shall add no more but my earnest advice and wishes that we who have had the advantage of Learning and good Education, would take care to employ it some way or other to the purposes of Religion, and bring some honour and advantage to that by it.  
And as 'tis the most ill Manners and ill Breeding not to treat Religion, the most sacred thing in the World with decency and respect, so 'tis a sign of little Wit and less Learning not to believe it, and then 'tis the greatest folly i'the World not to practise it, unless it be that of Buffooning and Burlesquing it, and therefore let us take care to leave all those rude and unmannerly, as well as mad and wicked things, to those Atheistical and Profane, Popish and Fanatical Fools, who are those chief who despise Wisdom and Instruction.  
FINIS.