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of a cruel difgofpelling jurifdiction; who ingrofs many pluralities under a nonrefident and flubbering dispatch of fouls; who let hundreds of parishes famifh in one diocefe, while they the prelates are mute, and yet enjoy that wealth that would furnish all those dark places with able supply; and yet they eat, and yet they live at the rate of earls, and yet hoard up; they who chafe away all the faithful fhepherds of the flock, and bring in a dearth of fpiritual food, robbing thereby the church of her deareft treasure, and fending herds of fouls ftarveling to Hell, while they feaft and riot upon the labours of hireling curates, confuming and purloining even that which by their foundation is allowed, and left to the poor, and to reparations of the church. These are they who have bound the land with the fin of facrilege, from which mortal engagement we shall never be free, till we have totally removed with one labour, as one individual thing, prelaty and facrilege. And herein will the king be a true defender of the faith, not by paring or leffening, but by diftributing in due proportion the maintenance of the church, that all parts of the land may equally partake the plentiful and diligent preaching of the faith, the scandal of ceremonies thrown out that delude and circumvent the faith; and the ufurpation of prelates laid level, who are in words the fathers, but in their deeds, the oppugners of the faith. This is that which will beft confirm him in that glorious title. Thus ye have heard, readers, how many fhifts and wiles the prelates have invented to fave their ill got booty. And if it be true, as in fcripture it is foretold, that pride and covetousness are the fure marks of thofe falfe prophets which are to come; then boldly conclude these to be as great feducers as any of the latter times. For between this and the judgment day do not look for any arch deceivers, who in 'fpite of reformation will ufe more craft, or less fhame to defend their love of the world and their ambition, than these prelates have done. And if ye think that foundness of reason, or what force of argument foever will bring them to an ingenuous filence, ye think that which will never be. But if ye take that course which Erafmus was wont

to

to fay Luther took against the pope and monks; if ye denounce war against their mitres and their bellies, ye fhall foon difcern that turban of pride, which they wear upon their heads, to be no helmet of falvation, but the mere metal and hornwork of papal jurifdiction; and that they have alfo this gift, like a certain kind of fome that are poffeffed, to have their voice in their bellies, which, being well drained and taken down, their great oracle, which is only there, will foon be dumb; and the divine right of epifcopacy, forthwith expiring, will put us no more to trouble with tedious antiquities and difputes.

DE

OF

EDUCATION.

ΤΟ

MASTER SAMUEL HARTLIB.

I AM

MASTER HARTLIB,

AM long fince perfuaded, that to fay or do aught worth memory and imitation, no purpofe or refpect fhould fooner move us than fimply the love of God, and of mankind. Nevertheless to write now the reforming of education, though it be one of the greatest and nobleft defigns that can be thought on, and for the want whereof this nation perishes; I had not yet at this time been induced, but by your earnest entreaties and serious conjurements; as having my mind for the present half diverted in the purfuance of fome other affertions, the knowledge and the use of which cannot but be a great furtherance both to the enlargement of truth, and honeft living with much more peace. Nor fhould the laws of any private friendThip have prevailed with me to divide thus, or transpose my former thoughts, but that I fee those aims, those actions, which have won you with me the esteem of a person sent hither by fome good providence from a far country to be the occafion and incitement of great good to this ifland. And, as I hear, you have obtained the fame repute with men of moft approved wisdom, and fome of the highest authority among us; not to mention the learned correspondence which you hold in foreign parts, and the extraordinary pains and diligence, which you have used in this matter both here and beyond the feas; either by the definite will of God fo ruling, or the peculiar fway of nature, which alfo is God's working. T

VOL. I.

Neither

Neither can I think that fo reputed and so valued as you are, you would to the forfeit of your own difcerning ability, impofe upon me an unfit and overponderous argument; but that the fatisfaction, which you profess to have received from those incidental difcourfes which we have wandered into, hath preffed and almost conftrained you into a perfuafion, that what you require from me in this point, I neither ought nor can in conscience defer beyond this time both of fo much need at once, and fo much opportunity to try what God hath determined. I will not refift therefore whatever it is, either of divine or human obligement, that you lay upon me; but will forthwith fet down in writing, as you requeft me, that voluntary idea, which hath long in filence presented itself to me, of a better education, in extent and comprehenfion far more large, and yet of time far fhorter, and of attainment far more certain, than hath been yet in practice. Brief I fhall endeavour to be; for that which I have to fay, affuredly this nation hath extreme need fhould be done fooner than spoken. To tell you therefore what I have benefited herein among old renowned authors, I fhall fpare; and to fearch what many modern Januas and Didactics, more than ever I fhall read, have projected, my inclination leads me not. But if you can accept of these few observations which have flowered off, and are as it were the burnishing of many ftudious and contemplative years altogether spent in the fearch of religious and civil knowledge, and fuch as pleased you fo well in the relating, I here give you them to difpofe of.

The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by poffeffing our fouls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith, makes up the highest perfection. But because our underftanding cannot in this body found itself but on sensible things, nor arrive fo clearly to the knowledge of God and things invifible, as by orderly conning over the vifible and inferior creature, the fame method is neceffarily to be followed in all difcreet teaching. And feeing every

nation affords not experience and tradition enough for all kind of learning, therefore we are chiefly taught the languages of those people who have at any time been most induftrious after wifdom; fo that language is but the inftrument conveying to us things useful to be known. And though a linguift fhould pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel cleft the world into, yet if he have not ftudied the folid things in them as well as the words and lexicons, he were nothing fo much to be efteemed a learned man, as any yeoman or tradefman competently wife in his mother dialect only. Hence appear the many mistakes which have made learning generally fo unpleafing and fo unsuccessful; firft, we do amifs to spend seven or eight years merely in fcraping together fo much miferable Latin and Greek, as might be learned otherwise easily and delightfully in one year. And that which cafts our proficiency therein fo much behind, is our time loft partly in too oft idle vacancies given both to schools and univerfities; partly in a prepofterous exaction, forcing the empty wits of children to compose themes, verses, and orations, which are the acts of ripeft judgment, and the final work of a head filled by long reading and obferving, with elegant maxims and copious invention. These are not matters to be wrung from poor ftriplings, like blood out of the nofe, or the plucking of untimely fruit ; befides the ill habit which they get of wretched barbarizing against the Latin and Greek idiom, with their untutored Anglicifms, odious to be read, yet not to be avoided without a well continued and judicious converfing among pure authors digested, which they scarce tafte: whereas, if after fome preparatory grounds of fpeech by their certain forms got into memory, they were led to the praxis thereof in fome chofen fhort book leffoned thoroughly to them, they might then forthwith proceed to learn the fubftance of good things, and arts in due order, which would bring the whole language quickly into their power. This I take to be the most rational and moft profitable way of learning languages, and whereby we may best hope to give account to God of our youth spent herein. And for the ufual method of teaching arts, I deem it to be an old errour of universities, not yet well recovered

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