The Proficience and Advancement of Learning | Page 5

the proud knowledge of good and evil, with an intent in man to

give law unto himself, and to depend no more upon God's
commandments, which was the form of the temptation. Neither is it any
quantity of knowledge, how great soever, that can make the mind of
man to swell; for nothing can fill, much less extend the soul of man, but
God and the contemplation of God; and, therefore, Solomon, speaking
of the two principal senses of inquisition, the eye and the ear, affirmeth
that the eye is never satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing; and
if there be no fulness, then is the continent greater than the content: so
of knowledge itself and the mind of man, whereto the senses are but
reporters, he defineth likewise in these words, placed after that calendar
or ephemerides which he maketh of the diversities of times and seasons
for all actions and purposes, and concludeth thus: "God hath made all
things beautiful, or decent, in the true return of their seasons. Also He
hath placed the world in man's heart, yet cannot man find out the work
which God worketh from the beginning to the end"--declaring not
obscurely that God hath framed the mind of man as a mirror or glass,
capable of the image of the universal world, and joyful to receive the
impression thereof, as the eye joyeth to receive light; and not only
delighted in beholding the variety of things and vicissitude of times, but
raised also to find out and discern the ordinances and decrees which
throughout all those changes are infallibly observed. And although he
doth insinuate that the supreme or summary law of Nature (which he
calleth "the work which God worketh from the beginning to the end")
is not possible to be found out by man, yet that doth not derogate from
the capacity of the mind; but may be referred to the impediments, as of
shortness of life, ill conjunction of labours, ill tradition of knowledge
over from hand to hand, and many other inconveniences, whereunto the
condition of man is subject. For that nothing parcel of the world is
denied to man's inquiry and invention, he doth in another place rule
over, when he saith, "The spirit of man is as the lamp of God,
wherewith He searcheth the inwardness of all secrets." If, then, such be
the capacity and receipt of the mind of man, it is manifest that there is
no danger at all in the proportion or quantity of knowledge, how large
soever, lest it should make it swell or out-compass itself; no, but it is
merely the quality of knowledge, which, be it in quantity more or less,
if it be taken without the true corrective thereof, hath in it some nature
of venom or malignity, and some effects of that venom, which is

ventosity or swelling. This corrective spice, the mixture whereof
maketh knowledge so sovereign, is charity, which the Apostle
immediately addeth to the former clause; for so he saith, "Knowledge
bloweth up, but charity buildeth up;" not unlike unto that which he
deilvereth in another place: "If I spake," saith he, "with the tongues of
men and angels, and had not charity, it were but as a tinkling cymbal."
Not but that it is an excellent thing to speak with the tongues of men
and angels, but because, if it be severed from charity, and not referred
to the good of men and mankind, it hath rather a sounding and
unworthy glory than a meriting and substantial virtue. And as for that
censure of Solomon concerning the excess of writing and reading
books, and the anxiety of spirit which redoundeth from knowledge, and
that admonition of St. Paul, "That we be not seduced by vain
philosophy," let those places be rightly understood; and they do, indeed,
excellently set forth the true bounds and limitations whereby human
knowledge is confined and circumscribed, and yet without any such
contracting or coarctation, but that it may comprehend all the universal
nature of things; for these limitations are three: the first, "That we do
not so place our felicity in knowledge, as we forget our mortality;" the
second, "That we make application of our knowledge, to give ourselves
repose and contentment, and not distaste or repining;" the third, "That
we do not presume by the contemplation of Nature to attain to the
mysteries of God." For as touching the first of these, Solomon doth
excellently expound himself in another place of the same book, where
he saith: "I saw well that knowledge recedeth as far from ignorance as
light doth from darkness; and that the wise man's eyes keep watch in
his head, whereas this fool roundeth about in darkness: but withal I
learned that the same mortality