Learning.

1. NO Man is the wiser for his Learn∣ing; it may administer Matter to work in, or Objects to work upon, but Wit and Wisdom are born with a Man.

2. Most Mens Learning is nothing but History duly taken up. If I quote Tho∣mas Aquinus for some Tenant, and be∣lieve it, because the School-Men say so, that is but History. Few Men make them∣selves Masters of things they write or speak.

3. The Jesuites and the Lawyers of France, and the Low-Country-Men, have engrossed all Learning. The rest of the World make nothing but Homilies.

4. ’Tis observable, that in Athens where the Arts flourisht, they were govern’d by a Democrasie; Learning made them think themselves as wise as any body, and they would govern as well as others; and they speak as it were by way of Con∣tempt, that in the East, and in the North they had Kings, and why? Because the most part of them followed their Busi∣ness, and if some one Man had made himself wiser than the rest, he govern’d them, and they willingly submitted them∣selves to him. Aristotle makes the Ob∣servation. And as in Athens the Philoso∣phers made the People knowing, and therefore they thought themselves wise enough to govern; so does preaching with us, and that makes us affect a Democra∣sie: For upon these two Grounds we all would be Governours, either be∣cause we think our selves as wise as the best, or because we think our selves the Elect, and have the Spirit, and the rest a Company of Reprobates that belong to the Devil.