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that divinity may be made mercenary, and the fundamentals of the church and commonwealth laid waste and abolished; that one man may be as good a gentleman as another, and for all this, We beseech you to hear us, great Lords.

Sic tetigi portum quo mihi cursus erat.

Παιδεία Θριαμβός,

THE

TRIUMPH OF LEARNING OVER IGNORANCE,

AND OF

TRUTH OVER FALSHOOD;

Being an Answer to Four Queries:

Whether there be any need of universities?
Who is to be accounted an heretick?
Whether it be lawful to use conventicles?
Whether a lay-man may preach?

Which were lately proposed by a zealot, in the parish church at Swacy near Cambridge, after the second sermon, October 3, 1652. Since that enlarged by the answerer, R. B. B. D. and fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

TALMUD.

Qui auget academias, auget sapientiam et מרבה ישיבה מרבה חכמה

sapientes.
IGNAT.

Τὰς τὰ σχίσματα ποιόντας φεύγετε ὡς ἀρχὴν κακῶν.

ROM. xvi. 17.

Mark them which cause divisions, and avoid them.

ROM. x. 15.

How shall they preach, except they be sent?

[From a Quarto, containing thirty-eight pages, printed at London, in 1653.]

THE author of this pamphlet, Robert Boreman, brother to Sir William Boreman, or Boureman, clerk of the green cloth to King Charles the Second, was fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge, afterwards Doc

tor of divinity, and rector of St. Giles's in the Fields, near London, and very probaby of the family of the Boremans in the Isle of Wight. He published several other small pieces, and a sermon on Phil. iii. 20. and died at Greenwich in Kent, about the latter end of the

year 1675.

It appears by this piece, that he was a man of both learning and piety; for, I doubt not, but the reader will presently see, that he had not only read much, but was blessed with a happy, methodical, and impartial talent, whereby he confutes, without depreciating his adversary; and, throughout the whole, there runs a sensible vein of compassion, and sincere and hearty praver for the conversion of those that are misled, and for the subsiding of all disputes in matters of faith.

The subjects, here treated of, are not only well handled, but are such as, at that time, were most necessary to be explained, when ignorance was, under the power of the sword, triumphing over learning; when sectaries increased daily, and every opinionated cobler, or taylor, usurped the ministerial office, and gloried in his endless capacity of dividing the church of Christ; when private assemblies in rooms or garrets, after the manner of our modern schismaticks, the disciples of Westly and Whitefield, &c. who, had they the same power, are of no less turbulent and aspiring spirits, were preferred to the worship of God's house, the publick prayers and preaching in the church, and lay teachers and preachers were substituted in their private meetings, in opposition to their stated and lawful ministers. But our author's reasons will best appear from his own preface, as follows:

To all sincere and true-hearted Christians, lovers of learning, truth, and peace.

The Jews have a saying, not more short than ingenious, that truth stands upon two legs, and a lye upon one*: Their meaning is, that as falshood and heresy fall at the length of themselves, without any contradiction, so truth is, and ever was firm, stable, and lasting, getting ground, growth, and strength, by opposition. By this means, many questions, which lay hid, and, as it were, buried in the grave of silence, are raised, discussed, and evidenced even to vulgar capacities.

St. Augustine, in his 18th lib. de Civ. Dei. cap. 51, treating of hereticks, and proving that the catholick faith is strengthened and confirmed by heretical dissensions, says thus of false teachers, Habentur in exercentibus inimicis, &c. i. e. "They are to be put into the file or number of those enemies who exercise the gifts and graces of God's servants;' who, like the stars that shine brightest in the cold nights of winter, are, in times of opposition, more active than ever in zeal, more vigilant and circumspect in their lives (as those † religious men were, in the days of Apollinaris, who laboured to outshine him in strictness of life, knowing that, by this, his opinions thrived and prevailed.) Lastly, more earnest in their devotion and prayers to the father of lights, that the seduced may be undeceived, and the seducers convinced of their errors. This

Talmad. + Dabant operam per inculpatos mores ut illius dogmata non plus valerent Sozom. Lib. 5. Cap. 27. Jam. i, 17.

(not to be seen in print, which is a poor piece of ambitious pride) is the scope of my pen, and the aim of my unworthy endeavours: Especially now, that little birds, scarce fledged, or hatched, flying with their shells upon their heads, and having only a feather or two of boldness in their faces, shall dare, and that in the bosom of their nurse, or mother, preach, or rather prate against learning, which they never had, and inveigh against universities, quà tales, simply as universities, of which they never deserved to be members.

It is an ill bird, &c. Every Englishman knows what follows in the proverb. There are no such enemies to learning, as the malicious and ignorant.

It was my happiness, of late, to meet with some adversaries, not, perhaps, so knowing, yet more candid than the former, declaimers against academies, and men of more Christian spirits, not (as St. Augustine + writes of the Donatists) pertinaciâ insuperabiles, invincible and pertinacious in their opinions; but such, whose minds were tuned to that obedience and meekness, that they, after a mild and long debate, yielded, with thankful acknowledgments, and protestations of love, to my reasons. And hereby declared plainly, before the congregation, that they were free from that whereof they were falsely suspected, i.. heresy; agreeable to that of the learned and most profound Augustine ; Qui sententiam suam quamvis falsam atque perversam nullâ pertinaci animositate defendunt, sed veritatem cautâ solicitudine quærunt, corrigi parati cùm invenerint, nequa quàm sunt inter hæreticos deputandi.' The meaning of which words, in brief, is this, that he only is to be counted an heretick, who persists, with obstinacy, in an opinion, which is against the word; not he, who errs, yet is ready to forsake his error, and yield to the truth, so soon as he is convinced of it.'

This pious and humble temper was in those my antagonists; for whose farther confirmation, and satisfaction to their modest desires, together with the rest of that populous parish of Swacy, I have published the discourse, with some enlargements, hoping that it will meet with as good success (by God's blessing on it) in the conviction of those by whom it shall be perused, whose judgments, perhaps, have been formerly perverted by false teachers, who beguile unstable souls, having hearts exercised (or overcome) with covetousness; cursed children (they are children for their ignorance) who, forsaking the way of all righteousness, have gone astray, following the way of Balaam, that made Israel to sin §. Such blind guides as these have been the cause of many poor souls falling into the ditch of heresy, which (if backed with obstinacy) is a bar that shuts men out of all hope of glory. This, hereafter, shall be proved, in my answer to the second doubt.

May the Infinite Goodness, (to whose only glory I humbly desire to devote myself, and all my weak endeavours) make them as useful and beneficial in the confirming and reforming of weak deceived souls, as they

Hujus furfuris (ne dicam farinæ) est Burtonus iste, hesterne diei homulus, cui doctrinam et pietatem audacia inauditæ parem optamus. + Ep. 167. + Ep. 162. 12 Pet ii. 14, 15. Jude ver. 11. Numb. xxv. 2. xxxi, 16.

are well meant and intended to the church's good, by the unworthiest of his servants: Who am, likewise, Christian reader,

Thine in Christ Jesus,

R. BOREMAN.

A short vindication of the use and necessity of universities, and other schools of learning; being an answer to the first query,

What need is there of universities?

IT is truly observed by a learned writer, that the Pope of Ronic, and

that church, never flew higher in power, never sunk deeper into error, than when ignorance prevailed, and learning was suppressed We may as safely, and with as much truth, assert, that where the purity of God's word is corrupted, and not preserved in its integrity, that kingdom, church, or state cannot but fall into ruin, and moulder away into divisions, caused by the multiplicity of false opinions, which, being joined with schism, do often (as they have now done) engender and beget a monster, the subverter of all government, and the disturber of peace, the nurse of religion. This and learning we may fitly resemble to the great luminaries of heaven, the sun and moon, both for their light and influence. And, as for the preserving the intire lustre of the moon, there is required a continual emanation of light from the sun; so learning borrows its true light from religion; without which a man having a learned head, and an unsanctified heart, is the fittest agent and best instrument for the devil to do mischief with; but now, here is the difference between that lesser luminary and learning, in that resemblance. The moon repays no tribute, confers no benefit to the sun; but learning, by way of reflexion, conduces much (if not to the being precisely taken, at least) to the happy and well being of religion. These two, like Eros and Anteros in the fable of the poets, are sick and well both at a time. †Julian the apostate understood this well, when he put down by a publick edict the schools where the children of Christians were to be educated; so did Pope Paul the Second, when he absurdly pronounced those hereticks, that did either in jest or earnest but use the word academy in their tongues or writings. The Jesuits and their factors, men subtle in their gencrations, and active in their mischievous intentions, they know the same, and therefore endeavour uow to effect (what of late one vauntingly said in the ears of a good protestant would be done) that is, to destroy the universities, and with them the ministry and religion.

That the universities so called, as || one explains the term, because the circle of all the arts and sciences is in them expounded or taught to young students and others of all sorts, degrees, and callings whatsoever; that these universities and other schools of learning (seed-plots and nur

* Gentilet. Exam. Concil. Trident. lib. 1. sect. 7. 8. Ignorantiam et Romanæ sedis autoritatera simul auctam, &c. Viciss.mque ut bonarum artium et literarum instauratione facessere cœpit ignorantia, ita et pontificis autoritas paulatim imminui et labescere visa est.

+ G. Naz. Orat. 3.

Platin. in vita ejus.

Fab. Soranus in thesauro.

series subordinate to them) are not only profitable to the church, but also necessary for the maintenance of religion; so necessary, that, without them, neither the doctrine of the gospel can be preserved pure and uncorrupted, nor the church, wherein we live, stand sure upon its foundation, but will certainly be destroyed. This I shall endeavour to prove by a familiar climax or gradation, proposed to vulgar capacities by way of question.

First, By what means can the church be pure and free from heresics, without the guidance and light of the pure word of God, the holy scriptures?

Secondly, How can that word be preserved in its purity without the ministry?

Thirdly, How can there be a ministry without able and fit ministers to explain and publish that word purely without corruption? Whose office it is to act the parts of truth's champions, to defend it against seducing hereticks, who (as Tertullian well notes, evermore alledge scripture to back and bolster out their absurd opinions, and by this their boldness they move some, tire out those that are strong by their restless disputes, take the weak in their nets, and as for those of a middle temper, these they send away full of doubts and scruples.' And whence do heresies arise, but from this (as St. † Augustine observes) dum Scripturæ bonæ intelligantur non bene, et quod in eis non bene intelligitur etiam temere et audacter asseritur? &c. i. e. Whilst the good word of God is not well understood, and that which is not well understood is rashly and boldly asserted for truth, &c.

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Now, in the fourth place, How can such stout champions, learned and faithful pastors, be had without schools of learning, the universities?

It will follow then by a necessary illation or consequence, that without universities, out of which such learned, wise, orthodox, and pious men may be called and produced how to govern particular congrega tions, and to sit at the helm of the church, this cannot be preserved secure and intire from heresies, but will be, like the ship wherein our Saviour was asleep, i. e. battered with tempests, and beaten with the waves of contrary opinions.

For this cause we find in antient records, that not only among the people of God, the antient Jews and Christians, but also even among the Gentiles evermore in all ages, great care and diligence was used to ordain and maintain schools of learning, and to place in them holy and knowing men, whom they encouraged with large stipends, by whose pains and parts the liberal arts and sciences, together with the doctrine of their religion, might be taught and fastened in the people's memories. To omit the schools of the Gentiles, as of the Egyptians ( to whom learning and arts were derived from the Jews) likewise those of the Chaldeans, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, all which (to the shame of Christians in these times, had learned and men of wisdom in

• Tertul lib. de præscript. Scripturas obtendunt, et hac sua audacia quosdam movent, &c Aug. Tract. 18. in Evang. Joh. Luke vill. 23. #Alsted. lib. 24. c. 13. Eucgel. Scholast. Heurn. primord. philosoph,

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