Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	open_v	seal_n	seal_v	1,844	5	9.6479	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65356	Academiarum examen, or, The examination of academies wherein is discussed and examined the matter, method and customes of academick and scholastick learning, and the insufficiency thereof discovered and laid open : as also some expedients proposed for the reforming of schools, and the perfecting and promoting of all kind of science ... / by Jo. Webster.	Webster, John, 1610-1682.	1654 (1654)	Wing W1209; ESTC R827	87,773	128

such an impropriety of language as all their learning will never be able to justify it being an attribute that doth onely predicate essentially of the being of God and is indeed incommunicable to the Creature who hath nothing that is divine or spiritual but by participation for though the text saith that Saints are partakers of the divine nature yet will it not follow that because they are said to be partakers of divine things that therefore they are divine because participations do not truly predicate of those essences to which they are communicated but of that being from whence they flow for men participate of the light and heat of the Sun but it cannot be truly predicated of men that either they are the Sun nor truly and univocally that they are of a Solary nature but onely that participating of its influences and operations they may be truly said to be heatned and inlightned for though it be in the English translated Iohn the Divine whereby those that understand not the Greek are misled and thereby drawn to give that title to their Priests who blasphemously assume it to themselves yet I hope there is much difference betwixt {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} one that speaks of God or divine things and one that is divine the Scots therefore have a more apposite and warrantable Epithite who seldome or never call their Ministers Divines but Theologues and we have many could cry out against the Bishops for having the title of Lord or Grace given them and yet they themselves can swallow this title of being Divines which is more unseemly unfit and unwarrantable 2. Another expedient that I shall offer in this case is That the Scriptures which are as the seamless Coat of Christ may not be rent and torn with the carnal instruments of mans wit and reason nor modell'd or methodiz'd as an humane art or science but laid aside in Scholastick exercises as a sacred and sealed book lest they offering strange fire upon Gods altar perish as others have done for in the day of mans light the Tabernacle of the Lord will be covered with a cloud and in the night of his darkness there will be fire therefore let not men journey until the cloud be taken up or the fire appear otherwise they must know the Lord doth not lead them nor go before them And indeed whatsoever the proud and deceitful heart of man may imagine the Scriptures are a sealed book for so the prophet saith The vision of all is become as the words of a book that is sealed which men deliver to one that is learned saying Read this I pray thee and he saith I cannot for it is sealed And the book is delivered to him that is not learned saying Read this I pray thee and he saith I am not learned What can be more plain than this that it is as a sealed book both to the learned and unlearned and this is it that is sealed with seven seals and no man in heaven nor earth nor in the Sea that is found worthy to open this book and to unclose the seaven seals thereof but only the strong Lion of the Tribe of Iuda and therefore let Schools not touch it lest it be their destruction For unless they leave the Lords own work to himself and cease to sit in the seat of the scornful The Lord will laugh them to scorn and vex them in his sore displeasure neither will he bless them in their labours nor prosper them in their exercises Nay until all the Magistrates and Elderships of the earth that profess his name take off their Crowns and lay them at the feet of the Lamb and learn to practise and put in execution our Saviors counsel To give unto God the things that are Gods and to Caesar the things that are Caesars and not at all to intermeddle with the things of God misery and destruction will follow them to the grave and of them shall be required the blood of all the Saints O therefore that they would Kisse the Sonne lest he be angry and so they perish from the way of everlasting truth for when his wrath is kindled but a little blessed are all they that put their trust in him 3. The last expedient I shall present in this subject is That what can be discovered of God and supernatural things by the power of Reason and the light of Nature may be handled as a part of natural Philosophy unto which it doth belong because it is found out by the same means and instruments that other natural Sciences are and what may from thence cleerly be demonstrated and deducted may be holden forth as a means to overthrow Atheism Gentilism and the like but not to statuminate or build up any thing in religion nor like a wild bore to enter into the Lords vineyard to root up and destroy it In the next place are languages and Grammar which is the means or instrument by which they are taught unto which I shall offer these few helps 1. That care may be had of improving and advancing our own language and that arts and sciences may be taught in it that thereby a more easie and short way may be had to the attaining of all sorts of knowledge and that thereby after the example of the Romans we may labour to propagate it amongst other nations that they may rather be induced to learn ours than we theirs which would be of vast advantage to the Commonwealth in forrein Negotiations Trading Conquest and Acquisitions and also of much domestick advantage within our own territories For if we should arrive at any extraordinary height of learning and knowledge though we should but speak and write in our own mother tongue then would other nations be as earnest in learning it and translating our books as former ages have been in labouring to attain the language and translate the books of the Graecians and Romans and we at this day of the French and Germans 2. That some compendious way for both teaching and learning forein languages may be established by use and exercise without the tedious way of rule or Grammar which doubtless upon diligent skilful and exact tryal would prove more short easie certain and beneficial as is manifest by ordinary people that never knew any thing of Grammatical order being kept in families that speak another language and having none to converse with that speaks their own will in a wonderful short time learn to speak and understand it for when necessity is joined with industry it produceth great and stupendious effects 3. That in the way of teaching languages the order prescribed by Comenius in his Ianua linguarum may be practised and means used to improve it that both words and matter names and things may be learned together which may be done both with the same facility and in the same shortness of time that so the tender

excogitate in a most easie method that they may be cleerly and distinctly understood are most apt to perswade although they did use the language of the Goths and had never learned Rhetorick and those that are born to invent most ingenious figments and to express them with the greatest elegance and suavity are to be accounted the best Poets although they are ignorant of all the precepts of the Poetical art for nascitur non fit poeta and therefore Plato most truly concludeth Omnes itaque carminum poetae insignes non arte sed divino afflatu mente capti omnia ista praeclar a poemata canunt Therefore all the famous makers of verses do not sing all these excellent Poems by art but by a divine afflation being carried above themselves 3. Though Aristotle were a great Master in Oratory and a very eloquent man yet in that point might justly give the palm to his Master Plato unto whom all the attributes of honour in that particular are worthily accumulated of whom it is said That if Iupiter would speak in mans language he would speak in that of Plato Thus have I briefly run over some of the faults and defects of Academick learning but am far from having touched all for to have done that would have reached beyond both my time and purpose and also mine abilities for Benardus non videt omnia yet if the Lion may be known by his paw and Hercules by his foot then I hope there is enough said to make it cleer that the Aristotelian and Scholastick learning deserves not the preheminence above all other nor those great commendations that the corruption of times and sloathful ignorance of the most have ascribed unto it but that a great part of it doth deserve eradication some of it reformation and all of it melioration and so I proceed CHAP. VIII Of their Customes and Methode HAving hitherto spoken of the subjective learning that the Schools handle it follows in order to examine their customes and methode not that I mean to meddle either with their manners or maintenance but leave that to the judgement of others lest it happen to me as Erasmus said of Luther that it was dangerous to meddle with the Popes Crown and Monks bellies but only to note some things in the way and methode of their teaching which are obvious to my weak observation and so shall lay them down as they present themselves to my low apprehension 1. Though in one Academy there be usually divers Colleges or houses yet must all the Scholars in those several places be tyed to one methode and carried on in one way nay even bound to the same authors and hardly allowed so much liberty and difference as is between Aristotle and Ramus Logick As though they in the way of their teaching had arrived at the highest point of perfection which could no way be improved or no other as profitable could be discovered and found out and so are all forced like carriers horses to follow one another in the accustomed path though it be never so uneven or impassable 2. Their Scholastick exercises are but slenderly negligently and sloathfully performed their publike acts as they call them though but verbal digladiations being but kept four times in the year that is in the terms which if one should tell them in plain terms are but usually idle termes as though time of all other things here below were not to be accounted most pretious and that there can be no such detriment done unto youth as to lose or mispend it 3. Their Custome is injurious and prejudicial to all those that desire to make a speedy progress in learning nay unequal and disproportionable in it self namely to ty men to a set time of years or acts before they can receive their Laureation or take their degrees as though all were of one capacity or industry or all equally able at their matriculation and so the sloathful and painful the most capable and most blockish should both in the same equal time have an equal honour which is both disproportionable and unjust For some will attain to more in one year than some in three and therefore why should they not be respected according to their merits and proficiency and not bound to draw in an unequal yoak and what matter were it whether a man had been there one moneth or seven years so he had the qualification required and did subire examen and perform the duties of the place surely it is known that gradus non confert scientiam nec cucullus facit monachum 4. Their custome is no less ridiculous and vicious in their histrionical personations in the performance of their exercises being full of childishness and scurrility far from the gravity and severity of the Pythagorean School where a five years silence was enjoined using so much lightness as more befits stage-players than diligent searchers of Science by scoffing and jeering humming and hiffing which shewes them like those animals they imitate nay rather hur●ful Geese than labourious Bees that seek to gather into their Hives the sweet Honey of Learning and Knowledge 5. What is there in all their exercises but meer notions and quarrelsome disputations accustoming themselves to no better helps for searching into natures abstruse secrets than the Chymaeras of their own brains and converse with a few paper Idols as though these alone were sufficient keyes to open the Cabinet of Natures rich ●●easurie without labour and pains experiments and operations tryals and observations Surely if he that intends to prove a proficient in the knowledge of Agriculture should onely give himself over to contemplation and reading the books of such as have written in that Subject and never put his hand to the plough nor practise the way of tilling and sowing would he ever be a good husbandman or understand thorowly what pertains thereunto Surely not and no more can they be good Naturalists that do but onely make a mold and Idaea in their heads and never go out by industrious searches and observant experiments to find out the mysteries contained in nature 6. Their custome is no less worthy of reprehension that in all their exercises they make use of the Latine tongue which though it may have custome and long continuance to plead its justification and that it is used to bring youth to the ready exercise of it being of general reception almost through the whole world yet it is as cleerly answered that custome without reason and benefit becomes injurious and though it make them ready in speaking the Latine while they treat of such subjects as are usually handled in the Schools yet are they less apt to speak it with facility in negotiations of far greater importance And in the mean time the way to attain knowledge is made more difficult and the time more tedious and so we almost become strangers to our own mother tongue loving and liking forein languages as we do their fashions