ain?

How positive also is Tully's commendation that all places are filled
with fools? Now every excellence being to be measured by its extent, the
goodness of folly must be of as large compass as those universal places
she reaches to. But perhaps christians may slight the authority of a
heathen. I could therefore, if I pleased, back and confirm the truth
hereof by the citations of several texts of scripture; though herein.
it were perhaps my duty to beg leave of the divines, that I might so far
intrench upon their prerogative. Supposing a grant, the task seems so
difficult as to require the invocation of some aid and assistance; yet
because it is unreasonable to put the muses to the trouble and expense
of so tedious a journey, especially since the business is out of
their sphere, I shall choose rather (while I am acting the divine, and
venturing in their polemic difficulties), to wish myself for such time
animated with Scotus, his bristling and prickly soul, which I would not
care how afterwards it returned to his body, though for refinement it
were stopped at a purgatory by the way. I cannot but wish that I might
wholly change my character, or at least that some grave divine, in
my stead, might rehearse this part of the subject for me; for truly I
suspect that somebody will accuse me of plundering the closets of those
reverend men, while I pretend to so much divinity, as must appear in my
following discourse. Yet however, it may not seem strange, that after
so long and frequent a converse, I have gleaned some scraps from the
divines; since Horace's wooden god by hearing his master read Homer,
learned some words of Greek; and Lucian's cock, by long attention, could
readily understand what any man spoke. But now to the purpose, wishing
myself success.

[Illustration: 344]

Ecclesiastes doth somewhere confess that there are an infinite number of
fools. Now when he speaks of an infinite number, what does he else but
imply, that herein is included the whole race of mankind, except some
very few, which I know not whether ever any one had yet the happiness to
see?

The prophet Jeremiah speaks yet more plainly in his tenth chapter, where
he saith, that _Every man is brutish in his knowledge_. He just before
attributes wisdom to God alone, saying, that the _Wise men of the
nations are altogether brutish and foolish_. And in the preceding
chapter he gives this seasonable caution, _Let not the wise man glory
in his wisdom_: