th been
ever seduced by papistical book in English, unless it were commended and
expounded to him by some of that clergy: and indeed all such tractates,
whether false or true, are as the prophecy of Isaiah was to the eunuch,
not to be UNDERSTOOD WITHOUT A GUIDE. But of our priests and doctors
how many have been corrupted by studying the comments of Jesuits and
Sorbonists, and how fast they could transfuse that corruption into the
people, our experience is both late and sad. It is not forgot, since the
acute and distinct Arminius was perverted merely by the perusing of a
nameless discourse written at Delft, which at first he took in hand to
confute.

Seeing, therefore, that those books, and those in great abundance, which
are likeliest to taint both life and doctrine, cannot be suppressed
without the fall of learning and of all ability in disputation, and that
these books of either sort are most and soonest catching to the learned,
from whom to the common people whatever is heretical or dissolute may
quickly be conveyed, and that evil manners are as perfectly learnt
without books a thousand other ways which cannot be stopped, and evil
doctrine not with books can propagate, except a teacher guide, which he
might also do without writing, and so beyond prohibiting, I am not able
to unfold, how this cautelous enterprise of licensing can be exempted
from the number of vain and impossible attempts. And he who were
pleasantly disposed could not well avoid to liken it to the exploit of
that gallant man who thought to pound up the crows by shutting his park
gate.

Besides another inconvenience, if learned men be the first receivers out
of books and dispreaders both of vice and error, how shall the licensers
themselves be confided in, unless we can confer upon them, or they
assume to themselves above all others in the land, the grace of
infallibility and uncorruptedness? And again, if it be true that a wise
man, like a good refiner, can gather gold out of the drossiest volume,
and that a fool will be a fool with the best book, yea or without book;
there is no reason that we should deprive a wise man of any advantage
to his wisdom, while we seek to restrain from a fool, that which being
restrained will be no hindrance to his folly. For if there should be so
much exactness always used to keep that from him which is unfit for his
reading, we should in the judgment of Aristotle not only, but of Solomon
and of our Saviour, not vouchs