g of itself be that which (to speak
the words of Verulamius) 'crafty men contemn, and simple men only
admire, yet is it such as wise men have use of; for studies do not
teach their own use, but that is a wisdom without and above them, won by
observation. Expert men may execute, and perhaps judge, of particulars
one by one; but the general councils and the plots, and the marshalling
of affairs, come best from those that are learned.' Wherefore if you
would have your children to be statesmen, let them drink by all means of
these fountains, where perhaps there were never any. But what though the
water a man drinks be not nourishment, it is the vehicle without which
he cannot be nourished.

"Nor is religion less concerned in this point than government: for
take away your universities, and in a few years you lose it. "The holy
Scriptures are written in Hebrew and Greek; they that have neither of
these languages may think light of both; but find me a man that has one
in perfection, the study of whose whole life it has not been. Again,
this is apparent to us in daily conversation, that if four or five
persons that have lived together be talking, another speaking the same
language may come in, and yet understand very little of their discourse,
in that it relates to circumstances, persons, things, times and places
which he knows not. It is no otherwise with a man, having no insight
of the times in which they were written, and the circumstances to which
they relate, in the reading of ancient books, whether they be divine or
human. For example, when we fall upon the discourse about baptism and
regeneration that was between our Saviour and Nicodemus, where Christ
reproaches him with his ignorance in this matter. 'Art thou a doctor in
Israel, and understandest not these things?' What shall we think of it?
or wherefore should a doctor in Israel have understood these things more
than another, but that both baptism and regeneration, as was showed at
large by my Lord Phosphorus, were doctrines held in Israel? I instance
in one place of a hundred, which he, that has not mastered the
circumstances to which they relate, cannot understand. Wherefore to
the understanding of the Scripture, it is necessary to have ancient
languages, and the knowledge of ancient times, or the aid of them who
have such knowledge; and to have such as may be always able and ready to
give such aid (unless you would borrow it of another nation, which would
not only