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THE SECOND BOOKE 223
man-kinde : it is the way whereby man hath headlong"
cast himselfe downe into eternal! damnation. Pride
is his losse and corruption : it is pride that misleadeth
him from common waies; that makes him to embrace
all new fancies, and rather chuse to be chiefe of a
straggling troupe and in the path of perdition, and be
regent of some erroneous sect, and a teacher of falsehood,
than a disciple in the schoole of truth, and suffer
himselfe to be lea and directed by the hand of others
in the ready beaten highway. It is haply that which
the ancient Greeke proverb iinplieth,
' Superstition obaieth
pride as a father.' Uh overweaning, how much doest
thou hinder us? Socrates being advertised that the
God of wisdome had attributed the name of wise unto
him, was thereat much astonished, and diligently
searching and rouzi ng up himselfe, and ransacking the
very secrets of his heart, found no foundation or
ground for this divine sentence. He knew some that
were as just, as temperate, as valiant and as wise as
he, and more eloquent, more faire and more profitable
to their country. In fine he resolved that he was
distinguished from others, and reputed wise, onely
because he did not so esteeme himselfe: And that
his God deemed the opinion of science and wisdeme a
singular sottishnes in man; and that his best doctrine
was the doctrine of ignorance, and simplicitie his
greatest wisdome. The sacred writ pronounceth them
to be miserable in this world that esteeme themselves.
' Dust and ashes,' saith he, ' what is there in thee thou
shouldest so much glory of?' And in another place
God hath made man like unto a shadowe, of which
who shall judge when, the light being gone, it shall
vanish away ? Man is a thing of nothing. So far are
our faculties from conceiving that high Deitie, that of
our Creators works, those beare his marke best, and
are most his owne, which we understand least. It is
an occasion to induce Christians to beleeve, when they
chance to meet with any incredible thing, that it is so
much the more according unto reason, by how much