Himself tabled the Jews from heaven, that omer, which was every man's daily portion of manna, is computed to have been more than might have well sufficed the heartiest feeder thrice as many meals. For those actions which enter into a man, 470 rather than issue out of him, and therefore defile not, God uses not to captivate under a perpetual childhood of prescription, but trusts him with the gift of reason to be his own chooser; there were but little work left for preaching, if law and compulsion should grow so fast upon those things which heretofore were governed only by exhortation. Solomon informs us that much_reading is a weariness to the flesh; but neither he nor other inspired author tells us that such or such reading is unlawful: yet certainly had God thought good to limit us herein, it had been much more expedient to have told us what was unlawful, than what was wearisome. As for the burning of those Ephesian books by St. Paul's converts, 'tis replied the books were magic, the Syriac so renders them. It was a private act, a voluntary act, and leaves us to a voluntary imitation: the men in remorse burnt those books which were their own; the magistrate by this example is not appointed: these men practised the books, another might perhaps have read them in some sort usefully Good and evil we know in the field of this world grow up together almost inseparably; and the knowledge of good is so involved and interwoven with the 490 knowledge of evil, and in so many cunning resemblances hardly 467. tabled the Jews, supplied the tables of the Jews with food. See Exodus xvi. 467. omer, about three and a half quarts. 470. those actions. Matthew xv. 17-20. 471. issue. Norman-French issue, from Lat. ex-out, and itum to go. Issue and exit are, therefore, doublets. 474. there were, there would be. Notice the conditional use. Good 476, 477. Solomon informs. 478. nor other, nor any other. "Many of them also which used 486. is not appointed, i.e., is not directed to deal with it. 487. practised the books, i.e., practised what the books taught. 480 to be discerned, that those confused seeds which were imposed upon Psyche as an incessant labour to cull out, and sort asunder, were not more intermixed. It was from out the rind of one apple tasted, that the knowledge of good and evil, as two twins cleaving together, leaped forth into the world. And perhaps this is that doom which Adam fell into of knowing good and evil, that is to say of knowing good by evil As therefore the state of man now is, what wisdom can there be to choose, what 500 continence to forbear withcut the knowledge of evil? He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run 492, 493. those confused seeds... Psyche. The reference is to the story of Cupid and Psyche as told by Apuleius in his "Golden Ass." Psyche drew upon herself the wrath of Venus for having won the love of her son Cupid. Venus flew upon her, tore her garments into shreds, pulled out her hair, and shook her by the head; then took the seeds of wheat, barley, millet, poppy, vetches, lentils and beans, and, mixing them up into one confused heap, ordered Psyche to sort them out before evening. The fable relates that the task was performed for her by the friendly aid of some ants. 493. cull out, pick out; Fr. cueillir to gather. = "Twin" is from A.S. twagen= two. = 497. doom, j judgment, penalty; A.S. deman to judge. 499. now is, i.e., under this Licensing Ordinance. 500. continence to forbear, continence in forbearing. 501. her. See chapter on Language, on the absence of "its." 503. wayfaring. The original of 1644 has warfaring, but this, according to Holt White, was a correction made by the proof reader, and not by Milton, who wrote "wayfaring," as opposed to "cloistered," in the next line. Faring, A S. faran to go. 504. fugitive, i.e., fleeing from temptation. 504. cloistered; Fr. cloitre, from L. claustrum: =a shutting up. 505. sallies; from the La salio I leap. 506. that immortal garl the crown of immortal life and |