for piety and learning, who had wont to avail himself much against
heretics by being conversant in their books; until a certain presbyter
laid it scrupulously to his conscience, how he durst venture himself
among those defiling volumes. The worthy man, loath to give offence,
fell into a new debate with himself what was to be thought; when
suddenly a vision sent from God (it is his own epistle that so avers it)
confirmed him in these words: READ ANY BOOKS WHATEVER COME TO THY HANDS,
FOR THOU ART SUFFICIENT BOTH TO JUDGE ARIGHT AND TO EXAMINE EACH MATTER.
To this revelation he assented the sooner, as he confesses, because it
was answerable to that of the Apostle to the Thessalonians, PROVE ALL
THINGS, HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD. And he might have added another
remarkable saying of the same author: TO THE PURE, ALL THINGS ARE PURE;
not only meats and drinks, but all kind of knowledge whether of good or
evil; the knowledge cannot defile, nor consequently the books, if the
will and conscience be not defiled.

For books are as meats and viands are; some of good, some of evil
substance; and yet God, in that unapocryphal vision, said without
exception, RISE, PETER, KILL AND EAT, leaving the choice to each man's
discretion. Wholesome meats to a vitiated stomach differ little or
nothing from unwholesome; and best books to a naughty mind are not
unappliable to occasions of evil. Bad meats will scarce breed good
nourishment in the healthiest concoction; but herein the difference is
of bad books, that they to a discreet and judicious reader serve in
many respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate.
Whereof what better witness can ye expect I should produce, than one of
your own now sitting in Parliament, the chief of learned men reputed in
this land, Mr. Selden; whose volume of natural and national laws proves,
not only by great authorities brought together, but by exquisite reasons
and theorems almost mathematically demonstrative, that all opinions, yea