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How it is that Men may be said to learn of little Children, dumb shews, &c. [ 1146]
SExtus Tarquinius,* 1.1 the sonne of Lucius, being suborned by his Father, pretend∣ing to be banished, fled fraudulently to the Gabii, where having screwed himself so much into their bosomes,* 1.2 as he thought was sufficient for his design, sent secretly to know his Fathers pleasure, who leading the Messenger into the Garden, walked a while, and not speaking one word, with his staffe strake off the heads of the Dazies which grew there;* 1.3 the Messenger reports this to his Son, who thereupon put the chief Noble-men of the Ga••ii to death, and so by force and Injustice usurped a power over that Common-weal: Such was the tacite Coun∣sell that Periander the Corinthian gave unto Thrasibulus the Tyrant of Athens,* 1.4 when pulling the upper ears, he made all the standing corn equall; intimating thereby, what a Tyrant must do, that would live safe and quiet: Thus it was, but in a better way,* 1.5 and a far better sense, that when the Disciples were build∣ing Castles in the ayr, quaerentes non quaerenda, seeking who should be highest in Heaven, when they should rather have been enquiring how to get thither, Christ sets a little Child before them, who neither thinks great things of himself, nor seeks great things for himself; con••uting hereby their preposterous ambi∣tion and affectation of Primacy: And thus it is, that dumb shews may be said to speak out much to the purpose; and speechlesse Children read many a signifi∣cant Lecture to the Sons of Men; as of simplicity, humility, innocency, igno∣scency, &c. not of childishnesse,* 1.6 peevishnesse, open-heartednesse, &c. Non praecipitur ut habeant aetatem, sed innocentiam parvulorum, not of their age, but innocency; Whereupon some mis-understanding the Text in a Nichodemicall way, (as one Goldsmith an Anabaptist, and Masseus a Franciscan Fryer) to abun∣dance of more then childish folly.