But peaceful was the night Wherein the Prince of Light His reign of peace upon the earth began.

What wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear without 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.

Execute their airy purposes.

The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the highest perfection.

Pleas'd me, long choosing and beginning late.

No worthy enterprise can be done by us without continual plodding and wearisomeness to our faint and sensitive abilities.

Yet hold it more humane, more heav'nly, first, By winning words to conquer willing hearts, And make persuasion do the work of fear.