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"BUT as these great things are not at our disposal, we here, at the entrance of our work, with the utmost fervency and humility, put forth our prayers to God, that remembering the miseries of mankind and the pilgrimage of this life, where we pass but few days and sorrowful, he would vouchsafe through our hands, and the hands of others, to whom he has given the like mind, to relieve the human race by a new act of his bounty. We likewise beseech him, that what is human may not clash with what is divine; and that when the ways of the senses are opened, and a greater natural light set up in the mind, nothing of incredulity and blindness towards divine mysteries may arise; but rather that the understanding, now cleared up, and purged of all vanity and superstition, may remain entirely subject to the divine oracles, and yield to faith the things that are faith's: and lastly, that expelling the poisonous knowledge infused by the serpent, which puffs up and swells the human mind, we may neither be wise above measure nor go beyond the bounds of sobriety, but pursue the truth in charity."

INSTAURATIO MAGNA.

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