"When he prepared the heavens I was present, when by law and compass he inclosed the deep." To the third, "Neither was it needful that any should bear witness to him of man, for he knew well what was in man." And to the last, "From the beginning are known to the Lord all his works."

From the former of these two have been drawn certain senses and expositions of Scriptures, which had need be contained within the bounds of sobriety; the one anagogical, and the other philosophical. But as to the former, man is not to prevent his time: "Videmus nunc per speculum in ænigmate, tunc autem facie ad faciem :" wherein, nevertheless, there seemeth to be a liberty granted, as far forth as the polishing of this glass, or some moderate explication to this ænigma. But to press too far into it, cannot but cause a dissolution and overthrow of the spirit of man. For in the body there are three degrees of that we receive into it, aliment, medicine, and poison; whereof aliment is that which the nature of man can perfectly alter and overcome: medicine is that which is partly converted by nature, and partly converteth nature; and poison is that which worketh wholly upon nature, without that, that nature can in any part work upon it: so in the mind, whatsoever knowledge reason cannot at all work upon and convert, is a mere intoxication, and endangereth a dissolution of the mind and understanding.

But for the latter, it hath been extremely set on foot of late time by the school of Paracelsus, and some others, that have pretended to find the truth of all natural philosophy in the Scriptures; scandalizing and traducing all other philosophy as heathenish and profane. But there is no such enmity between God's word and his works; neither do they give honour to the Scriptures, as they suppose, but much imbase them. For to seek heaven and earth in the word of God, (whereof it is said, "Heaven and earth shall pass, but my word shall not pass,") is to seek temporary things amongst eternal: and as to seek divinity in philosophy is to seek the living amongst the dead, so to seek philosophy in divinity is to seek the dead amongst the living neither are the pots or lavers, whose place was in the outward part of the temple, to be sought in the holiest place of all, where the ark of the testimony was seated. And again, the scope or purpose of the Spirit of God is not to express matters of nature in the Scriptures, otherwise than in passage, and for application to man's capacity, and to matters moral or divine. And it is a true rule, "Auctoris aliud agentis parva auctoritas;" for it were a strange conclusion, if a man should use a similitude for ornament or illustration sake, borrowed from nature or history according to vulgar conceit, as of a basilisk, an unicorn, a centaur, a Briareus, an Hydra, or the like, that therefore he must needs be thought to affirm

To con

the matter thereof positively to be true. clude, therefore, these two interpretations, the one by reduction or ænigmatical, the other philosophical or physical, which have been received and pursued in imitation of the rabbins and cabalists, are to be confined with a "'noli altum sapere, sed time."

But the two latter points, known to God and unknown to man, touching the secrets of the heart, and the successions of time, do make a just and sound difference between the manner of the exposition of the Scriptures and all other books.

For

it is an excellent observation which hath been made upon the answers of our Saviour Christ to many of the questions which were propounded to him, how that they are impertinent to the state of the question demanded; the reason whereof is, because, not being like man, which knows man's thoughts by his words, but knowing man's thoughts immediately, he never answered their words, but their thoughts: much in the like manner it is with the Scriptures, which being written to the thoughts of men, and to the succession of all ages, with a foresight of all heresies, contradictions, differing estates of the church, yea and particularly of the elect, are not to be interpreted only according to the latitude of the proper sense of the place, and respectively towards that present occasion whereupon the words were uttered, or in precise congruity or contexture with the words before or after, or in contemplation

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of the principal scope of the place; but have in themselves, not only totally or collectively, but distributively in clauses and words, infinite springs and streams of doctrine to water the church in every part. And therefore as the literal sense is, as it were, the main stream or river; so the moral sense chiefly, and sometimes the allegorical or typical, are they whereof the church hath most use; not that I wish men to be bold in allegories, or indulgent or light in allusions: but that I do much condemn that interpretation of the Scripture which is only after the manner as men use to interpret a profane book.

In this part, touching the exposition of the Scriptures, I can report no deficience; but by way of remembrance this I will add: in perusing books of divinity, I find many books of controversies, and many of common places and treatises, a mass of positive divinity, as it is made an art: a number of sermons and lectures, and many prolix commentaries upon the Scriptures, with harmonies and concordances: but that form of writing in divinity which in my judgment is of all others most rich and precious, is positive divinity, collected upon particular texts of Scriptures in brief observations; not dilated into common places, not chasing after controversies, not reduced into method of art; a thing abounding in sermons, which will vanish, but defective in books which will remain; and a thing wherein this age excelleth. For I am persuaded,

(and I may speak it with an “Absit invidia verbo,") and no ways in derogation of antiquity, but as in a good emulation between the vine and the olive, that if the choice and best of those observations upon texts of Scriptures, which have been made dispersedly in sermons within this your majesty's island of Britain by the space of these forty years and more, leaving out the largeness of exhortations and applications thereupon, had been set down in a continuance, it had been the best work in divinity which had been written since the apostles' times.

The matter informed by divinity is of two kinds; matter of belief and truth of opinion, and matter of service and adoration; which is also judged and directed by the former: the one being as the internal soul of religion, and the other as the external body thereof. And therefore the heathen religion was not only a worship of idols, but the whole religion was an idol in itself; for it had no soul, that is, no certainty of belief or confession; as a man may well think, considering the chief doctors of their church were the poets: and the reason was, because the heathen gods were no jealous gods, but were glad to be admitted into part, as they had reason. Neither did they respect the pureness of heart, so they might have external honour and rites.

But out of these two do result and issue four main branches of divinity; faith, manners, liturgy,