Advancement of Learning 217 



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, 1 ) is to seek 

 temporary things amongst eternal : and as to seek divinity 

 in philosophy is to seek the living amongst the dead, 2 

 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 the matter 

 thereof positively to be true. To conclude, therefore, these 

 two interpretations, the one by reduction or aenigmatical, the 

 other philosophical or physical, which have been received 

 and pursued in imitation of the rabbins and cabalists, 3 

 are to be confined with a noli altum sapere, sed time. 4 



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 

 hatr; 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 know 

 ing man s thoughts immediately, he never answered their 



1 Matth. xxiv. 35. z Luke xxiv. 5. 



3 Cabalists expounders of the Jewish Cabala, or hidden science 

 of divine mysteries, said by the Rabbins to have been delivered to 

 Moses with the Law. 4 Rom. xi. 20. 



