2 1 8 Bacon 



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 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 some 

 times 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 con 

 demn 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 commonplaces and 

 treaties ; a mass of positive divinity, as it is made an art ; 

 a number of sermons and lectures, and many prolix com 

 mentaries upon the Scriptures, with harmonies and con 

 cordances: 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 Scrip 

 tures in brief observations ; not dilated into commonplaces, 

 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, 1 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 

 1 Livy, ix. 19. 



