ae i or een 
258 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, [XXV.8. 
sufficiency of the information belong two considerations; 
what points of religion are fundamental, and what perfec- 
tive, being matter of further building and perfection upon 
one and the same foundation; and again, how the grada- 
tions of light according to the dispensation of times are 
material to the sufficiency of belief. 
g. Here again I may rather give it in advice than note 
De gradibus it as deficient, that the points fundamental, 
unitatisin and the points of further perfection only, 
civitate Det. Oyght to be with piety and wisdom distin- 
guished: a subject tending to much like end as that I 
noted before; for as that other were likely to abate the 
number of controversies, so this is like to abate the 
heat of many of them. We see Moses when he saw the 
Israelite and the Egyptian fight, he did not say, Why strive 
youP but drew his sword and slew the Egyptian: but 
when he saw the two Israelites fight, he said, Vou are 
brethren, why strive you? If the point of doctrine be an 
Egyptian, it must be slain by the sword of the spirit, and 
not reconciled; but if it be an Israelite, though in the 
wrong, then, Why strive you P We see of the fundamental 
points, our Saviour penneth the league thus, He shat is 
nol with us 1s against us ; but of points not fundamental, 
thus, He that zs not against us 1s with us. So we see the 
coat of our Saviour was entire without seam, and so is 
the doctrine of the scriptures in itself; but the garment 
of.the church was of divers colours and yet not divided. 
We see the chaff may and ought to be severed from the 
corn in the ear, but the tares may not be pulled up from 
the corn in the field. So as it is a thing of great use well 
to define what, and of what latitude those points are, which 
do make men merely aliens and disincorporate from the 
Church of God. 
