184 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



to the analogy of them, for our better direction. In nature 

 this holdeth not ; for both the principles are examinable by 

 induction, though not by a medium or syllogism ; and besides, 

 those principles or first positions have no discordance with 

 that reason which draweth down and deduceth the inferior 

 positions. But yet it holdeth not in religion alone, but in 

 many knowledges, both of greater and smaller nature, namely, 

 wherein there are not only posita but placita ; for in such 

 there can be no use of absolute reason. We see it familkrly 

 in games of wit, as chess, or the like. The draughts and first 

 laws of the game are positive, but how ? merely ad placitum&amp;gt; 

 and not examinable by reason ; but then how to direct our 

 play thereupon with best advantage to win the game is 

 artificial and rational. So in human laws there be many 

 grounds and maxims which are placita juris, positive upon 

 authority, and not upon reason, and therefore not to be 

 disputed : but what is most just, not absolutely but relatively, 

 and according to those maxims, that affordeth a long field of 

 disputation. Such therefore is that secondary reason, which 

 hath place in divinity, which is grounded upon the placets 



(6) Here therefore I note this deficiency, that there hath 

 not been, to my understanding, sufficiently inquired and 

 handled the true limits and use of reason in spiritual things, 

 as a kind of divine dialectic : which for that it is not done, 

 it seemeth to me a thing usual, by pretext of true conceiving 

 that which is revealed, to search and mine into that which is 

 not revealed ; and by pretext of enucleating inferences and 

 contradictories, to examine that which is positive. The one 

 sort falling into the error of Nicodemus, demanding to have 

 things made more sensible than it pleaseth God to reveal 

 them, Quomodo possit homo nasci cum sit sencx ? The other 

 sort into the error of the disciples, which were scandalised at 

 a show of contradiction, Quid est hoc quod dicit nobis \ Modi 

 cum et non mdebitis me ; et iterum, modicum, et mdebitis me, &c. 



(7) Upon this I have insisted the more, in regard of the 

 great and blessed use thereof ; for this point well laboured 

 and defined of would in my judgment be an opiate to stay and 

 bridle not only the vanity of curious speculations, wherewith 

 the schools labour, but the fury of controversies, wherewith 

 the Church laboureth. For it cannot but open men s eyes to 

 see that many controversies do merely pertain to that which 

 is either not revealed or positive; and that many others do 

 crow upon weak and obscure inferences or derivations : which 

 letter sort, if men would revive the blessed style of that great 



