188 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



&quot;lass, or some moderate explication of this enigma. But to 

 press too far into it cannot but cause a dissolution and over 

 throw of the spirit of man. For in the body there are three 

 decrees 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 

 nature can in any part work upon it. So in the mind, what 

 soever knowledge reason cannot at all work upon and convert 

 is a mere intoxication, and endangereth a dissolution of the 

 mind and understanding. 



(16) 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 ; scandalising and traducing all other philosophy 

 as heathenish and profane. But there is no such enmity be 

 tween God s Word and His works ; neither do they give 

 honour to the Scriptures, as they suppose, but much embase 

 them. For to seek heaven and earth in the Word of God, 

 whereof it is said, &quot;Heaven and earth shall pass, but My word 

 shall not pass,&quot; 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 lavera whose place 

 was in the outward part of the temple, tobe sought in the holiest 

 place of all, where the ark of the testimony was seated. And 

 a^ain, the scope or purpose of the Spirit of God is not to ex 

 press matters of nature in the Scriptures, otherwise than m 

 passage, and for application to man s capacity and to matters 

 moral or divine. And it is a true rule, Auctoms ahud agenti* 

 par, -a, auctoritas. For it were a strange conclusion, if a man 

 should use a similitude for ornament or illustration sake, bor 

 rowed from nature or history according to vulgar conceit, as ot 

 a basilisk, a unicorn, a centaur, a Briareus, a 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 enigmatical, the other 

 philosophical or physical, which have been received and pur 

 sued in imitation of the rabbins and cabalists, are to beconnn 

 with a noli altum sapere, scd time. 



(17) But the two latter points, known to God and unknown 

 to man, touching the secrets of the heart and the successions of 

 time, doth make a just and sound difference between the manner 

 of the exposition of the Scriptures and all other books. 



