XXV. 1 6.] THE SECOND BOOK. 263 



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 rab 

 bins and cabalists, are to be confined with a noli altum 

 sapere, sed time. 



17. But the two latter points, known to God and un 

 known 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. For it is an excellent observation 

 which hath 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 knowing man s thoughts immediately, he never an 

 swered their 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, in 

 finite 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 sometimes the allegorical or typical, are they whereof 



