96 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



it) I may justly report as deficient : for I see some 

 times the profounder sort of wits, in 

 ia handling some particular argument, will 

 i now an&amp;lt; ^ t ^ aen &amp;lt; i raw a bucket of water out 

 sdentiarum. of this well for their present use : but the 

 spring-head thereof seemeth to me not 

 to have been visited ; being of so excellent use both 

 for the disclosing of nature and the abridgement 

 of art. 



VI. 1. This science being therefore first placed as 

 a common parent like unto Berecynthia, which had 

 so much heavenly issue, omnes caelicolas, omnes 

 supera alta tenentes ; we may return to the former 

 distribution of the three philosophies, divine, natural, 

 and human. And as concerning divine philosophy or 

 natural theology, it is that knowledge or rudiment of 

 knowledge concerning God, which may be obtained by 

 the contemplation of his creatures ; which knowledge 

 may be truly termed divine in respect of the object, 

 and natural in respect of the light. The bounds of this 

 knowledge are, that it sufficeth to convince atheism, 

 but not to inform religion : and therefore there was 

 never miracle wrought by God to convert an atheist, 

 because the light of nature might have led him to con 

 fess a God : but miracles have been wrought to con 

 vert idolaters and the superstitious, because no light 

 of nature extendeth to declare the will and true worship 

 of God. For as all works do show forth the power and 

 skill of the workman, and not his image, so it is of the 

 works of God, which do show the omnipotency and 

 wisdom of the maker, but not his image. And there 

 fore therein the heathen opinion differeth from the 

 sacred truth ; for they supposed the world to be the 

 image of God, and man to be an extract or com 

 pendious image of the world ; but the scriptures never 

 vouchsafe to attribute to the world that honour, as to 

 be the image of God, but only * the work of his hands ; 

 neither do they speak of any other image of God, but 

 man. Wherefore by the contemplation of nature to 

 induce and enforce the acknowledgement of God, and 



