422 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



not the mysteries contracted to the narrowness of the 

 mind. 



With regard to inferences, we must know that we have 

 a certain secondary and respective, not a primitive and 

 absolute, use of reason and arguing left us about mysteries. 

 For after the articles and principles of religion are so seated, 

 as to be entirely removed from the examination of reason, 

 we are then permitted to draw inferences from them, agree 

 able to their analogy. But this holds not in natural things, 

 where principles themselves are subject to examination by 

 induction, though not by syllogism, and have, besides, no 

 repugnance to reason: so that both the first and middle 

 propositions are derivable from the same fountain. It is 

 otherwise in religion, where the first propositions are self- 

 existent, and subsist of themselves, uncontrolled by that 

 reason which deduces the subsequent propositions. Nor is 

 this the case in religion alone, but likewise in other sciences, 

 as well the serious as the light, where the primary proposi 

 tions are postulated: as things wherein the use of reason 

 cannot be absolute. Thus in chess, or other games of the 

 like nature, the first rules and laws of the play are merely 

 positive postulates, which ought to be entirely received, 

 not disputed: but the skilful playing of the game is a 

 matter of art and reason. So, in human laws, there are 

 numerous maxims, or mere placits of law received, which 

 depend more upon authority than reason, and come not into 

 dispute. Bat, then, for the inquiry, what is not absolutely, 

 but relatively most just herein: viz., in conformity with 

 those maxims; this, indeed, is a point of reason, and affords 

 a large field for dispute. Such, therefore, is that secondary 

 reason which has place in sacred theology, and is founded 

 upon the good pleasure of God. 



And as the use of human reason, in things divine, is of 

 two kinds, so it is attended with two excesses: 1, the one, 

 when it too curiously inquires into the manner of a mystery; 

 2, the other, when it attributes an equal authority to the 

 inference as to the principles. For he may seem a disciple 



