THE SECOND BOOK 229 



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, 

 that nature can in any part work upon it. So in 

 the mind, whatsoever knowledge reason cannot at 

 all work upon and convert is a mere intoxication, 

 and endangereth a dissolution of the mind and under- 

 standing. 



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 ; scandalizing and 

 traducing all other philosophy as heathenish and pro- 

 fane. But there is no such enmity between God's word 

 and his works ; neither do they give honour to the 

 scriptures, as they suppose, but much imbase them. 

 For to seek heaven and earth in the word of God, where- 

 of it is said, ' Heaven and earth shall pass, but my word 

 shall not pass,' 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 lavers, whose place was in the outward 

 part of the temple, to be sought in the hoUest place of 

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

 again, the scope or purpose of the spirit of God is not to 

 express matters of nature in the scriptures, otherwise 

 than in passage, and for application to man's capacity 

 and to matters moral or divine. And it is a true rule, 

 ' Auctoris ahud agentis parva auctoritas.' For it were 

 a strange conclusion, if a man should use a similitude 

 for ornament or illustration sake, borrowed from nature 

 or history according to vulgar conceit, as of a basilisk, 

 an unicorn, a centaur, a Briareus, an hydra, or the like, 

 that therefore he must needs be thought to aflSrm the 

 matter thereof positively to be true. To conclude there- 

 fore 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- 



