The Second Book 8i 



will and His secret will: which though it be so obscure, as 

 for the most part it is not legible to the natural man; no, 

 nor many times to those that behold it from the Tabernacle ; 

 yet at some times it pleaseth God, for our better establish- 

 ment and the confuting of those which are as without God 

 in the world, to write it in such text and capital letters, that 

 as the prophet saith, He that runneth hy may read it ;^ that 

 is, mere sensual persons, which hasten by God's judgments, 

 and never bend or fix their cogitations upon them, are 

 nevertheless in their passage and race urged to discern it. 

 Such are the notable events and examples of God's Judg- 

 ments, chastisements, dehverances, and blessings : and this 

 is a work which hath passed through the labour of many, 

 and therefore I cannot present as omitted. 

 4. There are also other parts of learning which are appen- 

 dices to history : for all the exterior proceedings of man 

 consist of words and deeds : whereof history doth properly 

 receive and retain in memory the deeds: and if words, yet 

 but as inducements and passages to deeds: so are there 

 other books and writings, which are appropriate to the 

 custody and receipt of words only; which likewise are of 

 three sorts : orations, letters, and brief speeches or sayings. 

 Orations are pleadings, speeches of counsel, laudatives, 

 invectives, apologies, reprehensions, orations of formahty 

 or ceremony, and the like. Letters are according to all 

 the variety of occasions, advertisements, advices, directions, 

 propositions, petitions, commendatory, expostulatory, 

 satisfactory, of compliment, of pleasure, of discourse, and 

 all other passages of action. And such as are written from 

 wise men, are of all the words of man, in my judgment, the 

 best; for they are more natural than orations and pubhc 

 speeches, and more advised than conferences or present 

 speeches. So again letters of affairs from such as manage 

 them, or are privy to them, are of all others the best instruc- 

 tions for history, and to a diligent reader the best histories 

 in themselves. For Apophthegms, it is a great loss of that 

 book of Caesar's ; ^ for as his history, and those few letters of 

 his which we have, and those apophthegms which were of 

 his own, excel all men's else, so I suppose would his collec- 



* Hab. ii. 2, but misquoted. " That he may run that readeth," 

 — I.e. may hasten to carry on the tidings. 

 ' Vid. Cic. ad Fam. ix. 16. 



