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THE SECOND BOOK 379 



and according to those maxims, that affordeth a long field of 

 disputation. Such therefore is that secondary reason which 

 hath place in divinity, which is grounded upon the placets 

 of God. 



Here therefore I note this deficience, that there hath not 

 been to my understanding sufficiently enquired D usu legi- 

 and handled the true limits and use of reason in ^^ 

 spiritual things, as a kind of divine dialectic : <**. 

 which for that it is not done, it seemeth to me a thing 

 usual, by pretext of true conceiving that which is revealed, 

 to search and mine into that which is not revealed ; and by 

 pretext of enucleating inferences and contradictories, to 

 examine that which is positive ; the one sort falling into 

 the error of Nicodemus, demanding to have things made 

 more sensible than it pleaseth God to reveal them; Quomodo 

 possit homo nasci cum sit senex ? the other sort into the error 

 of the disciples, which were scandalized at a show of con- 

 tradiction ; Quid est hoc quod dicit nobis ? Modicum, et non 

 videbitis me; et iterum, modicum, et videbitis me, etc. 



Upon this I have insisted the more in regard of the 

 great and blessed use thereof; for this point well laboured 

 and defined of would in my judgment be an opiate to stay 

 and bridle not only the vanity of curious speculations, 

 wherewith the schools labour, but the fury of controversies, 

 wherewith the church laboureth. For it cannot but open 

 men's eyes, to see that many controversies do merely per- 

 tain to that which is either not revealed or positive ; and 

 that many others do grow upon weak and obscure inferences 

 or derivations : which latter sort, if men would revive the 

 blessed style of that great doctor of the Gentiles, would be 

 carried thus, Ego, non Dominus, and again, Secundum con- 

 silium meum, in opinions and counsels, and not in positions 

 and oppositions. But men are now over-ready to usurp the 

 style Non ego, sed Dominus, and not so only, but to bind 

 it with the thunder and denunciation of curses and anathe- 

 mas, to the terror of those which have not sufficiently 

 learned out of Solomon that the causeless curse shall not 

 come. 



Divinity hath two principal parts ; the matter informed 



