384 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



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 holiest 

 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, Authoris 

 aliud agentis parva authoritas ; for it were a strange con- 

 clusion, if a man should use a similitude for ornament or 

 illustration sake, borrowed from nature or history accord- 

 ing 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 affirm the matter thereof 

 positively to be true. To conclude therefore, these two 

 interpretations, the one by reduction or aenigmatical, the 

 other philosophical or physical, which have been received 

 and pursued in imitation of the rabbins and cabalists, are 

 to be confined with a Noli ahum sapere> sed time. 



But the two later points, known to God and unknown 

 to man, touching the secrets of the heart, and the succes- 

 sions of time, doth make a just and sound difference 

 between the manner of the exposition of the Scriptures, 

 and all other books. For it is an excellent observation 

 which hath been made upon the answers of our Saviour 

 Christ to many of the questions which were propounded 

 to him, how that they are impertinent to the state of 

 the question demanded; the reason whereof is, because 

 not being like man, which knows man's thoughts by his 

 words, but knowing man's thoughts immediately, he never 

 answered their words, but their thoughts : much in the 

 like manner it is with the Scriptures, which being written 

 to the thoughts of men, and to the succession of all ages, 

 with a foresight of all heresies, contradictions, differing 

 estates of the church, yea and particularly of the elect, are 

 not to be interpreted only according to the latitude of the 

 proper sense of the place, and respectively towards that 



