242 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Book 



according to the dispensation of times, are material to the sufficiency 

 of belief. 



Here again I may rather give it in advice, than note it as deficient, 

 that the points fundamental, and the points of farther perfection, only 

 ought to be with piety and wisdom distinguished ; a subject tending to 

 much like end, as that I noted before ; for as that other were likely to 

 abate the number of controversies, so this is like to abate the heat of 

 many of them. We see Moses when he saw the Israelite and the 

 ^Egyptian fight, he did not say, &quot;Why strive you?&quot; but drew his sword, 

 and slew the ^Egyptian : but when he saw the two Israelites fight, he 

 said, &quot; You are brethren, why strive you ? &quot; If the point of doctrine be 

 an ^Egyptian, it must be slain by &quot; the sword of the Spirit,&quot; and not 

 reconciled : but if it be an Israelite, though in the wrong, then, &quot; Why 

 strive you ?&quot; We sec of the fundamental points, our Saviour penneth 

 the league thus ; &quot; He that is not with us, is against us ; &quot; but of points 

 not fundamental, thus ; &quot; He that is not against us, is with us.&quot; So 

 we see the coat of our Saviour was entire without scam, and so is the 

 doctrine of the Scriptures in itself ; but the garment of the Church was 

 of divers colours, and yet not divided : we see the chaff may and ought 

 to be severed from the corn in the car, but the tares may not be pulled 

 up from the corn in the field. So as it is a thing of great use well to 

 define, what, and of what latitude those points are, which do make 

 men merely aliens and disincorporate from the Church of God. 



For the obtaining of the information, it rcsteth upon the true and 

 sound interpretation of the Scriptures, which are the fountains of the 

 water of life. The interpretations of the Scriptures are of two sorts : 

 methodical, and solute or at large. For this divine water, which 

 exccllcth so much that of Jacob s well, is drawn forth much in the same 

 kind, as natural water useth to be out of wells and fountains ; either it 

 is first forced up into a cistern, and from thence fetched and derived 

 for use ; or else it is drawn and received into buckets and vessels 

 immediately where it springeth. The former sort whereof, though it 

 seem to be the more ready, yet, in my judgment, is more subject to 

 corrupt. This is that method which hath exhibited unto us the 

 scholastical divinity, whereby divinity hath been reduced into an art 

 as into a cistern, and the streams of doctrine or positions fetched and 

 derived from thence. 



In this men have sought threo things, a summary brevity, a com 

 pacted strength, and a complete perfection ; whereof the two first they 

 fail to find, and the last they ought not to seek. For as to brevity, we 

 see, in all summary methods, while men purpose to abridge, they give 

 cause to dilate. For the sum, or abridgment, by contraction becometh 

 obscure : the obscurity requireth exposition, and the exposition is 

 deduced into large commentaries, or into common places and titles, 

 which grow to be more vast than the original writings, whence the 

 sum was at first extracted. So, we sec, the volumes of the schoolmen 

 are greater much than the first writings of the fathers, whence the 

 master of the sentences made his sum or collection. So, in like manner, 

 the volumes of .he modern doctors of the civil law exceed those of the 



