II.] ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 245 



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, con 

 tradictions, 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 present 

 occasion, whereupon the words were uttered, or in precise congruity, or 

 contexture with the words before or after, or in contemplation of the 

 principal scope of the place ; but have in themselves, not only totally 

 or collectively, but distributivcly in clauses and words, infinite springs 

 and streams of doctrine to water the Church in every part : and there 

 fore as the literal sense is, as it were, the main stream or river, so the 

 moral sense chielly, and sometimes the allegorical or typical, are they 

 whereof the Church hath most use : not that I wish men to be bold 

 in allegories, or indulgent or light in allusions ; but that I do much 

 condemn that interpretation of the Scripture, which is only after the 

 manner as men use to interpret a profane book. 



In this part, touching the exposition of the Scriptures, I can report 

 no deficience ; but by way of remembrance, this I will add, in perusing 

 books of divinity, I find many books of controversies, and many of 

 common places, and treatises, a mass of positive divinity, as it is made 

 an art ; a number of sermons and lectures, and many prolix commcnt- 

 aiics upon the Scriptures, with harmonies and concordances : but that 

 form of writing in divinity, which in my judgment is of all others most 

 rich and precious, is positive divinity, collected upon particular texts 

 of Scriptures in brief observations, not dilated into common places; 

 not chasing after controversies ; not reduced into method of art ; a 

 thing abounding in sermons, which will vanish, but defective in books 

 which will remain, and a thing wherein this age excelleth. For I am 

 persuaded, and I may speak it, with an &quot; Absit invidia verbo,&quot; and no 

 ways in derogation of antiquity, but as in a good emulation between 

 the vine and the olive, that if the choice and best of those observa 

 tions upon texts of Scriptures, which have been made dispersedly in 

 sermons within your majesty s island of Britain, by the space of these 

 forty years and more, leaving out the largeness of exhortations and appli 

 cations thereupon, had been set down in a continuance, it had been 

 the best work in divinity, which had been written since the apostles 

 times. 



The matter informed by divinity is of two kinds : matter of belief, 

 and truth of opinion ; and matter of service and adoration ; which is 

 also judged and directed by the former ; the one being as the internal 

 soul of religion, and the other as the external body thereof. And 

 therefore the heathen religion was not only a worship of idols, but the 

 whole religion was an idol in itself, for it had no soul ; that is, no 

 certainty of belief or confession ; as a man may well think, considering 

 the chief doctors of their church were the poets : and the reason was, 

 because the heathen gods were no jealous gods, but were glad to be 

 admitted into part, as they had reason. Neither did they respect the 

 purcness of heart, so they might have external honour and rites. 



liut out of these two do result and issv.c four main branches of 



