The Advancement of Learning
civil law exceed those of the ancient jurisconsults, of which Tribonian
compiled the digest. So as this course of sums and commentaries is that
which doth infallibly make the body of sciences more immense in quantity,
and more base in substance.
(12) And for strength, it is true that knowledges reduced into exact
methods have a show of strength, in that each part seemeth to support and
sustain the other; but this is more satisfactory than substantial, like
unto buildings which stand by architecture and compaction, which are more
subject to ruin than those that are built more strong in their several
parts, though less compacted. But it is plain that the more you recede
from your grounds, the weaker do you conclude; and as in nature, the more
you remove yourself from particulars, the greater peril of error you do
incur; so much more in divinity, the more you recede from the Scriptures
by inferences and consequences, the more weak and dilute are your
positions.
(13) And as for perfection or completeness in divinity, it is not to be
sought, which makes this course of artificial divinity the more suspect.
For he that will reduce a knowledge into an art will make it round and
uniform; but in divinity many things must be left abrupt, and concluded
with this: _O altitudo sapientiæ et scientiæ Dei_! _quam
incomprehensibilia sunt juducua ejus_, _et non investigabiles viæ ejus_.
So again the apostle saith, _Ex parte scimus_: and to have the form of a
total, where there is but matter for a part, cannot be without supplies
by supposition and presumption. And therefore I conclude that the true
use of these sums and methods hath place in institutions or introductions
preparatory unto knowledge; but in them, or by deducement from them, to
handle the main body and substance of a knowledge is in all sciences
prejudicial, and in divinity dangerous.
(14) As to the interpretation of the Scriptures solute and at large,
there have been divers kinds introduced and devised; some of them rather
curious and unsafe than sober and warranted. Notwithstanding, thus much
must be confessed, that the Scriptures, being given by inspiration and
not by human reason, do differ from all other books in the Author, which
by consequence doth draw on some difference to be used by the expositor.
For the Inditer of them did know four things which no man attains to
know; which are—the mysteries of the kingdom of glory, the perfection of
the laws of nature, the secrets of the heart of man, and the future
succession of all ages. For as to the first it is said, “He that
presseth into the light shall be oppressed of the glory.” And again, “No
man shall see My face and live.” To the second, “When He prepared the
heavens I was present, when by law and compass He enclosed the deep.” To
the third, “Neither was it needful that any should bear witness to Him of
man, for He knew well what was in man.” And to the last, “From the
beginning are known to the Lord all His works.”
(15) From the former two of these have been drawn certain senses and
expositions of Scriptures, which had need be contained within the bounds
of sobriety—the one anagogical, and the other philosophical. But as to
the former, man is not to prevent his time: _Videmus nunc per speculum in
ænigmate_, _tunc autem facie ad faciem_; wherein nevertheless there
seemeth to be a liberty granted, as far forth as the polishing of this
glass, or some moderate explication of this enigma. But to press too far
into it cannot but cause a dissolution and overthrow of the spirit of
man. For in the body there are three degrees of that we receive into
it—aliment, medicine, and poison; whereof aliment is that which the
nature of man can perfectly alter and overcome; medicine is that which is
partly converted by nature, and partly converteth nature; and poison is
that which worketh wholly upon nature, without that nature can in any
part work upon it. So in the mind, whatsoever knowledge reason cannot at
all work upon and convert is a mere intoxication, and endangereth a
dissolution of the mind and understanding.
(16) But for the latter, it hath been extremely set on foot of late time
by the school of Paracelsus, and some others, that have pretended to find
the truth of all natural philosophy in the Scriptures; scandalising and
traducing all other philosophy as heathenish and profane. But there is
no such enmity between God’s Word and His works; neither do they give
honour to the Scriptures, as they suppose, but much embase them. For to
seek heaven and earth in the Word of God, whereof it is said, “Heaven and
earth shall pass, but My word shall not pass,” is to seek 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,
_Auctoris aliud agentis parva auctoritas_. For it were a strange
conclusion, if a man should use a similitude for ornament or illustration
sake, borrowed from nature or history according to vulgar conceit, as of
a basilisk, a unicorn, a centaur, a Briareus, a 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 enigmatical, the other philosophical or physical,
which have been received and pursued in imitation of the rabbins and
cabalists, are to be confined with a _a noli akryn sapere_, _sed time_.
(17) But the two latter points, known to God and unknown to man, touching
the secrets of the heart and the successions 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 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 distributively in
clauses and words, infinite springs and streams of doctrine to water the
Church in every part. And therefore as the literal sense is, as it were,
the main stream or river, so the moral sense chiefly, 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.
(18) In this part touching the exposition of the Scriptures, I can report
no deficiency; but by way of remembrance this I will add. In perusing
books of divinity I find many books of controversies, and many of
commonplaces and treatises, a mass of positive divinity, as it is made an
art: a number of sermons and lectures, and many prolix commentaries 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 commonplaces, 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 _absit invidia verbo_, and nowise in
derogation of antiquity, but as in a good emulation between the vine and
the olive, that if the choice and best of those observations upon texts
of Scriptures which have been made dispersedly in sermons within this
your Majesty’s Island of Brittany by the space of these forty years and
more (leaving out the largeness of exhortations and applications
thereupon) had been set down in a continuance, it had been the best work
in divinity which had been written since the Apostles’ times.
(19) 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 pureness of
heart, so they might have external honour and rites.
(20) But out of these two do result and issue four main branches of
divinity: faith, manners, liturgy, and government. Faith containeth the
doctrine of the nature of God, of the attributes of God, and of the works
of God. The nature of God consisteth of three persons in unity of
Godhead. The attributes of God are either common to the Deity, or
respective to the persons. The works of God summary are two, that of the
creation and that of the redemption; and both these works, as in total
they appertain to the unity of the Godhead, so in their parts they refer
to the three persons: that of the creation, in the mass of the matter, to
the Father; in the disposition of the form, to the Son; and in the
continuance and conservation of the being, to the Holy Spirit. So that
of the redemption, in the election and counsel, to the Father; in the
whole act and consummation, to the Son; and in the application, to the
Holy Spirit; for by the Holy Ghost was Christ conceived in flesh, and by
the Holy Ghost are the elect regenerate in spirit. This work likewise we
consider either effectually, in the elect; or privately, in the
reprobate; or according to appearance, in the visible Church.
(21) For manners, the doctrine thereof is contained in the law, which
discloseth sin. The law itself is divided, according to the edition
thereof, into the law of nature, the law moral, and the law positive; and
according to the style, into negative and affirmative, prohibitions and
commandments. Sin, in the matter and subject thereof, is divided
according to the commandments; in the form thereof it referreth to the
three persons in Deity: sins of infirmity against the Father, whose more
special attribute is power; sins of ignorance against the Son, whose
attribute is wisdom; and sins of malice against the Holy Ghost, whose
attribute is grace or love. In the motions of it, it either moveth to
the right hand or to the left; either to blind devotion or to profane and