(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,