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school of Paracelsus, and some others, that have pretended to find the truth of all natural philosophy in the Scriptures; scandalizing 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 imbase 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 368: 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 pur pose 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 [what a man says incidentally about matters which are not in question has little authority]; 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, 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 ænigmatical, 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 altum sapere, sed time [be not overwise, but fear]. But the two later 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 369: 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 piace, 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 370; 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 has 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 371 books of controversies; and many of common places and treatises 372; a mass of positive divinity, as it is made an art; a number

them in the same manner as one would interpret an uninspired book. The remarks on the first of these excesses coincide with the first half of this paragraph (the rest being omitted), those on the second with the next paragraph.

368 The rest of this paragraph is omitted in the translation.

369 And also (the translation adds) because he addressed himself not solely to those present, but to men of all times and places to whom the gospel was to be preached. 370 The rest of the paragraph is omitted in the translation.

371 In the translation he says too many.

372 also "cases of conscience"-which he especially commends further on, in a passage not translated.

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 col lected 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 Absit invidia verbo [meaning no offence], 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 observations upon texts of Scriptures which have been made dispersedly in sermons Emanationes within this your Majesty's island 373 of Britain by the space of Scripturarum these forty years and more (leaving out the largeness of exhortain doctrinas tions and applications thereupon) had been set down in a conpositivas. tinuance, it had been the best work in divinity which had been written since the apostles' times 374.

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.

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 privatively 375 in the reprobate; or according to appearance in the visible church.

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

373 So edd. 1629 and 1633. The original has ilands.

374 This last sentence is omitted in the translation,-no doubt as being inadmissible at Rome. But in its place is introduced one of Bacon's happiest illustrations, and one which is not, I think, to be found anywhere in his own English. "Certainly (he says) as we find it in wines, that those which flow freely from the first treading of the grape are sweeter than those which are squeezed out by the wine-press, because the latter taste somewhat of the stone and the rind; so are those doctrines most wholesome and sweet which ooze out of the Scriptures when gently crushed, and are not forced into contro. versies and common places."

The next six paragraphs are entirely omitted,—as belonging to that part of the subject with which he has professed in the beginning that he will not meddle.

375 The original, and also edd. 1629 and 1633, have privately.

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 libertine transgression; either in imposing restraint where God granteth liberty, or in taking liberty where God imposeth restraint. In the degrees and progress of it, it divideth itself into thought, word, or act. And in this part I commend much the deducing of the law of God to cases of conscience; for that I take indeed to be a breaking, and not exhibiting whole, of the bread of life. But that which quickeneth both these doctrines of faith and manners, is the elevation and consent of the heart; whereunto appertain books of exhortation, holy meditation, Christian resolution, and the like.

For the Liturgy or service, it consisteth of the reciprocal acts between God and man; which, on the part of God, are the preaching of the word and the sacraments, which are seals to the covenant, or as the visible word; and on the part of man 376, invocation of the name of God, and under the law, sacrifices, which were as visible prayers or confessions: but now the adoration being in spiritu et veritate [in spirit and in truth], there remaineth only vituli labiorum [offerings of the lips]; although the use of holy vows of thankfulness and retribution may be accounted also as sealed petitions.

And for the Government of the church, it consisteth of the patrimony of the church, the franchises of the church, and the offices and jurisdictions of the church, and the laws of the church directing the whole; all which have two considerations, the one in themselves, the other how they stand compatible and agreeable to the civil estate.

This matter of divinity is handled either in form of instruction of truth, or in form of confutation of falsehood. The declinations from religion, besides the privative 377, which is atheism and the branches thereof, are three; Heresies, Idolatry, and Witchcraft; Heresies, when we serve the true God with a false worship; Idolatry, when we worship false gods, supposing them to be true; and Witchcraft, when we adore false gods, knowing them to be wicked and false. For so your Majesty doth excellently well observe, that Witchcraft is the height of Idolatry. And yet we see though these be true degrees, Samuel teacheth us that they are all of a nature, when there is once a receding from the word of God; for so he saith, Quasi peccatum ariolandi est repugnare, et quasi scelus idololatria nolle acquiescere [rebellion is as the sin of Witchcraft, and Stubbornness as the crime of Idolatry].

These things I have passed over so briefly because I can report no deficience concerning them: for I can find no space or ground that lieth vacant and unsown in the matter of divinity; so diligent have men been, either in sowing of good seed or in sowing of tares.

THUS have I made as it were a small Globe of the Intellectual World, as truly and faithfully as I could discover; with a note and description of those parts which seem to me not constantly occupate, or not well converted by the labour of man. In which, if I have in any point receded from that which is commonly received, it hath been with a purpose of proceeding in melius, and not in aliud; a mind of amendment and proficience, and not of change and difference. For I could not be true and constant to the argument I handle, if I were not willing to go beyond others; but yet not more willing than to have others go beyond me again: which may the better appear by this, that I have propounded my opinions naked and unarmed, not seeking to preoccupate the liberty of men's judgments by confutation. For in any thing which is well set down, I am in good hope that if the first reading move an objection, the second reading will make an answer. And in those things wherein I have erred, I am sure I have not prejudiced the right by litigious arguments; which certainly have 376 So edd. 1629 and 1633. The original has mans. 377 So edd. 1629 and 1633. The original has primitive.

this contrary effect and operation, that they add authority to error, and destroy the authority of that which is well invented: for question is an honour and preferment to falsehood, as on the other side it is a repulse to truth. But the errors I claim and challenge to myself as mine own. The good, if any be, is due tanquam adeps sacrificii [as the fat of the sacrifice], to be incensed to the honour, first of the Divine Majesty, and next of your Majesty, to whom on earth I am most bounden.

VALERIUS TERMINUS

Preface by ROBERT LESLIE ELLIS.

THE following fragments of a great work on the Interpretation of Nature were first published in Stephens's Letters and Remains [1734]. They consist partly of detached passages, and partly of an epitome of twelve chapters of the first book of the proposed work. The detached passages contain the first, sixth, and eighth chapters, and portions of the fourth, fifth, seventh, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and sixteenth. The epitome contains an account of the contents of all the chapters from the twelfth to the twenty-sixth inclusive, omitting the twentieth, twentythird, and twenty-fourth. Thus the sixteenth chapter is mentioned both in the epitome and among the detached passages, and we are thus enabled to see that the two portions of the following tract belong to the same work, as it appears from both that the sixteenth chapter was to treat of the doctrine of idola.

It is impossible to ascertain the motive which determined Bacon to give to the supposed author the name of Valerius Terminus, or to his commentator, of whose annotations we have no remains, that of Hermes Stella. It may be conjectured that by the name Terminus he intended to intimate that the new philosophy would put an end to the wandering of mankind in search of truth, that it would be the terminus ad quem in which when it was once attained the mind would finally acquiesce.

Again, the obscurity of the text was to be in some measure removed by the annotations of Stella; not however wholly, for Bacon in the epitome of the eighteenth chapter commends the manner of publishing knowledge" whereby it shall not be to the capacity nor taste of all, but shall as it were single and adopt his reader." Stella was therefore to throw a kind of starlight on the subject, enough to prevent the student's losing his way, but not much more.

However this may be, the tract is undoubtedly obscure, partly from the style in which it is written, and partly from its being only a fragment. It is at the same time full of interest, inasmuch as it is the earliest type of the Instauratio. The first book of the work ascribed to Valerius Terminus would have corresponded to the De Augmentis and to the first book of the Novum Organum, the plan being that it should contain whatever was necessary to be known before the new method could be stated. In the second book, as in the second book of the Novum Organum, we should have found the method itself.

The Advancement of Learning, which was developed into the De Augmentis, corresponds to the first ten chapters of Valerius Terminus, and especially to the first and tenth. To the remainder of the book (a few chapters are clearly wanted after the last mentioned in the epitome) corresponds the first book of the Novum Organum. The tenth chapter, of which we have only a small fragment, is entitled "The Inventory, or an Enumeration and View of Inventions already discovered and in use; together with a note of the wants, and the nature of the supplies." It therefore corresponds to the second book of the Advancement, and to the last eight books of the De Augmentis, but would doubtless have been a mere summary.1 When Bacon subsequently determined to give more development to this part of the subject, he was naturally led to make a break after the inventory, and thus we get the origin of the separation between the De Augmentis and the Novum Organum.

B. W.

1 See my note at the end of this Preface. J.S.

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