The Advancement of Learning Page #69

The Advancement of Learning, published by Francis Bacon in 1605, is a foundational text in the history of science and philosophy. In this work, Bacon advocates for empirical research and the systematic organization of knowledge, laying the groundwork for the scientific method. The book critiques existing scholarly practices and proposes a new approach to learning based on observation and experimentation. It marks a significant shift towards modern scientific inquiry.

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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
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.

(22) 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, 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, there remaineth
only vituli labiorum; although the use of holy vows of thankfulness and
retribution may be accounted also as sealed petitions.

(23) 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.

(24) 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, 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

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