ordain: not unlike to that devise which Epicurus brought into Democritus' opinion, to take away destiny, and make way to fortune, to wit; the start and slip of Attemus, which always of the wiser sort was rejected as a frivolous shift; but whatsoever depends not of God, as author and principle by inferior links and degrees, that must needs be in place of God, and a new principle, and a certain usurping God; wherefore worthily is that opinion refused as an indignity and derogation to the majesty and power of God, and yet it is most truly affirmed, that God is not the author of evil, not because he is not author, but because not as of evil.

OF THE CHURCH AND THE SCRIPTURES. "Thou shalt protect them in thy tabernacle from the tradition " of tongues."

The contradiction of tongues doth every where meet with us out of the tabernacle of God, therefore whithersoever thou shalt turn thyself thou shalt find no end of controversies except thou withdraw thyself into that tabernacle. Thou wilt say it is true, and that it is to be understood of the unity of the church; but hear and note; there was in the tabernacle the ark, and in the ark the testimony or tables of the law: what dost thou tell me of the husk of the tabernacle without the kernel of the testimony: the tabernacle was ordained for the keeping and delivering over from hand to hand of the testimony. In like manner the custody and passing over of the Scriptures is committed unto the church, but the life of the tabernacle is the testimony.

See the "Advancement of Learning," and the treat se

"Augmentis," under the title Rhetoric.

De

TO THE LORD MOUNTJOYE.

I send you the last part of the best book of Aristotle of Stagira, who, as your Lordship knoweth, goeth for the best author. But saving the civil respect which is due to a received estimation, the man being a Grecian, and of a hasty wit, having hardly a discerning patience, much less a teaching patience, hath so delivered the matter, as I am glad to do the part of a good house-hen, which without any strangeness will sit upon pheasants eggs. And yet perchance some that shall compare my lines with Aristotle's lines, will muse by what art, or rather by what revelation, I could draw these conceits out of that place. But I, that should know best, do freely acknowledge, that I had my light from him; for where he gave me not matter to perfect, at the least he gave me occasion to invent. Wherein as I do him right, being myself a man that am as free from envying the dead in contemplation, as from envying the living in action or fortune: so yet nevertheless still I say, and I speak it more largely than before, that in perusing the writings of this person so much celebrated, whether it were the impediment of his wit, or that he did it upon glory and affectation to be subtile, as one that if he had seen his own conceits clearly and perspicuously delivered, perhaps would have been out of love with them himself; or else upon policy, to

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keep himself close, as one that had been a challenger of all the world, and had raised infinite contradiction : to what cause soever it is to be ascribed, I do not find him to deliver and unwrap himself well of that he seemeth to conceive; nor to be a master of his own knowledge. Neither do I for my part also, though I have brought in a new manner of handling this argument, to make it pleasant and lightsome, pretend so to have overcome the nature of the subject, but that the full understanding and use of it will be somewhat dark, and best pleasing the taste of such wits as are patient to stay the digesting and soluting unto themselves of that which is sharp and subtile. Which was the cause, joined with the love and honour which I bear to your lordship, as the person I know to have many virtues, and an excellent order of them, which moved me to dedicate this writing to your lordship after the ancient manner: choosing both a friend, and one to whom I conceived the argument was agreeable.