XV. EDIFICATION.

I READ in a learned physician how our provident mother, Nature, foreseeing men (her wanton children) would be tampering with the edge-tools of minerals, hid them far from them, in the bowels of the earth; whereas she exposed plants and herbs more obvious to their eye, as fitter for their use. But some bold empirics, neglecting the latter as too common, 175have adventured on those hidden minerals, ofttimes (through want of skill) to the hurt of many, and hazard of more.

God, in the New Testament, hath placed all historical and practical matter (needful for Christians to know and believe) in the beginning of the Gospel. All such truths lie above ground, plainly visible in the literal sense. The prophetical and difficult part comes in the close. But though the Testament was written in Greek, too many read it like Hebrew, beginning at the end thereof. How many trouble themselves about the Revelation, who might be better busied in plain divinity! Safer prescribing to others, and practising in themselves, positive piety; leaving such mystical minerals to men of more judgment to prepare them.