hey would not dare to adopt, as the teaching
of Scripture, anything which they could not plainly deduce therefrom:
lastly, these sacrilegious persons who have dared, in several passages,
to interpolate the Bible, would have shrunk from so great a crime, and
would have stayed their sacrilegious hands.

Ambition and unscrupulousness have waxed so powerful, that religion is
thought to consist, not so much in respecting the writings of the Holy
Ghost, as in defending human commentaries, so that religion is no longer
identified with charity, but with spreading discord and propagating
insensate hatred disguised under the name of zeal for the Lord, and
eager ardor.

To these evils we must add superstition, which teaches men to despise
reason and Nature, and only to admire and venerate that which is
repugnant to both: whence it is not wonderful that for the sake of
increasing the admiration and veneration felt for Scripture, men strive
to explain it so as to make it appear to contradict, as far as possible,
both one and the other: thus they dream that most profound mysteries lie
hid in the Bible, and weary themselves out in the investigation of these
absurdities, to the neglect of what is useful. Every result of their
diseased imagination they attribute to the Holy Ghost, and strive to
defend with the utmost zeal and passion; for it is an observed fact that
men employ their reason to defend conclusions arrived at by reason, but
conclusions arrived at by the passions are defended by the passions.

If we would separate ourselves from the crowd and escape from
theological prejudices, instead of rashly accepting human commentaries
for Divine documents, we must consider the true method of interpreting
Scripture and dwell upon it at some length: for if we remain in
ignorance of this we cannot know, certainly, what the Bible and the Holy
Spirit wish to teach.

I may sum up the matter by saying that the method of interpreting
Scripture does not widely differ from the method of interpreting
Nature--in fact, it is almost the same. For as the interpretation of
Nature consists in the examination of the history of Nature, and
therefrom deducing definitions of natural phenomena on certain fixed
axioms, so Scriptural interpretation proceeds by the examination of
Scripture, and inferring the intention of its authors as a legitimate
conclusion from its fundamental principles. By working in this manner
every one will always advance without d