among human institutions those things which men have handed
C4 ON CIirvISTIAN DOCTRINE. [BOOK II.
and there is nothing unlawful in learning them, nor do they inyolve us in superstition, or enervate us hy luxury, if they only occupy our minds so far as not to stand in tlie way of more important objects to which they ought to be subservient.
Chap, xxvii.—Some departments of knoioledge, not of mere human invention, aid tis in interpreting Scripture.
41. But, coming to the next point, we are not to reckon among human institutions those things which men have handed down to us, not as arrangements of their own, but as the result of Investigation into the occurrences of the past, and into the arran.gements of God's providence. And of these, some pertain to the bodily senses, some to the intellect. Those which are reached by the bodily senses we either believe on testimony, or perceive wdien they are pointed out to us, or infer from experience.
Chap, xxviii.—To what extent histomj is an aid.
42. Anything, theUj tliat we learn fi-om history about the chronology of past times assists us very much in understanding the Scriptures, even if it be learnt without the pale of the Church as a matter of childish instruction. For we frequently seek information about a variety of matters by use of the
Olympiads, and the names of the consuls ; and ignorance of the consulship in which our Lord was born, and that in which He suffered, has led some into the error of supposing that He was forty-six years of age when He suffered, that being the number of years He was told by the Jews the temple (which He took as a symbol of His body) was in building.^ Now we know on the authority of the evangelist that He was about thirty years of age when He was baptized ;* but the number of years He lived afterwards, although by putting His actions together we can make it out, yet that no shadow of doubt might arise from anotlier source, can be ascertained more clearly and more certainly from a comparison of profane history with the gospel. It will still be evident, however, that it was not without a purpose it was said that the temple was forty and six years in building; so that, as this cannot be referred to our Lord's age, it may be referred to the more i Joliu ii. 19. ' Luke iii. 23.