Sanctuarium profanis occlusum, sive, de ss. bibliorum prohibitione in lingua vulgari seu vernacula tractatus

—and that I wish for the holiest of all books to be treated as a harmful book deserves, which contains errors or teaches vices, and which of itself could harm the Faith or purity. Far be it from us to think so injuriously and blasphemously of the Word of GOD! I protest the opposite throughout the course of this entire work. I acknowledge the authority, I revere all the sayings, I adore all its senses and thoughts: nay, my veneration proceeds even to the syllables and points; nothing here is not holy, not useful, not divine; nothing idle or superfluous occurs in the sacred code, nothing that has not proceeded from the mouth of GOD, and the Holy Spirit has formed all its characters and letters. If in this following work of mine anything should be found less in conformity with this public protestation that I make, I already disavow and reject it, and so I ask the Reader to consider my intention, and to supply any defect that may occur to the Correctors.

Heresy is not in the Scripture or the words, but in the sense and understanding; the letter is not in crime, but the interpretation, as one of the Holy Fathers says; and if there is danger from reading it, that is not from a vice of the Scripture, but from the weakness and ignorance of him who petulantly entangles himself. The thing itself is holy in its own right, but dangerous by accident: it is an excellent medicine, but one that could degenerate into a virus for those who do not know how to prepare it, or who receive it with a wrong disposition. It is bread, which is very nourishing, and preserves health and life in a healthy body, but which in turn ruins and destroys it in a sick body. And indeed, should one not, with all the Holy Fathers, inquire into the dispositions for reading a volume so holy, proportioned to its eminence; and prevent works that God wrote with His own hand from being treated no differently than the works of men? Does it accord with reason that pages of such purity should be turned by impudic hands? Or that the oracles of the Holy Spirit should be mixed with the foolish prattle of old women? That this most sacred ark, which contains within itself all the mysteries—