15. What does that mean? Through such a thorough illumination of the Word in the Holy Scriptures, the Godhead is infallibly recognized, and thus respected and honored. That is the anointing. For it is not uncommon for someone to express himself in the most exalted terms about the Dignity and Divine sovereignty of Scripture; but all this is the anointing of the corpse.

16. Man, with this noble curiosity, entwines such recognized truth with the highest and purest respect, - yes, he shudders at the greatness of wisdom in this book; and that is none other than wrapping the corpse in white linen. How innocent and pure in and of themselves such linens are; so too is an equal humble realization; but the corpse, the ointment, like the linen, are not alive and give no life.

17. But now they will put this corpse in a new grave. What is that? The knowledge that man has made his own, according to his noble curiosity, gives him no life, no living conviction; therefore he gathers them all together and places them in the grave of his deeper understanding, laying a stone over it, which says as much as: he puts a very grave doubt on all these purely recognized truths; for he says, "All these solutions to the hidden secrets in the Scriptures may well be heard exceedingly well; but they still do not give the clear conviction!"