229. (ii) DOCTRINE IS TO BE DRAWN FROM THE LITERAL SENSE OF THE WORD, AND PROVED BY MEANS OF IT.
This is because the Lord is present in that sense, and He teaches and enlightens us. For the Lord never performs any act except in fulness, and the Word is in its fulness in the literal sense, as was shown above. This is why doctrine is to be drawn from the literal sense. The doctrine of genuine truth can even fully be drawn from the literal sense of the Word, for the Word in that sense resembles a person wearing clothes, but whose face and hands are bare. Everything needed for a person's faith and life, and so everything needed for his salvation, is there uncovered, though the remainder is clothed. In many passages where it is clothed it still shows through, like a woman's features through a thin silk veil over her face. Moreover, since the truths of the Word increase in number as they are loved and this love gives them shape, so they show through and become visible more and more clearly.