more plainly than to be humble and modest and that as we ought to fear God so likewise to honour the King and his Ministers and to obey those that watch over our Souls nay to esteem them very highly in love for their work sake Which will dispose us most certainly if we be not carried away with pride or any other vicious affection to be ruled by them in dubious things and as it there follows in the Apostle 1 Thess V. 13. to be at peace among our selves I must beseech therefore every Member of this Church both for the honour of our Religion and for the safety of their own Souls to be as careful in this matter as I would have them to be in reading the Holy Scriptures Take your Guides along with you do not think your selves safe without their conduct be not only willing but desirous to learn of them reverence their Instructions do not easily dissent from them be afraid to oppose them especially when you have reason to think them to be serious studious knowing and conscientious men who take care to inform themselves aright that they may not misinform you For such men look upon themselves to be bound as hath been shown in the Treatise of Tradition pag. 24. to guide themselves in their Direction of others by what the Catholick Fathers and ancient Bishops have taught out of the Doctrine of the Old and New Testament and thereby preserve their Flocks in the Truth of God's holy Word And having a great regard also to the sense of that Church wherein they live which by their Subscriptions they owne to have Authority in Controversies of Faith they will no less preserve them in Unity and in Peace To conclude it is impossible but every body must reap great fruit by the reading of the Scriptures if they read them for no other end but that they may go away better from the reading of them than they came to it and that they may not accommodate them to their own affections but correct all their affections and desires and the whole course of their life by this exact Rule of Righteousness According to which if we square our selves we shall presently learn in difficult things to be wise unto sobriety and in plain things to be wise unto Salvation that is so wise as to do what we certainly know to be our Duty which is the only Wisdom that the Scriptures magnifie Which will be the surest way both to know more and to know it better that is to feel the comfort of what we know in a blessed and assured hope of everlasting life which God who cannot lye hath promised to us in Christ Jesus our Lord. The End of the First Part. PART II. HAving shewn in the foregoing Discourse that those words of St Peter 2. III. 16. which are wont to be alledged against the reading of Holy Scriptures do plainly suppose that the people did then read them I proceed now in the next place to shew that the Apostle doth not deter men from reading them by representing the difficulties that are in them and the danger of wresting them For he doth not affirm that all things are hard to be understood and consequently liable to be wrested but only that some things are of that nature In treating of which three things offer themselves to be considered I. First that most things in the Holy Scriptures are so far from being hard to be understood that they are easy Nay all things absolutely necessary for us are very easy II. Secondly That those things which are not so easy may be understood though there be some difficulty in it That is they will require some pains to understand them which should not deter us from reading but only make us laborious to find out the sense of what we read III. Thirdly When we do thoroughly understand and heartily believe the things that are easie it will abate much of that difficulty and make other things more easie I. I begin with the first of these the Apostle only saith some things are hard to be understood which supposes that most are not but rather easie as all those things especially are which are absolutely necessary to be known and believed and done for the obtaining Salvation That which makes things easie to be understood is the plain and perspicuous delivery of them in the words wherein they are written or spoken Now nothing an be plainer or clearer than the words wherein all the great Christian Truths are revealed and delivered to us which are so far from being obscure that it is not easier to see the light than it is to apprehend and understand the true meaning of them I will instance in some particulars and have an Eye all the way upon St. Paul's Epistles to which S. Peter is commonly thought to have respect wherein though some things be difficult yet these are most clearly discovered First That there is but one God the Father of whom are all things as he expresly writes 1 Cor. VIII 6. Secondly That He alone is to be worshipped as our Blessed Saviour remembers us out of Moses IV. Matt. 10. was the great thing pressed in his very entrance into any place where he preach'd 1 Thess l. 9 10. XVII Acts 23 24. Thirdly As our Lord teaches us that we are ingaged by our Baptism to worship one God in three Persons XXVIII Matth. 19. So S. Paul affirms the same plainly enough in that Solemn Prayer for the Corinthians 2. XIII ult The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the Communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all Especially if it be compared with those places wherein he affirms our Saviour to be over all God blessed for ever IX Rom. 5. and the Spirit to search even the deep things of God that is to know his Mind exactly for so it follows 1 Cor. II. 10 11. that as none can know the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God Which plainly tells us if we mind it that the Spirit of God is in God as the spirit of man is in man that is the Spirit is God himself and therefore fully acquainted with him in all things There is some little labour indeed in making this deduction but it is very easie if we consider all these places together Fourthly And the Nature of God none can possibly be ignorant of who doth but look into the Holy Books Where he will immediately see Him represented to be Almighty most Wise most Gracious Faithful to his Word and the living God who endures for ever Which are Truths written there in such great Letters that every one who runs as the Prophet speaks and doth but cast a transient eye upon them may easily read them Fifthly Particularly his infinite love and kindness towards us the children of men lies before us so fairly and shines so brightly in our
that being thus entred we cannot continue in that state unless according to our holy purpose we bring forth the fruit of good Works And in like manner what he saith of God's hardening mens hearts is not difficult to be understood by those who are not unlearned and unstable but are skilful in the Principles of natural Knowledge and of true Christianity and who are rooted in them so that they hold them fast whatscever expressions there may be that seem to contradict them But it is time to draw towards a Conclusion of this Treatise which shall end as it began The Doctrine of this Church it appears is most pure and sincere in this Point and most conformable to what we find delivered by the holy Doctors of Christianity in the best Ages And therefore no Member of it ought to be perswaded for any reason to lay aside the reading of the Holy Scriptures when there is a more pious course to which they themselves direct us Which is to learn those things well which we cannot misapprehend if we mind them and which will keep us from misapprehending all other things if we stick to them and will not desert them Let that be your first business to learn all General Truths which comprehend the Particular in them And when you have learnt them receive no particular Opinion which crosses those general Truths for you may be sure it is false because one Truth cannot cross another and all Conclusions must be judged by the prime Truths which ought to stand unmoveable But above all let us establish those Truths in our minds and hearts which teach us to be good For there is no Dispute about this that we ought to be devoutly Religious and sober and just and temperate in all things meek also humble patient ready to do good and to forgive And if we exercise our selves continually in the practice of these and such like Vertues which are evidently taught us in the Holy Books they will preserve us from making any ill use of any thing we read there and teach us to turn all we read into our nourishment and increase in true Godliness Hear the First Homily of our Church in the conclusion of it In reading God's Word he most profiteth not always that is most ready in turning of the Book or in saying of it without Book but he that is most turned into it that is most inspired with the Holy Ghost most in his heart and life altered and changed into that thing which he readeth he that is daily less and less proud less wrathful less covetous and less desirous of worldly and vain pleasures he that daily for saking his old vicious life increaseth in Vertue more and more And to be short there is nothing that more maintaineth Godliness of mind and driveth away Vngodliness than doth the continual reading or hearing of God's Word if it be joyned with a godly mind and a good affection to know and follow God's Will For without a single eye pure intent and good mind nothing is allowed for good before God OBJECTION THE great Objection against all that hath been said is That notwithstanding these Directions Lay-men we see do abuse the Holy Scriptures and which is more the reading of them hath bred infinite Heresies and therefore the safest course is to forbid them to be read by the common people ANSWER I. TO the first part of which an Answer hath been returned already That there is nothing in the World so useful and necessary but it is liable to be abused and yet it must not therefore be kept out of the hands of vulgar people for their common benefit What more useful nay necessary than fire and yet malicious or negligent people may burn the best house that is with it which they should only warm But besides this I have one short Reply more to make That none have been more guilty of abusing the Holy Scripture than they who ought to have been Guides to the Church and People of God by a sound interpretation thereof Examples of which I am not disposed to name unless any shall be so untoward as to deny it and then a great many may be produced like to that of him who because Moses said If a beast touch the mountain let it be stoned concluded that no simple or unlearned man ought to presume to meddle with the sublimity of the Holy Scripture A hard case this that vulgar people should be treated like Beasts but thus Learned men will misinterpret Scripture when they are inclined only to serve their Cause and be as forward if they be not disinteressed to mislead the people as the people are to mislead themselves ANSWER II. TO the other part of the Objection I shall give something fuller satisfaction I. And first of all it is not true that all Heresies have sprung from mens reading the Scriptures or from their misunderstanding them but rather from their not reading them as St. Chrysostom you have heard was of opinion whose words I have quoted more than once in the first Part of this Discourse Which are of the same import with those of our Saviour XXII Matth. 29. Ye do err not knowing the Scriptures and the power of God That is not being acquainted with what natural Reason taught concerning God's Omnipotency as well as what the Scripture taught about the Resurrection Here it may be fit to observe these four things First That the Fathers observe all the ancient Hereticks did not read the Scripture They are the words of St. Austin Lib. III. Cap. 9. De Genesi ad literam For neither do all Hereticks read the Catholick Scriptures nor are they Hereticks for any other reason but because they not understanding them aright pertinaciously assert their own false Opinions against their Truth And thus St. Hierom in the last words of his Commentary upon the VII of Hosea All the questions of the Hereticks and of the Gentiles are the same because they follow not the Authority of the Scriptures but the sense of humane Reason Secondly They observe that the men who pretended most to this were the Original of Heresies viz. the Philosophers Thus Tertullian in his first Book against Marcion speaking of the Professors of Wisdom saith De quorum ingeniis omnis haeresis animatur From whose Wits all Heresie is begotten and incouraged And more fully in his Book of Prescriptions Cap. 7. Ipsae denique haereses à Philosophia animantur Heresies themselves had life given them from Philosophy For the Aeones came out of the School of Plato Marcion's God came from the Stoicks and the Souls Mortality from the Epicureans and the denial of the Resurrection of the Body was taken from one School of all the Philosophers And so he proceeds showing how the Fables the endless Genealogies the unprofitable questions and Disputings mentioned in the Scriptures came out of the same Forge and that the Apostle takes notice of it when he gives the Colossians a Caveat
may be wrested and misconstrued Further yet the wisest and most learned may pervert and wrest the Scriptures and therefore if this be a reason why they should not be read they must be wholly laid aside and none permitted to read them The Scribes and Pharisees I am sure did so far more than the most simple people And yet none will say they ought not to have read the Scriptures it being the profession of the Scribes None more obstinately resisted Christ than they who had these Holy Books perpetually in their hands in which He was promised and foreshadowed They were his most bitter Enemies who were the allowed Expounders of the Law and the Prophets making use of all they read to oppose Him And therefore either none no not the most learned no more than the simple must read the Scriptures for fear of doing themselves and others harm by them or this is not a good Reason against the common peoples reading them nor is it the reading them that doth hurt but the reading them with a bad mind and with naughty affections The Learned may abuse them as well as the Unlearned if they be ill disposed and the Unlearned may get good by them as well as the Learned if they be well affected There are some things clearer than that any can doubt of them or stand in need of an Interpreter the simplest may easily apprehend them and be instructed by them if they come with honest and good hearts to learn their Duty and yet the wisest will not apprehend them or not receive them though never so plain if their hearts be otherwise bent and ill disposed in their affections They that have devoted themselves to this World will be offended with them even because they are so plain and directly cross their intentions and designs For what were the things that made our Saviour so troublesom to the Scribes and Pharisees His Life was perfectly innocent his Conversation free and friendly with all sorts of people his Heart was open to give them an easie access into his presence and into his affections his Power was beneficial his Doctrine was most heavenly his Precepts just and good his Promises exceeding great and precious above all earthly Treasure The business therefore was they were possessed of a Kingdom in which they were honoured as the most Learned adored as Saints inriched with great Treasures esteemed worthy of greater this they thought the happies condition this state of things they wisht might always be continued but feared our Saviour would draw the hearts of the people from them and that their Authority would be diminished by admitting his and therefore they set themselves against him and could not endure the light of his Gospel which showed them how little they must be content to be in this World and only promised to make them great men in the Kingdom of Heaven whereof they made no account And it is to be feared that for the very same reason some men in the Christian World are against the reading of the Holy Scriptures for which they were against the receiving of Jesus Christ Himself Their Authority they fear will thereby be impaired They shall not be able to lead the people whither they please with an implicite Belief their eyes will be opened and seeing how they have been abused they will grow less credulous and not so easily entertain those Doctrines which are very gainful to the Teachers when they see they are altogether unprofitable to them that receive them I am sure such evil affections will never let men understand the Scriptures aright but incline the wisest and most discerning men if so ill disposed to bend them sooner than any meaner persons to their own crooked interests Thus I have finished the first part of this Work when I have made a few Reflections upon what hath been discoursed I. And First of all this demonstrates how unreasonable unjust and uncharitable to say no worse the Decrees of the present Roman Church are which deny to Christian people that liberty which God and his Church have always allowed them This prohibition to read the Scriptures in the vulgar Tongue is a manifest Innovation There is an evident Change in the Church of Rome it self since St. Hierom's days who bestowed several Epistles upon divers Women to press them to read them and to teach them to their little Children Which made Espencaeus a Romish Bishop honestly say that he could not but wonder how that should now be counted so pestilent and capital which the Ancients frequently commend as most wholesom II. Secondly This Discourse should serve for a Caution to us not to intrust our Souls with such Guides as err thus palpably and I doubt wilfully in so plain a business as this For how easily will they mistake or mislead their Followers in other cases especially where there may be some difficulty or some seeming Authority for it III. Thirdly And this should incline every one of us to adhere most firmly and faithfully to this Church Which is so sincerely honest that it fears not to be tryed by this Touchstone the Holy Scripture so well constituted that Christians cannot in reason desire more free and plentiful means of their instruction than they have in all things necessary to their Salvation Lastly Which therefore let us take care we do not abuse and thereby help to confirm and harden the Church of Rome in their Errours We ought not I have demonstrated to lay aside the Holy Scriptures out of our hands God forbid we should consent to that but they themselves require us to lay aside all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness that coming thus with prepared minds with meekness we may receive the ingrafted word which is able to save our Souls Jam. I. 21. That 's the End for which we must read these Holy Books as laying aside all naughty affections is the Method to know what we must do to be saved Not to learn how to discourse to dispute and argue much less to cavil but how to live according to the Will of God in our several places which is the way to everlasting Salvation And whatsoever belongs either to a godly life or the necessary Articles of Christian Faith is so plainly delivered there that when we meet with any thing that is doubtful or hard to be understood we are told plainly enough what to do in that case They themselves direct us not to be wise in our own conceits not to lean to our own understanding but to go and advise with those whom God hath appointed to expound them to us Who will either satisfie us what is the meaning of such places or that it is not of such moment that we need to trouble our selves about it For these Books are so far from giving us the least incouragement to be bold and presumptuous to slight our Instructers and much less to despise our Governours whether Civil or Spiritual that there is Nothing they teach us
and easie to such as faithfully practise their most plain and easie Precepts but hard and difficult to be understood aright of such as wilfully transgress them There is nothing more perspicuously set down in Holy Scripture than this as would be easie to show if it would not inlarge this Book too much from such words as those of St. Peter God resisteth the proud but giveth grace to the humble And therefore should we admit of any Authority equivalent to the Holy Scriptures the question would still remain Whether the Insallibility of that Authority could take away that blindness of heart which by God's just Judgment falls upon all those who detain the Truth of God in Vnrighteousness If for their disobedience to evident and plain Truths God punish them with such spiritual darkness that they discern not his Will revealed in his written Word no other infallible Authority can inlighten them and make those scales fall from their eyes which hinder their sight in the means of their Salvation They will everlastingly go on in darkness because having Light presented to them they preferred darkness before it Those naughty affections which have kept the Light of the glorious Gospel of Christ from shining into them will close their eyes so fast that no other Light will open them But they must either receive and follow the plain directions of Holy Scripture and recover their sight by a sincere practice of known Duties or walk on still in darkness and remain in the shadow of death to the end of their days Unto which plain direction if men would unfeignedly submit if thereby they were not led to the understanding of harder Scriptures they would however have this benefit that they would be secured from misunderstanding them My meaning is that by understanding believing and keeping close to the practice as well as knowledge of the easie and evident Truths of the Gospel we should be preserved from putting any dangerous interpretation upon those places which are hard and difficult Ignorant of them we might continue or perhaps mistake their meaning but still innocently so as not to do hurt to our selves or others by them An illustrious Example of which we have in St. Austin's Book De Fide Operibus Where discoursing Chap. XV. upon that place of St. Paul 1 Cor. III. 12 13. which he takes to be one of those which St. Peter saith are hard to be understood in his Epistles he tells us that some understood the building gold silver precious stones upon this foundation to be meant of adding good works to Faith in Christ and building Wood hay stubble upon it to be meant of those that held the same Faith but did evil From whence they fansied that by certain pains of Fire such evil men might be purged to obtain Salvation by virtue of the Foundation that is by a right Faith only because the Apostle saith v. 15. they should be saved yet so as by fire But if this be a true interpretation of this place saith that Excellent Father then all those places of Scripture which have no obscurity no ambiguity in them must be taken to be false As for Example that of St. Paul in the same Epistle Though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have no Charity I am Nothing and that of St. James What doth it profit brethren if a man say he hath faith but hath no works Can faith save him And that place also will be salse Be not deceived neither fornicators nor they that serve Idols nor Adulterers c. shall inherit the Kingdom of God And that also The Works of the slesh are manifest which are adultery fornication uncleanness c. of which I tell you again as I have done formerly that they who do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God These are all false if that interpretation be true St. Paul contradicts himself and in this obscure place clashes with his plain words for according to this Exposition if men only believe and be baptized they shall be saved by fire though they persevere in such wicked courses as those now mentioned And then I do not see to what purpose our Lord said If thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments telling him what belongs unto good manners And how will that be true which he tells us he will say to them on his left hand Go ye cursed c. whom He sends to Hell-fire not because they did not believe on him but because they did not do good works Thus that Father goes on heaping up a great many other places which evidently speak to the same purpose and then concludes If therefore these things and innumerable others which may be found in the Holy Scriptures without any ambiguity be false then that sense may be true concerning the wood hay and stubble viz. that they shall be saved by sire who only holding Faith in Christ have neglected good Works Si autem vera clara sunt c. but if these things be both true and also clear then without doubt another sense of the Apostle's words is to be sought for And they are to be put into the number of those which S. Peter saith are hard to be understood which men ought not to pervert to their own destruction by endeavouring from them against the most evident Testimonies of the Scripture to make the most lewd people secure of obtaining Salvation though they pertinaciously continue in their wickedness not at all changed by amendment or repentance As for the true sense of that Scripture though he ventures at it yet he saith in the next Chapter he had rather be informed by those who are more learned and more understanding who can so expound it as to let all those things above mentioned remain true and unshaken in which the Scripture most openly avows that Faith profits Nothing unless it be that which the Apostle defines that is Faith which worketh by love but without Works cannot save men neither without fire nor by fire Still he sticks to this Rule as most certain and unmoveable that whatsoever sense be given of an obscure Scripture it contradicts not those Scriptures which are more plain especially those which teach us to live well and show the necessity of it which none that love the Truth as it is in Christ will ever prejudice by any interpertation of Scripture whatsoever It is out of my way to attempt the true meaning of the place now mentioned having no other business in hand at present but to show that by adhering as this Holy man did to the evident Truths in the Scripture they will never permit us to put any bad and pernicious sense upon those that are less evident Let us stick as he did to this Rule and we shall either put an harmless sense upon them or none at all But then we must as I said be heartily in love with these plain Truths and frame our lives according to
according unto Godliness Unto which if men will not attend there is no remedy they will fall into Heresies or worse whether they read the Scriptures or read them not The Scripture it self tells us as much that there must be Heresies 1 Cor. XI 19. that is God will not hinder it unless men will be guided by him and be truly good But he hath a very good end as it there follows in permitting it which is that it may be manifest who are honest-hearted Christians sincerely in love with Truth and Goodness and who are not And that must be the care of every good man not to take or throw away the Scriptures to prevent Heresies but if Heresies do arise to endeavour according to the direction of the Scriptures to approve his integrity unto God by stedfast continuance in Faith and Holiness And after the same manner must he govern himself if the Guides of his Soul do not perform their Duty Which I shall represent in the words of Erasmus out of his Preface to the Reader before his Annotations on the New Testament It is the Pastors Office to distribute the Bread of Life to the people But what if they do not their Duty What must the people do They must implore the help of the Supreme Pastor Christ Jesus who still lives and hath not forsaken the care of his Flock But being solicited by the publick Prayers of his People will do what is promised in Ezekiel Behold I will both search my sheep and seek them out As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that they are scattered so will I seek out my sheep and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day with all the rest that there follows XXX Ezek. 12 13 c. The vulgar people are Sheep but endued with reason and out of those Sheep are Pastors made And sometimes it falls out that a Sheep may know more than his Pastor As a Lay-man therefore ought not seditiously to rebel against the Priests lest that order be confounded which St. Paul would have in the Body of Christ so the Priests ought not to exercise Tyranny over the Flock of Christ for if they do the Sedition will lye at their door When the Pastors do their duty they are to be reverently heard as Angels of God by whom Christ speaks to us And when they teach unsincerely the people must pick out all that 's good if there be any mixed with it But if they teach not at all or teach those things that are plainly repugnant to the Gospel let every man refresh his Soul with private reading And Christ who promises to be present when two or three are gathered together in his Name will not be wanting by his Spirit to one Soul that meditates piously in his Holy Word In vain are six thousand gathered together if it be not in his Name Now they are gathered together in Christ's Name who have respect to Nothing but his Glory and the eternal Salvation of their Souls CONCLVSION I shall conclude all with the sense of that great Man St. Athanasius who wrote a little Treatise on purpose to reprove the audaciousness as he calls it of those who said that it was needless to look into the Scriptures and bad men not to search into them nor to speak out of them but to content themselves with the Faith they had received For searching into the Scriptures said they doth but make things more obscure To which he replies many things which I might digest into Heads but I shall present them to the Reader just as they lie in the Second Tome of his Works pag. 295. of the Paris Edition MDCXXVII This very Assertion saith he shows the inconsistency of their Doctrine and that it hath Nothing to support it He means they would not be afraid men should search into the Scriptures if they thought what was taught by them would be there justified But we trust to the truth of the Mystery i. e. the Scripture and to the help of him who cannot lye who saith Every one that seeks shall find Therefore we seek as we ought and we find what we ought and we speak with demonstration and we hear with a genuine intention that we may perswade our domesticks and that we may confute our Adversaries and that we may by our search be gainers our selves and not propound any thing that is inconsistent unto others Would you have me neglect the Scriptures Whence then should I have knowledge Would you not have me to mind knowledge But whence then should I have Faith Paul cries How should they believe unless they hear And again Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God He then who forbids the Word obstructs hearing and throws out Faith No man can be ignorant of the Roman Laws being a Member of the Empire without danger They then who forbid us to study and learn the great Oracles of the King of Heaven what kind of mischief do they not craftily contrive against us The Scripture is the food of the Soul Cease then O man to starve the inward man and to kill it with hunger introducing a famine not of bread nor of water but of hearing the Word of the Lord. There is one that inflicts wounds and dost thou forbid the application of medicines For shame do not talk as if the various wisdom in the Books of Physicians were vain and to no purpose One may as well he means bid people not mind their Prescriptions though there be many Diseases in the World as not read the Scriptures when their Souls are in danger Reverence that Lover of God's Word the Eunuch who did not neglect reading upon the road Whose good intentions our Lord accepting sent him straightway an Instructer who made him understand what he read and by the Scriptures brought him to his Saviour Hence it is that our Saviour commands Search the Scriptures by searching meaning careful and sober inquiry into hidden things Out of the Scriptures is the manifestation of things obscure the confirmation of hope the event of promises the finding of our Saviour according to that We have found Him of whom Moses and the Prophets wrote Paul himself uses Scriptures for the establishment of the Truth And if he that heard ineffable things he that was thoroughly instructed in secrets he that had Christ speaking in him doth not simply use his own private Authority without the testimony of the Scriptures how can we with safety now neglect the Divine Legislation and speak what we think good out of our own hearts But there are some things transcending our Conceptions I say so too and this we learn out of the Scriptures that we may understand what things are fit for us to seek after as being attainable For it is neither pious to venture upon all things nor is it consistent with Holiness to neglect all things What we worship we ought all to be acquainted withal according to that which is written We know what we worship But how great or what kind or after what manner or where it is the part of mad-men to inquire They that would have none to judge of their Doctrines but themselves deter men from reading the Scriptures pretending it is immodest to pry into such inaccessible things but in truth fearing to be convinced out of them of holding bad Opinions I omit the rest which is but little more than I have represented and shall end all with his words to Macarius in the very beginning of his Works against the Gentiles The holy and divinely inspired Scriptures are sufficient of themselves for the declaration of the Truth and there are many Books composed about the same things by our Teachers of blessed Memory Which if any man peruse he will know in some measure the meaning of the Scriptures and be able to attain the knowledge he desires The End of the Third Part. THE END A Catalogue of some Books Printed for R. Royston at the Angel in Amen-Corner Books written by the Reverend Doctor Patrick THE Christian Sacrifice A Treatise shewing the Necessity End and Manner of receiving the Holy Communion Together with sutable Prayers and Meditations for every Month in the Year and for the Principal Festivals in Memory of our Blessed Saviour In Four Parts The Eighth Edition corrected in Octavo The Devout Christian instructed how to pray and give thanks to God Or A Book of Devotion for Families and particular persons in most of the concerns of Humane Life The Fifth Edition in Twelves An Advice to a Friend The Fourth Edition in Twelves Jesus and the Resurrection justified by Witnesses in Heaven and in Earth In Two Parts in Octavo The Book of Job Paraphras'd in Octavo The Book of Psalms Paraphras'd in Octavo The Truth of Christian Religion in Octavo The Glorious Epiphany with the Devout Christians Love to it in Octavo The Proverbs of Solomon Paraphrased with the Arguments of each Chapter which supply the place of Commenting in Octavo A Paraphrase upon the Books of Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon With Arguments to each Chapter and Annotations thereupon In Octavo New A Book for Beginners Or A Help to Young Communicants that they may be sitted for the Holy Communion and receive it with profit A Friendly Debate between a Conformist and a Non-Conformist In Two Parts The Sixth Edition Corrected and Englarged A Treatise of the Necessity and Frequency of rece ving the Holy Communion With a Resolution of Doubts about it In three Discourses begun upon Whitsunday in the Cathedral Church of Peterburgh New Winter-Evening Conference between Neighbours In Two Parts The Second Edition Corrected in Octavo The Old Religion demonstrated in its Principles and described in the Life and Practice thereof In Twelves New 22 Sermons preach'd partly before His Majesty at Whitehall and partly before Anne Dutchess of York at the Chappel at St James's By Henry Killigrew D. D. Master of the Savoy and Almoner to his Royal Highness New in Quarto Animadversions upon a Book Intituled Fanaticism Fanatically imputed to the Catholick Church by Dr. Stillingfleet and the Imputation Refuted and Retorted by S. C. By a Person of Honour The Third Edition in Octavo The End of the Catalogue