Search the Scriptures A TREATISE Shewing that all CHRISTIANS Ought to READ the HOLY BOOKS WITH DIRECTIONS To them therein In Three PARTS LONDON Printed for R. Royston Bookseller to His most Sacred Majesty 1685. Introduction THE Holy Scriptures as the first Homily of our Church teaches all its Children in the very beginning of it are such a Fountain and Well of Truth that as many as be desirous to enter into the right and perfect way unto God must apply their minds to be acquainted with them without which they can neither sufficiently know God and his Will nor their own Office and Duty For in Holy Scripture is fully contained what we ought to do and what to eschew what to believe what to love and what to look for at God's hands at length And therefore these Books ought to be much in our hands in our eyes in our ears in our mouths but most of all in our hearts Vnto which sort of Discourse which is grounded upon the VI. Article of our Religion they of the Church of Rome are wont to make a double Exception One is That there are some things necessary to be believed and practised which are not to be found there but must be received from ancient Traditions The other is That those Truths which are delivered in the Holy Scriptures are not so clear and perspicuous that common people should be intrusted with the reading of them Now to the First of these there hath been some time ago a plain Answer made in a Discourse about Traditions Therefore this Treatise is intended only as an Answer to the Second Exception For the maintaining of which they are wont to alledge among other places those remarkable words of St. Peter in his Second Epistle the Third Chapter and Sixteenth Verse Where having made mention of St. Paul's Epistles which treated of the same matter that he had just before explained he says In which are some things hard to be understood which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest as they do also the other Scriptures unto their own destruction Behold say they how dangerous it is for common people to meddle with the Holy Scriptures which being compared by St. Paul himself to a two edged Sword ought not to be put into their hands for fear they destroy themselves therewith It is true indeed the same St. Paul teaches us Rom. XV. 4. that whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning and are profitable as he writes elsewhere 2 Tim. III. 16. for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness But this notwithstanding there are say they such difficulties and obscurities in the Holy Scriptures as we learn from this great Apostle St. Peter that they ought not to be thought profitable for all people but rather hurtful to them that are ignorant who therefore ought not to read them By which single Instance the Reader may learn if he mark it well what sort of Interpretations of Scripture we are like to have if we trust to them alone and do not see with our own eyes when these very words of St. Peter do plainly teach us the quite contrary Doctrine to that which they would establish by them I. For they are so far from containing a Reason why the people should not read them that First they evidently suppose the common people even the unlearned among them did in those days read the Scriptures Else they could not have wrested them as the Apostle says they did and complains of that but not of their reading them And II. Secondly These words do not affirm the whole Scripture to be hard to be understood but only some part of it St. Paul's Epistles at the most or rather the things of which St. Peter had been treating And not all of them neither but only some things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some few things which would require pains and diligent attention of mind to comprehend the meaning of them And III. Thirdly The Apostle doth not say that all who read those difficult passages are in danger to wrest them but only the unlearned and unstable who abuse the plainest Truths to their own ruine As for others they may read even the hardest places in St. Paul's Epistles safely enough nay receive great profit from thence as well as from other Scriptures and they who wrest them are not to leave reading them but to grow in true Christian knowledge and in Stability of mind These are the three Parts of the insuing Discourse In treating and reading of which Let us pray to God as the second Homily concludes that we may speak think believe live and depart hence according to the wholsom Doctrine and Verities of these holy Books And by that means in this World have God's defence favour and grace with the unspeakable solace of peace and quietness of Conscience and after this miserable life enjoy the endless Bliss and Glory of Heaven PART I. THat the Right of God's People to read the Holy Scriptures is not at all prejudiced by these words of St. Peter appears from hence That the Wresting of the Scriptures by the unlearned and unstable doth suppose that even such persons did then read them Which overthrows the Conclusion which they of the Roman Church endeavour to draw from this place For there had been no possibility of perverting their sense if they had not been in their hands at that time as they are in ours now And yet the Apostle doth not reprehend their medling with them but their Ignorance and their heedlesnes which was the cause they misunderstood them and might have been prevented by a little diligence and care without throwing them quite away For the fault was not there but in themselves who came to the perusal of holy things with unprepared minds Now for the establishing of this Truth that the people were not then and therefore ought not now to be debarred the liberty of reading the holy Books which God our Saviour hath left unto his Church as a common Inheritance you may be pleased to weigh these things following which will fully settle your minds in this perswasion I. First That the ancient People of God the Jews were not only permitted but required by God himself to be so conversant in the Law of Moses and so well acquainted with it as to be able to teach their Children God's Commandments and for that end to talk of them when they sate in their houses or walkt by the way when they lay down and when they rose up nay to write them upon the doors of their houses and on their gates that whensoever they went out or came in they might have them before their eyes and be put in mind of them Deut. VI. 6 7 8. This the Lawgiver thought a matter of so great importance that a little after in the very same Book he enjoyns it over again for fear they should neglect it Chap. XI 18 19 20. For the very Root and
presumption that God blessed these pious endeavours and gave them a right understanding as a reward of their search into the Scriptures according as it there follows therefore many of them believed And thus St. Peter also in this very Epistle Chap. I. 19. commends his Country-men who attentively read and considered the Prophetical Writings We have also a more sure word of Prophecy whereunto ye do well that ye take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn and the day-star arise in your hearts The plainest meaning of which words to me seems to be this That it was a laudable and praise-worthy thing in those Jewish Converts to whom he writes who as yet were but weak in the Faith that they did give heed to the Writings of the ancient Prophets which they took to be the surest ground of their Faith for in them they would sind the Lord Jesus plainly descrihed if they compared what the Apostles preached with that which they foretold as the Beraeans did Those Writings indeed of the Prophets did but obscurely treat of Christ in comparison with the discoveries of him in the Gospel and the Apostolical Writings which he compares to the Day-star and the old Prophets but to a Candle shining in a dark place yet the one would lead them to the other and by taking attentive heed to the Prophetical Writings they would in time find the day dawn and the Day-star arise in their hearts that is arrive by degrees at clearer demonstrations and a fuller and brighter knowledge of Christian Truths delivered by our Saviour and his Apostles who being the Light of the World gave light even to the ancient Prophecies To conclude this particular they were so far from discouraging any Christians in their reading the Holy Scriptures that they commend those who read even the hardest Books among them Those words are very remarkable I. Revel 3. Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this Prophecy and keep those things that are written therein Which comfortable incouragement I do not see why we may not with the greatest satisfaction apply to our selves now as they did then to quicken us to read and hear the things contained therein For though we do not certainly understand every one of those Prophecies yet there are abundance of most excellent instructions and admonitions incouragements and consolations interspersed throughout that Book which make it sit to be read by Christian people for their direction and support And we may likewise from hence take the confidence to argue in this manner If a Blessedness be pronounced to those that read or hear that Prophecy and keep those things that are written therein then they cannot be accursed who for the same end read other holy Books where such instructions and comforts are more plentifully and plainly and on purpose delivered nor can they expect God's blessing who prohibit the reading even of those easie and more familiar Scriptures which are accommodated by the Divine Wisdom and Goodness to the most vulgar capacity Every one ought to drink of these Fountains nor would I forbid saith Erasmus very piously those that thirst after Christian knowledge to read even those Books which are not so open but like a Fountain sealed up Because they will reap this fruit at least that they will come more sit to the hearing of Sermons which touch upon or allude to those more obscure passages They will hear also those things more willingly of which they have already some knowledge and understand those things more easily of which they have a small taste VI. AND there is the greater reason for it because the Holy Scriptures are a considerable part of our compleat Spiritual Armour without which we shall lie so open to the assaults of our Enemies that it will very much hazzard our Salvation And why should we be exposed to any danger when we may defend our selves by the use of those weapons which God himself hath provided for us Or how can they be Friends to our Souls who would expose us by taking those weapons out of our hands Read the VI. Ephes 11. c. Where the Apostle exhorting them to put on the whole Armour or compleat Armour of God that they might be able to stand against all the wiles of the Devil in the following Verses enumerates the several parts of this Armour and the last piece of it but one is v. 17 the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God This shews that as while we have Enemies to fight withal and very powerful subtil Enemies we have need of all sorts of Weapons that God hath furnished us withal for our defence so we are not completely appointed for our defence without this weapon the Word of God no more than a Souldier is without his Sword And therefore they who go about to deprive us of this leave us in great part naked to our Spiritual Enemies By wresting that weapon out of our hands whereby we should beat them off There is not one of the Devils temptations ye may observe IV. St. Matth. but our Saviour vanquished it by this weapon telling him it is so and so written and the Tempter had no more to say nor knew what to oppose thereunto And therefore our safety lies in the same Divine Armory of the Holy Scriptures unto which we ought to have resort upon all occasions and there furnish our selves with such holy Precepts Examples Promises and Threatnings as we may have ready at hand to oppose to every temptation It is usually said as I noted in the beginning that men may wound themselves with a Sword as soon as their Enemies and therefore it is not safe to let every body take this weapon into his hand But was not the Apostle as much aware of this as we Were not the Holy Scriptures as liable to be perverted then as now And we by this reason shall leave neither Sun in Heaven nor any good Creature here upon Earth as a great Man of our own somewhere speaks for they have been all wretchedly abused to very ill purposes by evil men And besides this it is not true that men may as soon hurt themselves as their Enemies with this Sword For who but mad men or desperate persons run that weapon into their own bodies wherewith they should defend their lives And who but they that are distracted themselves will suppose the generality of Christians to be such a frantick fort of people that they are not to be trusted with the means of their preservation but must have even the bread of life taken from them for fear they surfeit of it But this will be more fully answered hereafter and that which I have next to represent to your consideration will give great satisfaction to it which is this VII THAT the greatest Doctors in the Church have most earnestly exhorted the people with all the Rhetorick they could invent to give themselves leisure
in all things to please God who would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth Let us not deceive our selves but the more we are intangled in such kind of cares let us so much the more carefully search for a remedy in the reading of the Holy Scriptures Was not Noah and such like good men of the same Nature of which we are and yet had not the benefit of those helps and assistances that we enjoy How can we then be excused who enjoy such a Doctrine who have obtained such Grace who have helps from above and have received the promises of ineffable good things if we do not come to the measure of that Vertue at which those Patriarchs arrived I beseech you therefore again that you would not only simply look into those things which are contained in the Holy Scriptures but that you would read them with attention that by the profit we receive from them we may at last though we have been a long time about it come to that degree of Vertue which God will approve The same he urges again in the XXXV Homily upon the same Book from the Example of the Eunuch reading the Scriptures in his Chariot which he thus concludes I have laid this History before you that we may not be ashamed to imitate this Eunuch nor neglect reading no not in a journey For this Barbarian alone may suffice for a Master to us all both to those that lead a private Country-life and to those who are listed to serve in the Army and to those that live in the Court and in general to all men and to women too and to those that live in Monasteries also that no time should be thought unfit to the reading of the Holy Oracles For it is possible not only within doors but to those who go to Market that are in Journies that fall into a great deal of Company that are intangled in business to be conversant in them that doing what we can we may meet with one to guide us And what if we do not understand what we read let us go it over again For frequent meditation imprints things on the memory and oft-times what we could not understand to day we may find out presently when we read it again to morrow the most gracious God invisibly illuminating our understanding Which leads me to the last Proposition which he maintains in Answer to all Objections that can be made a-against this Doctrine III. That as none ought to neglect reading because they are men of business so they ought not to excuse themselves because they want Bibles or because the Scriptures are so obscure that they do not understand them Concerning business you have heard already what he was wont to say And concerning want of Bibles he tells them the rich cannot pretend this And as for the poor I would ask them saith he this Question Whether they have not all the tools belonging to their Trade And since they can furnish themselves with such necessary implements why they should not judge it most absurd to be wholly unprovided of the Holy Scriptures which are as necessary for their spiritual as the other for their bodily subsistence But to the greatest Objection of all the obscurity of the Holy Scriptures and that it is impossible to understand them he answers very largely in several places of his Works particularly in that Homily forenamed upon Genesis XXXV speaking of the Eunuch of the Queen of Ethiopia Who did not say as many do now I understand nothing of what I read I cannot dive into the depth of these Scriptures to what purpose should I take all this pains and tire my self in vain by reading when I have none to lead me into the meaning No such thought was entertained by him who was a Barbarian in his language but a Philosopher in his mind and rather concluded he should not be despised but receive help from above if doing all that lay in his power he continued reading the Holy Scriptures And therefore the most Gracious Lord of all seeing his ardent desire did not overlook him nor left him unprovided but straightway sent him a Master to inform him See here the Wisdom of God how He expected till he first did what he could and then He manifested his own powerful aid Because he prepared himself the best he was able an Angel of the Lord was sent to Philip that he might do the rest c. But this Argument he prosecutes most largely in his Third Sermon upon Lazarus Where first of all he says a man cannot look into the Holy Scriptures but he must be made better God conversing with him there in those Writings so that though he do not understand what he reads yet his mind will be much purified by reading by a holy sense of God he means upon whom his mind is fixed as speaking to him But immediately he further adds that what is objected is not true of all Scriptures some being so plain that it is impossible to be without understanding of all things whatsoever that we read there For the Grace of the Holy Spirit on purpose ordered these Books to be composed by Publicans by Fishermen by Tent-makers by Shepherds and such like mean and unlearned men that none of the common people might flee to this Pretence but the things that are there written might be intelligible to all That the Handicrafts-men and the Servants and the poor old Women and the most illiterate of all mankind might be gainers and profit by the hearing of them And what they designed they effected For to whom are not all things in the Gospel manifest and clear Who is there that reads these words Blessed are the meek blessed are the merciful blessed are the pure in heart and the like that needs any other Teacher to instruct him what it is that is said And are not all things that relate to signs and wonders and the History of Christ clear and easie to be understood of all These objections are but a cover and pretext under which men hide their sloth and idleness Which further appears from the temper of those men that from the beginning were counted worthy of the Grace of the Spirit who composed all things not as they without the Pale of the Church for Ostentation and their own Vain-glories sake but for the Salvation of those that heard them The Heathen Philosophers indeed and Orators and other Writers not seeking the common good of all but aiming at the making themselves admired when they said any profitable thing made it difficult to be understood and wrapt it up in some obscurity But the Apostles and Prophets did all quite contrary making all plain and clear as the common Teachers of the whole World that every one might be able of himself to learn by the bare reading only such necessary things as those now mentioned Which the Prophet foreshewed when he said they shall all be taught
but deliver others also that are deceived and draw them out of the danger But it is time to make an end of this and therefore I shall only add these few memorable words of his out of his second Sermon upon St. Matthew that you may see how faithfully they follow the Fathers who pretend to be wholly guided by them If there be a greater sin than that of not reading the Scriptures it is this to be perswaded that we need not read them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for these are words of a Satanical suggestion the studied invention of the Devil I have been the longer upon this Head because some are more moved by a great Authority than by bare Reason And I have alledged this Father's Authority alone not for want of other which are ready at hand in great abundance but because it is deservedly very weighty and as he is full and express in his Judgment about this matter so he intermixes his Discourse upon it with many excellent Instructions But if we had neither his Testimony nor any other to produce there is one piece of History remaining which is sufficient to satisfie any man in this matter Which is that it was the very Mark and Character of a Christian to have a Bible and of an Apostate to deliver his Bible to be burnt when the Inquisitors came to search for it in times of Persecution As they did particularly in the Reign of Maxentius and of Dioclesian when they sought to destroy all Bibles as the Foundation of Christian Religion which they thought would fall when these Books were gone And that Lay-men generally had Bibles as well as Priests and were guilty of this foul Crime of delivering them up to the Persecutors appears by Optatus in his first Book against Parmenio Quid commemorem Laicos c. What need I stand to mention the Lay-people who then had no Dignities in the Church or many Ministers he means inferiour Officers or Deacons in the third Order or Presbyters in the second Priestood when the very Supreme some Bishops in those times impiously delivered up the Instruments of the Divine Law He names several and among the rest Donatus And the same we find in St. Austin Epist XLVIII and CLXXI. and other places Where he relates how some delivered up the Holy Books to the Persecutors and others who did not communicated with them that did mixing with the Church TRADITORVM plebem congregatam a whole Congregation of people that were Traditors Which shows that Bibles were then as common as they are now and that S. Chrysostom's complaints were very just against those who were grown so cold and negligent in providing themselves these Holy Books as if they still had been under Persecution and it were not safe to have them now that they lived under Christian Emperours VIII BUT now let us hear what common Reason saith as well as the Scripture and the best Interpreters of them such great Lights as he now named and that teaches us that since the Holy Scriptures were written for the use and benefit of all all should have liberty to read them They were written for all it is plain for that which they teach is the duty of all that which they promise is the portion of all And if any one say it doth not therefore follow they should be read by all because the people may be taught by others without looking into the Scriptures themselves they render themselves suspected that they intend not to teach the people sincerely what is written but to establish their own Authority instead of that of the Divine Writings For otherwise why should they not rather when they pretend to teach others bid them look into their Bibles and there satisfie themselves that they do not abuse them assuring them it is a faithful Translation of God's Book which they have in their hands whose meaning it is their business to help them to understand That is why do they not imitate God himself Who commanding his Prophet to proclaim him to be the only God among the Babylonians and that the Gods which made not the Heavens and the Earth should perish from the Earth and from under these Heavens ordered him to do it in their own Language that they might read and understand it X. Jer. 11. Where when all the rest of the Book is Hebrew this Message is delivered in the Chaldee Tongue Which we may justly look upon as a Praeludium to the publishing of the Name of God among the Gentiles in their own Language in the days of Christ When as Theodoret witnesseth the words of the Apostles and Prophets were turned into the Language of the Romans Egyptians Persians Indians Armenians Scythians and Sauromatans and all the Languages that any other Nation used And therefore why should not we now have them in English And having them why should not all read that they may learn the way to be happy here and eternally and that they may be sure they are not led into a wrong way and abused by pretended Authority from God who perhaps saith the quite contrary to what is delivered in his Name This is the Peoples Right and it it their Duty to use it as that Great Man S. Chrysostom whose words let me set down once more teaches his Church upon 2 Corinth VII in the conclusion of his XIII Sermon For how can we think it not to be absurd that having to deal in money-matters men will not trust to others but the Counters are brought out and they cast up the Summ but in the business of their Souls are barely led and drawn aside by the Opinions of other men And this even when they have an exact Scale wherein to weigh all things an exact Rule or Square whereby to measure them the dictate of the Divine Laws Therefore I beseech and intreat you all that not minding what such or such a man saith about these things you would consult the Holy Scriptures concerning them all c. And if you consider what kind of Auditors Christ had you may soon come to a conclusion in this matter and learn from thence what his intention is Were they not the promiscuous multitude People of all sorts and conditions And will He take it ill to be read of those by whom He would be heard Some will say there is danger in reading the words may be mistaken or perverted And may they not be so in hearing Can any Preacher in the Roman Church so frame his discourse that he can warrant not a word he saith shall be misunderstood or misinterpreted and turned to another sense than he meant it By this reason the poor people shall be taught nothing at all if we must do them no good because some may possibly abuse it and turn it to their hurt Nay if God himself may not be heard by the people speaking to them in the vulgar Tongue I see far less reason why men should who can say nothing but what
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
times and one Let us ever be telling our selves that it is God who speaks unto us by his Son in these Holy Books that this is the Rule of Life whereby we must be judged that we must stand or fall before God according as we keep these Sayings that Nothing is comparable to being beloved of God Nothing so desirable as to have our Faith found to honour and praise and glory at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ And then we shall deny our selves and our own desires commodities and interests that God's Will may be done by us the whole World will seem inconsiderable in our eyes and we shall easily forgo any thing that He will not allow us to keep according to the fundamental Rule of our Religion He that forsaketh not all that he hath cannot be my Disciple And he that taketh not his Cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me I conclude this Part of my Discourse with the words of one of the Homilies of our Church in the second Part of the Exhortation to the reading and knowledge of the Holy Scriptures As concerning the hardness of Scripture he that is so weak that he is not able to brook strong meat yet he may suck the sweet and tender milk and defer the rest till he wax stronger and come to more knowledge For God receiveth the learned and unlearned and casteth away none but is indifferent unto all And the Scripture is full as well of low valleys plain ways and easie for every man to use and to walk in as also of high hills and mountains which few men can climb unto And whosoever giveth his mind to Holy Scriptures with delight study and burning desire it cannot be saith St. Chrysostom that he should be left without help He that asketh shall have and he that seeketh shall find and he that knocketh shall have the door open If we read once twice or thrice and understand not let us not cease so but still continue reading praying asking of others and so by still knocking at the last the door shall be opened as St. Augustine saith Although many things in the Scripture be spoken in obscure Mysterics yet there is nothing spoken under dark Mysteries in one place but the self same thing in other places is spoken more familiarly and plainly to the capacity both of learned and unlearned And those things in the Scripture that be plain to understand and necessary for Salvation every mans duty is to learn them to print them in memory and effectually to exercise them And as for the dark Mysteries to be contented to be ignorant in them until such time as it shall please God to open them unto him but not lay aside the reading of the whole because of the darkness of such places And briefly to conclude as St. Augustine saith by the Scripture all men may be amended the weak be strengthened and the strong be comforted So that surely none be Enemtes to the reading of God's Word but such as either be so ignorant that they know not how wholesom a thing it is or else so sick that they hate the most comfortable Medicine that should heal them or so ungodly that they would wish the people still to continue in blindness and ignorance of God The End of the Second Part. PART III. I AM arrived now at the last of those Three things I propounded to be treated of in the beginning of this Book That all who read the Scriptures are not in danger to wrest them to their own hurt but only the unlearned and the unstable Such men will wrest them from their true meaning but so they will other Discourses as well as the Scriptures and the most clear and perspicuous things are liable to be perverted by them as well as the dissicult In this we shall soon be satisfied if we consider briedy whom the Apostle St. Peter means by Vnlearned and Vnstable which will also clearly direct us what course we are to take that we may not wrest the Scriptures as such men do Now there is no great difficulty to know who these are if we mind the proper use of words and the place where they are used I. VNLEARNED AND for the first of these the Vnlearned the Apostle cannot be thought to have respect to such as are ignorant in those parts of Knowledge which are now commonly called Learning for so the Apostles themselves were generally ignorant and unlearned IV. Acts 13. but to those who are ignorant of such things as the Holy Scriptures treat of and ought to be learnt by all Christians This I think all will allow and then they are more particularly meant who are not skilled in the first Principles of Religion Men that know not or mind not those common Natural Truths upon which all Religion is built nor are acquainted with those plain unquestionable Principles of Christianity before mentioned in the Second Part of this Discourse These I take to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here spoken of who have not learnt so much as the first Elements or as the Apostle speaks VI. Heb. 1. the word of the beginning of Christ who wanting the foundation of true Knowledge will be apt to wrest every thing they read from its proper meaning Such there were even in the School of Christ as St. Paul himself teaches us who were ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth 2 Tim. III. 7. They frequented that is the Christian Assemblies where they received good Instructions but their nanghty affections would not suffer the known Doctrines of Christianity to find entertainment in their minds Which Doctrines are such as these That there is one God who is perfectly just and perfectly good and knows the very thoughts of the heart and changes not And that He hath sent Jesus Christ his only begotten Son the Eternal Word who was before all Worlds to take our Nature upon him to dye for our sins to rise again that he may be the Judge of all And that He hath sent the Holy Ghost from the Father to teach us those Rules of Faith and Holy life whereby we shall be judged at the last Day when he will raise up our dead bodies and give to those who have done good everlasting Life but send those who have done evil into everlasting Fire These and such like which depend on these and are coherent with them are the Christian Learning which they that did not know and believe and accordingly practise as I shewed in the foregoing Discourse must needs be very great strangers to the Holy Books and be so far from reaping any profit by them that they would rather corrupt and abuse them to the support of their own uncertain vain or absurd imaginations Nor were they secure from this danger when they had learnt them unless they were likewise so fixed in their minds that they were constantly guided by them For the Apostle here teaches us that
against vain Philosophy II. Col. 8. From whence we may note that the Scriptures themselves assign the Original of Heresies and teach us to beware of it so far are they from leading us into them Thirdly And there is a third Cause of them mentioned in Scripture also viz. the Traditions of men VII Mark 7 8. And thus Firmilian observes in his Letter to St. Cyprian That Marcion the Disciple of Cerdo a great while after the Apostles induxit sacrilegaem adversus Deum traditionem brought in a sacrilegious Tradition against God Apelles also consenting to his Blasphemy added multa alia nova many other Novelties which were more grievous and directly opposite to Faith and Truth And so did Valentinus and Basilides who rebelled against God's Church by their wicked Forgeries And thus St. Hierom introduces Hereticks maintaining their Errours in the very Dialect of the now Roman Doctors We are the Sons of those wise men who from the beginning delivered unto us the Apostolical Doctrine c. Lib. VII in Esaiam Cap. XIX But S. Cyprian every where appeals from all pretended Tradition whatsoever unto the Dictates of our Lord and his Apostles i. e. unto Scripture-Tradition Particularly in that famous Epistle of his to Pompeius All religious and simple minds have a compendious means both to lay aside Errour and to find out Truth nam si ad divinae traditionis caput originem revertamur cessat error humanus for if we go back to the Head and Original of Divine Tradition there is an end of humane Errour And a little after he tells us what he means by this Divine Tradition when he saith If there be any doubt any wavering about the Truth let us return ad originem Dominicam Evangelicam Apostolicam Traditionem to our Lord 's Original or beginning both the Evangelical and Apostolical Traditions that is to the Doctrines delivered in the Goâ—pels and in the Writings of the Apostles Fourthly Another Spring of Heresie were pretended Revelations Thus the Cataphrygae as the same Firmilian tells us novas Prophetias usurpare conantur endeavoured also to make use of new Prophecies And a little after We know they cannot have Christ who challenge to themselves their false Prophecy against the Faith of Christ And whence they had their Illuminations who in the bosom of the Roman Church invented a Fifth Gospel which threatned the overthrow of our four is not hard to resolve Not out of the Holy Scriptures we may be sure and therefore the taking away them from the people will not prevent all Heresies but they will start up as they have done from other Causes and they will the sooner start up if the Scriptures be neglected II. But I desire it may be further considered that as Heresies will spring up from other Causes though men do not read the Scriptures so Lay-men have not been always the Devisers of them but they to whom none deny the liberty of reading the Holy Books For the most pernicious Heresies that have been in the Church had their beginning from Priests as appears by Arius and Nestorius And indeed no man can frame an Heresie but he that is of excellent Parts as St. Hierom's opinion is whose words are these upon the X. of Hosea No man can devise and set up a Heresie but he that is ardentis ingenii of an extraordinary Wit and hath gifts of Nature created by God the great Artificer such was Valentinus such was Marcion whom we read to have been most learned such was Bardesanes whose Wit the Philosophers themselves admired And therefore either the Scriptures must be wholly laid aside the greatest men for Learning and Parts being apt to abuse them if they be not humble and thoroughly good or men must be taught how to prepare themselves for the reading of them and what to seek for there and then any body may safely take them into their hands and make them their constant Companions III. It must likewise be further considered that there is something else to be feared beside Heresie and that is stupid ignorance or gross Infidelity which Experience shows us have followed upon the taking the Scriptures from the people even as darkness comes and covers the Earth when the light is withdrawn from it And ought we not in all reason to be as studious and solicitous to prevent these as to prevent Heresie Since they are no less dangerous or rather more dangerous by far even for this reason because they make men liable to fall into the most sottish Superstitions if not into down-right Idolatry which is a worse thing than Heresie How Images came to be Lay-mens Books it is needless to relate the matter being very plain and how Image-Worship thence arose and how fatal this hath been to the vulgar people I have not room to discourse nor how Legends of Saints were invented full of absurd and incredible stories which have disgraced the Doctrine of Christianity and tempted many to disbelieve the true History of our Saviour's and his Apostles Miraculous Operations But this is certain that they were devised to supply the place of the Holy Scriptures that the people might have something to entertain them when they were taken away from them It was the effect at least of that these fabulous stories being recommended to the peoples affection when they were frighted from medling with the Bible as a dangerous Book nay when it 's credit was disgraced by many words of reproach Which we in this Church think our selves bound to wipe off by recommending it to the peoples best affection and constant perusal as a means to preserve them from sottish ignorance and stupid Impostures and all vain Superstitions and false Worship IV. Nor is it easie for our people by this means to fall into Heresie because they have the liberty of reading the Scriptures but interpreted to them by the Ministry of the Church whereby they are taught continually to have recourse to their Pastors and by sundry Tracts Expositions and Paraphrases allowed by publick Authority Particularly in the beginning of the Reformation care was taken that Erasmus his Paraphrase should be placed in every Parish-Church of the Realm in which he doth not follow his own private Fancy but like a truly great Man represents the sense of the ancient Doctors of the Church V. Now if after all this men do fall into Heresie it must be imputed to some other Cause than their reading the Scriptures For if they had minded them they would have learnt to be humble modest peaceable tractable to their Guides and to take heed of those who cause Divisions and are proud and dote about Questions and strises of Words and that creep into houses to instill private Doctrines and very frequently lead men from the Scriptures to pretended Revelations or Traditions That is they would not have faln into any sort of Heresie but kept unto the wholesom words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the Doctrine which is
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
King should be furnished with a Copy of the Law and keep it by him that he might read therein all the days of his life and learn to fear the Lord his God and to keep all the words of this Law and these Statutes to do them XVII Deut. 18 19. Nay the more to imprint the words of this Book upon his mind the Law enjoyns this as a duty belonging to the King himself saying He shall write him a Copy of this Law in a Book out of that which is before the Priests the Levites Which though some are pleased to think a Priviledge indulged only to the King the Jews who are willing enough to excuse themselves from such laborious things constantly affirm that every private man was bound to do the same and that though the King had done it before as others were obliged to do yet being exalted to the Throne he was bound to do it over again out of the most authentick Records that it might be the more imprinted on his mind and work in him a greater reverence thereof This Maimonides grounds upon those words XXXI Deut. 19. which concern them all Now therefore write ye this Song for you as if he had said Write the Law for your selves of which this Song is a part for they were not wont to write the Law by parcels Wherein perhaps they go too far but there is little doubt to be made that pious Kings took care the people should be acquainted with the Law as well as themselves imitating that pious Prince Josiah who after a long forgetfulness of the Holy Scriptures having a Copy of the Law brought to him which was found in the Temple not only caused it to be read in the ears of the people but as the Jews with great reason affirm commanded the Priests and Scribes to write Copies of it and deliver them to the people For how should they be able to perform the words of the Covenantwritten in that Book unto which Josiah ingaged them 2 Kings XXIII 2 3. unless they knew them And how should they know them more than they had done formerly if they did only once barely hear them Which might give them some present sense of their duty but could not be remembred unless they had the words they were to perform constantly before their eyes There might much more be added on this subject but this is sufficient to introduce what follows II. THAT what was thus enjoyned by Moses and practised by the people of the Jews our Saviour confirmed by his Command or at least by his approbation saying V. John 39. Search the Scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternal life and they are they which testifie of me Some indeed translate the words thus Ye search the Scriptures for in them c. and so they are a plain acknowledgement of what was then in use nay an approbation if not commendation of their diligence in turning over the holy Books wherein they hoped to find so great a Treasure as Eternal life But if they be rendred as we and as many of the Romanists themselves translate them Search the Scriptures then they are a Command wherein our Blessed Saviour requires what Moses had formerly done and charges them not to neglect this duty of making a diligent inquiry into the meaning of the holy Writings for there they would find plain testimonies concerning the Messiah and be satisfied that he was the Christ whom they expected And I cannot see how this Precept may be safely disobeyed But as our Lord in the Parable of the Rich man and Lazarus XVI Luke 29. brings in Abraham sending the Rich mans Brethren unto Moses and the Prophets i. e. to their Writings for they themselves were dead and gone for their instruction from whom they might learn enough to keep them from coming into that place of Torment So we in like manner ought to tell men if they will know how to be saved they must repair to Christ and his Apostles and out of the Gospel and Apostolical Instructions learn the way to Heaven and how to escape Eternal damnation For there can be no good reason alledged why the Jews should be permitted nay commanded to read Moses and the Prophets and we not be allowed but forbidden to read the words of Christ and his Apostles For we are as much concerned or rather more in these as they were in them and they are not harder to be understood by us than the old Scriptures were by them we have the same means the same helps that they had if not far better to prosit by them and to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ And therefore it is no fault in our Preachers now but an honest discharge of their duty to say to their people as Origen doth to his in his second Homily upon Isaiah Would to God we did all practise that which is written Search the Scriptures And as St. Basil in his Second Book of Baptism Cap. 4. Let us obey our Lord who saith Search the Scriptures and let us imitate the Apostles who inquired of the Lord himself the interpretation of his own words learning the truth and wholesomness of what He saith in one place by what He speaks in another So far were these great and Holy men from discountenancing the reading of the Holy Scriptures that they most earnestly press every body to it as I shall show more fully before I have done III. LET us now further consider that the Apostles of our Lord were concerned that what they wrote concerning the Christian Doctrine should be read not only by the Elders of the Church to whom their Writings were directed but be communicated to all the Members thereof who were under their Instruction This appears from St. Paul's most solemn Charge in his first Epistle to the Thessalonians that it should be read to all the holy Brethren 1. v. 27. Who should read it to them but the Bishops and Pastors of the Church Who no doubt first received it but were not to keep it to themselves but impart it to the whole Community And if they read it to the whole Society we cannot think they refused to give Copies of it to them if any desired it that they might read it themselves Or rather they took care to disperse this Letter of their own accord among their Flock as they did also send it to other Churches whereby by it became common to the whole Christian World And it was a matter of such great importance that all the people should be acquainted with his sense that his Charge is in the form of an Adjuration That if they neglected him the Command should be obeyed for the Adjuration sake For Adjurations were dreadful to the ancient Christians though now alas wo be to us they are little regarded They are words of Theophylact. And to the same effect Theodoret glosses He adds an Adjuration contriving that all might have the
profit of the reading this Epistle For perhaps otherways they that first received it might not have given it unto all As much as to say He was afraid lest the Epistle should be suppressed and read but by few and therefore he requires them for the love of God and as they hoped for mercy from our Lord that it should be read unto all Which teaches us that the Word of God ought not to be concealed from the poorest Members of the Church who are concerned in it as much as the greatest And that if the Apostle were now alive and should write to the Churches we may be confident he would be more earnest if it be possible in this matter graviore contestatione adjurans c. as Musculus writes adding greater weight o his Adjuration and beseeching nay charging the Governours of the Churches who now with all their might oppose the peoples reading of his Epistles that as they expected the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ who was the Witness of what he said and would be their Judge they would take care that all his words should be diligently communicated to the Faithful It may not be amiss to take notice that to the same purpose S. Paul writes also in his Epistle to the Colossians IV. 16. where he commands that this Epistle being read among them in that Church they should take care to have it read in that of Laodicea by sending that is a Copy of it to them and the Colossians on the other side should read the Epistle of the Laodiceans that is the Epistle which he had sent to that Church as some Theophylact observes anciently understood it or the first Epistle to Timothy which was written by him as others he saith observe from Laodicea These are plain demonstrations that the Writings of the New Testament were intended to be the common portion of all God's people as those of the Old had always been IV. AND thus I shall now proceed to show they understood it by representing that reading of the Scriptures was lookt upon as a Duty and carefully practised by pious people according to the forenamed injunction of our Blessed Lord and the solemn obtestation of the Apostle For the same Apostle tells us that his Son Timothy from his infancy had known the Holy Scriptures which will not now be allowed in the Roman Church to grown Christians without a special licence no not to Regulars as they call them whose whole business it is to be Religious but may not have any part of the Bible in their own Language without a faculty from their Superiors Read 2. Tim. III. 15. and comparing it with the fifth verse of the first Chapter you will sind that he received this early knowledge he had of the Scriptures from his Grandmother and Mother for his Father was not a Jew but a Greek and therefore they were not ignorant in the Scriptures but had made it their business to understand them so well that they were able according to the Law of Moses to teach them their Children Which they began to do saith the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from their cradles as we speak in our Language that is as Josephus admirably explains it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 immediately upon the first indication that they have any perception of other things For so he writes in the Book before named If any man ask any one of our Nation concerning the Laws he will tell him all things more readily than his own name for learning them straightway as soon as we come to have any knowledge of things we retain them deeply ingraven upon our minds Thus the Talmudists also discourse at five years old they put their Children to the Bible Whereby they arrive at such a proficiency that in these latter Ages they have been able to tell any thing that is there So Ribera a famous Jesuit relates in his Commentaries upon V. Micah 2. I knew a Jew saith he at Salamanca who was sufficiently unlearned of whom when I inquired in the Spanish Language because he understood no Latine about several things both in the Historical and in the Prophetical Books he stopt me immediately upon the first mention of them from proceeding further and repeated them all himself without Book in the Hebrew Tongue Which I relating to another Jew who was become Christian he told me it was no wonder for they committed all these things to memory from their Childhood Which may very well put those Christians to the blush who are as careful and vigilant to keep not only their Children and Youth but Elder people also from reading the Holy Scriptures as the Jews are to bring them into acquaintance with them And it is the more shameful because even the Proselytes that is they of other Nations who embraced the Jewish Religion were allowed this liberty no less than the natural Jews themselves Which is apparent in the History of the Eunuch belonging to the Queen of Ethiopia whom St. Philip found VIII Acts 28. reading the Prophet Isaiah as he was in his journey home-ward from Jerusalem agreeable to the Precept of the Law before mentioned that the Divine Writings should be their Companions when they walkt on the way as well as when they were within doors This Eunuch was a man of a strange Country bred up in the Court of Ethiopia which was the softest they say and most effeminate of all Nations yet being converted to the Jewish Religion he had so much care of his Soul as to read the Prophetical Books the hardest of all the old Scriptures The sense of which he confessed to Philip he did not understand but that did not hinder his reading them And because he read them with a pious mind God sent him an Interpreter who improved his knowledge and advanced him from a Jew to be a Christian clothing the Blackmore as Erasmus expresseth it with the Snow-like fleece of the immaculate Lamb. Which that great Man justly alledges as an Argument why every one should read the Scriptures though they do not understand every thing that they read If they do it honestly and piously how do we know saith he but that they may fare as well as the Eunuch did who felt his heart touched in the reading by the Spirit of God V. CERTAIN it is you may further observe that this was not only practised in the first and best times of Christianity but it was accounted a noble quality in those who were seriously conversant in the Holy Scriptures As they of the City of Beraea may teach us who hearing St. Paul preach that Jesus was the Christ which he confirmed no doubt out of the Scriptures did not presently reject what he said because it crossed their Opinion as a neighbouring City had done but were more noble saith the Text XVII Acts 11. or better bred than those of Thessalonica searching the Scriptures daily whether those things were so Which is so far from being censured as a piece of
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
vain opinion of himself whom he hath better opportunities to be acquainted withal than any thing else And on the contrary he that thinks right in the first things he inquires into hath great incouragement and security to proceed with hope of good success in all that follows It is true when a man knows himself he finds that he is a Creature apt to mistake prone to judge amiss forward to follow little fancies rather than reason or reason dipt in passion and interest and to forsake that which is pure and unbiassed But this is so far from being a discouragement or hinderance to him in searching after God's Holy Truth that it is the very thing which disposes him for it and will secure him in it For if he keep this humble sense in his mind how weak and frail a Creature he is it will do him great service by preserving him from rashness in embracing any thing without great deliberation and much more from hastiness in venting any singular conceit and still much more from pertinacity in defending it if it be vented and most of all from Faction and siding and uncharitable courses and from that great danger of mistaking and never reforming an erroneous Understanding More particularly in this business of reading the Scriptures this humble sense of his own weakness will First make him read them with greater care attention and diligence remembring how prone he is to mistake even when he is very serious And therefore Secondly it will make him distrust his own best endeavour without Divine assistance which he will pray and wait for with an humility as great as the sense of his unworthiness to receive it And Thirdly it will dispose him to listen unto and inquire after the sense and judgment of other men whom he hath reason to think abler than himself and to be willing to learn of them Fourthly And more particularly incline him to follow the Guides of Souls not with a blind obedience but with a due attention to their directions and a great deference to their Judgment and where any doubt is publickly determined a quiet submission to their Authority And Lastly to name no more content himself with plain and safe and necessary things at least preserve him from being too forward before he be well prepared to meddle with those things which are not within every bodies reach Now when we consider all these blessed effects of Humility we cannot but say it is a special means to attain the knowledge of Divine things from God who gives grace to the humble St Austin was so sensible of this that he advises Dioscurus Epist I VI. not to think of any other way to attain the knowledge of the Truth but that alone which God himself who knows how weak we are and how apt to slip hath chalkt out for us Ea est autem prima humilitas secunda humilitas tertia humilita c. And that way is first Humility secondly Humility thirdly Humility and shouldst thou ask me never so often about the way I would give thee no other answer Not that there are no other Precepts to be learnt but unless Humility in all the good we do do first go before and secondly accompany and thirdly follow after pride and vain conceit while we are pleasing our selves in our good deed will wrest all the profit of it out of our hand and make us lose our labour Vitia quippe caetera in peccatis superbia verò etiam in rectè factis timenda est c. For though we need fear no other vice but when we do ill yet this may steal upon us even when we do well and great care must be used lest by the desire of praise we spoil those actions which are really praise-worthy Therefore as the noblest Orator when he was askt what he thought was chiefly to be observed in the Precepts of Eloquence is said to have answered Pronunciation and being askt what next still answered Pronunciation and the third time being askt the same question again replied nothing but Pronunciation So as oft as thou shouldst ask me of the Precepts of Christian Religion I would not think fit to answer any thing but Humility This wholesome Humility then which that our Lord might teach us he humbled himself let us carefully learn yea let us be clothed with Humility as St. Peter speaks and always carry in mind that of St. Paul Knowledge puffeth up There is danger in reading and getting knowledge unless Humility usher it in and attend upon it and perpetually go along with it for it will not minister to the nourishing of goodness but to the feeding our ambition and fomenting contention and inflaming of indiscreet zeal and thereby troubling the state of God's Church But Humility is the Mother of meekness and peaceableness of Spirit which is both most capable of wisdom and also most fit to communicate it unto others with advantage and make it appear as lovely to them as it is in its own nature We have the Authority of the Royal Prophet for it in the place before mentioned XXV Psal 9. and of his great Son Solomon whose Maxim this was With the lowly is wisdom XI Prov. 2. and which is more than all of our Blessed Lord and Saviour who thanks his Heavenly Father XI Mat. 25. Because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent that is from the self-conceited Pharisees and revealed them unto babes single-hearted and humble persons even so Father for so it seemed good in thy sight this is most agreeable and pleasing to the Divine Wisdom to communicate it self not to those who think themselves wise but to those who are truly desirous and studious so to be And so I proceed to a third Rule which is a general one too and arises from the former III. Which supposing that doing God's Will is the main thing at which a Christian ought to aim it is evident from thence that we ought to propound no other end to our selves in reading the Holy Books but that we may thereby grow more holy and be made perfect in every good work For this is certain that if this be not always our end we and these Holy Books do not design the same thing and so we are never like to meet Their design it is visible is to make us wise unto Salvation to purifie us even as our Lord is pure to help us to perfect holiness in the fear of God If we aim not therefore at this they have nothing to say to us If we lay aside these thoughts and divert to something else in the study of the Scriptures we shall wander in vain and unprofitable Speculations and perhaps trouble the World as well as our selves with unnecessary Doctrines which ingender strife and destroy Charity and disturb Peace and turn men quite away from the practice of Piety If we would be truly knowing and thoroughly wise with the Scripture-Wisdom we must ever draw all we know and meet
alledge them to prove that a General Council cannot err These words cannot alike serve all these purposes as our Divines rightly have observed for a Pope may err where a Council doth not and a General Council may err where the truly Catholick Church cannot And therefore it is not the evidence of things which leads men thus to expound the Holy Scriptures but their own private affections and their several interests and designs to the advancement of which they easily consent to apply them Not attending to the clear scope of them or rather shutting their eyes not only to that but to the main scope of the whole Book of God and to all other Notices which would give them better direction And solve also even many seeming difficulties which are in the Scripture or at least guide us so evenly that we shall pass safely by them Which is the third General Truth I propounded in the beginning of this Part of my Discourse III. AMONG all those things which we are concerned to learn there are none thought more difficult than several passages in St. Paul's Epistles some part of which St. Peter had in his eye when he concluded his Second Epistle But I may be confident that if we will admit or take up no sense of them that is contrary to such known and confessed Truths as are on all sides embraced we may give a fair account of them at least preserve our selves from making any dangerous construction of them That which above all the rest is thought to be of greatest difficulty is his Doctrine of Election and Reprobation which some take to be the things hard to be understood in St. Paul's Epistles But if we stick close to the known fixed Principles of Reason and Religion which are naturally written on our Hearts or revealed by our Saviour we shall be led thereby unto a fair and easie interpretation of his meaning in these matters For there is an Election of whole Nations and there is an Election of particular Persons and they are elected either to enjoy the means of Grace or to partake of Eternal Salvation The first of these it is evident are absolute and have no dependence upon any thing we do but the latter are not as St. Paul expresly teaches us 2 Thess II. 13. where he saith God had chosen them to Salvation through Sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the Truth Faith was supposed to this and the fruits of Faith in Sanctity and Holiness They were not chosen to Salvation but through these though they were chosen to be made partakers of the Grace of the Gospel before these The like may be said concerning Reprobating or rejecting men Which sometimes plainly concerns whole Nations and sometimes particular Persons and sometimes is only from the Priviledges they formerly enjoyed sometimes from Eternal Life both of them for their sins and the former the National rejection from their former Priviledges is designed by God to prevent the latter viz. the final destruction of every one of them which he doth not desire Thus God reprobated or rejected and cast away Israel as St. Paul teaches in the Epistle to the Romans But it was not with an intention that they should utterly perish No he saith more than once God forbid i. e. he abhorred such a thought he disclaimed any such meaning For quite contrary by their being rejected from enjoying the Priviledges they formerly had the Gentiles were brought to Christianity and the end of that was to provoke the Jews also to jealousie and move them at last to bethink themselves better and to repent of their sin and be saved Let any man read seriously the Tenth and Eleventh Chapters of that Epistle and he will be satisfied that the Reprobation spoken of in the Ninth Chapter was such that they might notwithstanding be restored into the favour of God and be finally saved That is they were rejected from being his peculiar people as they had been but not from all hope of his Mercy if they did not continue a disobedient and gainsaying people For the Apostle still prays for them in the entrance of the Tenth Chapter and begins the Eleventh in this manner I say then Hath God cast away his people God forbid That is will any man infer then from what I have said that God hath utterly reprobated them never to receive them more No such matter none ought to interpret my words to such a sense which I disown nor did it ever come into my mind For I my self am an instance of the contrary being an Israelite of the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin c. And yet he saith afterward that God had blinded their eyes and given them a spirit of slumber eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear according to that of David Let their table be made a snare and a trap and a stumbling-block c. v. 8 9 10. But what then Have they stumbled that they should fall and be utterly ruined God forbid but rather through their fall Salvation is come to the Gentiles to provoke them to jealousie v. 11. For if they did not abide still in Unbelief he shows they might be grafted into the Church again v. 23. And explains his mind still more fully in this matter v. 25. that blindness was hapned only in part to Israel till the fulness of the Gentiles was come in and so all Israel shall be saved For though they were as concerning the Gospel Enemies for our sake yet as touching the Election they were beloved for the Fathers sake They were not absolutely and finally reprobated but for the present did not believe that through the Mercy showed to us Gentiles they might also obtain Mercy For God concluded them all in Unbelief that he might have mercy upon all v. 28 31 32. All these expressions and a number more in that Chapter evidently demonstrate it was not an irrecoverable Rejection which the Apostle speaks of much less a Rejection without any respect to their sins but such a Rejection for their rejecting Christ as in the design of God was to bring them to Repentance and to Faith in Christ when they saw what they had lost and others had gained by their Infidelity He now that will interpret the Ninth Chapter according to the plain declared sense of the Apostle in this will have no hard work to undertake but easily see that as he speaks of the whole body of the Jewish Nation so he did not think them to be utterly lost but designed even their Reprobation for their recovery And now I might proceed to show if it would not inlarge this Treatise too much how the difficulties which are raised about Faith and Works are not so great neither as they seem if we firmly adhere to common Truths Which lead every man to conclude that the Faith which enters us into a state of Justification doth include in it an hearty purpose of well-doing and
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
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
small observation which may be sufficient to inform us That if men take heed the Scriptures are not so difficult to be understood as Laziness and careless Reading and Interest would make them It is only this to what the word WHICH relates when the Apostle saith In WHICH are some things c. Whether to St. Paul's Epistles or to those things which St. Peter is treating of in this Chapter as St. Paul doth in some of his Epistles And it is manifest to those who will be at so much pains as to ask any honest man that understands the Original Language that it refers not to all St. Paul's Epistles but to those things of which St. Peter had been discoursing For the words are not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which Epistles but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which things or among which things some are hard to be understood Now that which St. Peter had been speaking of is the Coming of our Lord concerning which he saith St. Paul also had written and therefore it is most reasonable to determine that S. Peter here means that in those things which St. Paul had written in his Epistles about Christ's Coming there were some things not so easie to be understood as the rest And what great matter is it if we be ignorant of some things relating to his Coming since we know and are certain by undoubted words of the Apostles that He will come and come to render unto all according to their works Let us believe this and then we shall find no difficulty in the use which St. Peter makes of it in the eleventh verse What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness It would be very ill for us if Christ should come now and find us instead of reforming our lives by practising the plain Truths of the Gospel disputing against that Gospel and casting reflections upon it as an obscure Book which is more apt to breed Heresies than to teach men the way to Heaven And whensoever He doth come it will not be easie for some men to answer this Charge which will be brought against them of aspersing his Will and Testament on this fashion as if it were apt to make his Children fall out and not rather agree together in pious Love and Charity But let those who are concern'd look to that let us who enjoy the liberty of reading his Holy Will and are incouraged so to do only endeavour as St. Paul speaks to have our conversation as becomes the Gospel And when we meet with any thing which we do not understand therein let our next thought be that there is enough which we do understand and that if we practise it and will take pains we may in time understand the rest as far as concerns us in our state and condition of life For it is easie to show that if we extend the meaning of St. Peter further as we are wont to do and look into all those parts of St. Paul's Epistles that are thought the hardest to be understood we may with some diligence and observation comprehend the meaning of them well enough And till we use that diligence we ought not to accuse the Scriptures of obscurity but our selves of negligence All it is true cannot use that diligence which is necessary to understand him in all points because their business will not permit it but it is as true that as it is not necessary they should understand him in all things so if they could use that diligence which is requisite they might for any thing that can be seen in St. Peter's words understand him thoroughout For he only saith there are difficult things in St. Paul but difficulties are short of impossibilities and we see very great difficulties in other matters overcome by mens industry and God's blessing And therefore they may be overcome here by those who make it their business and have capacity to comprehend his meaning And if they do not understand every particular expression or passage yet his scope and drift in the whole discourse may with careful attention and observation be clearly discerned At least there is Nothing in St. Peter's words which contradict this and therefore they are vainly alledged to prove the obscurity and difficulty of the Scriptures when they can extend but to some places of Scripture i. e. St. Paul's Epistles and but to some things in them nay but to some things I have shown in one particular Discourse in them about the Coming of Christ which have no further obscurity in them neither but what is only an exercise of our diligence by which they may be understood But just thus other places are wrested to prove the obscurity of the Scriptures I will instance in one or two The Abridger of Controversies fears not to alledge the VIII Acts 30 31. to this purpose Where St. Philip asks the Eunuch if he understood what he read and he confesses he did not but asks him again How can I except some man should guide me From whence he concludes they are not easie to be understood To which the Reply is so easie that he must have a film before his eyes who doth not see that this place is an Argument against them that alledge it For it proves as I showed in the first Part that men did then read the Scriptures though they did not understand what they read And it proves not that the Eunuch understood Nothing but only that he did not understand that particular place which St. Philip found him reading And that was a place in a Prophecy which hath some obscurity in it till it be accomplished though not afterward And it was but one thing he did not understand in that Prophecy for he knew what the Prophet said but could not tell of whom I pray thee tell me saith he to the Evangelist of whom speaketh the Prophet of himself or of some other That was all the inquiry the difficulty lying in that one single point and in that also only for a time for by the help of an Interpreter he soon understood the Prophecy was fulfilled and in whom it was fulfilled So that this very place hath now no difficulty at all in it unto us when we read it though it was at that time difficult to him What a number of insufficiencies are there in this allegation as Bishop Montague justly complains to prove the Scriptures are hard to be understood All that can be made of it is that one place of Scripture was obscure in a particular case and in one point only of that case and at that time and I may further add to a stranger who was not of the Jewish Nation and so was not from the beginning acquainted with their Books who notwithstanding with a little help presently found it was no longer hard to be understood but very easie as it is now to us This is enough both to show how insufficient the proofs are which are brought
them for else we shall not use due care not to cross them in our Doctrine if we cross them in our Deeds but rather be content that by false glosses upon other places where the fraud will be less discernable the Light of those glorious Truths should be obscured and the power and force of them enervated and broken For what will not men say and do to defend themselves in their sins even against the clearest Convictions of Gods Holy Word which their bad assections teach them to oppose nay make it their interest to resist And here it may be fit to take this occasion to give a few directions for the right understanding of the Holy Scriptures which if we observe in our reading them we shall not only be preserved from dangerous mistakes but reap great benefit by them And I shall the rather do it because it will be a good introduction to the Third Part of this Discourse I. The first of them is a Rule which is necessary in all Sciences or parts of Knowledge viz to learn easie things first We can have no sound Understanding in the Scriptures unless we will follow their own Method which is to learn first to fear God and keep his Commandments for therein lies the beginning of Wisdom as he often tells us It is against the very direction which the Scripture gives us to be so confident as to venture presently into all the depths that are in it and to lose our time in puzzling our minds to unty the knots of difficult places For they are not to be salved but by those who are well acquainted with what the Scripture principally aims at which it teaches us in plain and easie words and therefore they must be first learnt as our Guides to those things which are of higher contemplation And he who is resolved upon this Method will find plain Truths enow to busie and imploy an honest and pious mind a long time by which he is to prepare and sit himself for more difficult inquiries if it be needful for him to make them Though the truth is ordinary Capacities may safely pass by those things that are hard and obscure and content themselves with the knowledge of easie and perspicuous Doctrines without any further search consulting thereby best for their own ease and quiet and for the Peace of the Church of God And as for those whose profession it is to devote themselves to the study of all Holy Writ even they must be sure for their own safety and others to lay the Foundation well here by thoroughly digesting the Doctrines which are after Godliness and deeply tincturing as I may say their minds therewith before they meddle with other matters For a sense of true Goodness will be as a Light to guide us in the interpreting those things which seem dark and need something to illustrate them And what can we imagine that should be but something contained in the same Book even the true Light of Life the Light which chases away all mens evil desires and the deeds of darkness which makes the Soul pure and without prejudice which disposes it to know God and to love him and to love all men for his sake This will instruct us how to interpret all the rest and not suffer us to entertain any sense of them in our minds which is repugnant to the Nature of God and hinders the practice and increase of true Godliness or prejudices Charity and disturbs Christian Society but conform all our thoughts unto a happy agreement with those great and obvious Truths Which therefore let us observe and mark as the very Life and Soul of Religion nay let us imprint them on our minds as the most necessary to be known and remembred and carried constantly in mind that we may never admit any thing to their prejudice For unless we be thus disposed we shall not only trouble our selves to no purpose but confound all things and overturn the whole Frame of Religion We shall be just like that Fool whom Melancthon speaks of whose work it was to carry fuel daily to the Kitchin and coming to a great Pile of Wood where little pieces lay uppermost and the greatest below he would needs begin at the bottom for which he gave this wise reason That it was good to do the hardest work first and then he should be better able to deal with that which was easie I need not make the application to those who love to perplex themselves with some deep and I may say dangerous Points if not well understood before they are well studied in the common Doctrines of Godliness and have learnt what it is to be a Christian This is a preposterous course contrary to the clear light and guidance of the Holy Books which teach us in the first place to make this inquiry What shall we do to be saved And we are sure none can be saved but they who are obedient to the Lord Jesus whose Faith therefore teaches us to study his Precepts before we meddle with other matters And these Precepts as they are not grievous to those that obey them so they are not hard to be learnt in order to that obedience But whatsoever concerns our Duty to God and Man and the Duty of every particular person in the relation wherein they stand of Parents and Children Husbands and Wives Masters and Servants Princes and People Teachers and Learners are all I have shown delivered here with such plainness and simplicity that no Book in the World ever taught them in this manner About these therefore in all reason together with the common Principles of Christian Faith we must imploy our most earnest care to settle them in our minds and make them the Rule of all the rest But it is not enough to bring these things into our minds I must add another Rule no less necessary than this which is II. That to do what we know is the way to know more what we have to do This I have suggested already in the body of the foregoing Discourse and therefore shall only commend the serious practice of one particular Duty which is so frequently mentioned in the Holy Scriptures that from thence we ought to conclude it is of exceeding great moment It is Humility not to think of our selves more highly than we ought to think nor to be wise in our own conceits but to think soberly and to be lowly in our own eyes There is a number of Precepts of the same import with these the meaning of which he ought to study diligently and then heartily obey who would advance to a higher degree of knowledge for the meek i. e. the humble will he guide in judgment and the meek will he teach his way If a man begin at first to think wrong of himself he is not like to hit right in other things but the easier mistake in them when he hath suffered such a cheat to be put upon him as to have a
perverting his sense say we have Paul on our side who says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us sin the more abundantly that we may be the more abundantly pardoned Which they do to their own destruction saith St. Peter for they that killed the Prophets and the Apostles and they that destrey and takeaway their words by a perverse interpretation are obnoxious to one and the same Condemnation because they slew them that the World might be no longer taught by them the saving Truths of the Gospel and these in the like manner wrest or put upon the rack their words that none by them may work out their Salvation Again what is there clearer in the Apostolical Writings than that they every where taught God will raise the dead at the last day in which He will judge the World in righteousness And yet there were those who wrested these words so foully that some said the Resurrection was past already of whom were Hymenaeus and Philetas 2 Tim. II. 17 18. and others said there was no Resurrection 1 Cor. XV. 12. and others said Christ would never come again but laught at his promises of coming to reward the good and at his threatnings of coming to punish the wicked as St. Peter tells us in this very Chapter v. 3 4. Knowing this first that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts there was the reason of their scoffing saying Where is the promise of his coming for since the first men fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the world Which they would not have had the impudence to affirm it being so easie to disprove them had they not affected as he shows v. 5. to be ignorant of what was as plainly recorded in the Holy Books as any thing whatsoever that there had already been long ago a great change made by the Flood which swept away the World of the Ungodly Which if they had been serious would have kept them from mocking at another destruction threatned to the Wicked with a promise of Salvation to the Godly at our Saviour's second Coming and made them look upon what was past as an Example of the like future Judgment I might give more numerous instances which would prove something beyond this that unpurged minds or which is all one unlearned and unstable Souls will not only wrest plain Truths to serve their Lusts and Humours but thereby be apt to grow more wicked and more prejudiced against God and Goodness For the opinion or presumption as is excellently observed by a great Man that any of our evil actions or dispositions are countenanced from God's Word doth mightily heighten them in a degree of evil more than usual The covetous niggardly and unmerciful for instance if they please themselves in the precepts of frugality and diligence are exceedingly stifned and rooted in those sins with the pleasure they take in their conceited conformity with the rule of Gods Word which teacheth us to avoid Riot and Luxury Sloth and Negligence And thus the stubborn and self-willed are encouraged in their obstinacy by the commendations which are given to the constant and the well-resolved And the malicious turbulent and seditious Spirits justifie their bitterness fury and contempt of Authority from the examples of excessive zeal or indignation swelling in Holy men upon just occasions and that perhaps by a special Divine incitation which is not by any man to be now imitated But it is time to leave this and to give a short account of the other II. It is no less usual for want of observing this plain Rule to press one and the self same Scripture to serve for different purposes unto the great dishonour of God and of his Holy Oracles which men from hence imagine have an uncertain found I might instance in some very ancient abuses of this nature As that of our Saviour's X. Matth. 25. It is enough for the Disciple that he be as his Master may be strained to prove no body knows how many absurdities You may guess at the rest by this one that it was alledged by the Ebionites to prove that Christians ought to be circumcised because Christ their Master was as Epiphanius expresly remembers and by the same reason may be urged to prove that no Christian ought to marry because Christ their Master never married But there are modern instances more than enough of this such as show that not only ignorant people but the most instructed in humane Learning wrest the Scriptures notoriously if they keep not close to Principles of known Morality and Piety From those two words Pasce oves Feed my sheep I know not how many things are endeavoured to be established by the Doctors of the Roman Church If you ask how they prove the Popes Monarchy and Supreme Dominion in the Church the Answer is Christ said to Peter Simon bar-Jona Feed my sheep i. e. saith Bellarmine regio more impera command after a Regal manner If you ask again by what Right he challenges to be the Supreme Judge in Controversies of Faith which anciently was thought to belong to General Councils out of the Word of God the same Doctor tells you it is evident from the same words Feed my sheep Hence he proves also his Infallibility or that he cannot err in matters of Faith because Christ said Feed my sheep Nay by the same words a fourth Prerogative is established which is a power to make new Articles of Faith if he think good They are alledged also for a fifth purpose to prove that he hath a Treasure made up of the Merits of Christ and of the Saints which he dispenses as he pleases to the Faithful for so the same Doctor teaches in his Book of Indulgences because Christ said to Peter Feed my sheep By which wonderful words also he and others labour to prove that the Pope can transfer Kingdoms absolve Subjects from the Oath of Allegiance and depose them from their Thrones And Becanus from the same words still gathers that he may inflict temporal Punishments as they call them not excepting death upon those Princes that are disobedient to him So strangely are men bent to force the meaning of Holy Writ though they have never so good Parts and great Learning when they have once forsaken the guidance of Common Sense and the obvious Notions of Christianity Nay the more witty they are the worse they are if they have lost their Conscience and keep not strictly to the first Principles of all Religion There is another Example to be given of this of the same Nature From those words Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church c. one is content to prove no more but this that the Vniversal Church cannot err but another from hence affirms that the Tradition of the present Church cannot err which will not satisfie others who conclude from the same words that the Pope cannot err and there are those who