other Voice than that of the Scripture in speaking to us For how improper soever such an Expression may seem to this Gentleman it is agreeable to Scripture-language And me thinks he who so hotly contends for the Usus loquendi as to make that the only supreme infallible Rule of expounding Scripture might give our Reform'd Divines leave to speak according to this Use without his supercilious censure In the mean time this Author may do well to consider whose Cause he most favours by such manner of arguing I know none that can so heartily thank him for it as the Romanists who use the same way of cavilling against us when we say that the Scripture or the Spirit of God in and by the Scripture is the sole supreme Judge of all Controversies of Faith This say they cannot be unless the Spirit of God do by an audible Voice decide the Controversie telling the one party they are in the right and the other they are in an error And because he doth not so in the Scripture therefore they deny him to be the supreme Judge of Controversies by the Scripture Thus Gretser the Jesuit in the Conference at Râ—tisâ—on Seventy five years ago Behold says he we are here disputing the Cause If the Spirit of God do by the Scriptures judge and determine Controversies let him now come let him come and pass sentence out of this Book the Bible that lay before him and say Thou Gretser art wrong and thou H. art in the right Now what doth Wolzogen by his Argumentation but justifie the profane insolency of that petulant Jesuite The Antients were of another mind they acknowledged God speaking in the Scripture to be the Judge of Controversies Thus speaks one of them to his 〈…〉 Nemo vobis credat nemo nobis de Coelo quaerendus c. Let none give credit to us or you we must seek a Judge from Heaven but what need we go thither to him having his Testament here in the Gospel And if the Spirit of God may with congruity enough be said to speak in the Scriptures as Judge of Controversies he may with as good congruity be acknowledged to speak in the Scriptures as Interpreting his own Mind there laid down And so I have done with my first Argument CHAP. X. A second Argument from the Scriptures being the only Rule of Faith affording a double Proof for the Scriptures being its own Interpreter MY next Argument follows That which is the only Rule of Faith is the only Rule to interpret its own sense But so is the Scripture That the Written Word of God is the only Rule of Faith is acknowledged by all that sincerely own the Protestant Cause Now from hence I thus argue 1. The supreme Rule of Faith is that which infallibly guides and determines us per Modum Objecti what we are to believe Now it is the Scripture in its true and genuine meaning that we are bound to believe Whatsoever therefore objejectively determines what we are to believe must accordingly determine the sense of Scripture And if any thing else besides the Scripture be the Rule to determine this that must eo ipso upon that very score be acknowledged for the Rule of Faith 2. Whatsoever is the Rule of Faith must be the Rule of deciding all Controversies of Faith This I think no Man will question Now let but this be supposed that the Scripture is the only supreme Rule of deciding all Controversies of Faith which no sound Protestant can deny it will necessarily follow That it must be the supreme Rule of clearing all Doubts and Difficulties within it self For where the Scripture is on both sides own'd for the Rule the knot of the Controversie lies in this whether this or that be the sense of the Scriptures that are alledged on both sides for were that agreed the Controversie would cease and whatsoever determines that decides the Cause Thus much the Exercitator acknowledges What ever therefore it be that 's made the Rule of Interpreting Scripture and determining the sense of it is thereby made the Rule of deciding all Controversies of Faith and is to such as so use it the Rule of their Faith CHAP. XI 1. An Exception against this Argument affirming Scripture and Reason jointly to be the Rule of Faith 2. This Novelty disproved and condemned AGainst this Argument some may have the confidence it may be to make this Exception That Scripture is not the only Rule of Faith The Papists join unwritten Traditions with the Scripture and will have us take both together for the compleat Rule of Faith This I shall not deal with there having been so much said by our Divines about it in the Controversies between us and the Church of Rome But there is another Generation of Men that join Human Reason with the Scripture to make up the Rule of Faith Lambertus Velthusius one of the Seniors of the Gallo-Belgick Church at Utrech is charged with this by Vander Weayen who cites this among many other erroneous Positions out of one of that Authors Belgick Tracts That Scripture and Reason are the Rule of Faith So then we have here a new unwritten Word found out to be part of the Canon So fertile of Monsters is this Novaturient Age. But I hope this Doctrine will not be so easily received as it is boldly obtruded Hitherto Principles of Reason and Articles of Faith were wont to be contradistinguish'd and though some things knowable by Natural Light are likewise propounded to our belief in Scripture yet such were never that I know of owned for Points of Faith otherwise than as they were attested in Scripture And in all Logick that I have been acquainted with Arguments à Testimonio are put into one rank and those that are drawn à Natura rei are put into another these latter properly belonging to Science the former to Faith Our Understandings saith C. Streso and after him Dr. Tailor apprehend things three ways The first is 〈◊〉 whereby it receives first Principles The second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereby it draws Consequences from those Principles The third is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of such things as we assent to from Testimony And it is a known speech of St. Austin Quod intelligimus debemus rationi quod credimus Autoritati That we understand we owe to Reason but that we believe we owe to Authority And we have hitherto taken it to be essential to a Christians Faith that in its Assent it rely upon the Infallible Veracity of the Revealer as the ratio formalis credendi Perhaps it will here be said for I cannot imagine what else can be said That the Principles of Reason are the Word of God and by him written in our Minds therefore our Assent to them is a belief of Divine Testimony as well as our Assent to what is written in the Bible and consequently they are part of the Rule of Faith
What can be the meaning of this that these Principles are written in our Minds I cannot understand any further than this that there is begotten in our Minds a clear perception and firm perswasion of them But the great Question will be By what Act doth God write these in our Minds or beget in us this perception and perswasion of them Surely they will not say that when God creates the Soul of Man this perception or perswasion of these Principles is concreated by him in and with the Soul for if so how is it that during our Infant-state we are such strangers to them and do so continue till we come gradually by observation and experience to be acquainted with them And when we come to discern them and to be perswaded of them how come we to be assured that they are of God There must be some difference between the Testimony and the Thing testified The Principles of Reason are supposed to be the Res testata the Thing testified But what is the Testimony or the Actus Testificandi My perception or perswasion cannot be it for if so then whatsoever I perceive and am fully perswaded of I must believe to come from God and what will that come to at last These Principles of Reason are not Complex Propositions form'd by God in our Minds or suggested to us by a Divine Afflatus this would make every Man an Enthusiast The best account I can give of them is that they are such General Truths as have their foundation in the nature of things and their mutual habitudes and respects which our Reason apprehending doth therein discover the aforesaid Principles thence resulting And because it is God alone who gives to all things their several Beings and constitutes them in such and such habitudes each to other and hath given us our Reason whereby we are enabled to discern them therefore he is said to be the Author of those Principles which lie fundamentally in his Workmanship And we do not take them for Truthus upon the credit of any foregoing testimony that God gives to us of them but we assent to them propter evidentiam râ—i because our Reason sees them perfectly agreeable to the nature of things and thereby finding them to be certainly true thence it gathers that they are of God from whom all Truth comes But now the method of Faith is widely different from this Here we first own the testimony of God speaking in the Scriptures and thence we are perswaded that what the Scripture speaks is true and so we come to embrace the many severals therein asserted by yielding a particular assent to them as we find them But will some say before we believe the Scriptures we must be convinced by Reason that these Scriptures are of God Very true but the effect of such a conviction is not properly Faith but Knowledge And when I know by satisfying Grounds of Reason that the Scripture is indeed the Voice of God then do I by Faith assent to what that speaks as Gods testimony And whereas there are some Truths which are knowable in some measure by Natural Light and yet are revealed likewise in the Scripture it is commonly and truly said by our Divines that as they are received by Natural Light and upon Rational Grounds so they are the Objects of Science but as they are revealed in the Scripture so and only so they are the Objects of Faith which as the Apostle tells us is the evidence of things not seen that is of things not discernable by Natural Light whether of Sense or Reason or at least that are not consider'd as such when we receive them as Objects of Faith which therefore is call'd the evidence of them because it discerns the truth and reality of them in the infallible testimony of the Revealer Now besides what hath been already said it may further be proved that Reason is not any part of the Rule of Faith For 1. Were this granted it would necessarily follow that Scripture of it self is an imperfect Rule and if so it is no Rule at all That cannot be own'd for a Rule that is not adequate and commensurate to what is to be regulated by it The known description of a Rule given by Varinus and so frequently quoted by our best Authors hath never that I know of been questioned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Rule or Canon is an immutable Law and an unerring Measure which at no hand will admit of addition or diminution This is one great Argument used by our Protestant Writers to shut out Popish Traditions from being any part of the Rule of Faith because the Scripture is a perfect and sufficient Rule of it self and must be so or else it cannot be a Rule at all Of which the Reader may see enough for his satisfaction in the Learned Bishop of Down his Ductor Dubitantium Lib. 2. Cap. 3. Rule 14. p. 359 c. And the Argument is every whit as good to exclude Reason as Tradition in this case And that the Scripture is a perfect discovery of the Mind of God so far as is necessary for us to know it I have proved before in my first Argument 2. The Principles of Reason as I have formerly shewed in the proof of my first Proposition have no formal existence any where but in the Minds or Writings of fallible Men considering them as separate from the Scriptures for set the Bible aside there is no Infallible and Authentick Record of those Principles to which we can have recourse And this utterly disables them for being so much as a partial Rule of a Christians Faith 3. Principles of Natural Reason let us suppose them never so fixt and infallible are wholly aliene to matters of supernatural Revelation which are the proper Object of Faith And to measure these by them were as ridiculous as to attempt by a Carpenters Rule to take the distance of the Heavens or to spread a Fowlers Net to catch the Winds However therefore there is as hath been already acknowledged and maintain'd great use of Reason and its Principles in subordination and instrumental subserviency to the knowledge of Divine Matters yet that it is in any degree to be owned as the Rule of our Faith must not will not cannot be allowed by any that are true to the Christian Cause CHAP. XII An Exception of the Exercitator grounded upon a distinction of the Scriptures taken materially or formally propounded and the folly and fallacy of it detected BUt here the Exercitator gives us a distinction which he makes often use of as being very fit for his turn That the Scripture is taken either materially and so it signifies no more but the bare Words Phrases and Sentences of Scripture or formally and so it signifies the sense and meaning of these Words and Sentences Now says he when we say the Scripture is the Rule of Faith we do not mean the bare words but the
Imâ—â—â—â—atur Guil 〈…〉 nrico Episcopo 〈…〉 is Dom. Decem 〈…〉 THE SCRIPTURES Genuine Interpreter Asserted OR A DISCOURSE CONCERNING The Right Interpretation of Scripture Wherein a late Exercitation Intituled Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres Is Examin'd and the Protestant Doctrine in that point Vindicated With some Reflections on another Discourse of L. W. Written in Answer to the said Exercitation To which is added An APPENDIX concerning Internal Illumination and other Operations of the Holy Spirit upon the Soul of Man Justifying the Doctrine of Protestants and the Practice of Serious Christians against the Charge of Enthusiasm and other unjust Criminations By JOHN WILSON M. A. Sometime of Kath. Hall in CAMBRIDGE In the Savoy Printed by T. N. for R. Boulter at the Turks Head in Cornhil over against the Royal Exchange 1678. Dignissimo Clarissimoque Viro D. Jonathani Keat Equiti Aurato Baronetto Moecenati plurimum Honorando Pagellas hasce Genuini Scripturarum Interpretis Assertorias In debitae Gratitudinis Observantiae Testimonium D. D. D. Joannes Wilson A Prefatory Address to the READER Courteous Reader IT is not any pleasure in Polemick Discourses that hath engaged me in this Contest A Work of this kind is so far from affording me any true delight in these declining years of my life that if so concerning a Truth as I have here endeavoured to defend had not call'd for a seasonable Vindication against the assaults of a Daring Adversary I could with much more ease and better satisfaction to my self have sat down with silence I cannot but think that by all who take the Holy Scripgreatest part whereof do better understand their own Language than another I accounted the Objection less valuable and so resolved to proceed But whereas I have here and there reflected upon some passages in the Discourses of Ludovicus Wolzogen as they came in my way I give my Reader to understand that this ariseth not from any prejudice against the Person of that Noble Author to whose Honourable Parentage and excellent Learning I shall ever render all due respects But finding him to have so plainly injured the cause he undertook and so unhandsomely treated our most eminent Protestant Authors that have with much Judgment and Solidity defended it I am hopefully perswaded that those few Animadversions which I have made upon his Writings will not be unacceptable to the Friends of Truth The intricacy and perplexedness of his Discourse hath put me to some pains to understand his meaning for I have not satisfied my self with a slight or transient view but have perused his Book over and over with intenseness of mind that I might be sure not to mistake or misrepresent him And I hope it will appear to the Unprejudiced upon consulting his Book and comparing mine with it that I have done him right One Advertisement more I must add viz. That my Citations out of the said Authors Book De Scripturarum Interprete relate to a second Edition of it as it stands before his Censura Censurae and threfore the numbers of the Pages cited are not those on the top of the Leaf but those in the Margin relating to the first Edition which I suppose for I have not seen it was Printed in a lesser Volume A Brief Summary of the Contents of the Discourse about the Scriptures Interpreter The Introduction WHerein the Question about the Interpretation of Scripture is propounded the Terms explained and the following Dissertation divided into two Parts The First Part That Reason and Philosophy are not the Scriptures Interpreter Chap. 1. THe Terms explained and the Controversie stated 2. The first Argument from the condition of depraved Reason 3. Exceptions against the former Argument removed 4. A second Argument from the Disproportion between Humane Reason and matiers of Divine Revelation An Exception against it answered 5. A third Argument from an absurdity following thereupon 6. A fourth Argument from another great absurdity 7. A fifth Argument from the inconvenience of opening a gap to the worst of Errors 8. A sixth Argument from one great end of Scripture-Revelation 9. The contrary Arguments examined the first from the multiplicity of senses in the Scripture 10. A second from God's being the Author of Philosophy 11. A third from the supposed sufficiency of Philosophy 12. A fourth from the nature of a clear and distinct perception 13. A fifth from the supposed practice of former Divines 14. A sixth from instances in some considerable Scripture-Assertions supposed not Interpretable without Philosophy 15. A seventh from the Reasonableness of Religion 16. Scriptures alledged by our Divines vindicated 17. No contrariety between Scripture and sound Philosophy The Second Part That Scripture is its own Interpreter Chap. 1. THe Doctrine of the Reformed Churches in this point clear'd 2. The first Argument from the Scriptures sufficiency the first branch the Scriptures perfection 3. A second branch of the Argument the Scriptures perspicuity 4. An Exception against the Scriptures perspicuity from the ambiguity of words removed 5. A second Exception removed 6. A third Exception removed 7. A fourth from the supposed difference between the simple sense of the words of scripture and the true sense of the Author removed 8. A fifth and sixth Exception removed 9. A third branch of the first Argument the Scriptures Authentickness urged and an Exception removed 10. A second Argument from the Scriptures being the Rule of Faith 11. An Exception against this Argument from Reason being part of the Rule of Faith disproved 12. An Exception from the Scripture taken materially and formally removed 13. Several Objections against the Scripture being its own Interpreter answer'd The Conclusion REflecting upon some passages in the Exercitators Epilogue The Introduction 1. AN Entrance made into the Discourse The Question about the Interpretation of Scripture propounded and the Terms briefly explained 2. The Rule of Interpretation distinguished from the Means which are many and various 3. The Doctrine of the Romanists concerning the judgment of the present Church and that other about the consent of the Antients lightly touch'd and passed by 4. The Protestant Doctrine in this point what it is and the contrary Novel opinion of a late Exercitator The following Discourse divided into two parts THE Holy Scriptures being designed of God to be the Revelation of his Will to the Children of Men for their conduct in the pursuit of their chief end we cannot but judge it consentaneous to his unsearchable Wisdom to order the Writing of them in such a manner as that his Mind in them might in the due use of his appointed means be understood by those for whose use and benefit they were intended And though the subject matter they treat of be often very deep and misterious yet the way of proposal is very condescending and what ever is of necessity to our duty and happiness is obvious to the diligent and humble Inquirer Nevertheless many passages in these Sacred Records have those difficulties
in them that may exercise the study of the ablest understandings Now in our searching out the Mind of God in Scripture especially in those darker places the question is what course we are to take and by what Rule we must be guided that we may not bewilder our selves or wrong the Scriptures by our mistakes To prepare the way for a Resolution of this Question I must briefly premise somewhat touching these three Terms the Scripture the Interpretation of Scripture and the Rule of that Interpretation The Scripture we speak of is the entire Volume of Holy Writ containing all those Books both of the Old and New Testament that are generally acknowledged to be Canonical Whereby I mean not the Words or Phrases of Scripture taken singly by themselves but as they are conjoin'd in Propositions or Sentences and as those Propositions stand in such a contexture and with such a dependence on and relation to what goes before and after and as in this Frame and Order they are the Instrument of declaring the Mind of God to Men. Now whereas the whole Scripture though it have the same Divine Original and be directed to the same ultimate end yet contains in it great variety of Matter Doctrine History Prophesie c. It is the two former that we are especially concern'd in and therefore shall wave the Prophetick part what is yet â—…fulfill'd further than it may fall in with any of the other the best and most convincing Interpreter of Prophesies being the event unless God should beforehand unfold them by extraordinary Inspiration which we have not in our days any ground to expect It is therefore the Doctrinal and Historical parts of Scripture that I chiefly intend in this Debate Interpretation is either Verbal or Real The former is all one with that which is commonly called Translation This I shall not meddle with further than as it is a necessary requisite to the latter which is usually called Exposition which is the opening of the true Sense of Scripture or unfolding the Mind of God signified to us by those Words and Sentences of Scripture that we are searching into Now we here suppose two things which to a sober and considerate Reader need no proof First That the Scriptures are not a heap of insignificant Words or unsens'd Characters as some late Romanists who cry up Oral Tradition for the only Rule of Faith so great is the power of prejudice and partial Interest have ridiculously and profanely affirm'd but that they have a true sense Originally and Essentially in themselves given them by their Author when they were first indited To deny or question this were to impute that to the most Wise God that common Civility forbids us to charge upon any man of ordinary understanding Secondly That the Sense of Scripture is fixt and immutable not varying with the times or altering according to the differing practice of the Church which was most absurdly asserted by Cardinal Cusanus in Epistola contra Bohemos as I find it attested by many credible Authors the Sense of Scripture is no other than what it always had and ever will have to the Worlds end The next thing to be considered is the Rule of Interpretation By which we can understand no more than the Measure by agreement or disagreement to which we judge of the Sense of the Scripture whether it be right or wrong whether it be indeed what it pretends the true Sense of the Scripture under Inquiry or a mistaken Sense unduely fasten'd upon it Or in fewer words the Rule of Interpretation is that which gives us the objective Evidence by which the true Sense of Scripture is discern'd and for which it is received Here let it be observ'd that it is one thing to inquire what means we are to use in searching out the Sense of Scripture and another what is the Rule that must guide us in determining what that Sense is For though the Rule he also a Means yet every thing that is to be used as a Means hath not the place of a Rule The Means are many the Rule but one understanding it not of any subordinate or Ministerial Rule but of that which is Supream and Autocratorical For that is the Rule under our present inquiry The Means subservient to the Interpretation of Scripture are either General or Special The General are two Méditation and Prayer 1. There must be a fixed intending of the Mind to consider of what we either read in or hear from the Scripture and of whatsoever we meet with that may help us to understand it This the Psalmist speaks of as the daily practice of every Holy-Blessed Man Psal. 1. 1 2. and professeth it of himself Psal. 119 15. 97. But secondly there is need of Prayer also for Divine Assistance to enable us to understand the Mind of God aright This the Psalmist used Psal. 119. 18. 19 26 27 73. Though he had the Copy of the Law by him according to that command of God which we have upon Record in Deut. 17. 18 19. and did use daily to read it and meditate on it yet he thought not this enough but begs of God to have his Eyes opened c. When our Saviour discoursed with his Disciples after his Resurrection concerning Himself and his Sufferings it is said Luke 24. 45. that he opened their Undestandings that they might understand the Scriptures He did not only open the Scriptures by External Instruction as it is said before vers 27 and 32. But as the Learned Grotius observes upon the place he opened their Minds by the Internal Illumination of his Spirit This the Apostle prays for in the behalf of the Ephesians and Colossians Eph. 1. 16 17 18. Col. 1. 9. though they had the Doctrine of the Scripture already published to them And the same Apostle writing to Timothy having exhorted him to consider what he had said to him he adds this Prayer for him The Lord give thee understanding in all things I would gladly suppose there are none that call themselves Christians but do own the need and use of Prayer for the understanding of Gods Will which necessarily carries with it an interpretative acknowledgement of the need we have of something from God above our natural abilities to understand the Scriptures And I do profess my self to have had the better and more honourable esteem of that great Schoolman Thomas Aquinas since I read this of him that it was his manner whensoever he was either to study in private or discourse in publick to pray fervently to God for assistance that he might learn of Him what he was to teach others and that he did candidly acknowledge in secret to his intimate Friend Reginaldus that what Divine Knowledge he had was attained by Prayer more than by any humane Wit or Labor But whose expects success in seeking Divine Assistance it behoves him to bring with him a meek and humble Heart awed with the holy fear and
Exercitator who hath written a set Discourse to this purpose In the entrance whereof he tells the World That for the extricating of himself out of those perplexities wherein Divines generally are intangled in their Expositions of Scripture he resolved upon mature deliberation to make use of the same method in Theology that Des Cartes had done in Philosophy and professeth that supposing Scripture for the Rule of Faith all the difference in opinion among Dogmatical Divines as he calls them in opposition to Scepticks appears to him to arise from hence that none of them could certainly and infallibly prove their Interpretations of Scripture and that after long inquiry he found this to be the onely sure and infallible Rule of Interpretation which himself had now found out viz. the principals of Reason and dictates of Philosophy And in this new way which he glories in the invention of he professedly declares his dissent from Papists Protestants Socinians and Remonstrants But he bends his greatest force against the Reformed Churches endeavouring with all his might to invalidate what they unanimously maintain concerning the perspicuity of the Scriptures and the singularity of the literal Sense and especially about the Rule of Interpretation For thus like a Miles Gloriosus he begins his tenth Chapter Devictis velitari brevique pugna imbellibus istis c. Having by a light and easie skirmish subdued these weak and feeble Enemies meaning the Romanists let us now march another way and draw up our Battalia against those of the Reformation and all that fight under their Colours And in the sequele of his discourse he hath gratified none so much as the Church of Rome as in his positive proof such as it is of his novel Position he hath not a little befriended the Socinian though he would seem to divide himself from them both However both in the Astructive and Destructive part of his Book he is a declared Adversary to the Protestant Cause For my more orderly proceeding I shall divide my ensuing Dissertation into two Parts in the former whereof I shall deal with this Exercitator's new Device of Reason and Philosophy being the Scriptures Interpreter disproving it and answering such arguments as I find alledged or imagine may be alledged for it In the latter I shall endeavor to clear and assert the Protestant Doctrine of the Scriptures being its own Interpreter and answer the objections against it THE SCRIPTURES Genuine Interpreter asserted c. PART I. Humane Reason or Philosophy no sure Interpreter of the Holy Scriptures CHAP. I. 1. The Proposition denying Reason and Philosophy to be the Scriptures Interpreter laid down and the Terms explainâ—d 2. How far they have their use and what we deny 3. Who they are that have ascribed too much to them FIrst then I assert against the Exercitator's Position That Humane Reason or Philosophy is not to be admitted or allowed as the sure and sufficient Interpreter of the Holy Scriptures For our more clear proceeding it is requisite I should explain my meaning before I come to the proof of my Assertion Let it therefore be considered That Reason may be three ways taken First For that power and faculty in Man whereby he is enabled to apprehend judge and discourse of such objects as are presented to his understanding Now this falls under a two-fold conception according to the two-fold state of Man Innocent or Fallen Mans Reason as it was originally when God first made him was pure and clear not clouded or blinded not depraved or distorted there was nothing to darken or disturb it It was then a glorious Beam streaming forth from the Eternal Light But Mans Apostasie as it vitiated his other faculties so it benighted his Reason and exposed it to further depravation by the prevalency of disordered Passions and sinfull Lusts. Yet even in this state his Reason is not lost though it be much corrupted I am far from that late Authors mind that says Quae fallet aut falliter ratio minimè ratio dicenda Reason that deceives or is deceived is not to be called Reason Mans Reason notwithstanding its pravity is still kept in a Capacity to understand his greatest Concerns by the assistance of those gracious aids that God affords him and hath in all ages been of great use for the good of Mankind in reference both to mens personal and politick affairs Therefore I need not fear to say that next to Holiness Mans Reason is his greatest Glory Secondly Reason is taken for the exercise of this intellectual Power in inquiring discovering comparing judging objects propounded It is by these actings of our Reason that we search after Truth and make use of it when we have found it for the conduct and comfort of our lives and by these it is that we defend the Truth of God against â—ainsayers Thirdly It is taken for the Principles of Reason known or knowable by natural light And these are either Natural or Acquired The Natural or Primary Principles of Reason are those that carry their own evidence with them therefore upon the first representation are forthwith embraced by our Reason without any Discourse And they are called Natural not as being formally imprinted or properly engraven in our Minds by Nature for we are not born with Actual Knowledge but because they are founded in and do necessarily result from the Nature of things and their mutual Respects wherein as in a Glass our Undestanding sees them represented and is disposed to assent to them at the first view The Secondary or Acquired Principles are those which are not so obvious as the former but by rational Discourse are truly and soundly deduced from them And here falls in the consideration of Philosophy which is made up of these Principles methodically digested And by it I understand that true knowledge of God and his Works which is attainable in this mortal state by the improvement of that Light that is Connatural to the Mind of Man This though it be much inferiour to Scripture-Light yet it is both an exercise and an advancement of Reason a noble Study and of excellent use if rightly managed not only for the beautifying but the bettering the Mind of Man and raising it to an high admiration and humble adoration of that Infinite Being whose Wisdom Power and Goodness is so eminently conspicuous in all the Works of His Hands And if there be any such in the World as some say there are that deny or reproach sound Philosophy or the Dictates of Right Reason as I know them not so neither shall I plead their cause Now as to the Case before us First It is undeniable That for the Interpreting of Scripture there is a necessary use of the Faculty of Reason and the several actings of it as instrumentally subservient to the finding out the Sense of Scripture Faith doth not exclude Reason but elevate and advance it by giving it a clearer light it doth
distinction and tedrously dilates upon it to amuse his Reader But the sum of all comes to this That the words of Scripture are of no further use than as they are signs of conceptions and things and under that consideration they cannot be understood unless the things signified by them be first known at least in some gross and confused manner Whereof he gives us this instance that where we sind in Scripture that God is Omniscient we cannot understand this unless we first know what God is and what Omniscience is Therefore says he all the benefit that any can get by any Book that is written is but this that it stirs up the Mind of the Reader to reflect upon the clear and distinct Idea's of those things in his Mind which the Book treats of not that the Book can of it self bring him to the true knowledge of things much less that it can beget any clear or distinct Ideas in his Mind which were not there before And thus he tells us it is with the Scripture all the use of it is to stir up the Reader or Hearer to think of the things that it propounds and inquire into them and examine them whether they be so as they are there propounded and that they may do this they must make use of Philosophy to try what is there written Therefore adds he the Scripture is to be used not that it should of it self inform us in the truth or render the truth more clear and distinct or make it more firm to us but that it may give us occasion and matter of meditating on those things which perhaps otherwise we should never have minded Therefore says he still the utility and excellency of the Scriptures above other Books consists onely in this That the things it speaks of are of so great concernment to our everlasting blessedness not for any use they are of to instruct us in the Truth This is all the use that he allows the Scripture from whence I think will inevitably follow that he owns the necessity of no knowledge of God or Religion but what is natural And so all supernatural Revelation or at least all necessity of it is denied And if there be no other use of the Written Word but what this Author assigns it it s put into the same rank with a Crucifix or a Deaths Head Indeed the whole design of his Book and of that other Tract that is prefixed to its latter Edition written as is supposed by the same Author is utterly to undermine and overthrow the credit of the Scriptures We need not wonder that he so often derides and calumniates the Protestant Doctrine of the Spirits internal illumination of the Mind which consists in curing the indisposition of the Subject and fitting it for the right understanding of Heavenly Things of which more hereafter in an Appendix to my present Discourse when he will not allow the necessity of so much as an Enternal Light for the Revelation of Supernatural Objects as acknowledging no such things And he that is thus principled must needs be very ignorant of himself and of the ruines that Sin hath made among the whole Race of Adam and the woful depravation of Mans Nature by his first Apostasie But for the Readers full satisfaction about the necessity of Supernatural Revelation I dare commend to his perusal besides many other useful Discourses that might be named that excellent Piece of the Eminently-accomplish'd Sir Charles Wolsly concerning the Reasonableness of Scripture Belief CHAP. VII 1. A fifth Argument That this would open a gap to the most pernicious Errors in Matters of Faith 2. And Practice AGain fifthly This Assertion le ts loose the Bridle to proud and wanton Wits to overthrow the Foundations of Christian Religion for though there be not the least real repugnancy between the Doctrines of Christianity and the Principles of Right Reason and Sound Philosophy which undoubtedly there is not as I have already premised and asserted yet there being no certain and infallible Record of these Principles by which as by the Rule of Judgement particular Mens Reasonings may be tried If Scripture Revelation must be interpreted by Mens Reasonings I know not the any Error that hath ever crept into the Church of Christ either in matter of Faith or Practice since the first publication of the Gospel but may be introduced anew by this Engine The heretical Blasphemies of Servetus and Socinus which sprang up of late years and those of the Marcionites and Manichees that infested the Church in former times together with the loathsome impurities of the Gnosticks who esteemed themselves the only knowing Men or to speak in the new mode the onely Rational Divines have fair way made them by this Trim Device First Let us instance in Matters of Faith whatsoever is said in Scripture about the Creation of the World the Conception of our Saviour in a Virgins Womb the Personal Union of the two Natures the Resurrection of the Body at the last Day these with many more that might be named let them be brought to the Bar of Reason and tried by its Principles as they are to be found in the Minds of Men and what will it come to We have seen already what use some Men have made of this way to subvert the weightiest Truths of the Gospel But here it will be excepted perhaps by some That the Fundamentals of Christian Religion being clear and plain in Scripture there is no fear of this inconvenience To this I answer First If Divine Revelations must be no otherwise received or understood than as Men see ground for them in their own Reason the plainest and clearest Doctrines of Scripture will be rejected I shall here give two Instances as I find them quoted by a late learned Author The one is of Socinus who says That he would not believe Christ to have satisfied for our Sins though he should read it once and again in Scripture the infallibility of the Revealer not being sufficient to establish it unless he had declared it by its causes and effects and so satisfied Mens Reason concerning the possibility of it Smalcius is the other who says That he would not believe the Incarnation of the Son of God though he should meet with it in express terms in the Bible The same Author says elsewhere that by Reason alone we determine the possibility and impossibility of the Articles of Faith To which I might add the bold assertion of a late English Remonstrant in a Volume publish'd some years ago where he says I verily believe that in case any such unchangeableness of Gods love viz. as should assure the Saints infallible perseverance were to be found in or could regularly be deduced from the Scriptures it were a just ground to any considering Man to question their Authority or whether they were from God or no. And a late Belgick Tractator having affirmed that the
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reasonable service that is say they a Service agreeable to Reason To this I answer two things First I know no cause to recede from the Sense that is usually given by our Interpreters seeing it so fairly offers it self from the Words themselves and therefore do judge with the learned Dr. Hammond on the place that the Apostle calling upon Christians to present their Bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God even their reasonble service doth evidently oppose this to the Sacrifices of the Ceremonial Law which were no other than irrational Creatures first killed and then offered up to God But Secondly Be it given but not granted that the Apostles meaning is what these Men put upon it viz. That the Service God requires of Christians is agreeable to Reason I have already premised and asserted that Christian Religion is perfectly rational whence it will undeniably follow that there is an excellent harmony a full and complete accord betwixt Reason and Religion And although some daring Wits that make high pretences to Reason have by their profane Jeers at the Misteries of Christianity and their turning the Doctrines and Phrases of Holy Scripture into Drollery contributed not a little to the Atheism of the present age yet I am past all doubt that no man is or can be an Atheist that hath not first baffled and besotted his Reason If any therefore hath gone about to set Reason and Religion at variance it hath been through some misprision taking some groundless imagination for Reason or some corrupt opinion or practice for Religion But if any shall hence argue that Mans Reason is to be the Rule of Religion or that Doctrines of Supernatural Revelation are to be interpreted and the Sense of them determined by Natural Principles we deny the consequence and leave them to prove it Our Saviour tells us that his yoke is easie but if any should thence Argue that therefore our ease must be the Rule of interpreting his Commands I think few would be found so blind or foolish except Men of profligate and debauched Consciences that would admit of such an absurd Argumentation And there is no less absurditity in this That because Religion is a Reasonable Service therefore our Reason must be the Rule of interpreting the Doctrinces of Rëligion CHAP. XVI 1. A Transition to the Exercitators Reply to some Scriptures alledged by our Divines against his Heterodoxy The fond Conceit of Lud. Wolzogen That in this Controversie Scripture is not to be heard disproved 2. And his Plea that he makes for himself in his Censura Censurae disabled 3. A return to the Exercitators Exposition of the Scritures alledged by our Writers His self-contradiction noted And the Scriptures cleared THe Exercitator having after his manner asserted his own Position comes in the seventh Chapter of his Discourse to answer the Scriptures that some have made use of to oppose it Before I deal with them I cannot but take notice of the disingenuity of Ludovicus Wolzogen who having undertaken the Patronage of the Protestant Cause against this Adversary doth so shamefully throw down his Arms and run out of the Field For when he comes at this seventh Chapter of his Antagonist and again at his twelfth wherein the Exercitator endeavors to evade or enervate the Scriptures brought against him this valiant Champion not only waves the vindication of them but for his own more plausible excuse expresly maintains it to be a preposterous thing in this Controversie about the Interpretation of Scripture to use or admit the testimony of Scripture at all and affirms that the Cause must be decided by Reason And therefore as all along his Discourse he never makes use of Scripture to defend himself or strike his Adversary so he lays an imputation of folly upon all our Divines that use this way of arguing in the present Case And he gives two pitiful Arguments to prove this fond Assertion 1. One is because the Controversie is about the Scripture it self which is not to be heard in its own Cause unless such places can be alledged in the explication whereof both parties agree To this I answer 1. If this be granted then whatsoever controversie we have with the Papists about the Authority Perspicuity and Perfection of the Scriptures though we have never so clear proof in the Scripture it self for these things they must all be waved as invalid But these have hitherto been accounted controverted Points of Faith and consequently to be resolved from Scripture the only Rule of Faith so is this about the Scriptures Interpretation however the Exercitator and with him this Author denies it while yet both of them acknowledge it to be a Question wherein the whole of Religion is concerned and next to that of the Scriptures Authority the very foundation on which all Doctrines of Faith and Manners relie and which involves in it whatsoever Differences or Controversies there are between dissenting parties in Religion that own the Scriptures And is it not strange that Men should own this Controversie to be so momentous and fundamental and yet to deny it to be a matter of Faith or to be determined by Scripture Testimony But 2. Why may not the Scripture be heard speak for it self as well as Reason for it self The Question under debate is whether the Rule of Interpreting Scripture be the Scripture it self or Mans Reason Does not this as nearly touch Reason as Scripture And yet must that be allowed to give testimony in its own Cause and not the Scripture It appears by this as by many other passages in his Book that this Author is a better friend to the Exercitators opinion than to the Protestant Doctrine And indeed 3. This is the very Language of our Popish Adversaries who tell us the Scripture cannot be its own Interpreter because the Question is concerning it self To which our Writers answer truely That the Scripture being the Voice of God its testimony for it self is above all other whatsoever even in its own Cause His other Argument is Because till the dissentient parties have agreed about the Interpreter of the Scriptures alledged they have no Sense and therefore can testifie nothing And up-upon this account he condemns those of the Reformed Churches that alledge Scripture in this Controversie and blames the Exercitator for answering their Allegations To this I answer 1. That any part of Scripture is without its Sense till it have an Interpreter is a gross absurdity and falshood The Scripture hath its Sense whether any Man interpret it or no. Interpretation doth not I am sure it should not bring the Sense and put it into the Scripture but receive it from the Scripture 2. This Author acknowledges some Scriptures to be so clear that the Sense is obvious and if such Scriptures can be produced in the present Controversie as no doubt they may Why should the difference about the
in Words which Mans Wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth 4. If the common use of Speech be so sure a Rule of Interpretation as this Author makes it I wonder what was in his Mind to say of the Penmen of Scripture That if they were now living amongst us they could not be the sufficient Interpreters of their own Writings because they often wrote they knew not what Certainly the customary use of Speech which obtained in the times wherein they wrote must needs be much better known to them than it can be to any now living Why then might not they interpret their own Writings if they were now with us having the best insight into that which this Author cries up for the onely sure Rule of Interpretation 5. If the customary use of Speech must be the Rule of Interpretation the inconvenience urged by the Exercitator cap. 11. par 6. will not easily if at all be avoided viz. the interpreting of Scripture according to the erroneous apprehension of the Vulgar 6. If this be so certain a Rule as he will have it so as that he who uses it shall not fail to find out the true Sense of Scripture for so himself speaks how is it that the Sense of Scripture may not be found in all parts one as well as another for the use of Speech is the same in all And yet he acknowledges that in many things not necessary to Salvation let the Reader be never so diligent in his search he cannot find the meaning of Scripture and the reason hereof he says is to be fetcht not from the nature of the thing nor from the darkness of our minds but ex ipsa constitutione Scripturae from the very frame of Scripture it self Secondly But now whether this learned Author did not well consider what he wrote or had not well digested his own Notions or whether he designed to amuse his Reader with intricacies and ambiguities or whether he were aware of the inconvenience of his former Expressions and their liableness to exception or what other were the cause I shall not inquire But this is plain to any that attentively reads his Discourse that when he had once and again given the honour of being the onely sure Rule of Interpretation of Scripture to the common and customary use of Speech he afterwards falls to a singular use of Speech distinct from the vulgar arising from the different Character of the Writer the different occasion of Writing the different nature of the things about which he Treats and that under this singularity of the usus loquendi the custom of Speech we are to consider the Antecedents and the Consequents of a Text and the paralel places And elsewhere he says all the circumstances of the place under consideration are to be examined and this he calls Usus loquendi Scripturarius the Scripture use of Speaking And when he objects against himself that the customary manner of speaking is dubious and uncertain he answers it thus That though it be so yet God's manner of Speech in Scripture is fixed So that what was before called the common and vulgar use is now confined to God's use and the Scripture-use of Speaking which certainly does not receive Law from the custom and consent of Men but is wholly framed and ordered by the disposal of Divine Wisdom though in it he makes use of such words as receive their single signification from common use Besides this Author tells us elsewhere that Usus loquendi or custom of Speech includes in it the Analogy of Faith and all other things that are taken out of Scripture in order to the finding out of its true Sense Now if this be indeed the meaning of his Usus loquendi his opinion comes very near to that of the Reformed Churches if it be not the same with it But then what needed all this stir as if our Divines had not discovered their Minds plainly and distinctly but this Author must come and mend it whereas he hath rather darkned and obscured it by his intricate and inconsistent Discourse For whoever before him took Usus loquendi in such a sense as this And I much wonder that he who is so much for the custom of Speech should vary so widely from it in his Writing For I am sure this Phrase Usus loquendi according to that mode of Speech that hath hitherto obtained was never taken so comprehensively as to include the scope of the Text with the Antecedents and Consequents and all other circumstances and the Analogy of Faith and what ever lies in the Scripture that serves to the discovery of its true sense Except Men will assume a power to themselves of coining a new Sense of Words I cannot imagine what ground they can have to talk after the rate of this Author Our Divines speak much more properly and clearly in this business viz. That the Holy Spirit of God hath in Enditing the Scripture so attempered his Speech and so ordered and disposed the several Parts and Parcels of this Sacred Book that his Mind so far as it is necessary for us to know it may be discovered either from the obvious sense of the particular Sentences and Propositions of Scripture considered in that Order and dependence wherein they are placed or by a due comparison of one part of Scripture with another so as that the Reader may gather the Sense of Scripture from the Scripture it self This is that which our Divines mean when they say that the Scripture is its own Interpreter And when they say at any time that the Spirit of God is the Interpreter of Scripture either they speak of the Objective evidence that the Spirit gives of the Sense of Scripture and then they understand it of the Spirit as speaking in the Scripture which being the Voice of the Spirit is to us as I said our Supream Rule Or they speak of the Spirit as the efficient cause of that Subjective light â—hat is let into our Minds inabling us to understand the Scriptures And this belongs to another inquiry and doth not concern the Question about the Rule of Interpretation Now when our Writers say the Scripture is its own Interpreter they are to be understood Metonymically As when they say the Scripture is the Supream Judge of all Controversies of Faith they mean no more but that it is Judex Normaâ—is or the Supream Rule of Judgement according to which Controversies are to be ultimately decided so by proportion is it in the present Cafe And as when the Papists speak of the infallible dectding of Controversies whether they say the Pope is the infallible Judge or the Sentence given by the Pope is the infallible Rule of decision it comes all to one So when our Divines say sometimes that the Spirit speaking in the Scripture is the infallible Interpreter of Scripture and other while that the Scripture is the infallible Rule of
sense and that is the thing we inquire into by the help of Philosophy and when we have thereby obtain'd the sense of Scripture-Propositions that sense we own for the Rule of our Faith and of deciding Controversies in Religion But adds he when the Reformed Doctors say the Scripture is its own Interpreter they can mean only the Words and Sentences of Scripture without the sense for it is the sense that they are seeking for and that cannot be the Rule to find out it self To this I answer 1. The distinction of the Scripture consider'd materially and formally or in respect of the matter and form is generally received But was never that I know of taken in the sense of this Author but in a far different meaning viz. The Scripture as to the matter is the Word of God and formally consider'd is the same Word as written But this Gentlemans Exposition of it serves his turn very well viz. That the Words and Phrases of Scripture are as rude matter till the sense as the form be given it by Philosophy or Humane Reason But 2. The distinction as here used is a miserable subterfuge arguing some Wit but no Honesty For when we say the Scripture is the Rule of Faith and it is the Rule of Interpretation to it self in both we mean neither the words nor the sense separately but conjointly For 1. The Scriptures are no otherwise the Rule of our Faith than as they are the Revelation of the Mind of God to us Now the Words or Sentences separated from the true sense supposing they could be so separated are not the Mind of God and the sense separated from the Words and Sentences if it might be so separated would be no Revelation for we know not the Mind of God but by the Words and his Mind as clothed with these Words or these Words as exhibiting his Mind so they are our Rule Again 2. When we say the Scripture is a Rule of Interpretation to it self we mean that if the place under consideration be plain it delivers its own sense to the Reader that well minds the contexture and dependence if it be dark we have recourse to some other plain Scripture and by the evident sense of that wherein the Mind of God lies more clearly in the words we find out his Mind in that other where it lay more darkly The fallacy of this Author in charging us to mean only the Words of Scripture when we say the Scripture is its own Interpreter lies in this he would make the World believe that we mean it of one and the same Sentence of Scripture even where it is most obscure Now as himself premiseth that Interpretation supposes some obscurity in the thing to be Interpreted so he could not but know that in the case of obscurity we mean it of the Scripture according to its different parts that the Scripture where it is plain is a Rule of Exposition to it self in those parts that are more intricate which himself also acknowledgeth to be our meaning elsewhere in his Book And yet we use no such incongruity as he supposeth in saying the Scripture expounds it self each part of Scripture being Scripture no more than in saying that the Civil or Municipal Law expounds it self when one part of the Law explains another CHAP. XIII 1. An Answer to some other Objections against the Scripture being its own Interpreter e. g. That Protestants assert a necessity of the Spirits Illumination 2. What Correspondency hath one part of Scripture with another c. 3. Some difficult places of Scripture are not explained elsewhere 4. Many Rules of Interpreting Scripture are prescribed by Divines both Ancient and Modern I Shall now consider what may be further Objected against my present Assertion besides what I have already met with in clearing my foregoing Arguments And first the Exercitator Objects That the Divines of the Reformed Churches maintain a necessity of the Spirits Internal Illumination for our right understanding of the Scripture therefore the Scripture is not a sufficient Interpreter of it self I answer What the Spirits enlightening is and how far necessary may be more seasonably discuss'd in another place and therefore I intend to speak something to it in an Appendix to this Discourse But at the present we are to consider that the Spirit is said to make known to us the Mind of God two ways 1. Objectively as it speaks to us in the Scripture which is of the Holy Spirits enditing 2. Effectively as it acts in us to help our weak understandings Now these two are widely different one from the other The former notes the Objective Evidence that is given us of Gods Mind which is by the Scripture and this is enough to render the Scripture a sufficient Rule of Interpretation to it self whether the other were necessary or no because there is in the Scripture a sufficiency in the nature of an Objective Light to discover the Will of God the latter concerns only the Subjective Light which the Spirit affords to our dark understandings that we may discern what is in the Scripture the necessity whereof doth not at all impeach the sufficiency of the former because that which makes this latter necessary is not any obscurity in the Object but an indisposition in the Subject or Faculty that is to apprehend it But it 's further objected What correspondency hath one part of Scripture with another or what right or power hath one Pen-man of Scripture over the Writings of another that the words of the one should be Interpreted by the others Thus argues the Exercitator To which I answer 1. May we not with much more reason say What correspondency hath Philosophy with Scripture Have not the several parts of Scripture all which were endited by one and the same Infallible Spirit more correspondency one with another than any of them can have with Philosophy which is the immediate product of fallible Reason 2. The Author may do well to consider what good correspondency there is between the several parts of his own Book and whether this Objection do not evidence him to be inconsistent with himself For in his third Chapter when he would prove that the words in 1 Kings 3. 12. concerning the Wisdom of Solomon are to be understood by an Hebrew Idiotism and mean no more than that the Wisdom given to Solomon was very eminent and above the ordinary rate he appeals to two other places that speak of the Piety of Hezekiah and Josiah and says Hoc ita se habere ex duobus aliis ejusdem Scriptoris locis non obscure elucescit c. That it is so appears plainly by two other places of the same Writer viz. 2 Kings 18. 5 6. and C. 23. 25. Which he says can no otherwise be truly understood but in this sense that their Piety was eminent and extraordinary It seems our Author was then in the mind that one part
in earnest and pathetical Expressions whether in bewailing of Sin oâ— petitioning for Mercy or Thanksgiving for Blessings received or dispensing the Word of Reconciliation to the People This is sharply censured by the aforesaid Author Lud. Wolzogen as savouring of Enthusiasm or bordering upon Frenzy and cunningly designed for the driving on of some ambitious ends To this I Reply We are commanded to be fervent in spirit serving the Lord and that whatsoever our hand findeth to do we should do it with our might The Psalmist says I cried with my whole heart And even that Heathen Prince to whose Royal City the Prophet Jonah was sent with a threatning message requires his Subjects to cry mightily unto God The Apostle says It is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing And is there any thing so good as that it can better challenge the heighth and heat of our affections and endeavours than Religion in the services whereof we have so immediately to do with God who calls for the heart and hath declared his abhorring of a dull luke-warm temper I grant that it is too possible for Zeal to have its excesses and irregularities And among the rest there is an indiscreet Zeal sometimes appearing in some well-meaning Persons that wants the conduct of a well-order'd Judgment which as I take to be much more pardonable than a careless or prophane indifferency so I conceive it may have ministred some occasion to those vile reproaches that are cast upon all that are seriously and heartily Religious But that fervor of spirit that I undertake for and assert to be not only justifiable but commendable in the Duties of Religion is that which is raised by a right apprehension of the Object about which it is conversant guided by a composed understanding and attended with an humble awful Reverence becoming sinful dust in its appearance before the Great and Holy God Should not Sinners in their addresses to the Most High have their hearts deeply touch'd with sorrow for the sins that they apprehend themselves or others for whom they are concern'd to be guilty of or liable to Doth it become an Offender that is to beg his Pardon to do it in a stupid manner as if he had no more sense of his fault than a Stone or a Brute And what incongruity is it for us in our Petitions for Mercy to have our desires raised to the highest pitch that we can reach Is the pardoning and purifying Grace of Christ of so little worth or use to us as they need be but coldly or carelesly askt as if our words freezed between our lips or as if we did not greatly pass whether we were heard or no Or can we expect that God should hear those Petitions which we our selves scarce feel when they go from us Did ever any Malefactor plead at the Bar for his Life or an hunger-starv'd Begger crave an Alms at the door after this dull and sleepy rate And when we are blessing God for his Benefits should we not with the Psalmist call upon all our powers to praise him And should not those whose work it is to dispense the Word of Life deliver their Message in such a manner as that their Hearers may discern they are in good earnest and that the Word spoken to them is that whereon their Eternal Life or Death depends Is it not requisite that the Servants of Christ should in this work be as is recorded for the honour of Apollos fervent in spirit especially considering the quality of most Hearers who are so hardly raised to a due point of zeal and fervency that as Mr. George Herbert speaks they need a Mountain of Fire to kindle them The said worthy Author adviseth Preachers to make choice of moving and ravishing Texts and to dip and season all their Words and Sentences in their Hearts before they come into their Mouths truly affecting and cordially expressing all that they say so that the Auditors may plainly perceive that every word is heart-deep with other passages of like import In short what cause of blame is it for any in the exercises of Devotion whether publick or private to endeavour what they can to have their own and others hearts affected in some measure suitable to the work in hand and to have their expressions in some due proportion answerable to the affections of their hearts This is all I plead for and the utmost as far as I know that can be charged upon the Generality of the Persons accus'd What some particular here and there may be guilty of I am not concern'd to vindicate That there are many follies and extravagancies in some of all Perswasions he must be a great Stranger in the World that knows not and miserably enslaved to the Interest of a Party that confesseth not But the Lord knows we have all more cause to blame our selves for our coldness and remissness than others can have to blame us for too much fervor I heartily wish that both they and we were all more thorowly Baptized with this Fire But let us a little examine the pretensions of our Accusers As for the charge of Enthusiasm which some make use of to asperse what they dislike in Religion The Word saith a late Learned Author is of it self good but fallen into discredit by the vice of Men for there is an holy Enthusiasm when the Soul is wholly irradiated or enlightened of God But taking it in the worst sense as it is by these Objectors I may say of it as Mr. â—iales of Eaton once said of the words Schism and Heresie that it is made a Theological Scare-Crow For it being inconsistent with some Mens Principles to acknowledge any efficacious supernatural Operations of the Spirit of Grace upon the heart of Man and as contrary to their disposition and practice to be seriously fervent in Religion it becomes their Interest to brand whatsoever lies out of their road with the opprobrious name of Enthusiasm that is as they sometimes explain it a pretence of being acted by the Holy Spirit or a false conceit of Inspiration What the Sect of Enthusiasts was appears sufficiently by the testimony of those Learned Men who have written against them both in former and later times From whom we have this account That those who were censured and condemned by the Church of Christ under that Notion were such as slighted if not rejected the Scriptures as a dead Letter a lame and imperfect Guide insufficient to be the Rule of Faith or Practice in room whereof they profess'd to be acted by Immediate Revelations which they call'd the Internal and Spiritual Word teaching them higher Wisdom than any contain'd in the Scriptures And whatsoever was strongly suggested to them or made any vehement impression upon their minds as that which they thought they should believe or do they embraced it as a Divine Inspiration and Magisterially imposed it upon others were it
never so inconsistent with or opposite to the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures or the Dictates of sound and sober Reason And being by this means laid open to Satanical Delusions they were easily drawn to believe the grossest absurdities and some of them to practice the vilest wickednesses contrary to common Honesty and the Publick Peace justifying all by their pretended Revelations This is the Character we have of Enthusiasts both Antient and Modern from Authors of unquestionable credit And if there be any where in this World any of the remainders of that Sect as it 's probable enough there are that entertain such wild and frantick Conceptions let them bear their sin and shame But of this I am sure that the Persons thus charged by Wolzogen and his Complices can safely appeal to all unprejudiced Persons that know them and to the most Wise and Holy God who is greater than all that they are as clear from any compliance with that Infatuated Generation as the best of their Accusers For 1. They heartily own and submit to the Holy Scriptures as the only sure and sufficient Rule of Faith and Life Accordingly whatsoever Conceptions may rise within them or be suggested to them in matters of Religion they bring them to the Bar of Scripture to stand or fall according to its Judgment not imposing their Sentiments upon the Scripture but receiving the sense of Scripture from the Scripture it self according to what hath been asserted in the precedent Discourse 2. In matters difficult and obscure that are more darkly laid down in Scripture especially in the Prophetick parts of it they forbear to determine peremptorily chusing rather to satisfie themselves with a modest hesitancy and abhorring to make their Judgments the measure of anothers Faith or superciliously to censure or despise any for their different apprehensions 3. They plead for no other Spirit of Revelation than what the Apostle prays for in behalf of the Ephesians Chap. 1. Vers. 17 18 19. which Revelation consists not in discovering any New Object to be received unreveal'd in Scripture but only in qualifying the Subject by curing the native and acquired blindness and carnality of our minds that we may rightly understand and embrace the Truths which the Scripture propounds 4. They solemnly profess and declare to all the World that whatsoever they are taught by the Holy Spirit as it is by and from the Scripture so it is in the regular exercise of their rational Faculties and such as they are â—eady at all times to give an account of from Scripture-grounds to any sober intelligent Person that shall demand it They therefore disown and reject the absurd Principles and arrogant Presumptions of the falsly-call'd Mystical Theology set on fooâ— antiently and revived in later years that pretends to Ecstatick Raptures and Deifications of the Soul by an utter cessation of all Intellectual Operations The Original of which Phantastick Theology Dr. Meric Casaubon derives from the Heathen Philosophers intimating withal the great Affinity between this and the New Method so much cried up of late Which those whom it concerns may consider of at their leisure In the mean time I take that for granted which hath been agreeably to plain and evident Scripture the acknowledged Doctrine of the Catholick Church however denied and derided by some late Innovators That the Holy Spirit of God is according to Christs own promise given to dwell in the Hearts of Christians to beget and preserve spiritual life in them to conduct them in their way to strengthen them with might in the Inner Man to shed abroad the love of God in their Hearts and witness their adoption to assist them in holy services and gradually to perfect the work of Sanctification in them To spend many words in proving this which is already so clear to all unbyass'd Judgments were to to light a Candle before the Sun As for that ridiculous sense that some have endeavour'd to fasten upon these or some of these Scriptures as if they were to be understood only of the Spirit as given to the Church in common and not to particular Christians it is so utterly inconsistent with the scope of those respective places and runs so contrary to the whole stream of Scripture and all Antiquity that I think it needless to waste time in refuting it He that will but considerately read over the several places and faithfully examine the Context may easily see the vanity of it That of the Learned Grotius is clear and full Not only the whole Collective Body of the Faithful but also particular Believers are rightly call'd the Temple of the Holy Ghost because the Spirit of God dwelleth in their Minds And if those who are careful according to the Apostles counsel not to quench the Spirit but to stir up the Grace of God in them have their hearts more warm'd and enlarged in holy Duties than others who either want that measure of Gifts or are defective in improving them I cannot conjecture why this should be made a matter of reproach but that some Men are angry at every thing that is not just of their own size or not suitable to their gust and therefore are resolved to revile and calumniate it though by those wounds the heart and life of Religion be found to lie a bleeding To shut up this I might here mind the Objector and those of his way how much it concerns them to acquit themselves of that Enthusiasm which they impeach others for It 's known to be one of the first Principles of that Grand Enthusiast Valentius Weigelius That he who would know the truth must forget whatsoever he hath learnt from Men and Books and lay it all aside as if he had never been acquainted with any thing and retreat into himself and fetch all his knowledge from thence Let this be referr'd to our Authors Consideration wherein this differs from the great Principle of his admired Master But let us hear what is further Objected to justifie these Mens prejudices Secondly It is said by some These heats are but the Frantick Freaks of a Crazed Brain and the product of a Religious Frenzy I answer 1. We need not be much moved with this sensless charge when we find the Pen-men of Sacred Writ to have little better measure made them by the same hand For of them we are told that they wrote many times they knew not what and gave forth Oracles when they were beside themselves his word is alienata mente which was one of the vile Positions of the Montanisis and Cataphrygians rejected and condemned both by Antient and Modern Divines And yet to justifie this Assertion our Author gravely cites Cicero de Divinatione calling the Raptures of their Pagan Vates by the Name of Furor and Virgil calling Sibylla a Mad Prophetess and Justin the Historian Lib. 24. where speaking of the much-famed Oracle at Delphos he tells us of a very
reverence of God and of his Word For want of which too many have greatly polluted these Holy Mysteries with the wanton conceits or prophane excursions of an unhollwed Wit and mortally poisoned themselves and others by their corrupt handling this Bread of Life The Special Means of Interpretation are two-fold Some are more remote which I shall only name not intending any Discourse about them because my work lies another way These remote helps are 1. Some competent knowledge of and recourse to the Original Tongues wherein the Scripture was first penned with a due observation of the proprieties of each Language 2. Skil to discern between the proper use of the Words and Phrases of Scripture and that which is Tropical and Figurative In these Grammar and Rhetorick have their use 3. Some insight into the peculiar Laws Customs and Proverbial Speeches of those times and places that the Scripture relates to which requires some knowledge in History There are sundry passages both in the Old and New Testament that have respect to the known Customs of the Gentiles as in their Divinations Idolatrous Worships Publick Games and many more that have relation to the peculiar Rites and Modes of speech in use among the Jews So that there is no part of Phylology but may have its use in the Interpretation of Scripture 4. There is great use of the several parts of Phylosophy not only moral but natural for the clearing of many things in Scripture that are of natural cognisance as about the structure of Mans Body and the faculties of the Soul the nature motion and influence of the Heavenly Bodies the temperament of the several Regions of the World as also about the Elements and Meteors about Numbers and Measures the Nature and Properties of several Creatures Beasts Birds and Plants and many other things treated of in the Bible either by way of History or Parable 5. Logick hath also its use here for the better discerning the dependence of one thing in Scripture upon another and collecting of one thing from another The more immediate Means are chiefly two 1. A due observation of the several circumstances of the Scripture to be Interpreted who it is that speaks where when and to whom upon what occasion Here also comes in the consideration of the coherents with antecedents and consequences together with the scope and design of the Speaker all which are of great use to discover the Sense of Scripture 2. Comparing Scripture with Scripture or consulting other Scriptures whether paralel with or seemingly opposite to the place under consideration Now to the use of all these forementioned Means or Helps both General and Special Remote and Immediate I think all agree But about the Rule of Interpretation there is not so universal an accord The Romanists for the most part will have this Rule to be the Judgment of the present Church meaning their own But I shall not deal with this It 's weakness in what Sense soever taken for they agree not among themselves hath been sufficiently discovered by the worthy labours of many both formerly and of late Some few there are who tell us that the Scripture supposes the Rule and Summary of Religion delivered from one Age to another which we are to be guided by in searching out the meaning of Scripture And this Rule they say is to be found in the Monuments of the Church that is in the Writings of the Fathers and Determinations of Councils from whence we are to receive the Sense of the Catholick Church and thereby know what was the Doctrine delivered by Christ and his Apostles in the first Age and according to that interpret the Scriptures But if this must be our way of proceeding we may very well despair of ever understanding the Scriptures except when they speak with so much plainness that they stand in need of no Interpretation For what a heap of uncertainties must we lay for the Foundation of our Faith It is sufficiently known that the Fathers do oft differ from each other and many times are not consistent with themselves Councils have determined contrary one to another And some things that were as far as appears to us by all extant Monuments of Antiquity agreeable to the common Sentiment in our Age were laid aside in another Besides either the far greatest part of the Doctors of the Church in the first Ages wrote nothing or their Writings are lost and of those that now go under venerable names many are plainly spurious and many dubious nor is it easie in several of them for the most sagacious Reader to find out the right Insomuch as we cannot have any tolerable assurance what was the consentient judgment of the Catholick Church in any one age about the whole Doctrine of Faith if we set the Scriptures aside Therefore to frame such a Rule of Interpretation as this is no better than to build a House of Straw upon a running Stream There were very few Writers in the two first Centuries and in the two following not very many and after this the Church did much decline and degenerate as well in Doctrine as Manners Now suppose we were sure that the Writings in each Age were undoubtedly theirs whose names they bear as it is past doubt we are not who can assure us that what was published by those few was the consentient Judgment of all or the major part of the Doctors of that Age wherein they lived Might there not be a greater number differing from them who either wrote nothing or whose Works are perished The plain truth is That this way of Interpretation does in the upshot resolve the Faith of Christians not into the certain authority of the Divinely-inspired Writings but into the fallible Testimony of the most uncertain Tradition But for the Readers further satisfaction I refer him to Monsieur Daille's learned Treatise about the right use of the Fathers a Piece of that worth that the Lord Vicount Falkland and his dear Friend Mr. Chillingworth did highly esteem it and made great use of it in their Writings against the Romanists as we are informed by Mr. Tho. Smith sometime Member of Christ's Colledge in Cambridge in his Epistle prefixed to the English Translation of that excellent and elaborate Discourse who further also tells us that we have in that Tractat a sufficient Confutation of Cardinal Perron his Book against King James and by consequence of the Marquis of Worcester against King Charles and of Doctor Vane and other Epitomizers of the Cardinal which I do the rather take notice of that it may obviate the groundless prejudices that some have of late entertained against that Incomparable Piece The received Doctrine of the Reformed Churches both ourown and those abroad hath been hitherto that the Scripture is its own Interpreter But of late there hath been an attempt to justle the Scripture aside as to this use and place Reason and Phylosophy in its room There is a Belgick
the Spirit of God Therefore the best and safest Conceptions we can have of God are those which we learn from the Spirit of God speaking to us in and by the Scripture And if this Author were not extremely prejudiced by a partial fondness for his own darling conceits he might know that plain ordinary Christians who never had ought to do with Philosophick Learning have by their sole acquaintance with the Scriptures come to much clearer and sounder conceptions of God his Nature and Attributes than the learnedst Philosopher that ever the World had could attain by all his Wit and Study without Scripture Light and that to any Reader that is not prepossessed with false and absurd Notions of God by his own vain imagination and misguided Reason the Scriptures that speak so differently concerning that Supreme Being if prudently compared together and the circumstances on each side considered do sufficiently to the satisfaction of sober Minds discover to us their true and genuine Sense without giving the least countenance to the sottish and irrational conceits of the Anthropomorphites though a cavelling daring Wit may and will find something to quarrel with where the matter is as clear as the noon-day Sun His next instance is The Words of our Saviour at the institution of his last Supper This is my Body which the Papists interpret for Transubstantiation The Lutherans for Consubstantiation The Reformed Churches deny both understanding the words tropically whose Sense he says can be no otherwise defended but by the Principles of Natural Philosophy For answer to this I grant That in clearing this controversie there is good use of the Principles of Philosophy and Natural Reason and so there is also of Sense which undeniably convinceth us that what we see and feel and taste is Bread Yet sure we are not to make Sense the Rule of Interpreting Scripture But the true and proper Rule of Interpreting our Saviours Words This is my Body is that which the Scripture it self and that alone hath taught us viz. That Christ assumed a true Humane Body which is a truth that Reason and Philosophy could never inform us of it being a matter of pure Revelation Now this being laid down as the chief Postulatum the thing to be inquired into is What is the nature of an Humane Body and what are the essential Properties of all natural Bodies And this Natural Philosophy instructs us in as being no matter of Revelation but lying within the compass of Natural Light which teacheth us that every Natural Body is quantitative and divisible and confined to one certain place consequently that the Bread in the Sacrament of the Eucharist cannot be properly and substantially the Body of Christ which as Scripture informs us was once nailed to the Cross but is now glorified in Heaven Now the force of all this for the expounding of our Saviours Words lies in the former supposition That our Saviour assumed a true natural Humane Body together with what was even now mentioned That the same Body of Christ which he assumed is at the right Hand of God in Heaven both which are Scripture-Revelations Besides there is a wide difference between these two a help to overthrow a false Interpretation and the Rule of establishing the true one Philosophy may do the former but not the latter As in this controversie the Principles of Reason and Philosophy do convincingly assure us that Bread is not cannot be the Body of a Man But they cannot assure us what was our Saviours meaning when holding the Bread in his Hand he said This is my Body this must be resolved by what the Scripture it self speaks either there or elsewhere His third and last instance is the Doctrine of the Trinity which he says cannot be cleared without having recourse to Philosophy and here having derided the attempts of many to explicate and confirm this great Mistery by their Metaphysical Speculations he highly applauds the learned Keckerman for his happy endeavors in unfolding and demonstrating it Ex immotis Philisophiae fundamentis out of the unmoveable Foundations of Philosophy To this I answer That the curious speculations and Philosophick niceâ—ies of the Schools about the Doctrine of the Trinity have done it more prejudice than advantage and given greater occasion to the adverse part to reject it when they found so strange and incomprehensible a Mystery defended by such thin airy cobweb notions It had been much better if Men had contented themselves with those discoveries the Scripture makes of this inexplicable Mystery it being a Doctrine purely of Supernatural Revelation and not at all discoverable by Natural Light The Arguments from Reason and Philosophy brought for the proof of it by the learned Keckerman and by Claubergius a late Cartesian are examined by Vogolsangius in his Indignatio Justa c. and discarded as insufficient I grant that in this as in many other Doctrines it may be of good use to shew that there is nothing in what the Scripture says of it that contradicts any sound Principle of Reason But to go about by the Principles of Reason or Philosophy positively to demonstrate the truth of it is a thing which I take to be impossible I chuse to say of this Mystery as one does of the Divine Essence Credendo intelligitur adorando enarratur It is best understood by believing and best declared by adoring He saith the late Bishop of Down that should go to Revelation to prove that nine and nine make eighteen would be a Fool and he would be no less that goes about to prove a Trinity of persons by natural Reason Every thing must be derived from its own Fountain Thus Aquinas tells us He that by natural Reason attempts to prove the Trinity of persons doth a double prejudice to the Faith 1. He derogates from its Dignity it being proper to the Doctrine of Faith to be of such things as exceed Mans Reason 2. He hinders others from embracing the Faith by using such Arguments as are not cogent which renders it obnoxious to the Infidels contempt This is plain in Scripture that the Father is God and the Holy Ghost is God and that these are three and all three are but one God and for other subtleties and curious inquiries of busie and presumptuous Wits without and beside the Written Word I think the Truth of God never was nor ever will be beholden to them CHAP. XV. A seventh Argument from the reasonableness of Religion answered ONe Argument more I shall touch which I find alledged by two noted Socinians Smalcius and Schlichtingius as they are cited by a late learned Author in his Socinianism Confut. to prove Reason to be the Rule of deciding Controversies of Faith which may be thought improveable upon the same grounds to assert that Reason must be the Rule of interpreting Scripture And it is That of the Apostle where he asserts the Service that God requires of Christians to be 〈◊〉