is produc'd the mind both of speaker and hearer is confirm'd And Hom. 4. on Lazar Tho one should rise from the dead or an Angel come down from heaven we must believe the Scripture they being fram'd by the Lord of Angels and the quick and dead And Hom. 13. 2 Cor. 7. Is it not an absurd thing that when we deal with men about mony we will trust no body but cast up the sum and make use of our counters but in religious affairs suffer our selves to be led aside by other mens opinions even then when we have by an exact scale and touchstone the dictat of the divine Law Therefore I pray and exhort you that giving no heed to what this or that man saies you would consult the holy Scripture and thence learn the divine riches and pursue what you have learnt And Hom. 58. on Jo. 10.1 'T is the mark of a thief that he comes not in by the dore but another way now by the dore the testimony of the Scripture is signified And Hom. on Gal. 1.8 The Apostle saies not if any man teach a contrary doctrin let him be accurs'd or if he subvert the whole Gospel but if he teach any thing beside the Gospel which you have receiv'd or vary any little thing let him be accurs'd 20. CYRIL of Alex. against Jul. l. 7. saies The holy Scripture is sufficient to make them who are instructed in it wise unto salvation and endued with most ample knowledg 21. THEODORET Dial. 1. I am perswaded only by the holy Scripture And Dial. 2. I am not so bold to affirm any thing not spoken of in the Scripture And again qu. 45. upon Genes We ought not to enquire after what is past over in silence but acquiesce in what is written 22. IT were easy to enlarge this discourse into a Volume but having taken as they offer'd themselves the suffrages of the writers of the four first Centuries I shall not proceed to those that follow If the holy Scripture were a perfect rule of Faith and Manners to all Christians heretofore we may reasonably assure our selves it is so still and will now guide us into all necessary truth and consequently make us wise unto salvation without the aid of oral Tradition or the new mintage of a living infallible Judg of controversy And the impartial Reader will be enabled to judg whether our appeal to the holy Scripture in all occasions of controversy and recommendation of it to the study of every Christian be that heresy and innovation which it is said to be 23. IT is we know severely imputed to the Scribes and Pharisees by our Savior that they took from the people the key of knowledg Luk. 11.52 and had made the word of God of none effect by their Traditions Mat. 15.6 but they never attemted what has bin since practiced by their Successors in the Western Church to take away the Ark of the Testament it self and cut off not only the efficacy but very possession of the word of God by their Traditions Surely this had bin exceeding criminal from any hand but that the Bishops and Governors of the Church and the universal and infallible Pastor of it who claim the office to interpret the Scriptures exhort unto and assist in the knowledg of them should be the men who thus rob the people of them carries with it the highest aggravations both of cruelty and breach of trust If any man shall take away from the words of the Book of this prophecy saies Saint John Revel 22.19 God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life and out of the holy City and from the things which are written in this Book What vengeance therefore awaits those who have taken away not only from one Book but at once the Books themselves even all the Scriptures the whole word of God SECT VII Historical reflexions upon the events which have happen'd in the Church since the with-drawing of the holy Scripture T WILL in this place be no useless contemplation to observe after the Scriptures had bin ravisht from the people in the Church of Rome what pitiful pretenders were admitted to succeed And first because Lay-men were presum'd to be illiterate and easily seducible by those writings which were in themselves difficult and would be wrested by the unlearned to their own destruction pictures were recommended in their steed and complemented as the Books of the Laity which soon emprov'd into a necessity of their worship and that gross superstition which renders Christianity abominated by Turks and Jews and Heathens unto this day 2. I would not be hasty in charging Idolatry upon the Church of Rome or all in her communion but that their Image-worship is a most fatal snare in which vast numbers of unhappy souls are taken no man can doubt who hath with any regard travail'd in Popish Countries I my self and thousands of others whom the late troubles or other occasions sent abroad are and have bin witnesses thereof Charity 't is true believes all things but it do's not oblige men to disbelieve their eies 'T was the out-cry of Micah against the Danites Jud. 18.24 ye have taken away my Gods which I have made and the Priest and are gon away and what have I more but the Laity of the Roman communion may enlarge the complaint and say you have taken away the oracles of our God and set up every where among us graven and molten Images and Teraphims and what have we more and 't was lately the loud and I doubt me is still the unanswerable complaint of the poor Americans that they were deni'd to worship their Pagod once in the year when they who forbad them worship'd theirs every day 3. THE Jews before the captivity notwithstanding the recent memory of the Miracles in Egypt and the Wilderness and the first conquest of the Land of Canaan with those that succeeded under the Judges and kings of Israel and Iuda as also the express command of God and the menaces of Prophets ever and anon fell to downright Idolatry but after their return unto this day have kept themselves from falling into that sin tho they had no Prophets to instruct them no miracles or government to encourage or constrain them The reason of which a very learned man in his discourse of religious Assemblies takes to be the reading and teaching of the Law in their Synagogues which was perform'd with great exactness after the return from the captivity but was not so perform'd before And may we not invert the observation and impute the Image-worship now set up in the Christian Church to the forbidding the reading of the Scriptures in the Churches and interdicting the privat use and institution in them 4. FOR a farther supplement in place of the Scriptures whose History was thought not edifying enough the Legends of the Saints were introduc'd stories so stupid that one would imagin them design'd as an experiment how far credulity could be impos'd
God has by his own choice of writing given the preference to it Nor has he barely chosen it but has made it the standard by which to mesure all succeeding pretences 'T is the means he prescribes for distinguishing divine from diabolical Inspirations To the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to this Word there is no light in them Isai 8.20 And when the Lawier interrogated our Savior what he should do to inherit eternal life he sends him not to ransac Tradition or the cabalistical divinity of the Rabbins but refers him to the Law What is written in the Law how readest thou Luk. 10.26 And indeed throout the Gospel we still find him in his discourse appealing to Scripture and asserting its autority as on the other side inveighing against those Traditions of the Elders which had evacuated the written Word Ye make the Word of God of none effect by your Tradition Mat. 15.6 Which as it abundantly shews Christs adherence to the written Word so 't is a pregnant instance how possible it is for Tradition to be corrupted and made the instrument of imposing mens phancies even in contradiction to Gods commands 31. AND since our blessed Lord has made Scripture the test whereby to try Traditions we may surely acquiesce in his decision and either Embrace or reject Traditions according as they correspond to the supreme rule the written Word It must therefore be a very unwarrantable attemt to set up Tradition in competition with much more in contradiction to that to which Christ himself hath subjected it 32. Saint Paul reckons it as the principal privilege of the Jewish Church that it had the Oracles of God committed to it i.e. that the holy Scriptures were deposited and put in its custody and in this the Christian Church succeeds it and is the guardian and conservator of holy Writ I ask then had the Jewish Church by vertue of its being keeper a power to supersede any part of those Oracles intrusted to them if so Saint Paul was much out in his estimate and ought to have reckon'd that as their highest privilege But indeed the very nature of the trust implies the contrary and besides 't is evident that is the very crime Christ charges upon the Jews in the place above cited And if the Jewish Church had no such right upon what account can the Christian claim any Has Christ enlarg'd its Charter has he left the sacred Scriptures with her not to preserve and practice but to regulate and reform to fill up its vacancies and supply its defects by her own Traditions if so let the commission be produc'd but if her office be only that of guardianship and trust she must neither substract from nor by any superadditions of her own evacuate its meaning and efficacy and to do so would be the same guilt that it would be in a person intrusted with the fundamental Records of a Nation to foist in such clauses as himself pleases 33. IN short God has in the Scriptures laid down exact rules for our belief and practice and has entrusted the Church to convey them to us if she vary or any way enervate them she is false to that trust but cannot by it oblige us to recede from that rule she should deliver to comply with that she obtrudes upon us The case may be illustrated by an easy resemblance Suppose a King have a forreign principality for which he composes a body of Laws annexes to them rewards and penalties and requires an exact and indispensable conformity to them These being put in writing he sends by a select messenger now suppose this messenger deliver them yet saies withall that himself has autority from the King to supersede these Laws at his plesure so that their last resort must be to his dictats yet produces no other testimony but his own bare affirmation Is it possible that any men in their wits should be so stupidly credulous as to incur the penalty of those Laws upon so improbable an indemnity And sure it would be no whit less madness in Christians to violate any precept of God on an ungrounded supposal of the Churches power to dispense with them 34. AND if the Church universal have not this power nor indeed ever claim'd it it must be a strange insolence for any particular Church to pretend to it as the Church of Rome do's as if we should owe to her Tradition all our Scripture and all our Faith insomuch that without the supplies which she affords from the Oracle of her Chair our Religion were imperfect and our salvation insecure Upon which wild dictates I shall take liberty in a distinct Section farther to animadvert SECT VI. The suffrage of the primitive Christian Church concerning the propriety and fitness which the Scripture hat towards the attainment of its excellent end AGAINST what has bin hitherto said to the advantage of the holy Scripture there opposes it self as we have already intimated the autority of the Church of Rome which allows it to be only an imperfect rule of Faith saying in the fourth Session of the Council of Trent that Christian faith and discipline are contain'd in the Books written and unwritten Tradition And in the fourth rule of the Index put forth by command of the said Council the Scripture is declar'd to be so far from useful that its reading is pernicious if permitted promiscuously in the vulgar Tongue and therefore to be withheld insomuch that the study of the holy Bible is commonly by persons of the Roman Communion imputed to Protestants as part of their heresy they being call'd by them in contemt the Evangelical men and Scripturarians And the Bible in the vulgar Tongue of any Nation is commonly reckon'd among prohibited Books and as such publicly burnt when met with by the Inquisitors and the person who is found with it or to read therein is subjected to severe penalties 2. FOR the vindication of the truth of God and to put to shame those unhappy Innovators who amidst great pretences to antiquity and veneration to the Scriptures prevaricat from both I think it may not be amiss to shew plainly the mind of the primitive Church herein and that in as few words as the matter will admit 3. FIRST I premise that Ireneus and Tertullian having to do with Heretics who boasted themselves to be emendators of the Apostles and wiser then they despising their autority rejecting several parts of the Scripture and obtruding other writings in their steed have had recourse unto Tradition with a seeming preference of it unto Scripture Their adversaries having no common principle besides the owning the name of Christians it was impossible to convince them but by a recourse to such a medium which they would allow But these Fathers being to set down and establish their Faith are most express in resolving it into Scripture and when they recommend Tradition ever mean such as is also Apostolical 4. IRENEUS in the
are all the beasts of the Forrest and the cattel upon a thousand hills Psal 50.10 49. AND when we are thus secur'd of all things necessary it may perhaps be an equal mercy to secure us from great abundance which at the best is but a lading ones self with thick clay in the Prophets phrase Hab. 2.6 but is often a snare as well as a burden 50. BESIDES the Gospel by its precepts of temperance and self-denial do's so contract our appetites that a competence is a more adequate promise to them then that of superfluity would have bin and 't is also the mesure wherein all the true satisfaction of the senses consist which are gratify'd with moderate plesures but suffocated and overwhelm'd with excessive The temperat man tasts and relishes his portion whilst the voluptuous may rather be said to wallow in his plenty then injoy it 51. AND as the necessaries of life so life it self and the continuance of that is a Scripture promise The fifth Commandment affixes it to one particular duty but it is in a multitude of places in the Old Testament annex'd to general obedience Thus it is Deut. 11.9 and again ver 21. And Solomon proposes this practical wisdom as the multiplier of daies By me thy daies shall be multipli'd and the years of thy life shall be increas'd Pro. 9.11 and chap. 3. Length of daies is in her right hand ver 16. And tho we find not this promise repeted in the New Testament yet neither is it retracted 't is true the Gospel bids us be ready to lay down our lives for Christs sake but it tells us withal that he that will lose his life shall save it which tho it be universally true only in the spiritual sense yet it often proves so in a literal It did so eminently in the destruction of Jerusalem where the most resolute Christians escap'd while the base compliers perish'd together with those they sought to endear This is certain that if the New Testament do not expresly promise long life yet it do's by its rules of temperance and sobriety contentedness and chearfulness very much promote it and so do's virtually and efficaciously ratify those the Old Testament made 52. THE next outward blessing is reputation and this also is a Scripture promise The wise shall inherit glory Prov. 3.38 And the vertuous woman Solomon describes is not only blessed by her children and husband but she is praised in the gate Pro. 31. ult Nay this blessing is extended even beyond life The memory of the just shall be blessed Pro. 10.7 Nor do's the Gospel evacuate this promise but rather promts us to the waies of having it made good to us by advising us to abstain from all appearance of evil 1 Thes 5.22 to provide for honest things not only in the sight of God but also in the sight of men 2 Cor. 8.21 53. 'T IS true indeed Christ fore-warns his Disciples that they shall be revil'd and have all manner of evil spoken against them falsly for his names sake but then the cause transform'd the sufferings and made it so honorable that they were to count it matter of joy Mat. 5.11.12 Neither was this any paradox even in relation to their reputation which tho sullied by a few ill men of that Age yet has bin most illustrious among all Ages since Their sufferings and indignities gave them a new title of honor and added the Martyr to the Apostle And the event has bin proportionable in all successions since Those holy men that fill'd up the Pagan prisons fill'd up the Churches Diptics also and have bin had as the Psalmist speaks in everlasting remembrance Ps 112.6 54. AND as Scripture promises thus take in all the concerns of the outward man so do they also of the inward The fundamental promise of this kind is that of sending Christ into the world and in him establishing the new Covenant which we find Jer. 31.31 and is referr'd to by the Author to the Hebrews I will put my Laws in their hearts and write them in their minds and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more Heb. 10.16 55. AND this is so comprehensive a promise as includes all the concerns of the inward man The evils incident to the mind of man may be reduc'd to two impurity and inquietude and here is a cure to both The divine Law written in the heart drives thence all those swarms of noysom lusts which like the Egyptian Frogs over-run and putrify the soul Where that is seated and enshrin'd those can no more stand before it then Dagon before the Ark. This repairs the divine Image in us in which consists the perfection of our nature renews us in the spirits of our minds Eph. 4.22 and purges our consciences from dead works Heb. 9.4 which all the Cathartics and Lustrations among the Heathen all the sacrifices and ceremonies of the Law were not able to do 56. SECONDLY this promise secures the mind from that restlesness and unquietness which attends both the dominion and guilt of sin To be subject to a mans lusts and corrupt appetites is of all others the vilest vassallage they are the cruellest task-masters and allow their slaves no rest no intermission of their drudgery And then again the guilt that tortures and racks the mind with dreadful expectations keeps it in perpetual agitation and tumult which is excellently described by the Prophet Isaiah The wicked is like the troubled sea when it cannot rest whose waters cast out mire and dirt there is no peace saith my God to the wicked Is 48.22 How prosperous soever vice may seem to be in the world yet there are such secret pangs and horrors that dog it that as Solomon saies even in laughter the heart is sorrowful Prov. 14.13 57. BUT this Evangelical promise of being merciful to our iniquities and remembring our sins no more calms this tempest introduces peace and serenity into the mind and reconciles us at once to God and our selves And sure we may well say with the Apostle these are great and precious promises 2. Pet. 1.4 58. THERE are besides many other which spring from these principal as suckers from the root such are the promises of fresh supplies of grace upon a good imploiment of the former To him that hath shall be given Mat. 25.29 Nay even of the source and fountain of all grace He shall give the holy spirit to them that ask him Mat. 7.11 Such is that of supporting us in all difficulties and assaults the not suffering us to be temted above that we are able 1 Cor. 10.13 which like Gods bow set in the clouds Gen. 9. is our security that we shall not be over-whelm'd by any deluge of temtation and to instance no more such is that comprehensive promise of hearing our praiers Ask and it shall be given you Mat. 7.7 This puts all good things within our reach gives us the key of Gods Store-house from whence we may furnish
knows it but also by its prescribing those things which are in themselves best and which a sober Heathen would adjudg fittest to be rewarded And as to our temporal happiness I dare appeal to any unprejudic'd man whether any thing can contribute more to the peace and real happiness of mankind then the universal practice of the Scripture rules would do Would God we would all conspire to make the experiment and then doubtless not only our reason but our sense too would be convinc'd of it 93. AND as the design is thus beneficial so in the second place is it as extensive also Time was when the Jews had the inclosure of divine Revelation when the Oracles of God were their peculiar depositum and the Heathen had not the knowledg of his Laws Ps 147. ult but since that by the goodness of God the Gentiles are become fellow-heirs Eph. 3.6 he hath also deliver'd into their hands the deeds and evidences of their future state given them the holy Scriptures as the exact and authentic registers of the covenant between God and man and these not to be like the heathen Oracles appropriated to som one or two particular places so that they cannot be consulted but at the expence of a pilgrimage but laid open to the view of all that will believe themselves concern'd 94. IT was a large commission our Savior gave his Disciples go preach the Gospel to every creature Mar. 16.15 which in the narrowest acception must be the Gentile world and yet their oral Gospel did not reach farther then the written for wherever the Christian Faith was planted the holy Scriptures were left as the records of it nay as the conservers of it too the standing rule by which all corruptions were to be detected 'T is true the entire Canon of the New Testament as we now have it was not all at once deliver'd to the Church the Gospels and Epistles being successively writ as the needs of Christians and the encroachments of Heretics gave occasion but at last they became all together the common magazine of the Church to furnish arms both defensive and offensive For as the Gospel puts in our hands the shield of Faith so the Epistles help us to hold it that it may not be wrested out of our hands again either by the force of persecution or the sly insinuations of vice or heresy 95. THUS the Apostles like prudent leaders have beat up the Ambushes discover'd the snares that were laid for us and by discomfiting Satans forlorn hope that earliest Set of false teachers and corrupt practices which then invaded the Church have laid a foundation of victory to the succeeding Ages if they will but keep close to their conduct adhere to those sacred Writings they have left behind them in every Church for that purpose 96. NOW what was there deposited was design'd for the benefit of every particular member of that Church The Bible was not committed like the Regalia or rarities of a Nation to be kept under lock and key and consequently to constitute a profitable office for the keepers but expos'd like the Brazen Serpent for universal view and benefit that sacred Book like the common air being every mans propriety yet no mans inclosure yet there are a generation of men whose eies have bin evil because Gods have bin good who have seal'd up this spring monopoliz'd the word of Life and will allow none to partake of it but such persons and in such proportions as they please to retail it an attemt very insolent in respect of God whose purpose they contradict and very injurious in respect of man whose advantage they obstruct The iniquity of it will be very apparant if we consider what is offer'd in the following Section SECT IV. The Custody of the holy Scripture is a privilege and right of the Christian Church and every member of it which cannot without impiety to God and injustice unto it and them be taken away or empeacht BESIDES the keeping of the divine Law which is obsequious and imports a due regard to all its Precepts commonly exprest in Scripture by keeping the commandments hearkning to and obeying the voice of the Lord walking in his waies and observing and doing his statutes and his judgments there is a possessory keeping it in reference to our selves and others in respect whereof Almighty God Deut. 6. and elsewhere frequently having enjoin'd the people of Israel to love the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soul and with all their might and that the words which he commanded them should be in their heart he adds that they shall teach them diligently to their children and shall talk of them when they sit down in their houses and when they walk by the way and when they lie down and when they rise up and that they bind them for a sign upon their hand and that they shall be as frontlets between their eies and that they shall write them upon the posts of their house and on their gates So justly was the Law call'd the Scripture being written by them and worn upon the several parts of the body inscrib'd upon the walls of their houses the entrance of their dores and gates of their Cities and in a word placed before their eies wherever they convers'd 2. AND this was granted to the Jews as matter of privilege and favor To them saies Saint Paul Rom. 9.4 pertaineth the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law And the same Saint Paul at the 3. chap. 2. v. of that Epistle unto the question what advantage hath the Jew or what profit is there of circumcision answers that it is much every way chiefly because unto them were committed the Oracles of God This depositum or trust was granted to the Fathers that it should be continued down unto their children He made a covenant saies David Ps 78. v. 5. with Jacob and gave Israel a Law which he commanded our Fore-fathers to teach their children that their posterity might know it and the children which were yet unborn to the intent that when they came up they might shew their children the same Which Scripture by a perpetual succession was to be handed down unto the Christian Church the Apostles on all occasions appealing unto them as being read in the Synagogues every Sabbath day Act. 13.27 and also privatly in their hands so that they might at plesure search into them Jo. 5.39 Act. 17.11 Hereupon the Jews are by Saint Austin call'd the Capsarii or servants that carried the Christians books And Athanasius in his Tract of the Incarnation saies The Law was not for the Jews only nor were the Prophets sent for them alone but that Nation was the Divinity-Schole of the whole world from whence they were to fetch the knowledg of God and the way of spiritual living which amounts to what the Apostle saies Galat. 3.24 That the Law was a Schole-master to bring us unto
Christ 3. AND 't is observable that the very same word Rom. 3.2 in the Text even now recited which expresses the committing of the Oracles of God to the Jews is made use of constantly by Saint Paul when he declares the trust and duty encumbent on him in the preaching of the Gospel of which see 1 Cor. 9.17 Gal. 2.7 1 Thes 2.4 1 Tim. 1.11 Tit. 1.3 And therefore as he saies 1 Cor. 9. Tho I preach the Gospel I have nothing to glory of for necessity is laid upon me yea wo is unto me if I preach not the Gospel for if I do this thing willingly I have a reward but if against my will a dispensation of the Gospel is committed unto me So may all Christians say if we our selves keep and transmit to our posterities the holy Scriptures we have nothing to glory of for a necessity is laid upon us and wo be unto us if we do not our selves keep and transmit to our posterity the holy Scriptures If we do this thing willingly we have a reward but if against our will the custody of the Gospel and at least that dispensation of it is committed to us But if we are Traditors and give up our Bibles or take them away from others let us consider how black an apostacy and sacrilege we shall incur 4. THE Mosaic Law was a temporary constitution and only a shadow of good things to come Heb. 10.1 but the Gospel being in its duration as well as its intendment everlasting Rev. 14.6 and to remain when time shall be no more Rev. 10.6 it is an infinitly more precious depositum and so with greater care and solemner attestation to be preserv'd Not only the Clergy or the people of one particular Church nor the Clergy of the universal are entrusted with this care but 't is the charge the privilege and duty of every Christian man that either is or was or shall be in the world even that collective Church which above all competition is the pillar and ground of truth 1 Tim. 3.15 against which the assaults of men and devils and even the gates of hell shall not prevail Mat. 16.18 5. THE Gospels were not written by their holy Pen-men to instruct the Apostles but to the Christian Church that they might believe Jesus was the Christ the son of God and that believing they might have life thro his name Jo. 20.31 The Epistles were not addrest peculiarly to the Bishops and Deacons but all the holy brethren to the Churches of God that are sanctified in Jesus Christ and to all those that call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ Rom. 1.7 1 Cor. 1.2 2 Cor. 1.1 Galat. 1.2 Eph. 1.1 Col. 4.16 1 Thes 5.27 Phil. 1.1 Jam. 1.1 1 Pet. 1.1 2 Pet. 1.1 Revel 1.4 Or if by chance som one or two of the Epistles were addrest to an Ecclesiastic person as those to Timothy and Titus their purport plainly refers to the community of Christians and the depositum committed to their trust Tim. 6.20 And Saint John on the other side directs his Epistles to those who were plainly secular to fathers young men and little children and a Lady and her children Epist 1. chap. 2.12 13 14. and Epist 2.1.1 6. BUT besides the interest which every Christian has in the custody of the Scripture upon the account of its being a depositum entrusted to him he has also another no less forcible that t is the Testament of his Savior by which he becomes a Son of God no more a Servant but a Son and if he be a Son it is the Apostles inference that he is then an heir an heir of God thro Christ Gal. 4.7 Now as he who is heir to an estate is also to the deeds and conveiances thereof which without injury cannot be detain'd or if they be there is a remedy at Law for the recovery of them So it fares in our Christian inheritance every believer by the privilege of faith is made a son of Abraham and an heir of the promises made unto the fathers whereby he has an hereditary interest in the Old Testament and also by the privilege of the same Faith he has a firm right to the purchast possession Eph. 1.14 and the charter thereof the New Therfore the detention of the Scriptures which are made up of these two parts is a manifest injustice and sacrilegious invasion of right which the person wrong'd is empower'd nay is strictly oblig'd by all lawful means to vindicate 7. WHICH invasion of right will appear more flagrant when the nature and importance of it is consider'd which relating to mens spiritual interest renders the violation infinitly more injurious then it could be in any secular I might mention several detriments consequent to this detention of Scripture even as many as there are benefits appendant to the free use of it but there is one of so fundamental and comprehensive a nature that I need name no more and that is that it delivers men up to any delusion their teachers shall impose upon them by depriving them of means of detecting them Where there is no standard or mesures 't is easy for men to falsify both and no less easy is it to adulterate doctrins where no recourse can be had to the primary rule Now that there is a possibility that false teachers may arise we have all assurance nay we have the word of Christ and his Apostles that it should be so and all Ecclesiastic story to attest it has bin so And if in the first and purest times those Ages of more immediat illumination the God of this world found instruments whereby to blind mens minds 2 Cor. 4.4 it cannot be suppos'd impossible or improbable he should do so now 8. BUT to leave generals and to speak to the case of that Church which magisterially prohibits Scripture to the vulgar she manifestly stands liable to that charge of our Savior Luk. 11 52. Ye have taken away the key of knowledg and by allowing the common people no more Scripture then what she affords them in their Sermons and privat Manuals keeps it in her power to impose on them what she pleases For 't is sure those portions she selects for them shall be none of those which clash with the doctrins she recommends and when ever she will use this power to the corrupting their faith or worship yea or their manners either they must brutishly submit to it because they cannot bring her dictats to the test 9. BUT 't will be said this danger she wards by her doctrin of infallibility that is she enervates a probable supposition attested by event by an impossible one confuted by event For 't is certain that all particular Churches may err and tho the consciousness of that forces the Roman Church upon the absurd pretence of universality to assert her infallibility yet alas Tyber may as well call it self the Ocean or Italy the world as the Roman Church may name it self the
universal whilest 't is so apparent that far the the less part of Christians are under her communion And if she be but a particular Church she has no immunity from errors nor those under her from having those errors how pernicious soever impos'd upon them As to her having actually err'd and in diverse particulars the proof of that has bin the work of so many Volumes that 't would be impertinent here to undertake it I shall only instance in that of Image-worship a practice perfectly irreconcileable with the second Commandment and doubtless clearly discern'd by her to be so upon which account it is that tho by Translations and Paraphrases she wrests and moulds other Texts to comply with her doctrins yet she dares not trust to those arts for this but takes a more compendious course and expunges the Commandment as is evident in her Catechisms and other Manuals Now a Church that can thus sacrilegiously purloin one Commandment and such a one as God has own'd himself the most jealously concern'd in and to delude her children split another to make up the number may as her needs require substract and divide what others she please and then whilst all resort to Scripture is obstructed how fatal a hazard must those poor souls run who are oblig'd to follow these blind or rather these winking guides into the ditch 10. BUT all these criminations she retorts by objecting the dangers of allowing the Scriptures to the vulgar which she accuses as the spring of all Sects Schisms and Heresies To which I answer first that supposing this were true 't was certainly fore-seen by God who notwithstanding laid no restraint probably as fore-seeing that the dangers of implicit faith to which such a restraint must subject men would be far greater and if God saw fit to indulge the liberty those that shall oppose it must certainly think they do not only partake but have transplanted infallibility from God to themselves 11. BUT secondly 't is not generally true that Sects Schisms and Heresies are owing to this liberty All Ecclesiastical Story shews us that they were not the illiterat Lay-men but the learned Clerks who were usually the broachers of Heresies And indeed many of them were so subtil and aerial as could never have bin forg'd in grosser brains but were founded not on Scripture merely mistaken but rackt and distorted with nice criticisms and quirks of Logic as several of the Ancients complain som again sprang from that ambition of attaining or impatience of missing Ecclesiastical dignities which appropriates them to the Clergy So that if the abuse infer a forfeiture of the use the Learned have of all others the least title to the Scriptures and perhaps those who now ingross them the least title of all the Learned 12. ON the other side Church-story indeed mentions som lay-propugners of Heresies but those for the most part were either so gross and bestial as disparag'd and confuted themselves and Authors and rose rather from the brutish inclination of the men then from their mistakes of Scripture or else they were by the immediat infusion of the devil who backt his heretical suggestions with sorceries and lying wonders as in Simon Magus Menander c. And for later times tho somtimes there happens among the vulgar a few pragmatic spirits that love to tamper with the obscurests Texts and will undertake to expound before they understand yet that is not their common temper the generality are rather in the other extreme stupid and unobservant even of the plainest doctrins And if to this be objected the multitude of Quakers and Fanatics who generally are of the ignorant sort I answer that 't is manifest the first propugners of those tenets in Germany were not seduc'd into them by mistakes of Scripture but industriously form'd them at once to disguise and promote their villainous designs of sedition and rapine and as for those amongst us it is not at all certain that their first errors were their own productions there are vehement presumtions that the seeds were sown by greater Artificers whose first business was to unhinge them from the Church and then to fill their heads with strange Chimera's of their privileges and perfections and by that intoxication of spiritual pride dispose them for all delusions and thereby render them like Samsons Foxes fit instruments to set all in combustion 13. BUT admit this were but a conjecture and that they were the sole Authors of their own frenzy how appears it that the liberty of reading the Scripture was the cause of it Had these men bin of the Romish communion and so bin interdicted privat reading yet som broken parts of Scripture would have bin in Sermons and Books of devotion communicated to them had it not bin as possible for them to have wrested what they heard as what they read In one respect it seems rather more likely for in those loose and incidental quotations the connexion is somtimes not so discernable and many Texts there are whose sense is so interwoven with the context that without consulting that there may be very pernicious mistakes on which account it is probably more safe that the Auditors should have Bibles to consult So that this restraint of Scripture is a very fallible expedient of the infallible Church And indeed themselves have in event found it so for if it were so soveraign a prophylactic against error how comes it to pass that so many of their members who were under that discipline have revolted from them into that which they call heresy If they say the defection was made by som of the Learned to whom the Scripture was allow'd why do they not according to their way of arguing take it from them also upon that experiment of its mischief and confine it only to the infallible chair but if they own them to have bin unlearn'd as probably the Albigenses and Waldenses c. were they may see how insignificant a guard this restraint is against error and learn how little is got by that policy which controles the divine Wisdom 14. NOR can they take shelter in the example of the primitive Christians for they in the constant use of the holy Scriptures yielded not unto the Jews Whereas the Jews had the Scriptures read publicly to them every Sabbath day which Josephus against Appion thus expresses Moses propounded to the Jews the most excellent and necessary learning of the Law not by hearing it once or twice but every seventh day laying aside their works he commanded them to assemble for the hearing of the Law and throughly and exactly to learn it Parallel to this was the practice of the primitive Church perform'd by the Lector or Reader of which Justin Martyr in his 2. Apol. gives this account On the day call'd Sunday all that abide in towns or the countries about meet in one place and the writings of the Apostles and Prophets are read so far as there is place So Tertullian in his Apol
describing the offices in the public Assemblies We feed our faith with the sacred Words we raise our hopes and establish our reliance 15. AND as the Jews thought it indecent for persons professing piety to let three daies pass without the offices thereof in the congregation and therefore met in their Synagogues upon every Tuesday and Thursday in the week and there perform'd the duties of fasting praier and hearing the holy Scriptures concerning which is the boast of the Pharisee Luk. 18.12 in conformity hereto the Christians also their Sabbath being brought forward from the Saturday to the day following that the like number of daies might not pass them without performing the aforesaid duties in the congregation met together on the Wednesdaies and Fridaies which were the daies of Station so frequently mention'd in Tertullian and others the first writers of the Church Tertullian expresly saies that the Christians dedicated to the offices of Piety the fourth and sixth day of the week and Clemens Alex. saies of the Christians that they understood the secret reasons of their weekly fasts to wit those of the fourth day of the week and that of preparation before the Sabbath commonly call'd Wednesday and Friday Where by the way we may take notice what ground there is for the observation of the Wednesday and Friday in our Church and the Litanies then appointed so much neglected in this profligate Age. 16. BUT secondly as the Jews were diligent in the privat reading of the Scripture being taught it from their infancy which custom Saint Paul refers to 1 Tim. 3.15 whereof Josephus against Appion saies That if a man ask any Jew concerning the Laws he will tell every thing readier then his name for learning them from the first time they have sense of any thing they retain them imprinted in their minds So were the first Christians equally industrious in improving their knowledg of divine Truth The whole life of a Christian saies Clem. Alex. Strom. l. 7. is a holy solemnity there his sacrifices are praiers and praises before every meal he has the readings of the holy Scriptures and Psalms and Hymns at the time of his meals Which Tertullian also describes in his Apol. and Saint Cyprian in the end of the Epist to Donatus 17. AND this is farther evidenc'd by the early and numerous versions of the Scriptures into all vulgar Languages concerning which Theodoret speaks in his Book of the Cure of the Affections of the Greeks Serm. 5. We Christians saies he are enabled to shew the power of Apostolic and prophetic doctrins which have fill'd all Countries under Heaven For that which was formerly utter'd in Hebrew is not only translated into the Language of the Grecians but also the Romans Egyptians Persians Indians Armenians Scythians Samaritans and in a word to all the Languages that are us'd by any Nation The same is said by Saint Chrysostom in his first Homily upon Saint Iohn 18. NOR was this don by the blind zeal of inconsiderable men but the most eminent Doctors of the Church were concern'd herein such as Origen who with infinit labor contriv'd the Hexapla Saint Chrysostom who translated the New Testament Psalms and som part of the Old Testament into the Armenian Tongue as witnesses Geor. Alex. in the life of Chrysost So Vlphilas the first Bishop of the Goths translated the holy Scripture into the Gothic as Socrat. Eccl. Hist l. 4. cap. 33. and others testify Saint Jerom who translated them not only into Latin from the Hebrew the Old Italic version having bin from the Greek but also into his native vulgar Dalmatic which he saies himself in his Epistle to Sophronius 19. BUT the peoples having them for their privat and constant use appears farther by the Heathens making the extorting of them a part of their persecution and when diverse did faint in that trial and basely surrender'd them we find the Church level'd her severity only against the offending persons did not according to the Romish equity punish the innocent by depriving them of that sacred Book because the others had so unworthily prostituted it tho the prevention of such a profanation for the future had bin as fair a plea for it as the Romanists do now make but on the contrary the primitive Fathers are frequent nay indeed importunat in their exhortations to the privat study of holy Scripture which they recommend to Christians of all Ranks Ages and Sexes 20. AS an instance hereof let us hear Clemens of Alex. in his Exhort The Word saies he is not hid from any it is a common light that shineth to all men there is no obscurity in it hear it you that be far off and hear it you that are nigh 21. TO this purpose St. Jerom speaks in his Epistle to Leta whom he directs in the education of her young daughter and advises that instead of gems and silk she be enamour'd with the holy Scripture wherein not gold or skins or Babylonian embroideries but a correct and beautiful variety producing faith will recommend its self Let her first learn the Psalter and be entertain'd with those songs then be instructed unto life by the Proverbs of Solomon let her learn from Ecclesiastes to despise worldly things transcribe from Job the practice of patience and vertue let her pass then to the Gospels and never let them be out of her hands and then imbibe with all the faculties of the mind the Acts of the Apostles and Epistles When she has enrich'd the store-house of her breast with these tresures let her learn the Prophets the Heptateuch or books of Moses Joshua and Judges the books of Kings and Chronicles the volumes of Ezra and Esther and lastly the Canticles And indeed this Father is so concern'd to have the unletter'd female sex skilful in the Scriptures that tho he sharply rebukes their pride and over-wening he not only frequently resolves their doubts concerning difficult places in the said Scriptures but dedicates several of his Commentaries to them 22. THE same is to be said of Saint Austin who in his Epistles to unletter'd Laics encourages their enquiries concerning the Scripture assuring Volusianus Ep. 3. that it speaks those things that are plain to the heart of the learned and unlearned as a familiar friend in the mysterious mounts not up into high phrases which might deter a slow and unlearned mind as the poor are in their addresses to the rich but invites all with lowly speech feeding with manifest truth and exercising with secret And Ep. 1.21 tells the devout Proba that in this world where we are absent from the Lord and walk by faith and not by sight the soul is to think it self desolate and never cease from praier and the words of divine and holy Scripture c. 23. SAINT Chrysostom in his third Homily of Lazarus thus addresses himself to married persons house-holders and people engag'd in trades and secular professions telling them that the reading of the Scripture is a
great defensative against sin and on the other side the ignorance thereof is a deep and head-long precipice that not to know the Law of God is the utter loss of salvation that this has caus'd heresies and corruption of life and has confounded the order of things for it cannot be by any means that his labor should be fruitless who emploies himself in a daily and attentive reading of the Scripture 24. I am not saies the same St. Chry. Hom. 9. on Colos 3. a Monk I have wife and children and the cares of a family But 't is a destructive opinion that the reading of the Scripture pertains only to those who have addicted themselves to a monastic life when the reading of Scripture is much more necessary for secular persons for they who converse abroad and receive frequent wounds are in greatest need of remedies and preservatives so Hom. 2. on Mat. Hearken all you that are secular how you ought to order your wives and children and how you are particularly enjoin'd to read the Scriptures and that not perfunctorily or by chance but very diligently 25. LIKEWISE Hom. 3. on Laz. What saiest thou O man it is not thy business to turn over the Scripture being distracted by innumerable cares no thou hast therefore the greater obligation others do not so much stand in need of the aids of the Scripture as they who are conversant in much business Farther Hom. 8. on Heb. 5. I beseech you neglect not the reading of the Scriptures but whether we comprehend the meaning of what is spoken or not let us alwaies be conversant in them for daily meditation strengthens the memory and it frequently happens that what you now cannot find out if you attemt it again you will the next day discover for God of his goodness will enlighten the mind It were endless to transcribe all the Exhortations of the ancient Doctors and Fathers of the Church they not only permitted but earnestly prest upon all Christians whatever their estate or condition were the constant reading of the holy Scripture Nor indeed was their restraint ever heard of till the Church of Rome had espous'd such doctrins as would not bear the test of Scripture and then as those who deal in false wares are us'd to do they found it necessary to proportion their lights accordingly 26. THIS Peter Sutor in his second Book cap. 22. of the Translation of the Scripture honestly confesses saying that whereas many things are enjoin'd which are not expresly in Scripture the unlearned observing this will be apt to murmur and complain that so heavy burthens are laid upon them and their Christian liberty infring'd They will easily be with-drawn from observing the Constitutions of the Church when they find that they are not contain'd in the Law of Christ And that this was not a frivolous suggestion the desperat attemt of the Romanists above mention'd in leaving out the second Commandment in their Primers and Catechisms which they communicate to the people may pass for an irrefragable evidence For what Lay-man would not be shockt to find Almighty God command not to make any graven image nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above or in the earth beneath or in the water under the earth that no one should bow down to them nor worship them when he sees the contrary is practic'd and commanded by the Church 27. BUT would God none but the Romamanist were impeachable of this detention of Scripture there are too many among us that are thus false and envious to themselves and what the former do upon policy and pretence of reverence those do upon mere oscitancy and avow'd profaness which are much worse inducements And for such as these to declaim against detention of the Scripture is like the Law-suits of those who contend only about such little punctilio's as themselves design no advantage from but only the worsting their Adversaries and it would be much safer for them to lie under the interdict of others then thus to restrain themselves even as much as the errors of obedience are more excusable then those of contemt and profaness 28. AND here I would have it seriously consider'd that the Edict of Diocletian for the demolishing the Christian Churches and the burning their Bibles became the character and particular aggravation of his most bloudy persecution Now should Almighty God call us to the like trial should Antichristian violence whether heathen or other take from us our Churches and our Bibles what comfort could we have in that calamity if our contemt of those blessings drove them from us nay prevented persecution and bereft us of them even whilst we had them in our power He who neglects to make his constant resort unto the Church which by Gods mercy now stands open or to read diligently the holy Scriptures which by the same divine Goodness are free for him to use is his own Diocletian and without the terrors of death or torments has renounc'd if not the Faith the great instruments of its conveiance and pledg of God Almighties presence among the sons of men 29. BUT what if men either upon the one motive or the other will not read yet the Scriptures continue still most worthy to be read they retain still their propriety for all those excellent ends to which God design'd them and as the Prophet tells the Jews Ez. 2.5 whether they will hear or whether they will forbear they shall know there has bin a Prophet among them so whether we will take the benefit or no we shall one day find that the holy Scriptures would have made us wise unto salvation If thro our fault alone they fail to do so they will one day assume a less grateful office and from guides and assistants become accusers and witnesses against us SECT V. The Scripture has great propriety and fitness toward the attainment of its excellent end WE are now in the next place to consider how exactly the holy Scriptures are adapted to those great ends to which they are directed how sufficient they are for that important negotiation on which they are sent and that we shall certainly find them if we look on them either intrinsically or circumstantially For the first of these notions we need only to reflect on the third part of this discourse where the Scripture in respect of the subject Matter is evinc'd to be a system of the most excellent Laws backt with the most transcendent rewards and punishments and the certainty of those confirm'd by such pregnant instances of Gods mercies and vengeance in this world as are the surest gages and earnests of what we are bid to expect in another 2. NOW what method imaginable can there be used to rational creatures of more force and energy Nay it seems to descend even to our passions and accommodates it self to our several inclinations And seeing how few Proselytes there are to bare and naked vertue and how many to interest and
advantage God closes with them upon their own terms and do's not so much injoin as buy those little services he asks from us 3. BUT because som mens natures are so disingenuous as to hate to be oblig'd no less then to be reform'd the Scripture has goads and scourges to drive such beasts as will not be led terrors and threatnings and those of most formidable sorts to affright those who will not be allur'd Nay lest incredulous men should question the reality of future rewards or punishments the Scripture gives as sensible evidence of them as we are capable of receiving in this world by registring such signal protections and judgments proportion'd to vertue and vice as sufficiently attests the Psalmists Axiom Doubtless there is a God that judgeth the earth Psal 58.11 and leaves nothing to the impenitent sinner but a fearful expectation of that fiery indignation threatned hereafter Heb. 10.27 4. AND now methinks the Scripture seems to be that net our Savior speaks of that caught of every sort Mat. 13.47 it is of so vast a compass that it must one would think fetch in all kind of tempers and sure had we not mixt natures with fiends contracted som of their malice and obstinacy mere human pravity could not hold out 5. AND as the holy Scripture is thus fitly proportion'd to its end in respect of the subject matter so is it also in reference to its circumstances which all conspire to render it the power of God unto salvation Ro. 1.16 In the first rank of those we must place its divine original which stamps it with an uncontroulable autority and is an infallible security that the matter of it is perfectly true since it proceeds from that essential verity which cannot abuse us with fraudulent promises or threatnings and from that infinite power that cannot be impeded in the execution of what he purposes 6. YET to render this circumstance efficacious there needs another to wit that its being the word of God be sufficiently testifi'd to us and we have in the fore-going discourse evinced it to be so and that in the utmost degree that a matter of that kind is capable of beyond which no sober man will require evidence in any thing And certainly these two circumstances thus united have a mighty force to impress the dictats of Scripture on us And we must rebel against God and our own convictions too to hold out against it 7. A third circumstance relates to the frame and composure of this divine Book both as to method and stile concerning which I have already made som reflexions But now that I may speak more distinctly I observe it takes its rise from the first point of time wherein 't was possible for mankind to be concern'd and so gradually proceeds to its fall and renovation shews us first our need of a Redeemer and then points us out who it is by types and promises in the Old Testament and by way of history and completion in the New In the former it acquaints us with that pedagogy of the Law which God design'd as our Schole-master to bring us to Christ Gal. 3.25 and in the Gospel shews us yet a more excellent way presents us with those more sublime elevated doctrins which Christ came down from heaven to revele 8. AS for the stile that is full of grateful variety somtimes high and majestic as becomes that high and holy one that inhabiteth eternity Esai 57.15 and somtimes so humble and after the manner of men as agrees to the other part of his Character his dwelling is with him that is of an humble spirit Esay 57.15 I know profane wits are apt to brand this as an unevenness of stile but they may as well accuse the various notes of Music as destructive to harmony or blame an Orator for being able to tune his tongue to the most different strains 9. ANOTHER excellency of the stile is its propriety to the several subjects it treats of When it speaks of such things as God would not have men pry into it wraps them up in clouds and thick darkness by that means to deter inquisitive man as he did at Sinai from breaking into the mount Ex. 20. And that he gives any intimation at all of such seems design'd only to give us a just estimate how shallow our comprehensions are and excite us to adore and admire that Abyss of divine Wisdom which we can never fathom 10. THINGS of a middle nature which may be useful to som but are indispensibly necessary to all the Scripture leaves more accessible yet not so obvious as to be within every mans reach but makes them only the prize of industry praier and humble endevors And it is no small benefit that those who covet the knowledg of divine Truth are by it engag'd to take these vertues in the way Besides there is so much time requir'd to that study as renders it inconsistent with those secular businesses wherein the generality of men are immerst and consequently 't is necessary that those who addict themselves to the one have competent vacancy from the other And in this it hath a visible use by being very contributive to the maintaining that spiritual subordination of the people of the Pastors which God has establish'd Miriam and Corahs Partisans are a pregnant instance how much the opinion of equal knowledg unfits for subjection and we see by sad experience how much the bare pretence of it has disturb'd the Church and made those turn preachers who never were understanding hearers 11. BUT besides these more abstruse there are easier truths in which every man is concern'd the explicit knowledg whereof is necessary to all I mean the divine Rules for saving Faith and Manners And in those the Scripture stile is as plain as is possible condescends to the apprehensions of the rudest capacities so that none that can read the Scripture but will there find the way to bliss evidently chalk'd out to him That I may use the words of Saint Gregory the Lamb may wade in those waters of life as well as the Elephant may swim The Holy Ghost as St. Austin tells us lib. 2. of Christian doctrin cap. 6. has made in the plainer places of Scripture magnificent and healthful provision for our hunger and in the obscure against satiety For there are scarce any things drawn from obscure places which in others are not spoken most plainly And he farther adds that if any thing happen to be no where explain'd every man may there abound in his own sense 12. SO again in the same Book cap. 9. he saies that all those things which concern Faith and Manners are plainly to be met with in the Scripture and Saint Jerom in his Comment on Es 19. tells us that 't is the custom of the Scripture to close obscure sayings with those that are easy and what was first exprest darkly to propose in evident words which very thing is said likewise by Saint Chrysostom Hom.
men take the liberty to do so the relation grows as monstrous as such a heap of incoherent phancies can make it 20. IF to this it be said that this happens only in trivial secular matters but that in the weighty concern of Religion mankind is certainly more serious and sincere I answer that 't is very improbable that they are since 't is obvious in the common practice of the world that the interests of Religion are postpon'd to every little worldly concern And therefore when a temporal advantage requires the bending and warping of Religion there will never be wanting som that will attemt it 21. BESIDES there is still left in human nature so much of the venom of the Serpents first temtation that tho men cannot be as God yet they love to be prescribing to him and to be their own Assessors as to that worship and homage they are to pay him 22. BUT above all 't is considerable that in this case Sathan has a more peculiar concern and can serve himself more by a falsification here then in temporal affairs For if he can but corrupt Religion it ceases to be his enemy and becomes one of his most useful engins as sufficiently appear'd in the rites of the heathen worship We have therefore no cause to think this an exemt case but to presume it may be influenc'd by the same pravity of human nature which prevailes in others and consequently are oblig'd to bless God that he has not left our spiritual concerns to such hazards but has lodg'd them in a more secure repository the written Word 23. BUT I fore-see 't will be objected that whilst I thus disparage Tradition I do vertually invalidate the Scripture it self which comes to us upon its credit To this I answer first that since God has with-drawn immediate revelation from the world Tradition is the only means to convey to us the first notice that this Book is the word of God and it being the only means he affords we have all reason to depend on his goodness that he will not suffer that to be evacuated to us and that how liable soever Tradition may be to err yet that it shall not actually err in this particular 24. BUT in the second place This Tradition seems not so liable to falsification as others It is so very short and simple a proposition such and such writings are the word of God that there is no great room for Sophistry or mistake to pervert the sense the only possible deception must be to change the subject and obtrude supposititious writings in room of the true under the title of the word of God But this has already appear'd to be unpracticable because of the multitude of copies which were disperst in the world by which such an attemt would soon have bin detected There appears more reason as well as more necessity to rely upon Tradition in this then in most other particulars 25. NEITHER yet do I so farr decry oral Tradition in any as to conclude it impossible it should derive any truth to posterity I only look on it as more casual and consequently a less fit conveiance of the most important and necessary verities then the writen Word In which I conceive my self justifi'd by the common sense of mankind who use to commit those things to writing which they are most solicitous to derive to posterity Do's any Nation trust their fundamental Laws only to the memory of the present Age and take no other course to transmit them to the future do's any man purchase an estate and leave no way for his children to lay claim to it but the Tradition the present witnesses shall leave of it Nay do's any considering man ordinarily make any important pact or bargain tho without relation to posterity without putting the Articles in writing And whence is all this caution but from a universal consent that writing is the surest way of transmitting 26. BUT we have yet a higher appeal in this matter then to the suffrage of men God himself seems to have determin'd it And what his decision is 't is our next business to inquire 27. AND first he has given the most real and comprehensive attestation to this way of writing by having himself chose it For he is too wise to be mistaken in his estimate of better and worse and too kind to chuse the worst for us and yet he has chosen to communicate himself to the latter Ages of the world by writing and has summ'd up all the Eternal concerns of mankind in the sacred Scriptures and left those sacred Records by which we are to be both inform'd and govern'd which if oral Tradition would infallibly have don had bin utterly needless and God sure is not so prodigal of his spirit as to inspire the Autors of Scripture to write that whose use was superseded by a former more certain expedient 28. NAY under the Mosaic oeconomy when he made use of other waies of reveling himself yet to perpetuate the memory even of those Revelations he chose to have them written At the delivery of the Law God spake then viva voce and with that pomp of dreadful solemnity as certainly was apt to make the deepest impressions yet God fore-saw that thro every succeeding Age that stamp would grow more dim and in a long revolution might at last be extinct And therefore how warm soever the Israelites apprehensions then were he would not trust to them for the perpetuating his Law but committed it to writing Ex. 31.18 nay wrote it twice himself 29. YET farther even the ceremonial Law tho not intended to be of perpetual obligation was not yet referr'd to the traditionary way but was wrote by Moses and deposited with the Priests Deut. 31.9 And after-event shew'd this was no needless caution For when under Manasses Idolatry had prevail'd in Jerusalem it was not by any dormant Tradition but by the Book of the Law found in the Temple that Josiah was both excited to reform Religion and instructed how to do it 2. Kings 22.10 And had not that or som other copy bin produc'd they had bin much in the dark as to the particulars of their reformation which that they had not bin convei'd by Tradition appears by the sudden startling of the King upon the reading of the Law which could not have bin had he bin before possest with the contents of it In like manner we find in Nehemiah that the observation of the Feast of Tabernacles was recover'd by consulting the Law the Tradition whereof was wholly worn out or else it had sure bin impossible that it could for so long a time have bin intermitted Neh. 8.18 And yet mens memories are commonly more retentive of an external visible rite then they are of speculative Propositions or moral Precepts 30. THESE instances shew how fallible an expedient mere oral Tradition is for transmission to posterity But admit no such instance could be given 't is argument enough that
second Book 47. c. tells us that the Scriptures are perfect as dictated by the word of God and his spirit And the same Father begins his third Book in this manner The disposition of our salvation is no otherwise known by us then by those by whom the Gospel was brought to us which indeed they first preach'd but afterward deliver'd it to us in the Scripture to be the foundation and pillar of our Faith Nor may we imagin that they began to preach to others before they themselves had perfect knowledg as som are bold to say boasting themselves to be emendators of the Apostles For after our Lords Resurrection they were indued with the power of the holy Spirit from on high and having perfect knowledg went forth to the ends of the earth preaching the glad tidings of salvation and celestial praise unto men Each and all of whom had the Gospel of God So Saint Matthew wrote the Gospel to the Hebrews in their tongue Saint Peter and Saint Paul preach'd at Rome and there founded a Church Mark the Disciple and interpreter of Peter deliver'd in writing what he had preach'd and Luke the follower of Paul set down in his Book the Gospel he had deliver'd Afterward Saint John at Ephesus in Asia publish'd his Gospel c. In his fourth Book c. 66. he directs all the Heretics with whom he deals to read diligently the Gospel deliver'd by the Apostles and also read diligently the Prophets assuring they shall there find every action every doctrin and every suffering of our Lord declared by them 5. THUS Tertullian in his Book of Prescriptions c. 6. It is not lawful for us to introduce any thing of our own will nor make any choice upon our arbitrement We have the Apostles of our Lord for our Authors who themselves took up nothing on their own will or choice but faithfully imparted to the Nations the discipline which they had receiv'd from Christ So that if an Angel from heaven should teach another doctrin he were to be accurst And c. 25. 'T is madness saies he of the Heretics when they confess that the Apostles were ignorant of nothing nor taught things different to think that they did not revele all things to all which he enforces in the following chapter In his Book against Hermogenes c. 23. he discourses thus I adore the plenitude of the Scripture which discovers to me the Creator and what was created Also in the Gospel I find the Word was the Arbiter and Agent in the Creation That all things were made of preexistent matter I never read Let Hermogenes and his journy-men shew that it is written If it be not written let him fear the woe which belongs to them that add or detract And in the 39. ch of his Prescript We feed our faith raise our hope and establish our reliance with the sacred Words 6. IN like manner Hippolytus in the Homily against Noetus declares that we acknowledg only from Scripture that there is one God And whereas secular Philosophy is not to be had but from the reading of the doctrin of the Philosophers so whosoever of us will preserve piety towards God he cannot otherwise learn it then from the holy Scripture Accordingly Origen in the fifth Homily on Leviticus saies that in the Scripture every word appertaining to God is to be sought and discust and the knowledg of all things is to be receiv'd 7. WHAT Saint Cyprians opinion was in this point we learn at large from his Epistle to Pompey For when Tradition was objected to him he answers Whence is this Tradition is it from the autority of our Lord and his Gospel or comes it from the commands of the Apostles in their Epistles Almighty God declares that what is written should be obei'd and practic'd The Book of the Law saies he in Joshua shall not depart from thy mouth but thou shalt meditate in it day and night that you may observe and keep all that is written therein So our Lord sending his Apostles commands them to baptize all Nations and teach them to observe all things that he had commanded Again what obstinacy and presumtion is it to prefer human Tradition to divine Command not considering that Gods wrath is kindled as often as his Precepts are dissolv'd and neglected by reason of human Traditions Thus God warns and speaks by Isaiah This people honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me but in vain do they worship me teaching for doctrins the commandments of men Also the Lord in the Gospel checks and reproves saying you reject the Law of God that you may establish your Tradition Of which Precept the Apostle Saint Paul being mindful admonishes and instructs saying If any man teaches otherwise and hearkens not to sound doctrin and the words of our Lord Jesus Christ he is proud knowing nothing From such we must depart And again he adds There is a compendious way for religious and sincere minds both to deposit their errors and find out the truth For if we return to the source and original of divine Tradition human error will cease and the ground of heavenly Mysteries being seen whatsoever was hid with clouds and darkness will be manifest by the light of truth If a pipe that brought plentiful supplies of water fail on the suddain do not men look to the fountain and thence learn the cause of the defect whether the spring it self be dry or if running freely the water is stopt in its passage that if by interrupted or broken conveiances it was hindred to pass they being repair'd it may again be brought to the City with the same plenty as it flows from the spring And this Gods Priests ought to do at this time obeying the commands of God that if truth have swerv'd or fail'd in any particular we go backward to the source of the Evangelical and Apostolical Tradition and there found our actings from whence their order and origination began 8. IT is true Bellarmine reproches this discourse as erroneous but whatever it might be in the inference which Saint Cyprian drew from it in it self it was not so For Saint Austin tho sufficiently engag'd against Saint Cyprians conclusion allows the position as most Orthodox saying in the fourth Book of Baptism c. 35. Whereas he admonishes to go back to the fountain that is the Tradition of the Apostles and thence bring the stream down to our times 't is most excellent and without doubt to be don 9. THUS Eusebius expresses himself in his second Book against Sabellius As it is a point of sloth not to seek into those things whereof one may enquire so 't is insolence to be inquisitive in others But what are those things which we ought to enquire into Even those which are to be found in the Scriptures those things which are not there to be found let us not seek after For if they ought to be known the holy Ghost had not omitted them in the Scripture
10. ATHANASIUS in his Tract of the Incarnation saies It is fit for us to adhere to the word of God and not relinquish it thinking by syllogisms to evade what is there clearly deliver'd Again in his Tract to Serap of the holy Ghost Ask not saies he concerning the Trinity but learn only from the Scriptures For the instructions which you will find there are sufficient And in his Oration against the Gentiles declares That the Scriptures are sufficient to the manifestation of the truth 11. AGREEABLE to these is Optatus in his 5. Book against Parmen who reasons thus You say 't is lawful to rebaptize we say 't is not lawful betwixt your saying and our gain-saying the peoples minds are amus'd Let no man believe either you or us All men are apt to be contentious Therefore Judges are to be call'd in Christians they cannot be for they will be parties and thereby partial Therefore a Judg is to be lookt out from abroad If a Pagan he knows not the mysteries of our Religion If a Jew he is an enemy to our baptism There is therefore no earthly Judg but one is to be sought from heaven Yet there is no need of a resort to heaven when we have in the Gospel a Testament and in this case celestial things may be compar'd to earthly So it is as with a Father who has many children while he is present he orders them all and there is no need of a written Will Accordingly Christ when he was present upon earth from time to time commanded the Apostles whatsoever was necessary But as the earthly father finding himself to be at the point of death and fearing that after his departure his children should quarrel among themselves he calls witnesses and puts his mind in writing and if any difference arise among the brethren they go not to their Fathers Sepulcher but repair to his Will and Testament and he who rests in his grave speaks still in his writing as if he were alive Our Lord who left his Will among us is now in heaven therefore let us seek his commands in the Gospel as in his Will 12. THUS Cyril of Ierus Cat. 4. Nothing no not the least concernment of the divine and holy Sacraments of our Faith is to be deliver'd without the holy Scripture believe not me unless I give you a demonstration of what I say from the Scripture 13. SAINT Basil in his Book of the true Faith saies If God be faithful in all his sayings his words and works they remaining for ever and being don in truth and equity it must be an evident sign of infidelity and pride if any one shall reject what is written and introduce what is not written In which Books he generally declares that he will write nothing but what he receives from the holy Scripture and that he abhors from taking it elsewhere In his 29. Homily against the Antitrinit Believe saies he those which are written seek not those which are not written And in his Eth. reg 26. Every word and action ought to be confirm'd by the testimony of the divinely inspir'd Scriptures to the establishment of the Faith of the good and reproof of the wicked 14. SAINT Ambrose in the first Book of his Offic. saies How can we make use of any thing which is not to be found in Scripture And in his Instit of Virgins I read he is the first but read not he is the second let them who say he is second shew it from the reading 15. GREG. Nyssen in his Dial. of the soul and resurrect saies 'T is undeniable that truth is there only to be plac'd where there is the seal of Scripture Testimony 16. SAINT Jerom against Helvidius declares As we deny not that which is written so we refuse those which are not written And in his Comment on the 98. Ps Every thing that we assert we must shew from the holy Scripture The word of him that speaks has not that autority as Gods precept And on the 87. Ps Whatever is said after the Apostles let it be cut off nor have afterwards autority Tho one be holy after the Apostles tho one be eloquent yet has he not autority 17. SAINT Austin in his Tract of the unity of the Church c. 12. acknowledges that he could not be convinc'd but by the Scriptures of what he was to believe and adds they are read with such manifestation that he who believes them must confess the doctrin to be most true In the second Book of Christian doctrin c. 9. he saies that in the plain places of Scripture are found all those things that concern Faith and Manners And in Epist 42. All things which have bin exhibited heretofore as don to mankind and what we now see and deliver to our posterity the Scripture has not past them in silence so far forth as they concern the search or defence of our Religion In his Tract of the good of Widowhood he saies to Julian the person to whom he addresses What shall I teach you more then that we read in the Apostle for the holy Scripture settles the rule of our doctrin that we think not any thing more then we ought to think but to think soberly as God has dealt to every man the mesure of Faith Therefore my teaching is only to expound the words of this Doctor Ep. 157. Where any subject is obscure and passes our comprehension and the Scripture do's not plainly afford its help there human conjecture is presumtuous in defining 18. THEOPHILUS of Alex. in his second Paschal homily tells us that 't is the suggestion of a diabolical spirit to think that any thing besides the Scripture has divine autority And in his third he adds that the Doctors of the Church having the Testimony of the Scripture lay firm foundation of their doctrin 19. CHRYSOSTOM in his third Homily on the first of the Thessal asserts that from the alone reading or hearing of the Scripture one may learn all things necessary So Hom. 34. on Act. 15. he declares A heathen comes and saies I would willingly be a Christian but I know not who to join my self to for there are many contentions among you many seditions and tumults so that I am in doubt what opinion I should abuse Each man saies what I say is true and I know not whom to believe each pretends to Scripture which I am ignorant of 'T is very well the issue is put here for if the appeal were to reason in this case there would be just occasion of being troubled but when we appeal to Scripture and they are simple and certain you may easily your self judg He that agrees with the Scripture is a Christian he that resists them is far out of the way And on Ps 95. If any thing be said without the Scripture the mind halts between different opinions somtimes inclining as to what is probable anon rejecting as what is frivolous but when the testimony of holy Scripture
upon or else fram'd to a worse intent that Christianity by them might be made ridiculous Yet these are recommended to use and veneration while in the mean time the word of God is utterly forbidden whereby the parties to this unhappy practice that I may speak in the words of the Prophet Jerem. 2.13 have committed two evils they have forsaken the fountain of living waters and hewed them out cisterns broken cisterns that can hold no water 5. FARTHER yet the same unreasonable tyranny which permitted not the Laity to understand Almighty God speaking to them in the Scripture hinder'd them from being suffer'd to understand the Church or themselves speaking to him in their praiers whilst the whole Roman office is so dispos'd that in defiance of the Apostles discourse 1 Cor. 14. he that occupies the room of the unlearned must say amen to those praiers and praises which he has no comprehension of and by his endless repetitions of Paters Ave's and Credo's falls into that battology reprov'd by our Savior Mat 6.7 and as 't was said to the woman of Samaria Jo. 4.22 knows not what he worships Yet this unaccountable practice is so much the darling of that Church that when in France about eighteen years since the Roman Missal was translated into the vulgar Tongue and publish'd by the direction of several of their Bishops the Clergy of France rose up in great fury against the attemt anathematizing in their circular Epistles all that sold read or us'd the said Book and upon complaint unto Pope Alex. the 7. he resented the matter so deeply as to issue out his Bull against it in the following words 6. WHEREAS sons of perdition endevoring the destruction of souls have translated the Roman Missal into the French Tongue and so attemted to throw down and trample upon the majesty of the holy Rites comprehended in Latin words As we abominate and detest the novelty which will deform the beauty of the Church and produce disobedience temerity boldness sedition and schism so we condemn reprobate and forbid the said and all other such Translations and interdict the reading and keeping to all and singular the faithful of whatever sex degree order condition dignity honor or preeminence c. under pain of excommunication And we command the copies to be immediatly burnt c. So mortal a sin it seems 't was thought for the Laity to understand the praiers in which they must communicate 7. NOR is this all agreeable to the other attemts upon the holy Scripture was the bold insolence of making a new authentic Text in that unknown Tongue in which the offices of praier had bin and were to be kept disguis'd which was don by the decree of the Council of Trent in the fourth Session But when the Council had given this Prerogative to the Version which it call'd vulgar the succeeding Popes began to consider what that Version was and this work Pius the fourth and fifth set upon but prevented by death fail'd to complete it so that the honor of the performance fell to Sixtus the fifth who in the plenitude of his Apostolic power the Translation being reform'd to his mind Commanded it to be that genuine ancient Edition which the Trent Fathers had before made authentic and under the pain of excommunication requir'd it to be so received which he do's in this form Of our certain knowledg and the plenitude of Apostolic power we order and declare that vulgar Edition which has bin receiv'd for authentic by the Council of Trent is without doubt or controversy to be esteem'd this very one which being amended as well as it is possible and printed at the Vatican Press we publish to be read in the whole Christian Republic and in all Churches of the Christian world Decreeing that it having bin approv'd by the consent of the holy universal Church and the holy Fathers and then by the Decree of the general Council of Trent and now by the Apostolic autority deliver'd to us by the Lord is the true legitimate authentic and undoubted which is to be received and held in all public and privat Disputations Lectures Preachings and Expositions c. But notwithstanding this certain knowledg and plenitude of Apostolic power soon after came Clement the eighth and again resumes the work of his Predecessor Sixtus discovers great and many errors in it and puts out one more reform'd yet confest by himself to be imperfect which now stands for the authentic Text and carries the title of the Bible put forth by Sixtus notwithstanding all it's alterations So well do's the Roman Church deserve the honor which she pretends to of being the mistress of all Churches and so infallible is the holy Chair in its determinations and lastly so authentic a Transcript of the word of God concerning which 't is said Mat. 5.18 one jot or one title shall not fail is that which she establisht and that has receiv'd so many and yet according to the confession of the infallible Corrector wants still more alterations 8. DEPENDENT upon this and as great a mischief as any of the former consequent to the with-drawing of the Scripture I take to be the step it made to the overthrow of the ancient and most useful disciplin of the Church in point of Penance whose rigors alwaies heretofore preceded the possibility of having absolution Now of this we know a solemn part was the state of Audience when the lapst person was receiv'd after long attendance without dores prostrations and lamentations there within the entrance of the Church and was permitted with the Catechumens or Candidats of Baptism to hear the readings of the Scripture and stay till praier began but then depart He was oblig'd to hear the terrors of the Lord the threats of the divine Law against sin and sinners to stand among the unbaptiz'd and heathen multitude and learn again the elements of that holy Faith from which he had prevaricated and so in time be render'd capable of the devotions of the faithful and afterward the reception of the Eucharist But when the Scriptures were thought useless or dangerous to be understood and heard it was consequent that the state of Audience should be cut off from Penance and that the next to it upon the self-same principle should be dismist and so the long probation formerly requir'd should be supplanted and the compendious way of pardoning first and repenting afterwards the endless circle of sinning and being absolv'd and then sinning and being absolv'd again should prevail upon the Church Which still obtains notwithstanding the complaints and irrefragable demonstrations of learned men even of the Romish Communion who plainly shew this now receiv'd method to be an innovation groundless and unreasonable and most pernicious in its consequents 9. AND by the way we may take notice that there cannot be a plainer evidence of the judgment of the Church concerning the necessity of the Scriptures being known not only by the learned but mean
Christian and the interest they have therein then is the ancient course of Penance establisht by the the practice of all the first Ages and almost as many Councils whether general or local as have decreed any thing concerning disciplin with the penitentiary Books and Canons which were written for the first eleven hundred years in the whole Christian world For if even the unbaptiz'd Catechumen and the lapst sinner notwithstanding their slender knowledg in the mysteries of Faith or frail pretence to the privilege thereof had a right to the state of Audience and was oblig'd to hear the Scripture read surely the meanest unobnoxious Laic was in as advantagious circumstances and might not only be trusted with the reading of those sacred Books but might claim them as his birth-right 10. I may justly over and above what has bin hitherto alleg'd impute to the Governors of the same Church and their withholding from the Laity the holy Scripture the many dangerous errors gross ignorances and scandalous immoralities which have prevail'd among them both It is no new method of divine vengeance that there should be like people like Priest Hos 4.9 and that the Idol shepherd who led his flock into the ditch should fall therein himself Mat. 15.14 And as the Prophet Zachary describes it c. 11.17 The sword shall be upon his arm and upon his right eie his arm shall be clean dried up and his right eie shall be utterly darkned 11. BUT no consequence can be more obviously deducible from that practice then that men should justify the with-holding of the Scripture by lessening its credit and depreciating its worth which has occasion'd those reproches which by the writers of the Church of Rome of best note have bin cast upon it As that it was a Nose of wax a leaden rule a deaf and useless deputy to God in the office of a Judg of less autority then the Roman Church and of no more credit then Esops Fables but for the testimony of the said Church that they contain things apt to raise laughter or indignation that the Latin Translation in the Complutensian Bible is placed between the Hebrew Text and the Septuagint Version as our Savior was at his Crucifixion between two thieves and that the vulgar Edition is of such autority that the Originals ought to be mended by it rather then it should be mended from them which are the complements of Cardinal Bellarmin Hosius Eckius Perron Ximenes Coqueus and others of that Communion words to be answer'd by a Thunderbolt and fitter for the mouth of a Celsus or a Porphyrie then of the pious sons and zealous Champions of the Church of Christ 12. T IS to be expected that the Romanists should now wipe their mouths and plead not guilty telling us that they permit the Scripture to the Laity in their mother Tongue And to that purpose the Fathers of Rhemes and Doway have publisht an English Bible for those of their communion I shall therefore give a short and plain account of the whole affair as really it stands and then on Gods name let the Romanists make the best of their Apology 13. THE fourth rule of the Index of prohibited Books compos'd upon the command and auspice of the Council of Trent and publish'd by the autority of Pius the fourth Sixtus the fifth and Clement the eighth runs thus Since 't is manifest by experience that if the holy Bible be suffer'd promiscuously in the vulgar Tongue such is the temerity of men that greater detriment then advantage will thence arise in this matter let the judgment of the Bishop or Inquisitor be stood to that with the advice of the Curat or Confessor they may give leave for the reading of the Bible in the vulgar Tongue translated by Catholics to such as they know will not receive damage but increase of Faith and Piety thereby Which faculty they shall have in writing and whosoever without such faculty shall presume to have or to read the Bible he shall not till he have deliver'd it up receive absolution of his sins Now to pass over the iniquity of obliging men to ask leave to do that which God Almighty commands when 't is consider'd how few of the Laity can make means to the Bishop or Inquisitor or convince them or the Curat or Confessor that they are such who will not receive damage but encrease of Faith and Piety by the reading of the Scripture and also have interest to prevail with them for their favor herein and after all can and will be at the charge of taking out the faculty which is so penally requir'd 't is easy to guess what thin numbers of the Laity are likely or indeed capable of reaping benefit by this Indulgence pretended to be allowed them 14. BUT besides all this what shall we say if the power it self of giving Licences be a mere shew and really signifies just nothing In the observation subjoin'd to this fourth rule it is declar'd that the Impression and Edition thereof gives no new faculty to Bishops or Inquisitors or Superïors of regulars to grant Licences of buying reading or retaining Bibles publisht in a vulgar Tongue since hitherto by the command and practice of the holy Roman and universal Inquisition the power of giving such faculties to read or retain vulgar Bibles or any parts of Scripture of the Old or New Testament in any vulgar Tongue or also summaries or historical compendiums of the said Bibles or Books of Scripture in whatsoever Tongue they are written has bin taken away And sure if a Lay-man cannot read the Bible without a faculty and it is not in any ones power to grant it 't will evidently follow that he cannot read it And so the pretence of giving liberty owns the shame of openly refusing it but has no other effect or consequence And if any Romanist among us or in any other Protestant Country enjoies any liberty herein 't is merely by connivance and owed to a fear least the Votary would be lost and take the Bible where it was without difficulty to be had if strictness should be us'd And should Popery which God forbid become paramount the Translations of the Scripture into our Mother Tongues would be no more endur'd here then they are in Spain and they who have formerly bin wary in communicating the Scriptures remembring how thereby their errors have bin detected would upon a revolution effectually provide for the future and be sure to keep their people in an Egyptian darkness that might it self be felt but that allow'd the notices of no other object They would not be content with that composition of the Ammonite to thrust out all the right eies of those that submitted to them 1 Sam. 11.2 but would put out both as the Philistins did to Samson that they might make their miserable captives for ever grind in their Mill Jud. 16.21 15. BUT this heaviest of judgments will never fall upon the reform'd Churches till by their vicious
heedlesness as if it could tell them nothing they were concern'd in and to such 't is no wonder if their reading bring no advantage God is not in this sense found of those that seek him not Esai 65.1 't is Satans part to serve himself of the bare words and characters of holy Writ for charms and amulets the vertue God has put there consists in the sense and meaning and can never be drawn out by drousy inadverting Readers 27. THIS unattentiveness fore-stalls all possibility of good How shall that convince the understanding or perswade the affections which do's not so much as enter the imagination So that in this case the seed seems more cast away then in any of those instances the parable gives Mat. 13. In those it still fell upon the soil but in this it never reaches that but is scatter'd and dissipated as with a mighty wind by those thoughts which have prepossess'd the mind Let no man therefore take this sacred Book into his hand till he have turn'd out all distracting phancies and have his faculties free and vacant for those better objects which will there present themselves And when he has so dispos'd himself for attention then let him contrive to improve that attention to the best advantage 28. TO which purpose it may be very conducive to put it into som order and method As for instance when he reads the doctrinal part of Scripture let him first and principally advert to those plain Texts which contain the necessary points of Faith that he may not owe his Creed only to his education the institution of his Parents or Tutors but may know the true foundation on which it is bottom'd viz. the word of God and may thence be able to justify his Faith and as Saint Peter exhorts be ready to give an answer to every man that asks him a reason of the hope that is in him 1 Pet. 3.15 For want of this it is that Religion sits so loose upon men that every wind of doctrin blows them into distinct and various forms till at last their Christianity it self vapors away and disappears 29. BUT let men be careful thus to secure the foundation and then 't will be commendable in them who are capable of it to aspire to higher degrees of speculation yet even in these it will be their safest course chiefly to pursue such as have the most immediat influence on practice and be more industrious to make observations of that sort then curious and critical remarks or bold conjectures upon those mysteries on which God has spread a veil 30. BUT besides a mans own particular collections it will be prudence in him to advantage himself of those of others and to consult the learned'st and best expositors and that not only upon a present emergency when he is to dispute a point as most do but in the constant course of his reading wherein he will most sedatly and dispassionatly judg of the notions they offer 31. AS to the choice of the portions of Scripture to be read in course tho I shall not condemn that of reading the whole Bible in order yet 't is apparent that som parts of it as that of the Levitical Law are not so aptly accommodated to our present state as others are and consequently not so edificatory to us and therefore I cannot see why any man should oblige himself to an equal frequency in reading them And to this our Church seems to give her suffrage by excluding such out of her public Lessons And if we govern our privat reading by her mesures it will well express our deference to her judgment who has selected som parts of Scripture not that she would keep her children in ignorance of any but because they tend most immediatly to practice 32. NEITHER will the daily reading the Scripture in the rubricks order hinder any man from acquainting himself with the rest For he may take in the other parts as supernumeraries to his constant task and read them as his leisure and inclination shall promt So that all the hurt that can accrue to him by this method is the being invited to read somtimes extraordinary proportions 33. IF it be objected that to those who daily hear the Church Service 't will be a kind of tautology first to read those Lessons in privat which soon after they shall hear read publicly I answer that whatever men may please to call it 't will really be an advantage For he that shall read a chapter by himself with due consideration and consulting of good Paraphrasts will have div'd so far into the sense of it that he will much better comprehend it when he hears it read as on the other side the hearing it read so imediatly after will serve to confirm and rivet the sense in his mind The one is as the conning the other the repeating the Lesson which every Schole-boy can tell us is best don at the nearest distance to each other But I shall not contend for this or any particular method let the Scriptures be read in proportion to every mans leisure and capacity and read with attention and we need not be scrupulous about circumstances when the main duty is secur'd 34. BUT as in the doctrinal so in the preceptive part there is a caution to be us'd in our attention For we are to distingish between those temporary precepts that were adapted to particular times and occasions and such as are of perpetual obligation He that do's not this may bring himself under the Jewish Law or believe a necessity of selling all and giving it to the poor because 't was Christs command to the rich man Mat. 19. or incur other considerable mischeifs 35. THUS frequently commands are put in comprehensive indefinite words but concern only the Generality to whom the Law is written and not those who are entrusted with the vindication of their contemt Accordingly 'tis said thou shalt not kill Mark 10.19 which concerns the private person but extends not to the Magistrate in the execution of his office who is a revenger appointed by God and bears not the sword in vain Rom. 13.4 So the injunction not to swear at all Mat. 5.34 refers to the common transactions of life but not those solemn occasions where an oath is to give glory to God and is the end of all strife Heb. 6.16 Yet these mistakes at this day prevail with Anabaptists and Quakers and bottom their denial of the Magistrates power to protect his Subjects by war and to determin differences in Peace by the oath of witnesses in judicial proceedings 36. THERE is another distinction we are to attend to and that is between absolute and primary commands and secundary ones the former we are to set a special remark upon as those upon whose observance or violation our eternal life or death inseparably depends And therefore our first and most solicitous care must be concerning them I mention this not to divert any from aspiring to
the seed and parent of the greatest It is so in all sins the kingdom of Satan like that of God may be compar'd to a grain of mustard seed Mat. 13.31 which tho little in it self is mighty in its increase 54. NO man ever yet began at the top of villany but the advance is still gradual from one degree to another each commission smoothing and glibbing the way to the next He that accustoms in his ordinary discourse to use the sacred Name of God with as little sentiment and reverence as he do's that of his neighbor or servant that makes it his common by-word and cries Lord and God upon every the lightest occasion of exclamation or wonder this man has a very short step to the using it in oaths and upon all frivolous occasions and he that swears vainly is at no great distance from swearing falsely It is the same in this instance of the Scriptures He that indulges his wit to rally with them will soon come to think them such tame things that he may down-right scorn them And when he is arriv'd to that then he must pick quarrels to justify it till at last he arrive even to the height of enmity 55. LET every man therefore take heed of setting so much as one step in this fatal circle guard himself against the first insinuation of this guilt and when a jest offers it self as a temtation let him balance that with a sober thought and consider whether the jest can quit the cost of the profanation Let him possess his mind with an habitual awe take up the Bible with solemner thoughts and other kind of apprehensions then any human Author and if he habituate himself to this reverence every clause and phrase of it that occurs to his mind will be apter to excite him to devout ejaculations then vain laughter 56. IT is reported of our excellent Prince King Edward the sixth that when in his Council Chamber a Paper that was call'd for happen'd to lie out of reach and the Person concern'd to produce it took a Bible that lay by and standing upon it reacht down the Paper the King observing what was don ran himself to the place and taking the Bible in his hands kissed it and laid it up again Of this it were a very desirable moral that Princes and all persons in autority would take care not to permit any to raise themselves by either a hypocritical or profane trampling upon holy things But besides that a more general application offers its self that all men of what condition soever should both themselves abstain from every action that has the appearance of a contemt of the holy Scripture and also when they observe it in others discountenance the insolence and by their words and actions give Testimony of the veneration which they have for that holy Book they see others so wretchedly despise 57. BUT above all let him who reads the Scripture seriously set himself to the practice of it and daily examin how he proceds in it he that diligently do's this will not be much at leisure to sport with it he will scarce meet with a Text which will not give him cause of reflection and provide him work within his own brest every duty injoin'd will promt him to examin how he has perform'd every sin forbid will call him to recollect how guilty he has bin every pathetic strain of devotion will kindle his zeal or at least upbraid his coldness every heroic example will excite his emulation In a word every part of Scripture will if duly appli'd contribute to som good and excellent end And when a thing is proper for such noble purposes can it be the part of a wise man to apply it only to mean and trivial Would any but an Idiot wast that Soveraign Liquor in the washing of his feet which was given him to expel poison from his heart And are not we guilty of the like folly when we apply Gods word to serve only a ludicrous humor and make our selves merry with that which was design'd for the most serious and most important purpose the salvation of our souls And indeed who ever takes any lower aim then that and the vertues preparatory to it in his study of Scripture extremely debases it 58. LET us therefore keep a steady eie upon that mark and press towards it as the Apostle did Phil. 3.14 walk by that rule the holy Scripture proposes faithfully and diligently observe its precepts that we may finally partake its promises To this end continually pray we in the words of our holy mother the Church unto Almighty God who has caus'd all holy Scripture to be written for our learning that we may in such wise hear them read mark learn and inwardly digest them that by patience and comfort of his holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting Life which he has given in our Savior Jesus Christ THE CONTENTS SECTION Sect. 1. The several methods of Gods communicating the knowledg of himself Pag. 1. Sect. 2. The divine Original Endearments and Autority of the Holy Scripture p. 9. Sect. 3. The Subject Matter treated of in the holy Scripture is excellent as is also its end and design p. 63. Sect. 4. The Custody of the holy Scripture is a privilege and right of the Christian Church and every member of it which cannot without impiety to God and injustice unto it and them be taken away or empeacht p. 123. Sect. 5. The Scripture has great propriety and fitness toward the attainment of its excellent end p. 145. Sect. 6. The suffrage of the primitive Christian Church concerning the propriety and fitness which the Scripture has toward the attainment of its excellent end p. 165. Sect. 7. Historical reflexions upon the events which have happen'd in the Church since the with-drawing of the holy Scripture p. 180. Sect. 8. Necessary Cautions to be us'd in the reading of the holy Scripture p. 193. FINIS