Appendix concerning Internal Illumination and other Operations of the Spirit upon the Soul of Man c. CHAP. I. 1. What our Protestant Divines mean by that Illumination of the Spirit which they assert as necessary to the understanding of the Scriptures and the Exercitators censure of it as Enthusiasm approved by Wolzogen 2. The Falshood of that Calumny discovered 3. Wolzogen ' s disingenuity and inconstancy 4. The necessity of the aforesaid Illumination proved 5. In what sense it is supernatural 6. Some of the Exercitators Cavils answered 7. In what sense this Illumination is immediate IN the foregoing Papers designed to clear and vindicate the Protestant Doctrine concerning the Supreme Bule of Interpreting Seripture I have had occasion frequently to deal with the Belgick Exercitator and to take notice of what he hath said that seems to be of any moment so far as concerns that point But whereas he is pleased in the procedure of his Discourse to step out of his way and deridingly to oppose the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches about the Spirits assistance in the Interpretation of Scripture as savouring of Enthusiasm I then waved medling with that part of his Book thinking it more expedient to say something to it in an Appendix by it self this being a Question altogether distinct from that other of the Rule of Interpretation In the Fourteenth Chapter of his oft-mentioned Exercitation he quotes several of our Protestant Authors of great Name and Worth giving in the words of some of them and referring us for others to the cited places The drift of their several Discourses about this point seems to be that there needs an effectual operation of the Holy Spirit to enlighten Mens understandings and cause them rightly to apprehend and readily to approve the Mind of God in Scripture That their meaning may be more clearly propounded we must distinguish of a twofold understanding of Scripture There is a Natural and merely Grammatical perception of the truth of Scripture-Propositions which a Man destitute of the Spirit of Grace may attain by common assistance in the use of ordinary means And there is a Spiritual apprehension of the things themselves contain'd in those Propositions which includes in it a hearty believing and embracing them that is not attain'd without the sanctifying work of the Spirit renewing the mind by enduing it with an heavenly supernatural Light This I find thus express'd and illustrated by the late Reverend Bishop of Norwich Natural Men says he have their Principles vitiated their Faculties bound that they cannot understand spiritual things till God have as it were implanted a new understanding in them framed the heart to attend and set it at liberty to see the Glory of God with open face Though the Veil do not keep out Grammatical Construction yet it blindeth the Heart against the spiritual Light and Beauty of the Word We see even in common Sciences where the Conclusions are suitable to our innate and implanted Notions yet he that can distinctly construe and make Grammar of a Principle in Euclide may be ignorant of the Mathematical sense and use of it Much more may a Man in Divine Truths be spiritually ignorant even where in some respect he may be said to know For the Scriptures pronounce Men ignorant of those things which they see and know In Divine Doctrine Obedience is the Ground of Knowledge and Holiness the best Qualification to understand the Scriptures To this Spiritual Understanding there is need of the aforesaid Supernatural Light And this is that which as far as I can understand our Divines mean when they assert the necessity of the Spirits Illumination Thus speaks the Church of England The Revelation of the Holy Ghost inspireth the true meaning of the Scripture into us In truth we cannot without it attain true saving knowledge Yea of this mind was Erasmus no Enthusiast who thus speaks He erreth vehemently who believes he can ever attain to the true understanding of the Canonical Scriptures unless he be inspired by the same Spirit that endited them And again They have the Book of Scripture but not the Scripture that want the Spirit without which the Scripture is not understood And M. Luther quoting a Speech of Aben-Ezra Sine supra infra i. e. without Points and Accents the Scripture cannot be understood adds a third sine intra without somewhat within viz. the Light of the Holy Spirit Now let us hear the Judgment of the Exercitator and his pretended Answerer Wolzogen about this As for the former If says he the meaning of these Divines were this that no sense of Scripture by what way or method soever found out can be fully certain to any unless by the Natural Light of our understanding we can clearly and distinctly perceive it and be fully perswaded of its truth and that this clear perception and the sense a Man hath of it be that inward perswasion and testimony of the Spirit which they intend this will be granted them But if they mean not the Natural Light of Mans understanding or what is built upon that but a Supernatural Light above and beyond Mans Natural Reason not included in the Mind or acquired by it but infused and inspired from above this says he we disclaim and condemn for Enthusiasm This is the sum of the censure that he passeth upon this Doctrine And Lud. Wolzogen who pretends to take up the Bucklers against him in defence of the Protestant Cause in stead of vindicating the forecited Authors and their Doctrine joins with the Exercitator in the calumny as appears undeniably by his own words for thus he speaks Because the Holy Spirit doth indeed still exert some power in the minds of Men therefore some have believed that he opens the sense of the Scriptures and interprets them to the Faithful Which opinion the Exercitator doth justly decry and determine that it contains mere Enthusiasm Where he expresly approves and applauds what the Exercitator had said against the Doctors of the Reformed Churches charging them with Enthusiasm for maintaining a necessity of a Supernatural Light for a saving perception of the Mind of God in Scripture And himself doth so frequently strike upon this string in several places of his Book that he seems to design the blemishing and defaming of our most eminent Protestant Writers and the Doctrine which they have asserted against Papists and Pelagians These Men cannot be ignorant that the Divines whom they thus impeach have all along in answer to the like imputation from Popish and Socinian Authors expresly and vehemently disclaimed all compliance with Enthusiasts and that some of them have written learnedly and smartly against that sort of Men. They utterly disavow their expecting any such Illumination as was given to the Prophets and Apostles and do plainly deliver their minds that what they assert doth not consist in discovering any new Doctrine unreveal'd in Scripture but in qualifying and
Resurrection of the same numerical Body proved against the Exercitator to be asserted in Scripture THE Exercitators next Work is to answer the great Argument which he says some urge against his opinion viz. Philosophy and consequently Humane Reason asserts many things that are repugnant to Divinity and the Scriptures and therefore they cannot be allow'd for the Rule of Interpreting Scripture He denies the Antecedent and so do I. What Authors they be in the Reformed Churches that thus argue I know not But this I know that it is no uncommon thing for pugnacious Wits to draw the Sword upon the shadow of a Dream and make Hector-like declamations against Utopian Adversaries Set aside those Authors who are engaged by some Atheological Hypothesis which they have espoused as the Papists and the Lutherans in the Doctrine of the Eâ—charist I know not any Man of Learning and Understanding who hath such a thought that there is any thing in Scripture derogatory or contradictory to true Philosophy or Sound Reason or that believes any thing true in Philosophy to be false in Divinity Whatsoever is true any where is true every where Here therefore our Author may put up his Dagger But there is one thing which I cannot well pass over That the Exercitator pretending to confute those who assert a contrariety between the Principles of Philosophy and Divinity and instancing in these two Ex nihilo nihil fit and Idem non potest numericè reproduci Instead of solving the knot he cuts it and plainly affirms both these Principles to be true absolutely and without limitation both in Philosophy and Divinity confidently asserting that the Scripture doth no where teach us That the World was made of nothing or that the same numerical Body shall rise at the last day And here Wolzogen unworthily deserts the Christian Cause not vouchsafing to write one word in vindication of these grand Truths against this bold Adversary but tells us he is content the Man should enjoy his own opinion though he says he could easily have refuted him Which makes his silence the more inexcusable and brings him under greater suspition of Heterodoxy notwithstanding all his Rhetorical Flourishes But it is time I should return to our Author who if he had not been too much in love with Novelty might without the least prejudice to his Cause unless it have some other Monster in the Belly of it that is not yet come to the birth have answered that these Axioms are true in a limited Sense both in Philosophy and Divinity viz. That by a finite created Power nothing can be made of nothing and that by the like limited power the same numerical Body that perisheth cannot be reproduced But that nevertheless to an infinite Power all things that imply not contradiction are possible But it seems by this Authors words that he disowns the received Doctrine of the worlds Creation out of Nothing and the Reproduction of the same individual Body 1. By denying the former he must necessarily maintain the Eternity of Preexistent Matter whereas if God be the Maker of all Beings besides himself as the Scripture sufficiently assures us then nothing besides himself could be Eternal but he must in making the World make the Matter whereof the World consists which Matter therefore must be made of nothing The first Article in the most ancient Creeds as the Reverend Bishop of Chester hath observed had instead of these words Maker of Heaven and Earth or together with them this Clause The Maker of all things visible and invisible agreeably to that of the Apostle Coloss. 1. 16. which distribution is so comprehensive that it will not admit of any Exception all things whatsoever being either visible or invisible and whatsoever can be supposed necessary to the making of the World it must of necessity come under one of these two Members of the distribution and consequenly be of Gods making And indeed if it were otherwise then something else besides God must have a necessary uncreated independent Being which carries with it so broad a Contradiction as Mans Reason left fair to it self cannot allow Again 2. By disclaiming the latter this Author evidently denies the Resurrection for that imports the rising again of the same Body that fell according to that known Speech of Damascen so oft cited by our Divines 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And if the same numerical Body rise not but another is made de novo for the Soul to animate this is not a Resurrection but a new Creation and then the first Creation of the World may as aptly be called a Resurrection as that which is so stiled by the Holy Ghost in Scripture But I think the Scripture speaks plain enough in this Case though this Author will not own it when it says that at the last day This corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality And that our Lord Jesus Christ shall then change our vile Body that it may be made like unto his glorious Body And that If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in us he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in us Add to this that Argument from the description of the place whence the Resurrection shall begin which I cannot better represent to the Reader than in the words of the learned Bishop of Chester They which sleep in the dust of the Earth Dan. 12. 2. and they which are in the Graves Joh. 5. 28. shall hear the Voice and Rise And Rev. 20. 13. The Sea shall give up the dead which are in it and Death and the Grave deliver up the dead which are in them But if the same Bodies did not Rise they which are in the dust should not revive If God should give us any other Bodies than our own neither the Sea nor the Grave should give up their dead That shall Rise again which the Grave gives up the Grave hath nothing to give up but that Body which was laid into it therefore the same Body which is Buried shall at the last day be revived And whereas the Socinians who are our Adversaries in this as well as in many other Articles of our Faith to evade this Argument will have the Graves spoken of in Joh 5. 28. to be the Graves of ignorance and impiety there meant and the Rising to be Mens coming to the knowledge of Christ c. the aforesaid learned Person answers them That Christ expresly speaks of bringing Men to Judgement vers 27. and divides those that are to come out of their Graves into two Ranks vers 29. neither of which can be so understood The first are those which have done good before they come out of their Graves these therefore could not be the Graves of Ignorance and Impiety from which no good can come The second are such who have done evil
and so remain as evil Doers and therefore cannot be said to come forth of the Graves of Ignorance and Impiety or to Rise by the Preaching of the Gospel to newness of life because they are expresly said to come forth to the Resurrection of Damnation But if the Exercitators Principles will allow him to write after the rate he here doth I think none that hath any veneration for the Scriptures will be over-fond of such a corrupt and fallacious Interpreter But when Men are hammering out a new Divinity they must either find out a new Scripture or a new way of Expounding the Old to countenance their own Dreams that when by this Artifice they have turned out the true Christianity they may bring us in a Pagan Religion finely set out in the stately dress of Eternal Reason No wonder they cry out of Systems as Chains and Fetters to their desultorious and volatile Wits They had rather as one says of wanton Heads â—e the Purchasers of Error than the Heirs of Truth Of whom the Lord Verulam gives us a very fit Character Certè sunt qui cogitationum Vertigine delectantur ac pro servitute habent fide fixa Axiomatis constantibus restringi Liberi Arbitrii usum in Cogitando non mixùs quam in Agendo affectantes Verily says he there are some who are delighted in a giddiness of opinions and take it for a bondage to be restrained by a fixed Faith and setled Principles no less affecting the use of their Free Will in thinking than in acting And so I have dispatcht the first Part of my Work and proceed to the second Part II. The Holy Scripture the onely sure Interpreter of it self CHAP. I. 1. The Proposition asserting the Scripture to be its own Interpreter laid down Lud. Walzogen's rashness and inconsistency with himself in giving the Sense of our Reformed Divines in this Point 2. Their true meaning cleared and something touched about the Analogy of Faith 3. The Judgment of Divines Ancient and Modern in this Business HAving endeavoured to disprove the new pretended Rule of Interpretation I come in the next place to assert the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches and lay down this Proposition that the Holy Scripture is its own onely sure Interpreter But before I enter upon the opening and confirming of it I must remove something that lies in my way Ludovicus Wolzogen in his two Books de Scripturarum Interprete attempting to answer the Exercitator professeth to maintain the received Doctrine of the Protestant Churches in this Point but pretends to a more clear and distinct handling of it than hath hitherto been performed by our Divines Whereas indeed that which he propounds to maintain is a novel fancy of his own never yet owned by any Orthodox Divine that I have read or heard of viz. That the Scripture interprets it self by the Usus loquendi the custom of speaking and that this is the onely sure and undoubted Rule of Interpretation But whereas he most immodestly chargeth all that have gone before him with confusedness in this Controversie as not well understanding either it or themselves his learned self when he comes to take it in hand is so intricate and perplex so various and inconstant that it 's a difficult matter to understand what he would have He turns himself into so many forms and winds himself so many wayes and falls into so many self-contradictions that he seems to design the entangling of his Reader and the hiding of himself in a Castle of Clouds First One while he will have us understand this Usus loquendi of the vulgar use of speech common to the Scriptures with other Writings and gives us his Reason why this must be the Rule of Interpretation because common use is the onely Master of Speech and the Custome of Speakers and Writers gives Law to the signification of Words and that the use of Speech is formed by much and long Custom which when it hath at last prevailed does as it were imprint a publick Character upon Words which come by tacite consent to be received of all and he professes he sees no Reason why any should deny that the Interpretation of Scripture depends upon this use of Speech which himself says is founded upon Humane Institution but adopted and approved by the Wisdom of God in Enditing the Scripture Now that this Usus loquendi should be the Rule of Interpreting the Holy Scriptures is far wide from the Truth and from the Judgment of all Protestants and as far as I know of all other Expositors For 1. When they say the Scripture is its own Interpreter or which is all one the Rule of Interpretation to it self they understand it of something in the Scripture that is peculiar to the Scripture and not any thing that is common to it with other Writings But the vulgar and customary use of Speech is the same in all Writings where the same Language is made use of 2. It is granted on all hands that this Usus loquendi or Custom of Speech hath its place among those means that I spake of in the entrance of my Discourse that do remotely conduce to Interpretation but it reaches no further nextly and immediately than to Verbal Interpretation which is called Translation by guiding us to the right understanding of Words and Phrases and the several Modes of Speech But this comes not up to that which we call Real Interpretation which is the Exposition of the Author's Mind signified by those Words as they are so and so placed We do not therefore shut out the Use of Speech but suppose it and look at something further For instance suppose I were to inquire into the Sense of that place Joh. 1. 1. which is the instance given by Vander Weayen I may by the Use of Speech know what these several Words Begining and Word and God signifie But I must have something else to guide me to the right meaning of the entire Sentence In the Beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God And Wolzogen himself acknowledges that there is a wide difference between words taken singly and in their first original and taken as conjoined in Propositions I may add with very good reason that there is also a wide difference between Propositions taken singly and taken in such or such a contexture of Discourse Now the use of Speech will not help us to distinguish here 3. How can the common use of Speech be a Rule in Matters of pure Revelation I think all acknowledge that the Sense of Words varies according to the difference of the subject matter about which they are used Now matters of pure Revelation are so remote from vulgar use that they had never been spoken or written by any Men if the Holy Ghost had not Endited them and communicated them to us in the Scripture And the Apostle tells us that these things are delivered not
in Words which Mans Wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth 4. If the common use of Speech be so sure a Rule of Interpretation as this Author makes it I wonder what was in his Mind to say of the Penmen of Scripture That if they were now living amongst us they could not be the sufficient Interpreters of their own Writings because they often wrote they knew not what Certainly the customary use of Speech which obtained in the times wherein they wrote must needs be much better known to them than it can be to any now living Why then might not they interpret their own Writings if they were now with us having the best insight into that which this Author cries up for the onely sure Rule of Interpretation 5. If the customary use of Speech must be the Rule of Interpretation the inconvenience urged by the Exercitator cap. 11. par 6. will not easily if at all be avoided viz. the interpreting of Scripture according to the erroneous apprehension of the Vulgar 6. If this be so certain a Rule as he will have it so as that he who uses it shall not fail to find out the true Sense of Scripture for so himself speaks how is it that the Sense of Scripture may not be found in all parts one as well as another for the use of Speech is the same in all And yet he acknowledges that in many things not necessary to Salvation let the Reader be never so diligent in his search he cannot find the meaning of Scripture and the reason hereof he says is to be fetcht not from the nature of the thing nor from the darkness of our minds but ex ipsa constitutione Scripturae from the very frame of Scripture it self Secondly But now whether this learned Author did not well consider what he wrote or had not well digested his own Notions or whether he designed to amuse his Reader with intricacies and ambiguities or whether he were aware of the inconvenience of his former Expressions and their liableness to exception or what other were the cause I shall not inquire But this is plain to any that attentively reads his Discourse that when he had once and again given the honour of being the onely sure Rule of Interpretation of Scripture to the common and customary use of Speech he afterwards falls to a singular use of Speech distinct from the vulgar arising from the different Character of the Writer the different occasion of Writing the different nature of the things about which he Treats and that under this singularity of the usus loquendi the custom of Speech we are to consider the Antecedents and the Consequents of a Text and the paralel places And elsewhere he says all the circumstances of the place under consideration are to be examined and this he calls Usus loquendi Scripturarius the Scripture use of Speaking And when he objects against himself that the customary manner of speaking is dubious and uncertain he answers it thus That though it be so yet God's manner of Speech in Scripture is fixed So that what was before called the common and vulgar use is now confined to God's use and the Scripture-use of Speaking which certainly does not receive Law from the custom and consent of Men but is wholly framed and ordered by the disposal of Divine Wisdom though in it he makes use of such words as receive their single signification from common use Besides this Author tells us elsewhere that Usus loquendi or custom of Speech includes in it the Analogy of Faith and all other things that are taken out of Scripture in order to the finding out of its true Sense Now if this be indeed the meaning of his Usus loquendi his opinion comes very near to that of the Reformed Churches if it be not the same with it But then what needed all this stir as if our Divines had not discovered their Minds plainly and distinctly but this Author must come and mend it whereas he hath rather darkned and obscured it by his intricate and inconsistent Discourse For whoever before him took Usus loquendi in such a sense as this And I much wonder that he who is so much for the custom of Speech should vary so widely from it in his Writing For I am sure this Phrase Usus loquendi according to that mode of Speech that hath hitherto obtained was never taken so comprehensively as to include the scope of the Text with the Antecedents and Consequents and all other circumstances and the Analogy of Faith and what ever lies in the Scripture that serves to the discovery of its true sense Except Men will assume a power to themselves of coining a new Sense of Words I cannot imagine what ground they can have to talk after the rate of this Author Our Divines speak much more properly and clearly in this business viz. That the Holy Spirit of God hath in Enditing the Scripture so attempered his Speech and so ordered and disposed the several Parts and Parcels of this Sacred Book that his Mind so far as it is necessary for us to know it may be discovered either from the obvious sense of the particular Sentences and Propositions of Scripture considered in that Order and dependence wherein they are placed or by a due comparison of one part of Scripture with another so as that the Reader may gather the Sense of Scripture from the Scripture it self This is that which our Divines mean when they say that the Scripture is its own Interpreter And when they say at any time that the Spirit of God is the Interpreter of Scripture either they speak of the Objective evidence that the Spirit gives of the Sense of Scripture and then they understand it of the Spirit as speaking in the Scripture which being the Voice of the Spirit is to us as I said our Supream Rule Or they speak of the Spirit as the efficient cause of that Subjective light â—hat is let into our Minds inabling us to understand the Scriptures And this belongs to another inquiry and doth not concern the Question about the Rule of Interpretation Now when our Writers say the Scripture is its own Interpreter they are to be understood Metonymically As when they say the Scripture is the Supream Judge of all Controversies of Faith they mean no more but that it is Judex Normaâ—is or the Supream Rule of Judgement according to which Controversies are to be ultimately decided so by proportion is it in the present Cafe And as when the Papists speak of the infallible dectding of Controversies whether they say the Pope is the infallible Judge or the Sentence given by the Pope is the infallible Rule of decision it comes all to one So when our Divines say sometimes that the Spirit speaking in the Scripture is the infallible Interpreter of Scripture and other while that the Scripture is the infallible Rule of
right means to understand is confess'd But the multitude of Expositions doth not at all prove the Scripture to be so obscure as to be disabled for being the supreme Rule to Interpret it self For whatsoever Notes or Commentaries are written upon the Bible by Learned Men they are either such as truly conduce to the supposed End the right understanding of the Scripture and consequently to the due practical improvement of what is so understood or they fail of this and do rather darken and cloud the Text. These of the latter sort do not deserve the Honour to be esteemed Interpretations of Scripture for they render the sense of it more inâ—…icate and perplex And truly it hath been no unusual thing for Men that write only to make ostentation of their Learning and draw the eyes of others upon them or to make trial of their Wits in their attempts upon the Scripture to vent some odd Notions that serve rather to amuse than edifie the Reader and leave him more in the dark than when he perused the Text alone without their Gloss as it hath fared with some voluminous Commentators upon Aquinas who under pretence of expounding their Author have run out into so many intricate and frivolous Questions that by that time they have done they have left the Authors Text less intelligible than it was before they medled with it Truly so it is with some that have undertaken to write upon the Holy Scriptures But I take such Mens Writings rather for Depravations than Expositions And the chief cause of this evil hath been what this Exercitator is not well aware of that they made too much use of their Philosophick Notions in their Endeavours to Interpret Scripture-Revelations On the other hand if Commentaries or Annotations on Scripture be such as do contribute any help towards the unfolding of the true sense this hath been chiefly by collecting and comparing the several parts of Scripture together and considering the circumstances of each Text expounded and so fetching the sense of Scripture from the Scripture it self which is the only sure and warrantable way of Interpretation CHAP. IX 1. The third and last Branch of my first Argument the Scriptures Authentickness 2. The Exercitators Exception removed 3. Wolzogen's Exception denying God to be the Interpreter of Scripture answered HAving vindicated the second Branch of my first Argument viz. The Scriptures Perspicuity from the many Exceptions made against it I proceed to the third and last viz. That the Scripture is the only Authentick Record of the Mind and Will of God For it is the certain and undoubted Voice of God himself and what that speaks He speaks And who so fit to Interpret the meaning of his Words as himself Ejus est Interprâ—tari cujus est condere is an approved Rule in the Civil Law He that made the Law is fittest to Interpret it And in the present case the Reason is evident God best knows his own Mind and he hath no where so plainly and fully revealed his Mind as in Scripture Certainly there can be none so sure and infallible Interpreter of these sacred Records as the Holy Spirit that endited them and he Interprets them not by suggesting to us any thing for their understanding which is not there already but by speaking to us more clearly from some part of Scripture what is deliver'd more darkly in others Can any Man or sort of Men in the World pretend to know the Mind of God better than himself or give us better assurance what his Mind is than the Word which himself hath appointed to be written for this very purpose Whatsoever sense may be put upon any Scripture-Assertion and by whomsoever framed it cannot challenge our undoubted reception unless we can discern the Voice of God in it And that is no where to be heard with evidence and assurance especially in matters of Supernatural Revelation which is that we chiefly deal with in this Controversie but from the Scripture it self But here the Exercitator comes in with his Reply For acknowledging that without controversie God is an Infallible Interpreter and that the Scripture is the Voice of God he nevertheless denies that therefore it will follow that the Scripture can be its own Interpreter or the Rule of Interpretation to it self because says he the same Author may write several Treatises and yet it follows not that the one should Interpret the other To this I answer The comparison is very unequal Men write of different Subjects many times and for very different Ends and may withal so far forget themselves or be so unconstant to themselves as to cross in one Discourse what they have written in another But God the Author of Scripture hath designed that whole Volume to one and the same Use and End to be a Declaration of his Mind to Men that they may thereby be directed in their greatest affairs and have a sure Guide to Happiness It is therefore every way most consistent with his Wisdom and Goodness so to order the enditing of Scripture in matters of so great excellency and necessity that his Mind may be known from the Scriptures themselves either by the plainness of the particular Sentences or by the dependence on and connexion with the Antecedents and Consequents or Collation with the more remote parts thereof But there is another Author who pretending to maintain the Protestant Cause against the Exercitator deals less candidly with us than that profess'd Adversary For in stead of answering the aforesaid Exception he says again and again That God is not nor can properly be said to be the Interpreter of Scripture or the Expositor of his own Mind therein And he gives us this strange reason for it Because to this it 's necessary that by an Oracle that is I suppose either by audible Voice or secret instinct he should according to the Enthusiasts fancy expresly pronounce to us that this or that is the sense of such or such a Scripture Unless he do this he cannot be allow'd by this Dictator to be the Interpreter of the Scriptures To this I reply Do we not all acknowledge that the Scripture is the Word of God and that God speaks to us in it and that what that says God says And is it not the usual Language of the Holy Ghost in the Bible that the Scripture saith thus and thus which sure can be no otherwise taken for truth or sense but as the Scripture is the Voice of God to us And Wolzogen himself says several times that in the Scripture God speaks to us after the manner of men And seeing sometimes the Text is so plain that it speaks clearly its own mind and sometimes what is spoken in one part of Scripture is explained by what is spoken in another both which himself acknowledgeth why may it not with as much propriety be said that God is the Interpreter of his own Mind in Scripture though he use no
of Scripture may have correspondency with another and this so far as that the one may expound the other But now the case is alter'd If it be replied in his behalf That these places by him quoted were penned by one and the same Writer and therefore might well have correspondency each with other but this makes nothing for those who interpret one part of Scripture by some other that was not written by the same Hand I rejoin That the first and second Book of Kings were endited by the same Spirit I grant and shall make some use of it in my third Answer to this Authors Objection But that they were both written by the same Hand or suppose they were that the Writer intended by the latter to explain what he had written in the former is more than he or any other for him can prove 3. The Scriptures though written by parts and at several times and by several persons yet they all own God for their Author by whose Spirit they were endited and they are all together to be taken for his Counsel to Sinners And then what injury or incongruity is there in making use of what one hath written more plainly to unfold what was more darkly written by another When we compare the Evangelists together to explain what one says more briefly by what another lays down more fully we do not in this so much inquire into the sense and meaning of the Evangelists as into the Mind of God whose Secretaries they were The like may be said of the Prophets If the Prophets or Apostles spake of their own heads or wrote only a signification of their own private Sentiments there might be some colour for this Objection But the Apostle tells us That no Prophesie of Scripture is of private Interpretation that is the Prophets in their Writings were not the Interpreters of their own Mind but of the Mind of God by whom they were sent and by whose Spirit they were acted as it follows in the next Verse For Prophesie came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost And thus much the Exercitator acknowledgeth where he saith That God is the Author of the Scriptures and that he did always guide his Amanuenses to write the Truth giving them the assistance of his unerring Spirit and that whatsoever they wroteâ—… pure Truth free from all mixture of Fâ—â—shood or Errour But there is another Discourse prefixed to a latter Edition of the so oft-mentioned Exercitation and thought by many to come from the same Author the Writer whereof sticks not to assert this audacious Falshood That the Prophets in their Narkatives and in all matters of Speculation that is whatsoever was not matter of moral Duty did disagree among themselves and â—onsequently that what is said by one is not to be explained by the words of another Which with other passages of like import does at once call in question the whole Truth and consequently the Divine Authority of the Scriptures For if the Pâ—â—men of Scripture elash one against another in their Writings either God was not the Author of whâ—â— they wrote but themselves or the God of Truth must be charged with Falshood for of two diâ—…ent Opinions both cannot be true Whose design it is that the Author of that Theologico-Political Tractat drives except that of the great Enemy of Mankind I know not But he sufficiently manifests a vile esteem of the Holy Scriptures and a desire to beget the like in others For he takes very earnest pains with the utmost of his art and skill to â—â—ke up and exagitate their seeming disagreements as real contradictions casting a great deal of scorn upon all Expositors as Fools or Madmen that attempt to reconcile them His discourse in this and sundry other odious passages which I abâ—or to mention doth apparently tend to promote the cause of the Antiscripturists besides the help 〈◊〉 affords which is not a little to the Romish Interest The Author indeed would seem by some Expressions here and there to intimate his dislike of the Ponâ—ifician Party But we know it is consistent enough with the Politick Principles of Men of that way to speak much more than he hath done against that very Cause that they are studiously projecting under that Covert to advance But I return from this Digression to what I was about If any thing in the Laws of a Kingdom be difficult and perplex and there be something in some other Law of the same Kingdom though written or printed by other hands that speaks more clearly of that matter what wrong is it to the Law or the Law-maker or Printer if a Learned Council comparing one with another expound that which is more dark in one part of the Laws by that which is more perspicuous in another both proceeding from the same Authority and both obliging to the same persons Judge alike in the present case This Objection therefore is of no force But it is further urged That there are some difficult places of Scripture that are no where explained in any other part and some things that being but once spoken in Scripture cannot be explained by any parallel place And here our â—â—ercitator refers us for instances to his great Friend Stapleton For answer 1. Whereas it is said there are difficulties in some parts of Scripture that are no where cleared how does any Man know this Doth it follow that there is no such thing because we cannot find it Do we think our selves of so piercing or capacious understandings that nothing in the Scripture that is intelligible can escape our discovery Those who have acquainted themselves with Antient and Modern Expositors do know that many difficulties which former Interpreters have in vain struggled with and some that they have wholly left untoucht either as not apprehending them to be difficulties or conceiving them insuperable have been made very clear and plain by some later Writers Verily God will have us know that the opening of his Mind doth not depend only or chiefly upon the pregnancy of Mans Wit but upon his gracious assistance and blessing which he affords or withholds when and where himself sees fit Again the Scriptures were penn'd not only for the past and present but for all succeeding Ages of the Church to the end of the World And as some parts of them which peculiarly concern'd some Ages past were perhaps better understood in those Ages than they can be by us now as certainly many things were that belong'd to the Jewish Oeconomy so I know not but we may rationally suppose that some other parts of Scripture which to us seem unintelligible may have special reference to the Church in after-Ages and that those whom they so nearly concern shall have more light afforded for the understanding of them in their days than we have in ours As without doubt some Prophetick Scriptures not