Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A56691
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Search the Scriptures a treatise shewing that all Christians ought to read the Holy Books : with directions to them therein : in three parts.
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Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.
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1685
(1685)
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Wing P835; ESTC R23033
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72,298
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205
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obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil of the Jew first and also of the Gentile But glory honour and peace to every man that worketh good to the Jew first and also to the Gentile For there is no respect of persons with God II. Rom. 6 7 c. If these words be not intelligible there can be no such thing as plain speaking in the World And it is as plainly and intelligibly written that God hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in righteousness XVII Acts 31. when he will make good all his Promises and Threatnings and that our Lord Christ is that great Person by whom He will judge it All our labour all our Art can never make a Proposition to be understood if all these things which I have mentioned which are the substance of Religion be not obvious and clear to all who will take the pains to read the Holy Scriptures and consider them And therefore they do a great injury to the Grace of God and to the Care and Love of our Lord Jesus Christ the Head of the Church who endeavour to perswade us the Holy Scriptures are so obscure that it is not fit the people should look into them for fear of mistaking and running themselves into dangerous Errours and Heresies They may do so though they do not read the Scriptures by following their own vain imaginations and by dreaming upon that which they hear out of the Scriptures or which starts up in their own fancy but if they look into the Scriptures to know how to be saved and have no other end nor neglect humbly to implore the Divine guidance they cannot mistake but may be easily and fully satisfied For God hath told usall that Jesus is the Saviour and that he is the Author of Eternal Salvation to them that obey Him and his Commandments wherein we are to obey Him as they are not grievous so they are obvious and may be met withall every where if we have a mind to learn them and he hath set Pastors and Teachers in his Church for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man c. IV. Ephes 11 12 13. So that no man having such directors can miss the way that leads to Eternal life unless both he and they will wilfully shut their eyes and on purpose turn aside from the path which the Holy Scripture shows unto them And if the words of the Spirit of God which are as bright as a Lamp to give light unto our feet may be mistaken or abused then no man no company of men no Interpreter no Council can draw up any words but they may be perverted by those who have no mind to be directed by them but are concerned to put another sense than they intended upon them And indeed it is no slight Argument that the Holy Scriptures are easie to be understood in all things necessary for our Instruction because God would have all even the meanest capacity to read them as I have proved in the foregoing Part of this work beyond any reasonable contradiction It would have been in vain to require men to search the Scriptures as not only God but his Church in ancient times did if they could not readily there meet with satisfaction The Doctors of the Church of Rome I know argue the quite contrary way therefore you should not read them because they are obscure But which will you chuse to believe God who bids you read them from whence you may conclude they are not obscure or men who bid you not read them because they are obscure You may most safely conclude they are not obscure because God bids you read them for this is a right Conclusion from Divine Premisses whereas the other Conclusion that you should not read them is drawn from a false Supposition directly contradictory to what follows from the Command of God to be conversant in them which is that they are not so obscure but in things necessary we may easily understand them Otherwise our Blessed Lord the Wisdom of the Father would not have bidden men search them nor would his Apostles have ceased to imploy their pains till they had made such things plainer if they had not thought they had set them down so plainly in their Writings that no man who would read could be ignorant of them That 's another thing worthy observation That the very End for which the Gospel was written by the Apostles reproves this Pretence of obscurity St. John tells us it was that we might believe XX. Joh. ult These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing ye might have life through his Name By whose Authority did St. John write or by whose assistance did he perform this work Was it not by our Saviour's and by the guidance of the Holy Ghost And to what purpose was he inspired but to work Faith in those mens Souls who read his Writings And what Faith was this only the belief of some few things which are clear enough but not sufficient to make us wise unto Salvation No such matter He wrote that we might have so much Faith as should give us Eternal life through Christ Jesus Now who can believe that he who wrote by that Spirit which perfectly knew the several Tempers and Capacities of every Age and with an intention to breed saving Faith in their Souls should yet write so obscurely that he could not be understood of them for whose good and benefit he wrote Nothing but interest that is nothing but that very wicked Temper which blinded the Jews and made them deny our Saviour and crucifie him can induce a man to be of this opinion It will be replyed I know by some that however here is a confession that some things are hard to be understood and therefore it is best to keep the Scriptures from the people because they may do themselves hurt by those things Unto which I have answered already that if they seek for Nothing but Salvation and how to please God in order thereunto they will not do themselves hurt by any thing they meet withal in the Holy Writings But for further satisfaction I shall proceed to give a brief account of the second thing I propounded to be considered which is II. THAT the Apostle doth not say some things cannot be understood but that they are hard to be understood There is some labour required to the understanding them which if we will take we may comprehend their meaning It would be a long Work to examine what things in St. Paul's Epistles the Apostle St. Peter may be thought to point at as difficult to be understood But the inquiry might be very much shortned by one
more plainly than to be humble and modest and that as we ought to fear God so likewise to honour the King and his Ministers and to obey those that watch over our Souls nay to esteem them very highly in love for their work sake Which will dispose us most certainly if we be not carried away with pride or any other vicious affection to be ruled by them in dubious things and as it there follows in the Apostle 1 Thess V. 13. to be at peace among our selves I must beseech therefore every Member of this Church both for the honour of our Religion and for the safety of their own Souls to be as careful in this matter as I would have them to be in reading the Holy Scriptures Take your Guides along with you do not think your selves safe without their conduct be not only willing but desirous to learn of them reverence their Instructions do not easily dissent from them be afraid to oppose them especially when you have reason to think them to be serious studious knowing and conscientious men who take care to inform themselves aright that they may not misinform you For such men look upon themselves to be bound as hath been shown in the Treatise of Tradition pag. 24. to guide themselves in their Direction of others by what the Catholick Fathers and ancient Bishops have taught out of the Doctrine of the Old and New Testament and thereby preserve their Flocks in the Truth of God's holy Word And having a great regard also to the sense of that Church wherein they live which by their Subscriptions they owne to have Authority in Controversies of Faith they will no less preserve them in Unity and in Peace To conclude it is impossible but every body must reap great fruit by the reading of the Scriptures if they read them for no other end but that they may go away better from the reading of them than they came to it and that they may not accommodate them to their own affections but correct all their affections and desires and the whole course of their life by this exact Rule of Righteousness According to which if we square our selves we shall presently learn in difficult things to be wise unto sobriety and in plain things to be wise unto Salvation that is so wise as to do what we certainly know to be our Duty which is the only Wisdom that the Scriptures magnifie Which will be the surest way both to know more and to know it better that is to feel the comfort of what we know in a blessed and assured hope of everlasting life which God who cannot lye hath promised to us in Christ Jesus our Lord. The End of the First Part. PART II. HAving shewn in the foregoing Discourse that those words of St Peter 2. III. 16. which are wont to be alledged against the reading of Holy Scriptures do plainly suppose that the people did then read them I proceed now in the next place to shew that the Apostle doth not deter men from reading them by representing the difficulties that are in them and the danger of wresting them For he doth not affirm that all things are hard to be understood and consequently liable to be wrested but only that some things are of that nature In treating of which three things offer themselves to be considered I. First that most things in the Holy Scriptures are so far from being hard to be understood that they are easy Nay all things absolutely necessary for us are very easy II. Secondly That those things which are not so easy may be understood though there be some difficulty in it That is they will require some pains to understand them which should not deter us from reading but only make us laborious to find out the sense of what we read III. Thirdly When we do thoroughly understand and heartily believe the things that are easie it will abate much of that difficulty and make other things more easie I. I begin with the first of these the Apostle only saith some things are hard to be understood which supposes that most are not but rather easie as all those things especially are which are absolutely necessary to be known and believed and done for the obtaining Salvation That which makes things easie to be understood is the plain and perspicuous delivery of them in the words wherein they are written or spoken Now nothing an be plainer or clearer than the words wherein all the great Christian Truths are revealed and delivered to us which are so far from being obscure that it is not easier to see the light than it is to apprehend and understand the true meaning of them I will instance in some particulars and have an Eye all the way upon St. Paul's Epistles to which S. Peter is commonly thought to have respect wherein though some things be difficult yet these are most clearly discovered First That there is but one God the Father of whom are all things as he expresly writes 1 Cor. VIII 6. Secondly That He alone is to be worshipped as our Blessed Saviour remembers us out of Moses IV. Matt. 10. was the great thing pressed in his very entrance into any place where he preach'd 1 Thess l. 9 10. XVII Acts 23 24. Thirdly As our Lord teaches us that we are ingaged by our Baptism to worship one God in three Persons XXVIII Matth. 19. So S. Paul affirms the same plainly enough in that Solemn Prayer for the Corinthians 2. XIII ult The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the Communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all Especially if it be compared with those places wherein he affirms our Saviour to be over all God blessed for ever IX Rom. 5. and the Spirit to search even the deep things of God that is to know his Mind exactly for so it follows 1 Cor. II. 10 11. that as none can know the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God Which plainly tells us if we mind it that the Spirit of God is in God as the spirit of man is in man that is the Spirit is God himself and therefore fully acquainted with him in all things There is some little labour indeed in making this deduction but it is very easie if we consider all these places together Fourthly And the Nature of God none can possibly be ignorant of who doth but look into the Holy Books Where he will immediately see Him represented to be Almighty most Wise most Gracious Faithful to his Word and the living God who endures for ever Which are Truths written there in such great Letters that every one who runs as the Prophet speaks and doth but cast a transient eye upon them may easily read them Fifthly Particularly his infinite love and kindness towards us the children of men lies before us so fairly and shines so brightly in our