King should be furnished with a Copy of the Law and keep it by him that he might read therein all the days of his life and learn to fear the Lord his God and to keep all the words of this Law and these Statutes to do them XVII Deut. 18 19. Nay the more to imprint the words of this Book upon his mind the Law enjoyns this as a duty belonging to the King himself saying He shall write him a Copy of this Law in a Book out of that which is before the Priests the Levites Which though some are pleased to think a Priviledge indulged only to the King the Jews who are willing enough to excuse themselves from such laborious things constantly affirm that every private man was bound to do the same and that though the King had done it before as others were obliged to do yet being exalted to the Throne he was bound to do it over again out of the most authentick Records that it might be the more imprinted on his mind and work in him a greater reverence thereof This Maimonides grounds upon those words XXXI Deut. 19. which concern them all Now therefore write ye this Song for you as if he had said Write the Law for your selves of which this Song is a part for they were not wont to write the Law by parcels Wherein perhaps they go too far but there is little doubt to be made that pious Kings took care the people should be acquainted with the Law as well as themselves imitating that pious Prince Josiah who after a long forgetfulness of the Holy Scriptures having a Copy of the Law brought to him which was found in the Temple not only caused it to be read in the ears of the people but as the Jews with great reason affirm commanded the Priests and Scribes to write Copies of it and deliver them to the people For how should they be able to perform the words of the Covenantwritten in that Book unto which Josiah ingaged them 2 Kings XXIII 2 3. unless they knew them And how should they know them more than they had done formerly if they did only once barely hear them Which might give them some present sense of their duty but could not be remembred unless they had the words they were to perform constantly before their eyes There might much more be added on this subject but this is sufficient to introduce what follows II. THAT what was thus enjoyned by Moses and practised by the people of the Jews our Saviour confirmed by his Command or at least by his approbation saying V. John 39. Search the Scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternal life and they are they which testifie of me Some indeed translate the words thus Ye search the Scriptures for in them c. and so they are a plain acknowledgement of what was then in use nay an approbation if not commendation of their diligence in turning over the holy Books wherein they hoped to find so great a Treasure as Eternal life But if they be rendred as we and as many of the Romanists themselves translate them Search the Scriptures then they are a Command wherein our Blessed Saviour requires what Moses had formerly done and charges them not to neglect this duty of making a diligent inquiry into the meaning of the holy Writings for there they would find plain testimonies concerning the Messiah and be satisfied that he was the Christ whom they expected And I cannot see how this Precept may be safely disobeyed But as our Lord in the Parable of the Rich man and Lazarus XVI Luke 29. brings in Abraham sending the Rich mans Brethren unto Moses and the Prophets i. e. to their Writings for they themselves were dead and gone for their instruction from whom they might learn enough to keep them from coming into that place of Torment So we in like manner ought to tell men if they will know how to be saved they must repair to Christ and his Apostles and out of the Gospel and Apostolical Instructions learn the way to Heaven and how to escape Eternal damnation For there can be no good reason alledged why the Jews should be permitted nay commanded to read Moses and the Prophets and we not be allowed but forbidden to read the words of Christ and his Apostles For we are as much concerned or rather more in these as they were in them and they are not harder to be understood by us than the old Scriptures were by them we have the same means the same helps that they had if not far better to prosit by them and to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ And therefore it is no fault in our Preachers now but an honest discharge of their duty to say to their people as Origen doth to his in his second Homily upon Isaiah Would to God we did all practise that which is written Search the Scriptures And as St. Basil in his Second Book of Baptism Cap. 4. Let us obey our Lord who saith Search the Scriptures and let us imitate the Apostles who inquired of the Lord himself the interpretation of his own words learning the truth and wholesomness of what He saith in one place by what He speaks in another So far were these great and Holy men from discountenancing the reading of the Holy Scriptures that they most earnestly press every body to it as I shall show more fully before I have done III. LET us now further consider that the Apostles of our Lord were concerned that what they wrote concerning the Christian Doctrine should be read not only by the Elders of the Church to whom their Writings were directed but be communicated to all the Members thereof who were under their Instruction This appears from St. Paul's most solemn Charge in his first Epistle to the Thessalonians that it should be read to all the holy Brethren 1. v. 27. Who should read it to them but the Bishops and Pastors of the Church Who no doubt first received it but were not to keep it to themselves but impart it to the whole Community And if they read it to the whole Society we cannot think they refused to give Copies of it to them if any desired it that they might read it themselves Or rather they took care to disperse this Letter of their own accord among their Flock as they did also send it to other Churches whereby by it became common to the whole Christian World And it was a matter of such great importance that all the people should be acquainted with his sense that his Charge is in the form of an Adjuration That if they neglected him the Command should be obeyed for the Adjuration sake For Adjurations were dreadful to the ancient Christians though now alas wo be to us they are little regarded They are words of Theophylact. And to the same effect Theodoret glosses He adds an Adjuration contriving that all might have the
with there unto this end and not think we know it well till we see how we may be made better thereby I cannot express this in fewer or more proper words than Erasmus hath done long ago in more places of his Works than one particularly in his Dedication of his Paraphrase on St. Matthew to the Emperour Charles the V. Since the Evangelists wrote the Gospel to every body I do not see why every body should not read it And I have so handled it that the most illiterate may understand it Now it will be read with the greatest profit if when any man takes it in his hand it be with this mind ut seipso reddatur melior c. that he may be rendred better than himself and do not accommodate the Gospel to his own affections but correct his own life and all his desires by the Rule of the Gospel I conclude this with that Saying of Seneca In the same plat of ground the Ox seeks for grass the Hound seeks for a Hare and the Stork for a Snake and just so it is with those that read the same Scripture wherein one seeks himself and another seeks the World one studies that is to please himself with the History of ancient Times another to furnish himself with the knowledge that belongs to his Profession but he alone reads it as he ought who therein seeks for God and desires to be filled with the knowledge of his Will that he may walk before him in all well-pleasing being fruitful in every good work I. Coloss 9 10. IV. And whosoever he is that designs this great End and comes to learn to be good with an honest mind and heart let him be careful to observe one Rule more which is To study and well digest the first Elements of Christ's Religion For as he will never read nor write exactly that doth not learn to spell truly and he must understand syllables before he understands words and sentences so he will never find the saving Power of the Gospel thoroughly working on his Spirit that keeps not the first Truths always in his mind and deeply rooted in his Heart The prime Principle of our Faith is That Jesus is the Son of God that He speaks from Heaven to us the unerring Will of our Creator The Gospel will not have any efficacy upon us unless we carry this along in our thoughts when we apply our selves to study it that this is the Voice of God this is the Mind and Will of Him that made us how shall we escape if we turn away from Him that speaks from Heaven to us This if we carry in mind while we read the Scriptures they will over-awe us and make us have Grace to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear We shall not dare to read them as we do some humane History wherein we are not all concerned but with attention with seriousness and with diligence tracing the Lord Jesus as pious Disciples of his in every step observing what he said and what he did And thus seeking and searching and hunting after Him every where as Erasmus his words are in his Preface to his Annotations on the N. T. we shall find in that most simple and rude Scripture the ineffable Counsel of celestial Wisdom we shall see in that foolishness of God if we may so speak which at first sight appears mean and contemptible that which far excels all humane prudence though never so sublime and admirable And the next Principle is like to it viz. That the Lord Jesus will come to judge the World in righteousness according to his Gospel This if we thought of that we shall be judged and have Sentence passed upon us by this Rule we could not but lay it to heart and square our life by it Therefore let these first Principles of Faith be strongly sixed in our mind and always be in our thoughts and let us think we have as much use of them as he that reads hath of his Letters which are the first Elements of Learning Then for the Principles of Practice this is the prime the chief the most fundamental in the whole Gospel He that will be my Disciple must deny himself forsake all and take up his Cross and follow me This our Saviour tells his Disciples again and again upon several occasions X. Matth. 38. XVI 24. IX Luke 23. XIV 27 33. In the last of which places he lets them know that it is as foolish to think of being a Christian without learning this Lesson as it is for a man to begin the building of a Tower before he hath computed the Charge or for a Prince to undertake a War without considering both his own force and the strength of his Opposer The sense of which two Parables our Lord summs up in these words So likewise whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath he cannot be my Disciple In which few words we have this account made to our hands as a great Doctor of ours speaks that e're we can hope to be built up in the Faith of Christ or safely ingage in the War against the Devil the World and the Flesh we must make over our interest in all that is dear unto us here and resign it up to our Lord Christ holding nothing so precious as his Love and his Salvation That is the meaning of this Lesson We must not prize any thing so much as the Mercy Grace and Favour of God in Christ Jesus All the contentments of this life and life it self must not weigh so much with us as God's good esteem of us his affection to us the Honour Glory and Immortality that Christ hath promised us When we have once learnt this and have it by heart there will be no difficulty in learning all the rest The immediate result of it will be an unfeigned feigned assent to the truth and goodness of all that Christ the Prince of Life hath revealed unto us and an uniform obedience to his Holy Will in all things For then there will be Nothing left to oppose him Nothing to gainsay him no interest no head-strong affection and desire to resist the impulsions of Divine Truth whose natural property is to incline and sway the Soul to all kinds and to every part of true goodness It is our duty then to ruminate upon these things over and over again to repeat these Lessons continually to our selves till they become familiar to us and have seated themselves in our hearts not thinking we know them till we feel them nor imagining we feel them to purpose till we be transformed into them That is an excellent Saying of the Hebrews He that learns the Law and doth not repeat it is like to him that sows his seed and never reaps nor binds it into sheaves that he may carry it home into his Barn And this He that repeats his Lesson an hundred times is not so wise as he that repeats it an hundred
times and one Let us ever be telling our selves that it is God who speaks unto us by his Son in these Holy Books that this is the Rule of Life whereby we must be judged that we must stand or fall before God according as we keep these Sayings that Nothing is comparable to being beloved of God Nothing so desirable as to have our Faith found to honour and praise and glory at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ And then we shall deny our selves and our own desires commodities and interests that God's Will may be done by us the whole World will seem inconsiderable in our eyes and we shall easily forgo any thing that He will not allow us to keep according to the fundamental Rule of our Religion He that forsaketh not all that he hath cannot be my Disciple And he that taketh not his Cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me I conclude this Part of my Discourse with the words of one of the Homilies of our Church in the second Part of the Exhortation to the reading and knowledge of the Holy Scriptures As concerning the hardness of Scripture he that is so weak that he is not able to brook strong meat yet he may suck the sweet and tender milk and defer the rest till he wax stronger and come to more knowledge For God receiveth the learned and unlearned and casteth away none but is indifferent unto all And the Scripture is full as well of low valleys plain ways and easie for every man to use and to walk in as also of high hills and mountains which few men can climb unto And whosoever giveth his mind to Holy Scriptures with delight study and burning desire it cannot be saith St. Chrysostom that he should be left without help He that asketh shall have and he that seeketh shall find and he that knocketh shall have the door open If we read once twice or thrice and understand not let us not cease so but still continue reading praying asking of others and so by still knocking at the last the door shall be opened as St. Augustine saith Although many things in the Scripture be spoken in obscure Mysterics yet there is nothing spoken under dark Mysteries in one place but the self same thing in other places is spoken more familiarly and plainly to the capacity both of learned and unlearned And those things in the Scripture that be plain to understand and necessary for Salvation every mans duty is to learn them to print them in memory and effectually to exercise them And as for the dark Mysteries to be contented to be ignorant in them until such time as it shall please God to open them unto him but not lay aside the reading of the whole because of the darkness of such places And briefly to conclude as St. Augustine saith by the Scripture all men may be amended the weak be strengthened and the strong be comforted So that surely none be Enemtes to the reading of God's Word but such as either be so ignorant that they know not how wholesom a thing it is or else so sick that they hate the most comfortable Medicine that should heal them or so ungodly that they would wish the people still to continue in blindness and ignorance of God The End of the Second Part. PART III. I AM arrived now at the last of those Three things I propounded to be treated of in the beginning of this Book That all who read the Scriptures are not in danger to wrest them to their own hurt but only the unlearned and the unstable Such men will wrest them from their true meaning but so they will other Discourses as well as the Scriptures and the most clear and perspicuous things are liable to be perverted by them as well as the dissicult In this we shall soon be satisfied if we consider briedy whom the Apostle St. Peter means by Vnlearned and Vnstable which will also clearly direct us what course we are to take that we may not wrest the Scriptures as such men do Now there is no great difficulty to know who these are if we mind the proper use of words and the place where they are used I. VNLEARNED AND for the first of these the Vnlearned the Apostle cannot be thought to have respect to such as are ignorant in those parts of Knowledge which are now commonly called Learning for so the Apostles themselves were generally ignorant and unlearned IV. Acts 13. but to those who are ignorant of such things as the Holy Scriptures treat of and ought to be learnt by all Christians This I think all will allow and then they are more particularly meant who are not skilled in the first Principles of Religion Men that know not or mind not those common Natural Truths upon which all Religion is built nor are acquainted with those plain unquestionable Principles of Christianity before mentioned in the Second Part of this Discourse These I take to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here spoken of who have not learnt so much as the first Elements or as the Apostle speaks VI. Heb. 1. the word of the beginning of Christ who wanting the foundation of true Knowledge will be apt to wrest every thing they read from its proper meaning Such there were even in the School of Christ as St. Paul himself teaches us who were ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth 2 Tim. III. 7. They frequented that is the Christian Assemblies where they received good Instructions but their nanghty affections would not suffer the known Doctrines of Christianity to find entertainment in their minds Which Doctrines are such as these That there is one God who is perfectly just and perfectly good and knows the very thoughts of the heart and changes not And that He hath sent Jesus Christ his only begotten Son the Eternal Word who was before all Worlds to take our Nature upon him to dye for our sins to rise again that he may be the Judge of all And that He hath sent the Holy Ghost from the Father to teach us those Rules of Faith and Holy life whereby we shall be judged at the last Day when he will raise up our dead bodies and give to those who have done good everlasting Life but send those who have done evil into everlasting Fire These and such like which depend on these and are coherent with them are the Christian Learning which they that did not know and believe and accordingly practise as I shewed in the foregoing Discourse must needs be very great strangers to the Holy Books and be so far from reaping any profit by them that they would rather corrupt and abuse them to the support of their own uncertain vain or absurd imaginations Nor were they secure from this danger when they had learnt them unless they were likewise so fixed in their minds that they were constantly guided by them For the Apostle here teaches us that
for this holy imployment of reading the Holy Scriptures S. Chrysostome for instance in a number of places maintains these three Propositions with an extraordinary zeal and passionate concern to have them believed and practised First That all men of whatsoever rank and condition they be ought to read the Bible not only at Church but at home Secondly That it is more necessary for a mere Lay-man as we speak to read it than it is for a Monk or those that are wholly sequestred from the World Thirdly That neither the obscurity of the Scriptures nor indeed any thing else ought to be thought a sufficient reason why men should not read them I. For the first of these That all men of whatsoever rank and condition they be should read the Scriptures his words are very remarkable upon that place of St. Paul III. Coloss 16. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another c. where he cries out with great vehemence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Hearken to this as many of you as are men of the world and have wives and children under your care how he commands even you especially to read the Scriptures and that net simply nor by the bye but with a great deal of diligence Which he presses by comparing the heavenly Treasure here contained with all other riches and then returns to his Exhortation again saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Hearken I beseech you all ye that are Secular men provide your selves with Bibles the Medicines of your Souls If not with the whole yet at least the New Testament the Apostles the Acts the Gospels your perpetual Instructors If any sadness befal thee look into these as into a Repository or Shop of spiritual Remedies Hence fetch consolation in all doleful cases whether it be any damage in thy goods or it be death or the loss of servants Or rather do not look into them but take them all to thy self carry them about with thee in thy mind This is the cause of all evils not to know the Scriptures We go to War without our Armour without Weapons how can we be safe It is easie to overcome with these but not without them Do not throw all upon our shoulders Ye are Sheep but not irrational ones but reasonable and many things the Apostle lays upon you Who ought to learn of us and then your wives and your children ought to learn of you But you would leave all to us which gives us no small trouble To the same purpose he discourses in other places of his works and maintains it by such arguments as these First that every man hath need of such instruments as belong to his art A Black-smith saith he in his third Sermon upon Lazarus or Gold-smith cannot work without their Anvil their Hammer and their Tongs and such like Tools which they will by no means part withall though they suffer hunger and thirst because then they give up their trade and all means of their subsistence is gone and even just so ought we to be disposed who can no more go to work without the Apostolical and Prophetical Writings and other divinely inspired Scriptures than they without those Tools For as by those Instruments they form and fashion all the Vessels they take in hand So we by these hammer as I may say our own Souls amending and reforming all that is amiss renewing what is decayed nay making our selves quite other Men. For here is the difference between us and them They shew their art only in the outward figure of a thing for they cannot alter the matter of it by turning Silver for instance into Gold but we by these Divine Instruments may do a great deal more turn an Earthen Vessel into a Golden a Vessel unto Honour as the Apostle speaks sanctified and meet for the Masters use and prepared unto every good Work Let us not neglect therefore the getting of Bibles Nor let us dig for Gold but rather treasure up these Spiritual Books For the more Gold we have the more hurt it may do us But Bibles if we get they will do those that have them a great deal of good Secondly He presses this by this further consideration that as St Paul would have us let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly and abundantly so St Peter requires us to be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us 1. Pet. III. 15. Now what say our idle People more lazy than Drones to this They comfort themselves with those words in the Proverbs Blessed is the simple Soul For this is the cause of all our evils that many do not understand how to produce the Testimonies of the Scriptures to the purpose For the Wise Man by the Simple doth not there mean an ignorant man that understand nothing but a harmless man that works no evil but hath skill only to do goad Thus he discourses in his XVII Homily upon St John's Gospel Where he shews it is an unpardonable neglect not to be able out of the Holy Scriptures to repel the assaults of Gentile Philosophers For it is a most absurd thing that every Physician should be able to give an exact account of his art nay a Currier or Weaver or any other Artist can do the same only he that is caled a Christian cannot give an account of his own Faith Thirdly As every man is bound to give a reason of his Faith so he is bound to take care of his Souls proficiency in Vertue and Goodness Which he cannot do unless he be conversant in the Holy Writings For what sensible Food is to the increase of bodily strength that the reading of the Scriptures is to the Soul It is a Spiritual Nourishment and renders the Soul stronger more constant and more philosophical not suffering it to be carried away with absurd imaginations but making it pure and lightsome gives it wings to carry it up to Heaven Much more to the same purpose he speaks in his XXIX Homily upon Genesis and begins the XXXV in this manner Great is the good my Beloved of skill in the Divine Writings For this makes a Philosophical Soul that is instructs it in all manner of Vertue this forms a man to be acceptable this makes him mind none of these things present but to have his mind alwayes in the other Life that looking at the recompence our Lord will give us we may do all that He would have us and undertake the labours of Vertue with great chearfulness For from thence we may exactly learn the Providence of God's speedy succour and help the Fortitude of the Righteous the Goodness of our Lord the Greatness of his Rewards From thence we may be excited to a zealous imitation of the Christian Vertue of brave men that we may not flag in the Combates of Vertue but be confident and assured in the Divine
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
and easie to such as faithfully practise their most plain and easie Precepts but hard and difficult to be understood aright of such as wilfully transgress them There is nothing more perspicuously set down in Holy Scripture than this as would be easie to show if it would not inlarge this Book too much from such words as those of St. Peter God resisteth the proud but giveth grace to the humble And therefore should we admit of any Authority equivalent to the Holy Scriptures the question would still remain Whether the Insallibility of that Authority could take away that blindness of heart which by God's just Judgment falls upon all those who detain the Truth of God in Vnrighteousness If for their disobedience to evident and plain Truths God punish them with such spiritual darkness that they discern not his Will revealed in his written Word no other infallible Authority can inlighten them and make those scales fall from their eyes which hinder their sight in the means of their Salvation They will everlastingly go on in darkness because having Light presented to them they preferred darkness before it Those naughty affections which have kept the Light of the glorious Gospel of Christ from shining into them will close their eyes so fast that no other Light will open them But they must either receive and follow the plain directions of Holy Scripture and recover their sight by a sincere practice of known Duties or walk on still in darkness and remain in the shadow of death to the end of their days Unto which plain direction if men would unfeignedly submit if thereby they were not led to the understanding of harder Scriptures they would however have this benefit that they would be secured from misunderstanding them My meaning is that by understanding believing and keeping close to the practice as well as knowledge of the easie and evident Truths of the Gospel we should be preserved from putting any dangerous interpretation upon those places which are hard and difficult Ignorant of them we might continue or perhaps mistake their meaning but still innocently so as not to do hurt to our selves or others by them An illustrious Example of which we have in St. Austin's Book De Fide Operibus Where discoursing Chap. XV. upon that place of St. Paul 1 Cor. III. 12 13. which he takes to be one of those which St. Peter saith are hard to be understood in his Epistles he tells us that some understood the building gold silver precious stones upon this foundation to be meant of adding good works to Faith in Christ and building Wood hay stubble upon it to be meant of those that held the same Faith but did evil From whence they fansied that by certain pains of Fire such evil men might be purged to obtain Salvation by virtue of the Foundation that is by a right Faith only because the Apostle saith v. 15. they should be saved yet so as by fire But if this be a true interpretation of this place saith that Excellent Father then all those places of Scripture which have no obscurity no ambiguity in them must be taken to be false As for Example that of St. Paul in the same Epistle Though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have no Charity I am Nothing and that of St. James What doth it profit brethren if a man say he hath faith but hath no works Can faith save him And that place also will be salse Be not deceived neither fornicators nor they that serve Idols nor Adulterers c. shall inherit the Kingdom of God And that also The Works of the slesh are manifest which are adultery fornication uncleanness c. of which I tell you again as I have done formerly that they who do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God These are all false if that interpretation be true St. Paul contradicts himself and in this obscure place clashes with his plain words for according to this Exposition if men only believe and be baptized they shall be saved by fire though they persevere in such wicked courses as those now mentioned And then I do not see to what purpose our Lord said If thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments telling him what belongs unto good manners And how will that be true which he tells us he will say to them on his left hand Go ye cursed c. whom He sends to Hell-fire not because they did not believe on him but because they did not do good works Thus that Father goes on heaping up a great many other places which evidently speak to the same purpose and then concludes If therefore these things and innumerable others which may be found in the Holy Scriptures without any ambiguity be false then that sense may be true concerning the wood hay and stubble viz. that they shall be saved by sire who only holding Faith in Christ have neglected good Works Si autem vera clara sunt c. but if these things be both true and also clear then without doubt another sense of the Apostle's words is to be sought for And they are to be put into the number of those which S. Peter saith are hard to be understood which men ought not to pervert to their own destruction by endeavouring from them against the most evident Testimonies of the Scripture to make the most lewd people secure of obtaining Salvation though they pertinaciously continue in their wickedness not at all changed by amendment or repentance As for the true sense of that Scripture though he ventures at it yet he saith in the next Chapter he had rather be informed by those who are more learned and more understanding who can so expound it as to let all those things above mentioned remain true and unshaken in which the Scripture most openly avows that Faith profits Nothing unless it be that which the Apostle defines that is Faith which worketh by love but without Works cannot save men neither without fire nor by fire Still he sticks to this Rule as most certain and unmoveable that whatsoever sense be given of an obscure Scripture it contradicts not those Scriptures which are more plain especially those which teach us to live well and show the necessity of it which none that love the Truth as it is in Christ will ever prejudice by any interpertation of Scripture whatsoever It is out of my way to attempt the true meaning of the place now mentioned having no other business in hand at present but to show that by adhering as this Holy man did to the evident Truths in the Scripture they will never permit us to put any bad and pernicious sense upon those that are less evident Let us stick as he did to this Rule and we shall either put an harmless sense upon them or none at all But then we must as I said be heartily in love with these plain Truths and frame our lives according to
word of Holy Scripture to give them countenance by its great Authority and press it against its will to come to their service At every turn they will be interposing their inclinations and prove a biass upon our minds to carry them aside from the mark And the fuller we are of these and the more desirous to have them confirmed the more hastily shall we perswade our selves that the Holy Scripture speaks in their favour and proffers it self as a Witness to give Testimony to the truth of our Conceits Let us provide therefore by a due vigilance and attentive consideration that they be not formed by our own private imaginations but by the common standing Rule of natural Honesty Justice and Goodness and by all other certain Principles ingrafted in us or revealed to us Which serve as an Index to point us which way our thoughts should run and where they should six themselves II. THE necessity of which Care is the second thing I propounded to be briefly considered And here two things more may be sufficient to be duly weighed First That without this Care the plainest Scriptures will be in danger to be perverted as soon as the most difficult Secondly The very same places of Scripture will be liable to be shamefully wrested to serve different purposes I. First I say the plainest Scriptures will be in danger to be perverted and very dangerously too as well as the most difficult For it is not their difficulty that makes them be perverted but mens own easiness to believe any thing which their private desires would have to be true though never so contrary to sound Reason and Religion which if they had regarded would have directed them to make another construction of Holy Writings All the Metaphors for instance and resemblances borrowed from things visible to represent the Glory of Christ's heavenly Kingdom make the miserable Jews as their Forefathers did before them still entertain themselves with pleasant Dreams of a glorious pompous Monarchy here on Earth though the Prophets in as plain words as can be devised represent Christ their King as a man of sufferings who should endure greater indignities than any man ever did and at last dye and so rise again to sit at the right hand of God and give his Holy Spirit from thence to fill all the Earth with the knowledge of the Lord and thereby make them pious Subjects of a Divine Kingdom This drowsiness is so hereditary to their Nation that they will not be awakened out of their slumber by considering how much more the Soul is God's care than the Body and what the Prophets speak concerning Christ's Government over mens minds and Consciences and the reformation He should come to make in their life and manners Some Christians have been deluded with the same Fancy as if they had dreamt upon their Pillow But there are more palpable instances of the abuses committed among them not by reading the Scripture for that they were not forbidden but by not observing the Rule I am now establishing It was usual for people even in the ancient Times of Christianity to interpret the Scripture according to their fancy merely to serve a present turn just as many make it do now For Tertullian tells us that they who after their Conversion to Christianity still followed the trade of making Idols and Images for the Heathen to Worship defended themselves when they were reprehended for it by a Saying in St. Paul 1 Cor. VII 20. which they thus contracted Vt quisque fuerit inventus ita perseveret As every man is found when he is called to Christianity so let him continue There is no man that reads what follows but plainly sees if he be not resolved to shut his eyes against all that contradicts his desires the Apostle designs Nothing but that all men should remain so well satisfied with the condition in which they were when converted to Christ that if they were mere Slaves they should be content to continue so and not depart from their Lords and Masters unless they would give them their Liberty which he grants was much to be desired But if the following words had not told us this is his meaning yet the Rule before mentioned would have sufficiently secured them from the ill use they made of his words For as Tertullian well observes in his Book of Idolatry Cap. V. where he treats of this matter it is an Interpretation that directly leads to all wickedness Possumus igitur omnes in peccatis perseverare ex ista interpretatione c. as his words are We may all then continue in our sins according to this Interpretation for there is not one of us who was not found a Sinner when he was called into Christ's Service who came down for no other reason but to deliver us from our sins But in the same manner they also abused he observes there some other Texts of St. Paul wherein he required that after his Example every man should work and get his living with his own hands 1 Cor. IV. 10. 2 Thess III. 9 10. By which Precepts if all that men wrought with their hands might be defended then Thieves and High-way men and Coiners of false Money and all other wicked persons would be justified by them as well as these Image-makers who alledged them In a word let the Gate of the Church be set wide open saith he for all Comers who live by their labour if there be no exception of such Arts and Trades as the Discipline of God doth not receive And indeed the Scripture it self teaches us this Truth That it is not the difficult places only which men wrest to their destruction but the plainest also when thereby they can have some colour for their evil practices As for Example what can be more certain than this that the Apostle never gave any incouragement by his Doctrine for men to say much less said thus himself Let us do evil that good may come That is a good End will warrant evil Actions And yet there were some who were so audacious as to affirm he taught this Doctrine whom he contents himself to confute with these few words and vouchsafes them no other answer Whose damnation is just III. rom 8. There was no ground that is for such an interpretation of his words but only their own evil Principles and Affections which led them to make this Conclusion against the dictates of natural Reason and Christianity and therefore nothing could be said for such men but they would perish and Nothing was more just than that God should leave them under Condemnation who perverted holy Words to a meaning so cross to all the known Principles of natural and revealed Truth that Nothing could be more Occumenius upon this very Text of St. Peter gives another such like instance of wresting St. Paul's words which he saith may serve instead of all He having said V. Rom. 20. Where sin abounded grace did much more abound ungodly men
perverting his sense say we have Paul on our side who says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us sin the more abundantly that we may be the more abundantly pardoned Which they do to their own destruction saith St. Peter for they that killed the Prophets and the Apostles and they that destrey and takeaway their words by a perverse interpretation are obnoxious to one and the same Condemnation because they slew them that the World might be no longer taught by them the saving Truths of the Gospel and these in the like manner wrest or put upon the rack their words that none by them may work out their Salvation Again what is there clearer in the Apostolical Writings than that they every where taught God will raise the dead at the last day in which He will judge the World in righteousness And yet there were those who wrested these words so foully that some said the Resurrection was past already of whom were Hymenaeus and Philetas 2 Tim. II. 17 18. and others said there was no Resurrection 1 Cor. XV. 12. and others said Christ would never come again but laught at his promises of coming to reward the good and at his threatnings of coming to punish the wicked as St. Peter tells us in this very Chapter v. 3 4. Knowing this first that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts there was the reason of their scoffing saying Where is the promise of his coming for since the first men fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the world Which they would not have had the impudence to affirm it being so easie to disprove them had they not affected as he shows v. 5. to be ignorant of what was as plainly recorded in the Holy Books as any thing whatsoever that there had already been long ago a great change made by the Flood which swept away the World of the Ungodly Which if they had been serious would have kept them from mocking at another destruction threatned to the Wicked with a promise of Salvation to the Godly at our Saviour's second Coming and made them look upon what was past as an Example of the like future Judgment I might give more numerous instances which would prove something beyond this that unpurged minds or which is all one unlearned and unstable Souls will not only wrest plain Truths to serve their Lusts and Humours but thereby be apt to grow more wicked and more prejudiced against God and Goodness For the opinion or presumption as is excellently observed by a great Man that any of our evil actions or dispositions are countenanced from God's Word doth mightily heighten them in a degree of evil more than usual The covetous niggardly and unmerciful for instance if they please themselves in the precepts of frugality and diligence are exceedingly stifned and rooted in those sins with the pleasure they take in their conceited conformity with the rule of Gods Word which teacheth us to avoid Riot and Luxury Sloth and Negligence And thus the stubborn and self-willed are encouraged in their obstinacy by the commendations which are given to the constant and the well-resolved And the malicious turbulent and seditious Spirits justifie their bitterness fury and contempt of Authority from the examples of excessive zeal or indignation swelling in Holy men upon just occasions and that perhaps by a special Divine incitation which is not by any man to be now imitated But it is time to leave this and to give a short account of the other II. It is no less usual for want of observing this plain Rule to press one and the self same Scripture to serve for different purposes unto the great dishonour of God and of his Holy Oracles which men from hence imagine have an uncertain found I might instance in some very ancient abuses of this nature As that of our Saviour's X. Matth. 25. It is enough for the Disciple that he be as his Master may be strained to prove no body knows how many absurdities You may guess at the rest by this one that it was alledged by the Ebionites to prove that Christians ought to be circumcised because Christ their Master was as Epiphanius expresly remembers and by the same reason may be urged to prove that no Christian ought to marry because Christ their Master never married But there are modern instances more than enough of this such as show that not only ignorant people but the most instructed in humane Learning wrest the Scriptures notoriously if they keep not close to Principles of known Morality and Piety From those two words Pasce oves Feed my sheep I know not how many things are endeavoured to be established by the Doctors of the Roman Church If you ask how they prove the Popes Monarchy and Supreme Dominion in the Church the Answer is Christ said to Peter Simon bar-Jona Feed my sheep i. e. saith Bellarmine regio more impera command after a Regal manner If you ask again by what Right he challenges to be the Supreme Judge in Controversies of Faith which anciently was thought to belong to General Councils out of the Word of God the same Doctor tells you it is evident from the same words Feed my sheep Hence he proves also his Infallibility or that he cannot err in matters of Faith because Christ said Feed my sheep Nay by the same words a fourth Prerogative is established which is a power to make new Articles of Faith if he think good They are alledged also for a fifth purpose to prove that he hath a Treasure made up of the Merits of Christ and of the Saints which he dispenses as he pleases to the Faithful for so the same Doctor teaches in his Book of Indulgences because Christ said to Peter Feed my sheep By which wonderful words also he and others labour to prove that the Pope can transfer Kingdoms absolve Subjects from the Oath of Allegiance and depose them from their Thrones And Becanus from the same words still gathers that he may inflict temporal Punishments as they call them not excepting death upon those Princes that are disobedient to him So strangely are men bent to force the meaning of Holy Writ though they have never so good Parts and great Learning when they have once forsaken the guidance of Common Sense and the obvious Notions of Christianity Nay the more witty they are the worse they are if they have lost their Conscience and keep not strictly to the first Principles of all Religion There is another Example to be given of this of the same Nature From those words Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church c. one is content to prove no more but this that the Vniversal Church cannot err but another from hence affirms that the Tradition of the present Church cannot err which will not satisfie others who conclude from the same words that the Pope cannot err and there are those who