eyes that if we do not wilfully shut them we cannot but read it to our infinite satisfaction For so God loved the world saith our Lord Himself that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved III. John 16 17. And so St. Paul writes But God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ Jesus by Grace ye are saved And hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his Grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus II. Ephes 4 5 6 7. Who can doubt at all of the favour of God his exceeding great and rich favour towards us who doth but cast his eyes on such words as these and believes the Truth of the Gospel of Christ Which were written for this very end that in all future Ages of the World after the Apostles were gone men might discern how abundant the Grace of God is in his kindness manifested towards us in our Blessed Lord. And therefore we in this Age of the World as well as all that were before us may conclude without any scruple that God is Love as St. John speaks and that he will be good to us for Christ's sake though we have greatly offended his Majesty Sixthly For that is the next thing the kindness of God towards sinful men and his readiness to pardon them and receive them into his favour and love again is here also so perspicuously revealed that there need be no question made of it In this was manifested the love of God towards us because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him Herein is love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins 1 John IV. 9 10. And in the same manner writes St. Paul After the kindness and love or pity of God our Saviour towards man appeared not by works of righteousness that we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost That being justified by his Grace we should be made heirs according to the hope of Eternal life III. Tit. 4 5. Nay for this very end he saith God shewed mercy to him though a very great Sinner a Blasphemer of Christ a Persecutor of his Disciples that men might be incouraged to hope in God if they would repent and turn to Him as he did 1 Tim. I. 14 15 16 c. Read the place and you will see that all the wit of man cannot devise plainer and clearer words to express the exceeding Grace of God towards all men which is declared so fully as well as familiarly that his words need no Commentary to explain them and make them more easie to be understood Seventhly With the same Evidence the Gospel speaks of the way and means whereby this Forgiveness was procured for us and that is by the Death and by the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Who was delivered saith the Apostle for our offences and rose again for our justification IV. Rom. ult In whom we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his Grace I. Ephes 7. It is God that justifies who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us who shall separate us from the love of Christ c. VIII Rom. 34 35 c. It would be endless to recite all that the Scriptures speak on this subject in terms as plain and clear as these So that we cannot reasonably doubt if we believe these Books that by one offering of Himself he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified as the Author to the Hebrews speaks X. 12 13 14. This man after he had offered one Sacrifice for sins for ever sate down at the right hand of God from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool For by one offering he hath perfected for ever c. They that would make any other Satisfaction necessary by the Merits of Saints or any other Oblation of Christ necessary but that one which he Himself offered directly contradict the express words of this Book which are as easie to be understood as any that the most studied invention of men can indite Eighthly And so is the way and means whereby these Blessings thus purchased are communicated to us viz. the Mediation and Intercession of Christ Jesus on our behalf whereby he can save us to the utmost seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for us VII Heb. 25. Nor is there any other that can perform this Office for us but he for as there is one God so one Mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus as St. Paul teaches in so many words 1 Tim. II. 4. Whereby we cannot but in reason think he means there is no more than One Mediator as it is certain there is no more than one God who communicates his Mind to us by this alone Mediator as we must address our selves to Him by no other Which St. Paul declares more fully in 1 Cor. VIII 5 6. Where he saith though there be many that are called Gods as there are gods many and lords many yet to us Christians there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in or for or to him and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him That is As there is but one sole Fountain of all good unto whom we are to direct our Prayers and all we do for the first Cause must be our last End so He derives all unto us by his Son Jesus Christ alone by whom therefore and by Him alone we are to go to God the Father for what we are desirous to receive from Him None else in Heaven or Earth is capable of this Honour but this great Lord alone whom the Father loveth and hath given all things into his hands III. John 35. as any one that reads this place seriously may easily discern And therefore they who betake themselves unto any other Patron to recommend them to the Heavenly Grace are concerned to hide this Book from the Peoples Eyes and to discourage them from reading it by telling them it is obscure and hard to be understood For they who do read it see this truth so fully and expresly asserted there that if their minds be not prejudiced they cannot think it safe to implore the assistance of any other in the Heavenly Court which apparently derogates from the Honour of our
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
Search the Scriptures A TREATISE Shewing that all CHRISTIANS Ought to READ the HOLY BOOKS WITH DIRECTIONS To them therein In Three PARTS LONDON Printed for R. Royston Bookseller to His most Sacred Majesty 1685. Introduction THE Holy Scriptures as the first Homily of our Church teaches all its Children in the very beginning of it are such a Fountain and Well of Truth that as many as be desirous to enter into the right and perfect way unto God must apply their minds to be acquainted with them without which they can neither sufficiently know God and his Will nor their own Office and Duty For in Holy Scripture is fully contained what we ought to do and what to eschew what to believe what to love and what to look for at God's hands at length And therefore these Books ought to be much in our hands in our eyes in our ears in our mouths but most of all in our hearts Vnto which sort of Discourse which is grounded upon the VI. Article of our Religion they of the Church of Rome are wont to make a double Exception One is That there are some things necessary to be believed and practised which are not to be found there but must be received from ancient Traditions The other is That those Truths which are delivered in the Holy Scriptures are not so clear and perspicuous that common people should be intrusted with the reading of them Now to the First of these there hath been some time ago a plain Answer made in a Discourse about Traditions Therefore this Treatise is intended only as an Answer to the Second Exception For the maintaining of which they are wont to alledge among other places those remarkable words of St. Peter in his Second Epistle the Third Chapter and Sixteenth Verse Where having made mention of St. Paul's Epistles which treated of the same matter that he had just before explained he says In which are some things hard to be understood which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest as they do also the other Scriptures unto their own destruction Behold say they how dangerous it is for common people to meddle with the Holy Scriptures which being compared by St. Paul himself to a two edged Sword ought not to be put into their hands for fear they destroy themselves therewith It is true indeed the same St. Paul teaches us Rom. XV. 4. that whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning and are profitable as he writes elsewhere 2 Tim. III. 16. for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness But this notwithstanding there are say they such difficulties and obscurities in the Holy Scriptures as we learn from this great Apostle St. Peter that they ought not to be thought profitable for all people but rather hurtful to them that are ignorant who therefore ought not to read them By which single Instance the Reader may learn if he mark it well what sort of Interpretations of Scripture we are like to have if we trust to them alone and do not see with our own eyes when these very words of St. Peter do plainly teach us the quite contrary Doctrine to that which they would establish by them I. For they are so far from containing a Reason why the people should not read them that First they evidently suppose the common people even the unlearned among them did in those days read the Scriptures Else they could not have wrested them as the Apostle says they did and complains of that but not of their reading them And II. Secondly These words do not affirm the whole Scripture to be hard to be understood but only some part of it St. Paul's Epistles at the most or rather the things of which St. Peter had been treating And not all of them neither but only some things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some few things which would require pains and diligent attention of mind to comprehend the meaning of them And III. Thirdly The Apostle doth not say that all who read those difficult passages are in danger to wrest them but only the unlearned and unstable who abuse the plainest Truths to their own ruine As for others they may read even the hardest places in St. Paul's Epistles safely enough nay receive great profit from thence as well as from other Scriptures and they who wrest them are not to leave reading them but to grow in true Christian knowledge and in Stability of mind These are the three Parts of the insuing Discourse In treating and reading of which Let us pray to God as the second Homily concludes that we may speak think believe live and depart hence according to the wholsom Doctrine and Verities of these holy Books And by that means in this World have God's defence favour and grace with the unspeakable solace of peace and quietness of Conscience and after this miserable life enjoy the endless Bliss and Glory of Heaven PART I. THat the Right of God's People to read the Holy Scriptures is not at all prejudiced by these words of St. Peter appears from hence That the Wresting of the Scriptures by the unlearned and unstable doth suppose that even such persons did then read them Which overthrows the Conclusion which they of the Roman Church endeavour to draw from this place For there had been no possibility of perverting their sense if they had not been in their hands at that time as they are in ours now And yet the Apostle doth not reprehend their medling with them but their Ignorance and their heedlesnes which was the cause they misunderstood them and might have been prevented by a little diligence and care without throwing them quite away For the fault was not there but in themselves who came to the perusal of holy things with unprepared minds Now for the establishing of this Truth that the people were not then and therefore ought not now to be debarred the liberty of reading the holy Books which God our Saviour hath left unto his Church as a common Inheritance you may be pleased to weigh these things following which will fully settle your minds in this perswasion I. First That the ancient People of God the Jews were not only permitted but required by God himself to be so conversant in the Law of Moses and so well acquainted with it as to be able to teach their Children God's Commandments and for that end to talk of them when they sate in their houses or walkt by the way when they lay down and when they rose up nay to write them upon the doors of their houses and on their gates that whensoever they went out or came in they might have them before their eyes and be put in mind of them Deut. VI. 6 7 8. This the Lawgiver thought a matter of so great importance that a little after in the very same Book he enjoyns it over again for fear they should neglect it Chap. XI 18 19 20. For the very Root and
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