reverence of God and of his Word For want of which too many have greatly polluted these Holy Mysteries with the wanton conceits or prophane excursions of an unhollwed Wit and mortally poisoned themselves and others by their corrupt handling this Bread of Life The Special Means of Interpretation are two-fold Some are more remote which I shall only name not intending any Discourse about them because my work lies another way These remote helps are 1. Some competent knowledge of and recourse to the Original Tongues wherein the Scripture was first penned with a due observation of the proprieties of each Language 2. Skil to discern between the proper use of the Words and Phrases of Scripture and that which is Tropical and Figurative In these Grammar and Rhetorick have their use 3. Some insight into the peculiar Laws Customs and Proverbial Speeches of those times and places that the Scripture relates to which requires some knowledge in History There are sundry passages both in the Old and New Testament that have respect to the known Customs of the Gentiles as in their Divinations Idolatrous Worships Publick Games and many more that have relation to the peculiar Rites and Modes of speech in use among the Jews So that there is no part of Phylology but may have its use in the Interpretation of Scripture 4. There is great use of the several parts of Phylosophy not only moral but natural for the clearing of many things in Scripture that are of natural cognisance as about the structure of Mans Body and the faculties of the Soul the nature motion and influence of the Heavenly Bodies the temperament of the several Regions of the World as also about the Elements and Meteors about Numbers and Measures the Nature and Properties of several Creatures Beasts Birds and Plants and many other things treated of in the Bible either by way of History or Parable 5. Logick hath also its use here for the better discerning the dependence of one thing in Scripture upon another and collecting of one thing from another The more immediate Means are chiefly two 1. A due observation of the several circumstances of the Scripture to be Interpreted who it is that speaks where when and to whom upon what occasion Here also comes in the consideration of the coherents with antecedents and consequences together with the scope and design of the Speaker all which are of great use to discover the Sense of Scripture 2. Comparing Scripture with Scripture or consulting other Scriptures whether paralel with or seemingly opposite to the place under consideration Now to the use of all these forementioned Means or Helps both General and Special Remote and Immediate I think all agree But about the Rule of Interpretation there is not so universal an accord The Romanists for the most part will have this Rule to be the Judgment of the present Church meaning their own But I shall not deal with this It 's weakness in what Sense soever taken for they agree not among themselves hath been sufficiently discovered by the worthy labours of many both formerly and of late Some few there are who tell us that the Scripture supposes the Rule and Summary of Religion delivered from one Age to another which we are to be guided by in searching out the meaning of Scripture And this Rule they say is to be found in the Monuments of the Church that is in the Writings of the Fathers and Determinations of Councils from whence we are to receive the Sense of the Catholick Church and thereby know what was the Doctrine delivered by Christ and his Apostles in the first Age and according to that interpret the Scriptures But if this must be our way of proceeding we may very well despair of ever understanding the Scriptures except when they speak with so much plainness that they stand in need of no Interpretation For what a heap of uncertainties must we lay for the Foundation of our Faith It is sufficiently known that the Fathers do oft differ from each other and many times are not consistent with themselves Councils have determined contrary one to another And some things that were as far as appears to us by all extant Monuments of Antiquity agreeable to the common Sentiment in our Age were laid aside in another Besides either the far greatest part of the Doctors of the Church in the first Ages wrote nothing or their Writings are lost and of those that now go under venerable names many are plainly spurious and many dubious nor is it easie in several of them for the most sagacious Reader to find out the right Insomuch as we cannot have any tolerable assurance what was the consentient judgment of the Catholick Church in any one age about the whole Doctrine of Faith if we set the Scriptures aside Therefore to frame such a Rule of Interpretation as this is no better than to build a House of Straw upon a running Stream There were very few Writers in the two first Centuries and in the two following not very many and after this the Church did much decline and degenerate as well in Doctrine as Manners Now suppose we were sure that the Writings in each Age were undoubtedly theirs whose names they bear as it is past doubt we are not who can assure us that what was published by those few was the consentient Judgment of all or the major part of the Doctors of that Age wherein they lived Might there not be a greater number differing from them who either wrote nothing or whose Works are perished The plain truth is That this way of Interpretation does in the upshot resolve the Faith of Christians not into the certain authority of the Divinely-inspired Writings but into the fallible Testimony of the most uncertain Tradition But for the Readers further satisfaction I refer him to Monsieur Daille's learned Treatise about the right use of the Fathers a Piece of that worth that the Lord Vicount Falkland and his dear Friend Mr. Chillingworth did highly esteem it and made great use of it in their Writings against the Romanists as we are informed by Mr. Tho. Smith sometime Member of Christ's Colledge in Cambridge in his Epistle prefixed to the English Translation of that excellent and elaborate Discourse who further also tells us that we have in that Tractat a sufficient Confutation of Cardinal Perron his Book against King James and by consequence of the Marquis of Worcester against King Charles and of Doctor Vane and other Epitomizers of the Cardinal which I do the rather take notice of that it may obviate the groundless prejudices that some have of late entertained against that Incomparable Piece The received Doctrine of the Reformed Churches both ourown and those abroad hath been hitherto that the Scripture is its own Interpreter But of late there hath been an attempt to justle the Scripture aside as to this use and place Reason and Phylosophy in its room There is a Belgick
in them that may exercise the study of the ablest understandings Now in our searching out the Mind of God in Scripture especially in those darker places the question is what course we are to take and by what Rule we must be guided that we may not bewilder our selves or wrong the Scriptures by our mistakes To prepare the way for a Resolution of this Question I must briefly premise somewhat touching these three Terms the Scripture the Interpretation of Scripture and the Rule of that Interpretation The Scripture we speak of is the entire Volume of Holy Writ containing all those Books both of the Old and New Testament that are generally acknowledged to be Canonical Whereby I mean not the Words or Phrases of Scripture taken singly by themselves but as they are conjoin'd in Propositions or Sentences and as those Propositions stand in such a contexture and with such a dependence on and relation to what goes before and after and as in this Frame and Order they are the Instrument of declaring the Mind of God to Men. Now whereas the whole Scripture though it have the same Divine Original and be directed to the same ultimate end yet contains in it great variety of Matter Doctrine History Prophesie c. It is the two former that we are especially concern'd in and therefore shall wave the Prophetick part what is yet â—…fulfill'd further than it may fall in with any of the other the best and most convincing Interpreter of Prophesies being the event unless God should beforehand unfold them by extraordinary Inspiration which we have not in our days any ground to expect It is therefore the Doctrinal and Historical parts of Scripture that I chiefly intend in this Debate Interpretation is either Verbal or Real The former is all one with that which is commonly called Translation This I shall not meddle with further than as it is a necessary requisite to the latter which is usually called Exposition which is the opening of the true Sense of Scripture or unfolding the Mind of God signified to us by those Words and Sentences of Scripture that we are searching into Now we here suppose two things which to a sober and considerate Reader need no proof First That the Scriptures are not a heap of insignificant Words or unsens'd Characters as some late Romanists who cry up Oral Tradition for the only Rule of Faith so great is the power of prejudice and partial Interest have ridiculously and profanely affirm'd but that they have a true sense Originally and Essentially in themselves given them by their Author when they were first indited To deny or question this were to impute that to the most Wise God that common Civility forbids us to charge upon any man of ordinary understanding Secondly That the Sense of Scripture is fixt and immutable not varying with the times or altering according to the differing practice of the Church which was most absurdly asserted by Cardinal Cusanus in Epistola contra Bohemos as I find it attested by many credible Authors the Sense of Scripture is no other than what it always had and ever will have to the Worlds end The next thing to be considered is the Rule of Interpretation By which we can understand no more than the Measure by agreement or disagreement to which we judge of the Sense of the Scripture whether it be right or wrong whether it be indeed what it pretends the true Sense of the Scripture under Inquiry or a mistaken Sense unduely fasten'd upon it Or in fewer words the Rule of Interpretation is that which gives us the objective Evidence by which the true Sense of Scripture is discern'd and for which it is received Here let it be observ'd that it is one thing to inquire what means we are to use in searching out the Sense of Scripture and another what is the Rule that must guide us in determining what that Sense is For though the Rule he also a Means yet every thing that is to be used as a Means hath not the place of a Rule The Means are many the Rule but one understanding it not of any subordinate or Ministerial Rule but of that which is Supream and Autocratorical For that is the Rule under our present inquiry The Means subservient to the Interpretation of Scripture are either General or Special The General are two Méditation and Prayer 1. There must be a fixed intending of the Mind to consider of what we either read in or hear from the Scripture and of whatsoever we meet with that may help us to understand it This the Psalmist speaks of as the daily practice of every Holy-Blessed Man Psal. 1. 1 2. and professeth it of himself Psal. 119 15. 97. But secondly there is need of Prayer also for Divine Assistance to enable us to understand the Mind of God aright This the Psalmist used Psal. 119. 18. 19 26 27 73. Though he had the Copy of the Law by him according to that command of God which we have upon Record in Deut. 17. 18 19. and did use daily to read it and meditate on it yet he thought not this enough but begs of God to have his Eyes opened c. When our Saviour discoursed with his Disciples after his Resurrection concerning Himself and his Sufferings it is said Luke 24. 45. that he opened their Undestandings that they might understand the Scriptures He did not only open the Scriptures by External Instruction as it is said before vers 27 and 32. But as the Learned Grotius observes upon the place he opened their Minds by the Internal Illumination of his Spirit This the Apostle prays for in the behalf of the Ephesians and Colossians Eph. 1. 16 17 18. Col. 1. 9. though they had the Doctrine of the Scripture already published to them And the same Apostle writing to Timothy having exhorted him to consider what he had said to him he adds this Prayer for him The Lord give thee understanding in all things I would gladly suppose there are none that call themselves Christians but do own the need and use of Prayer for the understanding of Gods Will which necessarily carries with it an interpretative acknowledgement of the need we have of something from God above our natural abilities to understand the Scriptures And I do profess my self to have had the better and more honourable esteem of that great Schoolman Thomas Aquinas since I read this of him that it was his manner whensoever he was either to study in private or discourse in publick to pray fervently to God for assistance that he might learn of Him what he was to teach others and that he did candidly acknowledge in secret to his intimate Friend Reginaldus that what Divine Knowledge he had was attained by Prayer more than by any humane Wit or Labor But whose expects success in seeking Divine Assistance it behoves him to bring with him a meek and humble Heart awed with the holy fear and
miraculous Works spoken of in Scripture were not any thing against or besides the established order of nature absolutely concludes that whatsoever the Scripture affirms to have been done did all necessarily come to pass according to the Laws of Nature and if any thing contrary to this could be found in Scripture or truly gathered from any thing in it that was certainly added to the Scripture by some sacrilegious hand as being against Nature and therefore against Reason Secondly Men that resolve to make their Reason the Rule of Interpretation will not stick to charge the Scripture with obscurity in its plainest Propositions if they suit not with their preconceived notions The experience of the present age puts it past all denial or dispute that when Men have espoused an Hypothesis which they are not willing to relinquish they will quarrel with the most evident Scripture accusing it of obscurity and to make their charge good they will endeavour by their strain'd glosses to raise a dust and darken the Sense of it though it shine never so clearly by its own light to every impartial and unprejudiced Reader Hence it is that the Papists do so frequently with open mouth charge the Apostle Paul with obscurity in his Writings because indeed he speaks more clearly and plainly than they would have him for that great Doctrine of Justification by the imputed Righteousness of Christ and against Justification by our own Works And it may be some will be as ready to find fault with the same Apostle when he says Ephes. 5. 18. Be not drunk with Wine wherein is excess but be filled with the Spirit as speaking too darkly because indeed they think he speaks too broadly against the debauchery that they practice and so plainly for the Spirit which they scorn and deride Thirdly Nay more some are grown to that heighth as I shall have occasion to shew more fully in my second Part as to assert that the Scripture is plain in nothing but universally obscure and make this their great ground for their setting up Reason and Philosophy as the Rule to determine the Sense of the Bible And let this be granted them they will soon make the Scripture speak whatsoever themselves please and so the Bible shall be but as a dead Image and Mans depraved Reason like the Daemon within shall give the Oracle 2. Come we next to matters of Practice It is easie to instance in several commands of God in Scripture that are directly opposite to the whole corrupt interest of lapsed nature As when he requires the mortifying of our earthly desires the love of our deadliest Enemies the denying our of selves in whatsoever is dear to us in this World even to the laying down of our lives for the defence of his Truth upon the bare hope of an invisible happiness in another World Now considering how Mans Reason is darkned and enslav'd and no where perfectly cured if Mens Reason must by its own Principles interpret the Sense of Scripture how numerous are the objections that will be made against these and all other Precepts that are not to the Gust of Mans degenerate nature Thus did the Gnosticks of old plead for denying the Faith in persecuting times to save their life for what said they Doth God delight in the death of Men he stands in no need of our Bloud Christ came to save Mens lives and not to expose them to hazard And with these reasonings they shisted off the-command of owning the Truth in the face of danger And what the Author of the Leviathan hath written of this with a specious though falacious pretence of Reason is not unknown But I shall instance in two extraordinary commands given to particular persons The one is that which God did by immediate Revelation give to Abraham requiring him to offer up his onely Son Isaac for a Burnt-offering What would the Principles of Natural Reason have said to this might they have been admitted to interpret this Command What Can infinite goodness require such an unnatural act as this for a Father to lay violent hands on his own Child Hath not God strictly forbidden Murder Hath he not always manifested his tender regard to the life of Man And hath he not planted that tender affection in the Heart of a Parent that makes him abhor to embrue his hands in Childs Bloud Therefore surely would Mans Reason say the meaning of this injunction is something else far different from what the words seem to sound there is some more mysterious sense to be found out and a milder interpretation to be made of this Divine Oracle such as may consist with those Notions of God which we are taught by that Internal Light that shines in the Hearts of all Men. It is most rational therefore to interpret it by an Allegory Isaac must be sacrificâ—d in Effigie or a Lamb out of the Flock must have Isaac's name put upon it and so offer'd up to God or according to the notation of his name we must sacrifice that joy and delight that we have had in our Son Isaac wherein perhaps we have exceeded by mortifying our affectious to him and have him hereafter as if we had him not The other instance shall be in the command given by our Saviour to the Rich young Man to sell all and give to the Poor and follow Him in hopes of a Treasure in Heaven We may probably suppose by the Mans turning his back what objections his Reason made against it Are not my Possessions the good Gifts of God and shall I unthankfully cast away what he hath given me I am to love my Neighbor as my self therefore surely not to strip my self of my subsistence to help my Neighbor and so lose the use and benefit of what I have True here is a plain Command But could not this mans Reason have excogitated some hidden Sense to satisfie the Command and yet save his Goods Yes sure had the Man learnt but this new Art of Interpreting that some have got now adays he might have thought within himself That selling all was the disengaging of his affections from them and giving to the poor his relieving them in a convenient proportion so as still to preserve his Estate and follow Christ he might in a good and holy life though he did not always personally attend him But now would not this way of Interpretation in either of the forenamed instances have been a plain eluding of an express command And yet I am sure the bold attempts of some in our Age who are great Pretenders to Reason have in sundry considerable and clear Points of Religion gone as far as this comes to and much further in torturing the Scriptures into a Sense as contrary to that which they fairly give us of themselves as darkness is to light And indeed by the help of this Engine what will not be adventured by audacious Wits that have cast off the awe of God and of
his holy Word Men whose glory it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let but others follow the Tract that some have already trodden out to them and they will make the whole Bible one great Cipher utterly insignificant of his Mind and Will by whose Authority it was endited and that which Erasmus feared in his time Ne sub obtentu priscae literaturae caput erigere tentet Paganismus may be unhappily fulfilled in our days CHAP. VIII The sixth and last Argument from one great end of Scripture-Revelation to supply the Defects and correct the Mistakes of our Reason An Exception of the Exercitator answered LAstly One great end of Scripture-Revelation is to help our Understandings in matters of Religion partly by rectifying our mistaken and depraved Reason and keeping us from being misled in the Things of God by the Principles we have received partly by supplying the defects of Reason acquainting it with those things which by its own Natural Light it could never reach being by their sublimity and mysteriousness wholly above it Therefore the Doctrine of Scripture doth in its tendency 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cast down reasonings and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 captivate every Notion or Conception to the obedience of Christ 2. Cor. 10. 5. For any therefore in matter of doubt or difficulty about the Sense of Scripture-Revelation to run to the Principles of Reason is to measure the Rule by that which should be measured by it And what a base dishonour is this to the Sacred Oracles to subject them to the usurp'd Dictatorship of that which is to be regulated by them and to submit themselves to its final Judgement But here the Exercitator replies That in the present case the Divine Oracles are not submitted to the Judgement of Reason or Philosophy but onely the Letters and Syllables the Words and Sentences of Scriture which are nothing but loquaces soni aut horum mutae notae some wordy sounds or the dumb signs of them framed for the purpose by Humane Institution which therefore may without any disparagement be subjected to the Judgement of Reason and Philosophy which are the eminent Gifts of God And for the better managing of this Plea he makes great use of a Discinction which he elsewhere inculcates to wit the consideration of the Scriptures Materially or Formally To this I answer 1. Surely had the Ancient Church been of this Gentlemans Mind they would never have so severely censured the Traditores that delivered up their Bibles to the Persecuters to save their own lives in the days of Dicolesian and it might have been pleaded in their behalf that they did not give up the Divine Oracles but only a heap of Dumb Signs or Characters in Ink and Paper 2. And the same would have justified the rage of Antiochus in tearing and burning the Books of the Law and the madness of the Papists in doing the like at several times by the Protestants Bibles all which might by the help of this shuffle have pleaded for themselves that they did not burn the Holy Scriptures no by no means but only a bundle of unsens'd Characters 3. As for the Exercitators distiction which is the foundation of this conceit I intend to deal with it hereafter when I come to speak of Scripture being its own Interpreter Therefore at present I shall let it pass CHAP. IX The contrary Arguments Examined and Answered the first from some Positions of the Exercitator about the manifold Sense of Scripture c. I Come now to examine what was alledged by the Adverse Part and to answer the Arguments whereby they would prove Reason and Philosophy to be the Scriptures best Interpreter 1. The Exercitator argues from some Positions by him formerly laid down which he supposes himself to have demon stratively proved in his 4th Chapter viz. That the next and immediate Sense of the Scripture is manifold and whatsoever Truths occur to the Readers Mind in the perusal of any Scripture they are all to be taken for the true intended sense and meaning of that Scripture and Philosophy being the true certain and undoubted knowledge of the nature of things demonstratively deduced from the Principles of Natural Light therefore by this the several Truths that lie in the Scripture may be best drawn out and demonstrated and all false Interpretations discovered and consequently this is the infallible Rule of Interpretation This is the Sum of his Argument For answer Here are many things crowded together in this captious Sorites which must be particularly discussed that the vanity and folly of the whole may the better appear 1. He supposes the immediate Sense of Scripture to be manifold and that one and the same Sentence of Scripture affords great variety of different Senses This I deny and do maintain with the consentient Judgment of the Reformed Churches that the Sense of Scripture is but one Thus much I grant 1. That there may be varions applications or accommodations made of one and the same Liâ—eral Sense of Scripture so it be done with due caution and â—o otherwise can that threefold Sense which some speak of Allegoricla Anagogical Tropological be allowed 2. That one single Sentence of Scripture may and frequently doth contain many very weighty Truths in it but these are not Co-ordinate Senses of the same Proposition this is but one the rest are but either some Specials included in their General or some deductions from Scripture Assertions as of Conclusions from their Principles wherein they are virtually comprehended 3. I further grant That sundry passages of Scripture especially in the Old Testament have a mystical Sense besides the Literal to wit when one thing is propounded as a Type representing somewhat else But then the thing signified by the words of Scripture is but one namely that onely which the Literal Sense exhibits which propounds the Type The Antitype is not signified by the words in those Scriptures but by the Type which those words do immediately speak of For example when we find in Numb 21. 8 9. how by God's command Moses set up a Brazen Serpent upon a Pole for the Bitten Israelite to look on that he might be heal'd these words that relate the History signifie no more than what they literally import But the Brazen Serpent there spoken of did indeed signifie somewhat else for it did tipically represent the future Crucifixion of Christ for the Salvation of Sinners as our Saviour himself hath taught us Joh. 3. 14. Indeed this conceit of the multiplicity of Senses serves our Exercitators turn very well because it helps to render the Scripture ambiguous and thereby obscure and that is the principal strength of his Cause of which I shall speak hereafter in due place Mean while let us see what he hath to say for this fancy Two kinds of proof he uses the one from Reason the other from the Testimony of learned Men. His Reasons are drawn from Gods Omniscience
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reasonable service that is say they a Service agreeable to Reason To this I answer two things First I know no cause to recede from the Sense that is usually given by our Interpreters seeing it so fairly offers it self from the Words themselves and therefore do judge with the learned Dr. Hammond on the place that the Apostle calling upon Christians to present their Bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God even their reasonble service doth evidently oppose this to the Sacrifices of the Ceremonial Law which were no other than irrational Creatures first killed and then offered up to God But Secondly Be it given but not granted that the Apostles meaning is what these Men put upon it viz. That the Service God requires of Christians is agreeable to Reason I have already premised and asserted that Christian Religion is perfectly rational whence it will undeniably follow that there is an excellent harmony a full and complete accord betwixt Reason and Religion And although some daring Wits that make high pretences to Reason have by their profane Jeers at the Misteries of Christianity and their turning the Doctrines and Phrases of Holy Scripture into Drollery contributed not a little to the Atheism of the present age yet I am past all doubt that no man is or can be an Atheist that hath not first baffled and besotted his Reason If any therefore hath gone about to set Reason and Religion at variance it hath been through some misprision taking some groundless imagination for Reason or some corrupt opinion or practice for Religion But if any shall hence argue that Mans Reason is to be the Rule of Religion or that Doctrines of Supernatural Revelation are to be interpreted and the Sense of them determined by Natural Principles we deny the consequence and leave them to prove it Our Saviour tells us that his yoke is easie but if any should thence Argue that therefore our ease must be the Rule of interpreting his Commands I think few would be found so blind or foolish except Men of profligate and debauched Consciences that would admit of such an absurd Argumentation And there is no less absurditity in this That because Religion is a Reasonable Service therefore our Reason must be the Rule of interpreting the Doctrinces of Rëligion CHAP. XVI 1. A Transition to the Exercitators Reply to some Scriptures alledged by our Divines against his Heterodoxy The fond Conceit of Lud. Wolzogen That in this Controversie Scripture is not to be heard disproved 2. And his Plea that he makes for himself in his Censura Censurae disabled 3. A return to the Exercitators Exposition of the Scritures alledged by our Writers His self-contradiction noted And the Scriptures cleared THe Exercitator having after his manner asserted his own Position comes in the seventh Chapter of his Discourse to answer the Scriptures that some have made use of to oppose it Before I deal with them I cannot but take notice of the disingenuity of Ludovicus Wolzogen who having undertaken the Patronage of the Protestant Cause against this Adversary doth so shamefully throw down his Arms and run out of the Field For when he comes at this seventh Chapter of his Antagonist and again at his twelfth wherein the Exercitator endeavors to evade or enervate the Scriptures brought against him this valiant Champion not only waves the vindication of them but for his own more plausible excuse expresly maintains it to be a preposterous thing in this Controversie about the Interpretation of Scripture to use or admit the testimony of Scripture at all and affirms that the Cause must be decided by Reason And therefore as all along his Discourse he never makes use of Scripture to defend himself or strike his Adversary so he lays an imputation of folly upon all our Divines that use this way of arguing in the present Case And he gives two pitiful Arguments to prove this fond Assertion 1. One is because the Controversie is about the Scripture it self which is not to be heard in its own Cause unless such places can be alledged in the explication whereof both parties agree To this I answer 1. If this be granted then whatsoever controversie we have with the Papists about the Authority Perspicuity and Perfection of the Scriptures though we have never so clear proof in the Scripture it self for these things they must all be waved as invalid But these have hitherto been accounted controverted Points of Faith and consequently to be resolved from Scripture the only Rule of Faith so is this about the Scriptures Interpretation however the Exercitator and with him this Author denies it while yet both of them acknowledge it to be a Question wherein the whole of Religion is concerned and next to that of the Scriptures Authority the very foundation on which all Doctrines of Faith and Manners relie and which involves in it whatsoever Differences or Controversies there are between dissenting parties in Religion that own the Scriptures And is it not strange that Men should own this Controversie to be so momentous and fundamental and yet to deny it to be a matter of Faith or to be determined by Scripture Testimony But 2. Why may not the Scripture be heard speak for it self as well as Reason for it self The Question under debate is whether the Rule of Interpreting Scripture be the Scripture it self or Mans Reason Does not this as nearly touch Reason as Scripture And yet must that be allowed to give testimony in its own Cause and not the Scripture It appears by this as by many other passages in his Book that this Author is a better friend to the Exercitators opinion than to the Protestant Doctrine And indeed 3. This is the very Language of our Popish Adversaries who tell us the Scripture cannot be its own Interpreter because the Question is concerning it self To which our Writers answer truely That the Scripture being the Voice of God its testimony for it self is above all other whatsoever even in its own Cause His other Argument is Because till the dissentient parties have agreed about the Interpreter of the Scriptures alledged they have no Sense and therefore can testifie nothing And up-upon this account he condemns those of the Reformed Churches that alledge Scripture in this Controversie and blames the Exercitator for answering their Allegations To this I answer 1. That any part of Scripture is without its Sense till it have an Interpreter is a gross absurdity and falshood The Scripture hath its Sense whether any Man interpret it or no. Interpretation doth not I am sure it should not bring the Sense and put it into the Scripture but receive it from the Scripture 2. This Author acknowledges some Scriptures to be so clear that the Sense is obvious and if such Scriptures can be produced in the present Controversie as no doubt they may Why should the difference about the
Appendix concerning Internal Illumination and other Operations of the Spirit upon the Soul of Man c. CHAP. I. 1. What our Protestant Divines mean by that Illumination of the Spirit which they assert as necessary to the understanding of the Scriptures and the Exercitators censure of it as Enthusiasm approved by Wolzogen 2. The Falshood of that Calumny discovered 3. Wolzogen ' s disingenuity and inconstancy 4. The necessity of the aforesaid Illumination proved 5. In what sense it is supernatural 6. Some of the Exercitators Cavils answered 7. In what sense this Illumination is immediate IN the foregoing Papers designed to clear and vindicate the Protestant Doctrine concerning the Supreme Bule of Interpreting Seripture I have had occasion frequently to deal with the Belgick Exercitator and to take notice of what he hath said that seems to be of any moment so far as concerns that point But whereas he is pleased in the procedure of his Discourse to step out of his way and deridingly to oppose the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches about the Spirits assistance in the Interpretation of Scripture as savouring of Enthusiasm I then waved medling with that part of his Book thinking it more expedient to say something to it in an Appendix by it self this being a Question altogether distinct from that other of the Rule of Interpretation In the Fourteenth Chapter of his oft-mentioned Exercitation he quotes several of our Protestant Authors of great Name and Worth giving in the words of some of them and referring us for others to the cited places The drift of their several Discourses about this point seems to be that there needs an effectual operation of the Holy Spirit to enlighten Mens understandings and cause them rightly to apprehend and readily to approve the Mind of God in Scripture That their meaning may be more clearly propounded we must distinguish of a twofold understanding of Scripture There is a Natural and merely Grammatical perception of the truth of Scripture-Propositions which a Man destitute of the Spirit of Grace may attain by common assistance in the use of ordinary means And there is a Spiritual apprehension of the things themselves contain'd in those Propositions which includes in it a hearty believing and embracing them that is not attain'd without the sanctifying work of the Spirit renewing the mind by enduing it with an heavenly supernatural Light This I find thus express'd and illustrated by the late Reverend Bishop of Norwich Natural Men says he have their Principles vitiated their Faculties bound that they cannot understand spiritual things till God have as it were implanted a new understanding in them framed the heart to attend and set it at liberty to see the Glory of God with open face Though the Veil do not keep out Grammatical Construction yet it blindeth the Heart against the spiritual Light and Beauty of the Word We see even in common Sciences where the Conclusions are suitable to our innate and implanted Notions yet he that can distinctly construe and make Grammar of a Principle in Euclide may be ignorant of the Mathematical sense and use of it Much more may a Man in Divine Truths be spiritually ignorant even where in some respect he may be said to know For the Scriptures pronounce Men ignorant of those things which they see and know In Divine Doctrine Obedience is the Ground of Knowledge and Holiness the best Qualification to understand the Scriptures To this Spiritual Understanding there is need of the aforesaid Supernatural Light And this is that which as far as I can understand our Divines mean when they assert the necessity of the Spirits Illumination Thus speaks the Church of England The Revelation of the Holy Ghost inspireth the true meaning of the Scripture into us In truth we cannot without it attain true saving knowledge Yea of this mind was Erasmus no Enthusiast who thus speaks He erreth vehemently who believes he can ever attain to the true understanding of the Canonical Scriptures unless he be inspired by the same Spirit that endited them And again They have the Book of Scripture but not the Scripture that want the Spirit without which the Scripture is not understood And M. Luther quoting a Speech of Aben-Ezra Sine supra infra i. e. without Points and Accents the Scripture cannot be understood adds a third sine intra without somewhat within viz. the Light of the Holy Spirit Now let us hear the Judgment of the Exercitator and his pretended Answerer Wolzogen about this As for the former If says he the meaning of these Divines were this that no sense of Scripture by what way or method soever found out can be fully certain to any unless by the Natural Light of our understanding we can clearly and distinctly perceive it and be fully perswaded of its truth and that this clear perception and the sense a Man hath of it be that inward perswasion and testimony of the Spirit which they intend this will be granted them But if they mean not the Natural Light of Mans understanding or what is built upon that but a Supernatural Light above and beyond Mans Natural Reason not included in the Mind or acquired by it but infused and inspired from above this says he we disclaim and condemn for Enthusiasm This is the sum of the censure that he passeth upon this Doctrine And Lud. Wolzogen who pretends to take up the Bucklers against him in defence of the Protestant Cause in stead of vindicating the forecited Authors and their Doctrine joins with the Exercitator in the calumny as appears undeniably by his own words for thus he speaks Because the Holy Spirit doth indeed still exert some power in the minds of Men therefore some have believed that he opens the sense of the Scriptures and interprets them to the Faithful Which opinion the Exercitator doth justly decry and determine that it contains mere Enthusiasm Where he expresly approves and applauds what the Exercitator had said against the Doctors of the Reformed Churches charging them with Enthusiasm for maintaining a necessity of a Supernatural Light for a saving perception of the Mind of God in Scripture And himself doth so frequently strike upon this string in several places of his Book that he seems to design the blemishing and defaming of our most eminent Protestant Writers and the Doctrine which they have asserted against Papists and Pelagians These Men cannot be ignorant that the Divines whom they thus impeach have all along in answer to the like imputation from Popish and Socinian Authors expresly and vehemently disclaimed all compliance with Enthusiasts and that some of them have written learnedly and smartly against that sort of Men. They utterly disavow their expecting any such Illumination as was given to the Prophets and Apostles and do plainly deliver their minds that what they assert doth not consist in discovering any new Doctrine unreveal'd in Scripture but in qualifying and
never so inconsistent with or opposite to the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures or the Dictates of sound and sober Reason And being by this means laid open to Satanical Delusions they were easily drawn to believe the grossest absurdities and some of them to practice the vilest wickednesses contrary to common Honesty and the Publick Peace justifying all by their pretended Revelations This is the Character we have of Enthusiasts both Antient and Modern from Authors of unquestionable credit And if there be any where in this World any of the remainders of that Sect as it 's probable enough there are that entertain such wild and frantick Conceptions let them bear their sin and shame But of this I am sure that the Persons thus charged by Wolzogen and his Complices can safely appeal to all unprejudiced Persons that know them and to the most Wise and Holy God who is greater than all that they are as clear from any compliance with that Infatuated Generation as the best of their Accusers For 1. They heartily own and submit to the Holy Scriptures as the only sure and sufficient Rule of Faith and Life Accordingly whatsoever Conceptions may rise within them or be suggested to them in matters of Religion they bring them to the Bar of Scripture to stand or fall according to its Judgment not imposing their Sentiments upon the Scripture but receiving the sense of Scripture from the Scripture it self according to what hath been asserted in the precedent Discourse 2. In matters difficult and obscure that are more darkly laid down in Scripture especially in the Prophetick parts of it they forbear to determine peremptorily chusing rather to satisfie themselves with a modest hesitancy and abhorring to make their Judgments the measure of anothers Faith or superciliously to censure or despise any for their different apprehensions 3. They plead for no other Spirit of Revelation than what the Apostle prays for in behalf of the Ephesians Chap. 1. Vers. 17 18 19. which Revelation consists not in discovering any New Object to be received unreveal'd in Scripture but only in qualifying the Subject by curing the native and acquired blindness and carnality of our minds that we may rightly understand and embrace the Truths which the Scripture propounds 4. They solemnly profess and declare to all the World that whatsoever they are taught by the Holy Spirit as it is by and from the Scripture so it is in the regular exercise of their rational Faculties and such as they are â—eady at all times to give an account of from Scripture-grounds to any sober intelligent Person that shall demand it They therefore disown and reject the absurd Principles and arrogant Presumptions of the falsly-call'd Mystical Theology set on fooâ— antiently and revived in later years that pretends to Ecstatick Raptures and Deifications of the Soul by an utter cessation of all Intellectual Operations The Original of which Phantastick Theology Dr. Meric Casaubon derives from the Heathen Philosophers intimating withal the great Affinity between this and the New Method so much cried up of late Which those whom it concerns may consider of at their leisure In the mean time I take that for granted which hath been agreeably to plain and evident Scripture the acknowledged Doctrine of the Catholick Church however denied and derided by some late Innovators That the Holy Spirit of God is according to Christs own promise given to dwell in the Hearts of Christians to beget and preserve spiritual life in them to conduct them in their way to strengthen them with might in the Inner Man to shed abroad the love of God in their Hearts and witness their adoption to assist them in holy services and gradually to perfect the work of Sanctification in them To spend many words in proving this which is already so clear to all unbyass'd Judgments were to to light a Candle before the Sun As for that ridiculous sense that some have endeavour'd to fasten upon these or some of these Scriptures as if they were to be understood only of the Spirit as given to the Church in common and not to particular Christians it is so utterly inconsistent with the scope of those respective places and runs so contrary to the whole stream of Scripture and all Antiquity that I think it needless to waste time in refuting it He that will but considerately read over the several places and faithfully examine the Context may easily see the vanity of it That of the Learned Grotius is clear and full Not only the whole Collective Body of the Faithful but also particular Believers are rightly call'd the Temple of the Holy Ghost because the Spirit of God dwelleth in their Minds And if those who are careful according to the Apostles counsel not to quench the Spirit but to stir up the Grace of God in them have their hearts more warm'd and enlarged in holy Duties than others who either want that measure of Gifts or are defective in improving them I cannot conjecture why this should be made a matter of reproach but that some Men are angry at every thing that is not just of their own size or not suitable to their gust and therefore are resolved to revile and calumniate it though by those wounds the heart and life of Religion be found to lie a bleeding To shut up this I might here mind the Objector and those of his way how much it concerns them to acquit themselves of that Enthusiasm which they impeach others for It 's known to be one of the first Principles of that Grand Enthusiast Valentius Weigelius That he who would know the truth must forget whatsoever he hath learnt from Men and Books and lay it all aside as if he had never been acquainted with any thing and retreat into himself and fetch all his knowledge from thence Let this be referr'd to our Authors Consideration wherein this differs from the great Principle of his admired Master But let us hear what is further Objected to justifie these Mens prejudices Secondly It is said by some These heats are but the Frantick Freaks of a Crazed Brain and the product of a Religious Frenzy I answer 1. We need not be much moved with this sensless charge when we find the Pen-men of Sacred Writ to have little better measure made them by the same hand For of them we are told that they wrote many times they knew not what and gave forth Oracles when they were beside themselves his word is alienata mente which was one of the vile Positions of the Montanisis and Cataphrygians rejected and condemned both by Antient and Modern Divines And yet to justifie this Assertion our Author gravely cites Cicero de Divinatione calling the Raptures of their Pagan Vates by the Name of Furor and Virgil calling Sibylla a Mad Prophetess and Justin the Historian Lib. 24. where speaking of the much-famed Oracle at Delphos he tells us of a very
Imâ—â—â—â—atur Guil 〈…〉 nrico Episcopo 〈…〉 is Dom. Decem 〈…〉 THE SCRIPTURES Genuine Interpreter Asserted OR A DISCOURSE CONCERNING The Right Interpretation of Scripture Wherein a late Exercitation Intituled Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres Is Examin'd and the Protestant Doctrine in that point Vindicated With some Reflections on another Discourse of L. W. Written in Answer to the said Exercitation To which is added An APPENDIX concerning Internal Illumination and other Operations of the Holy Spirit upon the Soul of Man Justifying the Doctrine of Protestants and the Practice of Serious Christians against the Charge of Enthusiasm and other unjust Criminations By JOHN WILSON M. A. Sometime of Kath. Hall in CAMBRIDGE In the Savoy Printed by T. N. for R. Boulter at the Turks Head in Cornhil over against the Royal Exchange 1678. Dignissimo Clarissimoque Viro D. Jonathani Keat Equiti Aurato Baronetto Moecenati plurimum Honorando Pagellas hasce Genuini Scripturarum Interpretis Assertorias In debitae Gratitudinis Observantiae Testimonium D. D. D. Joannes Wilson A Prefatory Address to the READER Courteous Reader IT is not any pleasure in Polemick Discourses that hath engaged me in this Contest A Work of this kind is so far from affording me any true delight in these declining years of my life that if so concerning a Truth as I have here endeavoured to defend had not call'd for a seasonable Vindication against the assaults of a Daring Adversary I could with much more ease and better satisfaction to my self have sat down with silence I cannot but think that by all who take the Holy Scripgreatest part whereof do better understand their own Language than another I accounted the Objection less valuable and so resolved to proceed But whereas I have here and there reflected upon some passages in the Discourses of Ludovicus Wolzogen as they came in my way I give my Reader to understand that this ariseth not from any prejudice against the Person of that Noble Author to whose Honourable Parentage and excellent Learning I shall ever render all due respects But finding him to have so plainly injured the cause he undertook and so unhandsomely treated our most eminent Protestant Authors that have with much Judgment and Solidity defended it I am hopefully perswaded that those few Animadversions which I have made upon his Writings will not be unacceptable to the Friends of Truth The intricacy and perplexedness of his Discourse hath put me to some pains to understand his meaning for I have not satisfied my self with a slight or transient view but have perused his Book over and over with intenseness of mind that I might be sure not to mistake or misrepresent him And I hope it will appear to the Unprejudiced upon consulting his Book and comparing mine with it that I have done him right One Advertisement more I must add viz. That my Citations out of the said Authors Book De Scripturarum Interprete relate to a second Edition of it as it stands before his Censura Censurae and threfore the numbers of the Pages cited are not those on the top of the Leaf but those in the Margin relating to the first Edition which I suppose for I have not seen it was Printed in a lesser Volume A Brief Summary of the Contents of the Discourse about the Scriptures Interpreter The Introduction WHerein the Question about the Interpretation of Scripture is propounded the Terms explained and the following Dissertation divided into two Parts The First Part That Reason and Philosophy are not the Scriptures Interpreter Chap. 1. THe Terms explained and the Controversie stated 2. The first Argument from the condition of depraved Reason 3. Exceptions against the former Argument removed 4. A second Argument from the Disproportion between Humane Reason and matiers of Divine Revelation An Exception against it answered 5. A third Argument from an absurdity following thereupon 6. A fourth Argument from another great absurdity 7. A fifth Argument from the inconvenience of opening a gap to the worst of Errors 8. A sixth Argument from one great end of Scripture-Revelation 9. The contrary Arguments examined the first from the multiplicity of senses in the Scripture 10. A second from God's being the Author of Philosophy 11. A third from the supposed sufficiency of Philosophy 12. A fourth from the nature of a clear and distinct perception 13. A fifth from the supposed practice of former Divines 14. A sixth from instances in some considerable Scripture-Assertions supposed not Interpretable without Philosophy 15. A seventh from the Reasonableness of Religion 16. Scriptures alledged by our Divines vindicated 17. No contrariety between Scripture and sound Philosophy The Second Part That Scripture is its own Interpreter Chap. 1. THe Doctrine of the Reformed Churches in this point clear'd 2. The first Argument from the Scriptures sufficiency the first branch the Scriptures perfection 3. A second branch of the Argument the Scriptures perspicuity 4. An Exception against the Scriptures perspicuity from the ambiguity of words removed 5. A second Exception removed 6. A third Exception removed 7. A fourth from the supposed difference between the simple sense of the words of scripture and the true sense of the Author removed 8. A fifth and sixth Exception removed 9. A third branch of the first Argument the Scriptures Authentickness urged and an Exception removed 10. A second Argument from the Scriptures being the Rule of Faith 11. An Exception against this Argument from Reason being part of the Rule of Faith disproved 12. An Exception from the Scripture taken materially and formally removed 13. Several Objections against the Scripture being its own Interpreter answer'd The Conclusion REflecting upon some passages in the Exercitators Epilogue The Introduction 1. AN Entrance made into the Discourse The Question about the Interpretation of Scripture propounded and the Terms briefly explained 2. The Rule of Interpretation distinguished from the Means which are many and various 3. The Doctrine of the Romanists concerning the judgment of the present Church and that other about the consent of the Antients lightly touch'd and passed by 4. The Protestant Doctrine in this point what it is and the contrary Novel opinion of a late Exercitator The following Discourse divided into two parts THE Holy Scriptures being designed of God to be the Revelation of his Will to the Children of Men for their conduct in the pursuit of their chief end we cannot but judge it consentaneous to his unsearchable Wisdom to order the Writing of them in such a manner as that his Mind in them might in the due use of his appointed means be understood by those for whose use and benefit they were intended And though the subject matter they treat of be often very deep and misterious yet the way of proposal is very condescending and what ever is of necessity to our duty and happiness is obvious to the diligent and humble Inquirer Nevertheless many passages in these Sacred Records have those difficulties
Exercitator who hath written a set Discourse to this purpose In the entrance whereof he tells the World That for the extricating of himself out of those perplexities wherein Divines generally are intangled in their Expositions of Scripture he resolved upon mature deliberation to make use of the same method in Theology that Des Cartes had done in Philosophy and professeth that supposing Scripture for the Rule of Faith all the difference in opinion among Dogmatical Divines as he calls them in opposition to Scepticks appears to him to arise from hence that none of them could certainly and infallibly prove their Interpretations of Scripture and that after long inquiry he found this to be the onely sure and infallible Rule of Interpretation which himself had now found out viz. the principals of Reason and dictates of Philosophy And in this new way which he glories in the invention of he professedly declares his dissent from Papists Protestants Socinians and Remonstrants But he bends his greatest force against the Reformed Churches endeavouring with all his might to invalidate what they unanimously maintain concerning the perspicuity of the Scriptures and the singularity of the literal Sense and especially about the Rule of Interpretation For thus like a Miles Gloriosus he begins his tenth Chapter Devictis velitari brevique pugna imbellibus istis c. Having by a light and easie skirmish subdued these weak and feeble Enemies meaning the Romanists let us now march another way and draw up our Battalia against those of the Reformation and all that fight under their Colours And in the sequele of his discourse he hath gratified none so much as the Church of Rome as in his positive proof such as it is of his novel Position he hath not a little befriended the Socinian though he would seem to divide himself from them both However both in the Astructive and Destructive part of his Book he is a declared Adversary to the Protestant Cause For my more orderly proceeding I shall divide my ensuing Dissertation into two Parts in the former whereof I shall deal with this Exercitator's new Device of Reason and Philosophy being the Scriptures Interpreter disproving it and answering such arguments as I find alledged or imagine may be alledged for it In the latter I shall endeavor to clear and assert the Protestant Doctrine of the Scriptures being its own Interpreter and answer the objections against it THE SCRIPTURES Genuine Interpreter asserted c. PART I. Humane Reason or Philosophy no sure Interpreter of the Holy Scriptures CHAP. I. 1. The Proposition denying Reason and Philosophy to be the Scriptures Interpreter laid down and the Terms explainâ—d 2. How far they have their use and what we deny 3. Who they are that have ascribed too much to them FIrst then I assert against the Exercitator's Position That Humane Reason or Philosophy is not to be admitted or allowed as the sure and sufficient Interpreter of the Holy Scriptures For our more clear proceeding it is requisite I should explain my meaning before I come to the proof of my Assertion Let it therefore be considered That Reason may be three ways taken First For that power and faculty in Man whereby he is enabled to apprehend judge and discourse of such objects as are presented to his understanding Now this falls under a two-fold conception according to the two-fold state of Man Innocent or Fallen Mans Reason as it was originally when God first made him was pure and clear not clouded or blinded not depraved or distorted there was nothing to darken or disturb it It was then a glorious Beam streaming forth from the Eternal Light But Mans Apostasie as it vitiated his other faculties so it benighted his Reason and exposed it to further depravation by the prevalency of disordered Passions and sinfull Lusts. Yet even in this state his Reason is not lost though it be much corrupted I am far from that late Authors mind that says Quae fallet aut falliter ratio minimè ratio dicenda Reason that deceives or is deceived is not to be called Reason Mans Reason notwithstanding its pravity is still kept in a Capacity to understand his greatest Concerns by the assistance of those gracious aids that God affords him and hath in all ages been of great use for the good of Mankind in reference both to mens personal and politick affairs Therefore I need not fear to say that next to Holiness Mans Reason is his greatest Glory Secondly Reason is taken for the exercise of this intellectual Power in inquiring discovering comparing judging objects propounded It is by these actings of our Reason that we search after Truth and make use of it when we have found it for the conduct and comfort of our lives and by these it is that we defend the Truth of God against â—ainsayers Thirdly It is taken for the Principles of Reason known or knowable by natural light And these are either Natural or Acquired The Natural or Primary Principles of Reason are those that carry their own evidence with them therefore upon the first representation are forthwith embraced by our Reason without any Discourse And they are called Natural not as being formally imprinted or properly engraven in our Minds by Nature for we are not born with Actual Knowledge but because they are founded in and do necessarily result from the Nature of things and their mutual Respects wherein as in a Glass our Undestanding sees them represented and is disposed to assent to them at the first view The Secondary or Acquired Principles are those which are not so obvious as the former but by rational Discourse are truly and soundly deduced from them And here falls in the consideration of Philosophy which is made up of these Principles methodically digested And by it I understand that true knowledge of God and his Works which is attainable in this mortal state by the improvement of that Light that is Connatural to the Mind of Man This though it be much inferiour to Scripture-Light yet it is both an exercise and an advancement of Reason a noble Study and of excellent use if rightly managed not only for the beautifying but the bettering the Mind of Man and raising it to an high admiration and humble adoration of that Infinite Being whose Wisdom Power and Goodness is so eminently conspicuous in all the Works of His Hands And if there be any such in the World as some say there are that deny or reproach sound Philosophy or the Dictates of Right Reason as I know them not so neither shall I plead their cause Now as to the Case before us First It is undeniable That for the Interpreting of Scripture there is a necessary use of the Faculty of Reason and the several actings of it as instrumentally subservient to the finding out the Sense of Scripture Faith doth not exclude Reason but elevate and advance it by giving it a clearer light it doth
not silence but regulate and conduct it There is nothing in Religion but what is perfectly rational and suitable to mans intellectual nature It is to our Rational Powers that the Scriptures are propounded and as our belief of them is one of the highest acts of Reason so it is by our Reason in its due exercise that we search into them not only to find out the signification of the Words and Phrases of Scripture and discern the difference between proper and Figurative Expressions besides many other things that tend to their Verbal Exposition but likewise to observe the dependence of one Clause on another and compare the several parts of Scripture together thereby it is that we gather Consequences from Scripture-Principles and hereby do we instrumentally judge of the Mind of God as signified to us by the Words of Scripture Secondly We also grant That the Principles of Reason have their use about those things in Scripture that are discoverable by Natural Light as that there is a God and that God is to be worshipped that the Soul is Immortal that good is to be done and evil to be avoided and many such like But even in these considered as they are delivered by the Spirit of God in Scripture I think Reason is not Magisterially and Authoritatively to Judge of them being under this notion to be received as the Decrees of a higher Court wherein Man's Reason is but a Servant In this Case therefore Reason only gives in its suffrage and ministerially subscribes by vertue of its own impressed notions to Scripture-Dictates Aquinas propounding a question about Mans believing such things as may be proved by Natural Reason resolves it necessary for Mens more speedy more common and more certain attainment of Divine Knowledge that they should receiveby Faith not only those things that are above Natural Reason but those also that are discernable by Natural Light Whereby he plainly gives the pre-eminency to Revelation above Reason even in the Natural Principles of Religion Thirdly I grant that there is great use of Natural Principles in points of pure Revelation viz. To shew that these are not against sound Reason and to disprove the objections that are made against them from a pretended contrariety to Natural Light It was no small advantage to the Christian Cause in the Primitive Times that the Ancient Fathers in their Apologies for the Doctrine of Christ against the Heathen Philosophers turned their own Weapons upon them and repelled their absurd Cavils by their own acknowledged Maxims Fourthly I further grant that no Sense of Scripture is to be admitted for genuine if we do indeed find it to be certainly inconsistent with or contradictory unto any true and undoubted Principle of Reason For God who is the Author of all truth as well natural as supernatural cannot contradict himself This I confess is a very ticklish point and calls for great wariness and circumspection it being so â—asie and so ordinary for Men to be swayed by Imagination Interest and Prejudice to call that Reason which is as far from being so as midnight is from being high noon And Men may through Ignorance Incogitancy or Perversness suppose a contradiction where there is none Nevertheless this we may safely say that whatsoever is certainly and undeniably proved to be a Principle of Reason there can be nothing in Scripture that really contradicts it But Fifthly The Knot of the Controversie lies here whether Humane Reason by its own Natural Principles or those Philosophical Axioms that are thence deduced as its Supream Commanding Rule must guide and determine us in examining and deciding what is the Sense of those parts of Scripture that are purely of Supernatural Revelation And this is that which is here denied The affirmative is maintained by some and indeed it seems to be the great Helena of that sort of Men who have imbibed the new Divinity of Socinus and the Foundation of all their Heterodoxies upon this account it is that they so vehemently oppose the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead the Eternal Deity of our Lord Jesus the Personality of the Holy Ghost the Doctrines of Original Sin of the Satisfaction of Christ and Justification by his imputed Righteousness with sundry other material points that are commonly called to the Bar of Humane Reason by these Doctors of the Racovian Faith Not that they have any sound Reason on their side for their Novelties are extremely irrational as hath been abundantly demonstrated by those judicious Authors that have dealt with them But trusting to their own Reason and its Dictates in matters so far above Nature this hath led them into these dangerous precipices True it is whether in pretence to blind the Eyes of others or out of the conviction of Truth or out of the usual fate of Error to contradict it self these Men sometimes let fall that which carries with it a fair appearance of disclaiming the Judgment of Reason in Matters of Faith as may be seen in their great Master Socinus And such passages in him and his followers may possibly give some colour to the Exercitator to charge the Reformed Divines with wronging the Socinians in saying they make Mans Reason the Rule of Interpretation for himself seems to be ambitious of the honour of finding this out and it may be they have no where asserted it in Terminis or spoken it out so broadly as this Gentleman hath done But notwithstanding all this flourish when they argue against the forementioned Doctrines received upon clear Scripture-warrant by all the Christian Churches in the World from the beginning of Christianity their grand objection is drawn from Reason to which they appeal in all these Controversies as to their Oracle and thereupon set their Wits at work to wrest and winde the Scriptures alledged in defence of those Doctrines every way they can imagine to evade their plain meaning and fasten on them a Sense of their own making suitable to their beloved Maxims Besides many other passages there are of that Party that discover what their Mind is in this point But these are not the first that set this presumptuous Doctrine on foot I find it laid to the charge of the Manichees as irrational and absurd as their Conceptions were that they professedly suspended the Articles of Faith upon the judgment of Reason and required Men to believe nothing but what they could prove by Reason So much we learn from him who was once one of them but happily delivered out of their snare CHAP. II. 1. The first Argument disabling Reason and Philosophy for being the Scriptures Interpreter from the condition of Mans depraved Reason in this lapsed State 2. The Apostles Words in 1 Cor. 2. 14. urged and vindicated from some Mens mistaken Glosses 3. The Argument enforced from the foul mastakes of the most Rational among the Heathen in matters of Religion NOW that Reason or Philosophy cannot in the Sense given be the Scriptures Interpreter
own Will And if our Reason will not rest satisfied with that it will but weary it self in fruitless inquiries and dangerously miscarry by its bold determinations For instance what account can our Reason give why God should provide a Saviour for lost Man and none for the lapsed Angels Why he should cloath his only begotten Son with our dishonoured nature and expose him to so bitter Sufferings for the Sin of Man Why he should 〈…〉 severely punish the Crucifiers of his Son when what they did was fore-determined by himself in order to Mans Salvation And why he should suffer so much wickedness to be done which himself hates and could if he pleased by his Almighty Power hinder These and many more such instances might be given wherein Mans Reason is puzzl'd as not finding any thing wherein it can acquiesce but the Will and pleasure of God that thus it should be Again God requires we should believe him upon his naked Word though we know not which way that which he says can be And accordingly he so manifests to us his Mind that he will not gratifie our vanity or pride in resolving the queries and satisfying the objections that our curiosity may start about the Truth revealed It is enough for us to know what he hath said and to take it upon the Authority of his word without asking how or why And it is indeed the highest Reason imaginable that we should give absolute credit to what he speaks God's Sovereignty saith the learned Lord Verulam reaches to the whole Man extending itself no less to his Reason than his Will so that it well becomes man to deny himself universally and yield up all to him Wherefore as we are bound to obey the Law of God notwithstanding the reluctancy of our Will so are we also to believe his Word though against the reluctancy of our Reason I shall conclude this with the Words of the learned Grotius who having asserted the Doctrines of Scripture to be no way contrary to sound Reason but agreeable thereunto he he hath this remarkable passage Ultra haec pro comperto aliquid affirmare aut de Dei natura aut de ejus voluntate solo ductu humanae rationis c. How dangerous and deceitfull a thing it is to affirm any thing for certain either of the Nature or Will of God beyond what we have in Holy Writ by the sole conduct of Humane Reason we are taught by the many dissentient opinions not only of Schools but of particular Philosophers among themselves Nor is this any great wonder for if they ran out into very differing apprehensious when they disputed about the nature of their own Mind much more must it needs be so with those who are desirous to determine any thing concerning that Supreme Mind that is so far above us If prudent Men count it dangerous to search into the Counsels of Kings which by all our search we cannot discover who is there so sagacious as can hope by his own conjectures to find out what God will do among those things that depend upon his meer pleasure CHAP. V. A third Argument from the absurdity of resolving a Mans Faith into himself and his own Reason IN the third place If the Sense of Scripture be to be regulated and determined by Natural Principles then the last resolution of a Mans Faith in those points as to the formal object of it will be into Man himself and the dictate of his own Reason For the ultimate reason or ground of our believing in this case will not be the veracity of God speaking in the Scripture but the Voice of our own Reason persuading us from its own Principles when we can see nothing in the Words of Scripture to require it And this plainly falls in with the absurd conceit of the Quakers who commonly profess to own nothing that is laid down in the Bible as the Mind of God but what is witnessed by the light within them Which is no more in other terms than this That they will take nothing from the Scripture but what is agreeable to their own Reason For the light they speak of with which they say every Man comes into the World for which they alledge that in Joh. 1. 9. is nothing else but Mans Reason and the common notions of it which though some of them have heretofore denied yet now their chief Heads and Leaders do openly avow And this is that which they make the standing Rule of what they believe and practise and not the Holy Scriptures We rather say with an ancient Schoolman Apud Aristotelem argumentum est ratio rei dubiae faciens fidem sed apud Christum argumentum est fides faciens rationem The way of arguing in Aristotle's School is by Reason begetting assent but in Christ's School it is by Faith which is instead of all Reason CHAP. VI. A fourth Argument from another absurdity viz. That in Matters of pure Revelation the Mind of God may be better known by Natural Light than by Scripture Or that all supernatural Revelation is to be shut out FOurthly It will follow from this supposal That in matters of pure Revelation the Mind of God may be better known by the common principles of Natural Light than by the Holy Scriptures which carries with it a palpable contradiction For matters of pure Revelation are supposed to be supernatural and if these as laid down in Scripture cannot be understood from the Scripture it self but must have such a Sense given them as the Maxim of Natural Reason shall determine then certainly it is not Revelation but Reason that discovers them And so what need will there be of Scripture Indeed this conceit looks very like that absurd dotage of Weigelius if it be not the same with it that Mans knowledge of all things whatsoever must be fetcht from within himself not from without Tenôris says he omnia nôris omnia enim es non minus quam Deus Which besides many other prodigious absurdities plainly shuts out all supernatural Revelation And that this lies at the bottom of the Exercitators Discourse I find reason enough to suspect if not conclude For besides what he says in his sixth Chapter the first Paragraph which I shall wave insisting on in his Epilogue at the end of his Book he propounds an Objection against his whole Discourse viz. That if Philosophy be the Rule of Interpreting the Holy Scripture then the Scripture is useless and written to no purpose for seeing the truth of all the Senses of Scripture which are to be search'd out and tryed by Philosophy must first be perceived before they be drawn out and examined to what end is it that we should have recourse to Scripture to learn any thing from it This is the Objection which himself makes against his own Position In answer whereto he runs out into a long Harangue of words and as his manner is propounds a frivolous
and Veracity God perfectly knows all the several significations of the words that he hath uttered in Scripture and whatver the Reader can apprehend in them and he is also most true and faithful and therefore would not deceive or delude any by his Words Hence he gathers that whatsoever sense may be made of any part of Scripture if it be in it self a Truth it must be own'd for the true meaning of the Spirit of God in that place To this I answer Were all this intended only of the multiplicity of subordinate Senses depending on and deducible from that immediate Sense which is but one the Argument will hold firm For if any thing do truely lie in any Mans words or by due consequence be deducible from them which himself did not mean when he spake them he must needs be charged to be either ignorant or fallacious But being intended as it is by the Author of a multiplicity of collateral and immediate Senses his Argument is a miserable inconsequence Next he attempts to prove this by the Testimony of Learned Men and begins with the Jewish Rabbins whose childish and absurd conceits need no confutation witness that instanced by this Author their proving the multiplicity of Senses out of Psalm 62. 12. the 11. in our English Translation God hath spoken once twice have I heard this that power belongeth unto God That is say they God hath propounded one single Speech but such as I can understand two ways that is many ways a certain number being put for an uncertain by drawing several Senses from it wherein the Power of God consists that he can so order and dispose his Speech as thereby to teach men a multitude of Truths And is not this a goodly gloss upon the Text and an irrefragable proof of the matter in hand Whereas the Psalmists twice hearing what God had once spoken is no more but his diligent and attentive minding of that great and weighty Truth That Power belongs unto God What he further cites out of the Fathers concerning the fecundity of Scripture containing much in a few words is all granted being understood as before of subordinate not coordinate Senses For that the Scripture should be as a formless Mass capable of being turned by Philosophy into a thousand shapes which this Authors conceit tends to never was for ought I can find any part of their meaning 2. Whereas he says Philosophy is a true certain undoubted knowledge of the nature of things demonstrated by Natural Light I ask doth Philosophy comprehend the knowledge of all things Or is the nature of all things discernable by Natural Light There are in Scripture many things Historical Prophetical and Dogmatical the knowledge whereof depends wholly upon Supernatural Revelation What can Philosophy do here And even in those things that are Natural and belong to the cognisance of Philosophy how short is that knowledge that the most learned have attained Therefore whereas this Author so proudly derides our Reformed Divines for complaining of the darkness of Mans Natural Reason if he were not too wise to be taught he might have learnt more modesty from the ancient Philosophers the best and wisest whereof did greatly bewail the darkness of Mans Understanding Even Aristotle who never I think was judged to have disparaged Humane Reason acknowledges that our Understandings even as to the most manifest things in nature are but as the Eyes of the Owl and Bat to the day-light And though both he and others of them being unacquainted with Scripture could not clearly discover the true original of this darkness yet some weak conjectures some of them have made of it and whether by any Tradition received from the Jews or by some other means I shall not enquire some general and confused intimation they had that Man had lost his Primitive Excellency that the Wings of his Soul for so they express it had by some sad fall been so broken that he could not arrive at any considerable measures of knowledge by his greatest industry And hence arose that fond mistake among some of them that the Souls of Men having had a pre-existence before their union with their Bodies and having offended in that State were for a punishment of their Error thrust into these gross terrestial receptacles and that this caused the imperfection and obscurity of Mens Understandings But to those who own the Scripture and may learn from thence what Man 's Primitive State was and how he fell and are any whit acquainted with themselves methinks it should be no strange Riddle that the Mind is clouded and benighted even in things Natural and therefore in Supernatural much more But where is that Philosophy that this Exercitator cryes up for so certain and infallible and which another Author of like Principles does with profane boldness magnifie as equal to the Holy Scriptures for its compleat perfection and infallible certainty Where is it In the Clouds Sure it never was extant among men save in the crazy conceits of some haughty self-admirers 3. As to what our Author speaks of Philosophy being usefull to detect false Interpretations of Scripture I grant that where such false Interpretations are given as do really entrench upon the undoubted Principles of Reason the weakness and folly of them may well be discover'd by Philosophy But all corrupt or perverse expositions are not to be so limited nor is this enough to render Philosophy a sufficient Rule of Interpretation The heathen Philosophers could discover the error of their vulgar Religion but could not direct men to the true and right as I have shewn before The like may be said in the present case 4. Whereas our Exercitator further adds in the close of this Argument that from the beginning of Christianity those who were the most profound Philosophers were generally confessed to be the happiest Interpreters of Scripture I am far from being of his mind none having more corrupted and depraved the Scriptures than Men of greatest eminency for Philosophick Learning which I do not at all impute to Philosophy truly so call'd but to the rashness and folly of Men who being desirous to advance that wherein they would be thought to excell have adventured to make use of their Philosophick Principles in matters of a quite different and more sublime nature But suppose we the utmost that can be supposed That an eminent Philosopher were furnished with all the most necessary accomplishments for the understanding of Scripture and should duely improve them for that end yet this would no more prove Philosophy to be the Supream rule of Interpretation than Grammar or Rhetorick which are every whit as necessary and useful to such a Work if not more No further doth any thing help us in understanding the Scripture than it directs us to those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or evidences of the true sence that lie within the Scripture it self that is by helping us to use the Scripture as the Rule
crude Conceptions into a more phantastick dress of great swelling words to amuse the ignorant Vulgar and this Gentleman hath put his opinion into a more Manly Garb to render it the more plausible to the Literate World CHAP. XIII A fifth Argument from the supposed Practice of the Ancient Fathers Schoolmen and others answered ANother Plea the Exercitator useth is drawn from the Practice of the Ancients Justin Martyr Dionysius Areopagita Origen and others making use of the Platonick or Eclectick Philosophy to Expound the difficult places of Holy Writ and of the Schoolmen and others in these latter Aâ—â—â— making the like use of the Peripatâ—â—ick Philosophy which bore the sway in their times To this I answer 1. Methinks this is a very lose and inconsequent way of arguing For though this Author professeth elsewhere that in the present controversie he intends not by Philosophy the opinion of Plato or Aristotle or any other whatever yet it is plain by his Prologue and by several passages in the Body of his Discourse that he intends the honour of being the Scriptures Interpreter to the Cartesian Philosophy And in this very Chapter wherein he alledgeth the forementioned examples of Fathers and Schoolmen he tells us that other Christians who had forsaken the Romish Church did in their Expositions of Scripture mostly though not exactly tread in the steps of the Schoolmen who made Aristotle's Philosophy their Rule till that in this last Age the light of the Cartesian Philosophy shone upon some Divines Quibus sordescere coeperunt Sacrarum literarum interpretamenta quae hujus lucis radiis non illustrata prodierunt It seems the Divines of his way despised and viliâ—ed all Interpretations of Scripture whether by Fathers or Schoolmen or by whomsoever made that were not enlightned with the beams of this new-risen Star so that all Expositions of Scripture that were made before Des Caâ—tes his happy days must be condemned to the Dust and Moths as useless and good for nothing Which by the way serves a little to abate my wonder at the daring folly of some Novelists in whose Writings I find many absurd distorted self-contradicting Expositions of Scripture not without the highest scorn cast upon all dissenting Interpreters It seems they are of this Authors persuasion and perhaps have lighted their Candle at his dark Lanthorn But truly as I do not very well relish the modesty of our Exercitator in this Discourse so I do as little admire his Logick For what a wilde consequence is this because the Ancients used the Platonick or Eclectick Philosophy as their Rule of Interpretation and the Schoolmen used the Peripatetick as their Rule of Expounding therefore the Cartesian Philosophy that differs widely from them all is the surest and most infallible Interpreter Let no man mistake me as if I hereby intended any sinister reflection on that noble Author whom the person I am dealing with pretends to follow I willingly allow him all the honour that his great Parts and Studious Inquiries may have merited without the least detraction Though I think some of his greatest admirers have done him no small injurie partly by their Superlative Elogies given to him together with their ready swallowing and pertinacious defending all his dictates but especially by extending his Rules and Methods to matters of Supernatural Revelation beyond his declared meaning if his own word may be taken which I am not concerned to examine 2. What use soever former Writers Ancient or Modern have made of their respective Philosophy in expounding Scripture it doth not yet appear that they own'd it for their Rule and if they did I am sure they did amiss I highly honour the memory of the ancient Fathers but I never took them for infallible in their Interpretations nor did they themselves nor I suppose doth the Exercitat or who yet contends for Philosophy to be the Infallible Interpreter And for the Schoolmen himself cites some Authors and might have cited many more and those of great eminency in the Church of Rome it self who have long since complained of them for corrupting Divinity by mixing it with their Philosophick Notions and yet we never find any of these so absurd as to assert Philosophy to be the Scriptures Interpreter 3. Lastly let it be consider'd whether this Author have not greatly forgotten and grosly contradicted himself in using this Argument from Example for himself professeth to maintain a new and strange opinion in asserting Philosophy to be the Interpreter of Scripture And in his Prologue he tells us that he had consulted with the Divines of all Places and Ages that is I suppose with their Writings to find out what method they used and what Rule they followed in their Interpretation of Scripture but could find nothing that would give him satisfaction and therefore he resolved to lay them all aside and try what he could do proprio marte by his own industry and that after long disquisition he at last fell upon this onely sure and infallible way which he here commends to the World Now I would know how he could speak this and yet believe what he here alledgeth that both Fathers and Schoolmen and other Modern Writers took this course of making Philosophy the Rule of Expounding Scripture CHAP. XIV 1. Answer given to a sixth Argument drawn from instances in some considerable Scripture-assertions supposed not interpretable without Philosophy viz. Such as speak of God after the manner of Man 2. Our Saviours Words about the Eucharist 3. The Doctrine of the Trinity IN the next place the Exercitator argues from instances in some considerable Scripture-Assertions which he says cannot be interpreted but by having recourse to Philosophy as the Rule of Exposition And here he insists upon three particulars which I shall examine in order First he instances in those Scriptures that speak of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after the manner of Men ascribing to him the Members of an Humane Body and the affections of an Humane Soul besides Sense and Motion with many other things not competible to an Incorporeal much less to an infinite and immutable Being Touching which Expressions whereas it is truely cautioned by Divines of all sorts that these are to be explicated by such Scriptures as speak otherwise of God suitably to his immaterial and unchangeable Being this Author boldly affirms that the Scripture of it self is insufficient to direct us and that there is no way to resolve us which of these different Expressions of Scripture are to be taken properly and which not unless we take the Principles of Philosophy and Natural Reason for our guide To this I answer That Gods infinite and immense Perfections are much more clearly and fully discover'd to us in Scripture than by Natural Light The Apostle says 1 Cor. 2. 11. What man knows the things of a Man save the Spirit of Man which is in him even so the things of God knoweth no man but
the Spirit of God Therefore the best and safest Conceptions we can have of God are those which we learn from the Spirit of God speaking to us in and by the Scripture And if this Author were not extremely prejudiced by a partial fondness for his own darling conceits he might know that plain ordinary Christians who never had ought to do with Philosophick Learning have by their sole acquaintance with the Scriptures come to much clearer and sounder conceptions of God his Nature and Attributes than the learnedst Philosopher that ever the World had could attain by all his Wit and Study without Scripture Light and that to any Reader that is not prepossessed with false and absurd Notions of God by his own vain imagination and misguided Reason the Scriptures that speak so differently concerning that Supreme Being if prudently compared together and the circumstances on each side considered do sufficiently to the satisfaction of sober Minds discover to us their true and genuine Sense without giving the least countenance to the sottish and irrational conceits of the Anthropomorphites though a cavelling daring Wit may and will find something to quarrel with where the matter is as clear as the noon-day Sun His next instance is The Words of our Saviour at the institution of his last Supper This is my Body which the Papists interpret for Transubstantiation The Lutherans for Consubstantiation The Reformed Churches deny both understanding the words tropically whose Sense he says can be no otherwise defended but by the Principles of Natural Philosophy For answer to this I grant That in clearing this controversie there is good use of the Principles of Philosophy and Natural Reason and so there is also of Sense which undeniably convinceth us that what we see and feel and taste is Bread Yet sure we are not to make Sense the Rule of Interpreting Scripture But the true and proper Rule of Interpreting our Saviours Words This is my Body is that which the Scripture it self and that alone hath taught us viz. That Christ assumed a true Humane Body which is a truth that Reason and Philosophy could never inform us of it being a matter of pure Revelation Now this being laid down as the chief Postulatum the thing to be inquired into is What is the nature of an Humane Body and what are the essential Properties of all natural Bodies And this Natural Philosophy instructs us in as being no matter of Revelation but lying within the compass of Natural Light which teacheth us that every Natural Body is quantitative and divisible and confined to one certain place consequently that the Bread in the Sacrament of the Eucharist cannot be properly and substantially the Body of Christ which as Scripture informs us was once nailed to the Cross but is now glorified in Heaven Now the force of all this for the expounding of our Saviours Words lies in the former supposition That our Saviour assumed a true natural Humane Body together with what was even now mentioned That the same Body of Christ which he assumed is at the right Hand of God in Heaven both which are Scripture-Revelations Besides there is a wide difference between these two a help to overthrow a false Interpretation and the Rule of establishing the true one Philosophy may do the former but not the latter As in this controversie the Principles of Reason and Philosophy do convincingly assure us that Bread is not cannot be the Body of a Man But they cannot assure us what was our Saviours meaning when holding the Bread in his Hand he said This is my Body this must be resolved by what the Scripture it self speaks either there or elsewhere His third and last instance is the Doctrine of the Trinity which he says cannot be cleared without having recourse to Philosophy and here having derided the attempts of many to explicate and confirm this great Mistery by their Metaphysical Speculations he highly applauds the learned Keckerman for his happy endeavors in unfolding and demonstrating it Ex immotis Philisophiae fundamentis out of the unmoveable Foundations of Philosophy To this I answer That the curious speculations and Philosophick niceâ—ies of the Schools about the Doctrine of the Trinity have done it more prejudice than advantage and given greater occasion to the adverse part to reject it when they found so strange and incomprehensible a Mystery defended by such thin airy cobweb notions It had been much better if Men had contented themselves with those discoveries the Scripture makes of this inexplicable Mystery it being a Doctrine purely of Supernatural Revelation and not at all discoverable by Natural Light The Arguments from Reason and Philosophy brought for the proof of it by the learned Keckerman and by Claubergius a late Cartesian are examined by Vogolsangius in his Indignatio Justa c. and discarded as insufficient I grant that in this as in many other Doctrines it may be of good use to shew that there is nothing in what the Scripture says of it that contradicts any sound Principle of Reason But to go about by the Principles of Reason or Philosophy positively to demonstrate the truth of it is a thing which I take to be impossible I chuse to say of this Mystery as one does of the Divine Essence Credendo intelligitur adorando enarratur It is best understood by believing and best declared by adoring He saith the late Bishop of Down that should go to Revelation to prove that nine and nine make eighteen would be a Fool and he would be no less that goes about to prove a Trinity of persons by natural Reason Every thing must be derived from its own Fountain Thus Aquinas tells us He that by natural Reason attempts to prove the Trinity of persons doth a double prejudice to the Faith 1. He derogates from its Dignity it being proper to the Doctrine of Faith to be of such things as exceed Mans Reason 2. He hinders others from embracing the Faith by using such Arguments as are not cogent which renders it obnoxious to the Infidels contempt This is plain in Scripture that the Father is God and the Holy Ghost is God and that these are three and all three are but one God and for other subtleties and curious inquiries of busie and presumptuous Wits without and beside the Written Word I think the Truth of God never was nor ever will be beholden to them CHAP. XV. A seventh Argument from the reasonableness of Religion answered ONe Argument more I shall touch which I find alledged by two noted Socinians Smalcius and Schlichtingius as they are cited by a late learned Author in his Socinianism Confut. to prove Reason to be the Rule of deciding Controversies of Faith which may be thought improveable upon the same grounds to assert that Reason must be the Rule of interpreting Scripture And it is That of the Apostle where he asserts the Service that God requires of Christians to be 〈◊〉
Interpreter preclude them 3. Were this Argument allowed it would for ever debarr us from alledging Scripture against the Romanists in any Controversie that we have with them it being notorious to all Men that this is one great difference betwixt us and them who must be the Supreme Interpreter of Scripture which they challenge as the Priviledge of their Church and we ascribe to the Scripture it self But it is a miserable Plea that this Author makes elsewhere for himself viz. That he had to do with one whom he esteemed to be no Christian but an Heathen for so he accounts the Exercitator who would no more regard the Testimony of Scripture in this Case than a Jew would regard any proof from the New Testament and therefore it was that he declined dealing with him about those Testimonies from Scripture It seems then he would make the World believe that what he had said about this was onely spoken ad hominem By which it plainly appears that our Author began to see he could not stand his ground but was not so ingenuous as to confess his Error and therefore runs behind this Bush to hide himself For 1. His Words which I quoted before out of his Book De Scripturarum Interprete do evidently shew that he speaks according to his own Mind that it was a preposterous thing in this Controversie to alledge the Testimony of Scripture and that in this Case no such proof was to be allowed see him page 217. 219. and 247. and not only so but alledges the Reasons beforementioned such as they are for this wilde Position 2. He knows very well that the Jews to whom he compares his Antagonist do not at all own the Authority of the new Testament but professedly reject it Whereas the Exercitator whatever his Religion be does avowedly own the Divine Authority of the Scripture and delcares himself willing to be dealt with in that way in that he cites our Divines Arguments from thence and endeavors to answer them for which this Author reproves him So that the case is not the same And yet I appeal to the Authors Reason Should any Jewish Writer either cite any Testimonies out of the New Testament for himself or endeavor by his own Interpretations to evade any Testimonies thence alledged against him which is plainly the Case here whether should a Christian that pretends to answer him do well to say That the New Testament is not here to be heard and that it were a preposterous thing to alledge it Should he not rather endeavor to answer the objections that are made and clear the places cited And if in case he should do as this Author doth here might he not justly be condemned for a Betrayer of the Christian Cause If it be said that though the Exercitator acknowledge the Divine Authority of the Scriptures yet he holds them to be universally ambiguous and obscure further than Humane Reason expounds them and therefore it was to no purpose to use Scripture to him till they had agreed about the Rule of Interpretation I answer The Exeroitator does indeed charge the Scripture with obscurity because of its ambiguity but it is upon this ground because hesays all words whatsoever are ambiguous If therefore this should shut out the Scripture from bearing witness in the Controversie then all Arguments from Reason must upon the same account be excluded too for they must be made up of Words and Phrases the ambiguity whereof according to the Exercitators Doctrine will render them obscure as well as the Scripture Come we now to speak something to the Scriptures alledged by our Divines which the Exercitator labors to evade But methinks it is a pleasant thing to see how he betrays his own Cause by acting against his own Method and Principles For having all along cried up Philosophy as the onely Interpreter of Scripture when himself comes interpret the Scriptures brought against him one would think he should bring his own Tools to this Work and labor by Philosophick Principles to make out the Sense that he gives of these Scriptures But he waves this and seeks to fetch out his own Sense from the Scripture it self by examining the Antecedents and Consequents and the Authors scope Now he either takes this way of Interpretation to be right or he does not If he do not he doth but juggle with his Reader and designs to cheat him but if he do indeed think it to be right he yields the Cause that not Philosophy but the Scripture it self is the Rule of Interpretation Now for the Scriptures alledged The first is that in 1 Cor. 1. 19 20 21. where the Apostle speaks very contemptibly of Humane Wisdom the like may besaid of the next 1 Cor. 2. 6. Now in these places saith the Exercitator the Apostle does not go about to deny or condemn true Wisdom but the earthly sensual Wisdom of the World that is grounded upon vain opinions and puts Men upon the eager pursuit of earthly things such as Riches and Honors and Sensual Pleasures I answer The Apostle having to do with those who thought meanly of the Doctrine of Christ Crucified and affected a name for that which the world counted Wisdom endeavors to lay all Humane Wisdom in the dust and to discover its insufficiency to conduct man to true happiness for which he prefers the Doctrine of the Gospel which was so derided as foolishness above that which the World so much admired This therefore is no impertinent allegation against the Exercitators opinion That in 1 Cor. 2. 14. I have already pressed in the prosecution of my first Argument and have vindicated it from the corrupt glosses that some have put upon it The last is that in Coloss. 2. 8. Beware lest any man spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit Here saith the Exercitator the Apostle doth not condemn sound Philosophy but that which is vain and useless I answer Undoubtedly he doth not condemn Philosophy truely so called But he gives a caution to take heed of being deceived by it as Men may be when the use of it is extended beyond its Line and is not kept within its own proper Bounds Thus saith our learned Davenant Philosophy or Humane Reason which is the Mother of Philosophy is always found vain and deceitfull when it is carried beyond its proper limits That is says he when it attempts to determine of those things that fall not under the cognisance of Natural Reason such are those that belong to the Worship of God and to the Salvation of Man as the Points of Justification Reconciliation with God and other Matters of Faith that are above the reach of Reason and depend altogether upon Divine Revelation CHAP. XVII 1. That Sound Philosophy asserts nothing contrary to Scripture granted 2. Two Principles instanced in and Wolzogen's Tergiversation taxed 3. The two great Articles of the Creation of all things out of nothing and the
in Words which Mans Wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth 4. If the common use of Speech be so sure a Rule of Interpretation as this Author makes it I wonder what was in his Mind to say of the Penmen of Scripture That if they were now living amongst us they could not be the sufficient Interpreters of their own Writings because they often wrote they knew not what Certainly the customary use of Speech which obtained in the times wherein they wrote must needs be much better known to them than it can be to any now living Why then might not they interpret their own Writings if they were now with us having the best insight into that which this Author cries up for the onely sure Rule of Interpretation 5. If the customary use of Speech must be the Rule of Interpretation the inconvenience urged by the Exercitator cap. 11. par 6. will not easily if at all be avoided viz. the interpreting of Scripture according to the erroneous apprehension of the Vulgar 6. If this be so certain a Rule as he will have it so as that he who uses it shall not fail to find out the true Sense of Scripture for so himself speaks how is it that the Sense of Scripture may not be found in all parts one as well as another for the use of Speech is the same in all And yet he acknowledges that in many things not necessary to Salvation let the Reader be never so diligent in his search he cannot find the meaning of Scripture and the reason hereof he says is to be fetcht not from the nature of the thing nor from the darkness of our minds but ex ipsa constitutione Scripturae from the very frame of Scripture it self Secondly But now whether this learned Author did not well consider what he wrote or had not well digested his own Notions or whether he designed to amuse his Reader with intricacies and ambiguities or whether he were aware of the inconvenience of his former Expressions and their liableness to exception or what other were the cause I shall not inquire But this is plain to any that attentively reads his Discourse that when he had once and again given the honour of being the onely sure Rule of Interpretation of Scripture to the common and customary use of Speech he afterwards falls to a singular use of Speech distinct from the vulgar arising from the different Character of the Writer the different occasion of Writing the different nature of the things about which he Treats and that under this singularity of the usus loquendi the custom of Speech we are to consider the Antecedents and the Consequents of a Text and the paralel places And elsewhere he says all the circumstances of the place under consideration are to be examined and this he calls Usus loquendi Scripturarius the Scripture use of Speaking And when he objects against himself that the customary manner of speaking is dubious and uncertain he answers it thus That though it be so yet God's manner of Speech in Scripture is fixed So that what was before called the common and vulgar use is now confined to God's use and the Scripture-use of Speaking which certainly does not receive Law from the custom and consent of Men but is wholly framed and ordered by the disposal of Divine Wisdom though in it he makes use of such words as receive their single signification from common use Besides this Author tells us elsewhere that Usus loquendi or custom of Speech includes in it the Analogy of Faith and all other things that are taken out of Scripture in order to the finding out of its true Sense Now if this be indeed the meaning of his Usus loquendi his opinion comes very near to that of the Reformed Churches if it be not the same with it But then what needed all this stir as if our Divines had not discovered their Minds plainly and distinctly but this Author must come and mend it whereas he hath rather darkned and obscured it by his intricate and inconsistent Discourse For whoever before him took Usus loquendi in such a sense as this And I much wonder that he who is so much for the custom of Speech should vary so widely from it in his Writing For I am sure this Phrase Usus loquendi according to that mode of Speech that hath hitherto obtained was never taken so comprehensively as to include the scope of the Text with the Antecedents and Consequents and all other circumstances and the Analogy of Faith and what ever lies in the Scripture that serves to the discovery of its true sense Except Men will assume a power to themselves of coining a new Sense of Words I cannot imagine what ground they can have to talk after the rate of this Author Our Divines speak much more properly and clearly in this business viz. That the Holy Spirit of God hath in Enditing the Scripture so attempered his Speech and so ordered and disposed the several Parts and Parcels of this Sacred Book that his Mind so far as it is necessary for us to know it may be discovered either from the obvious sense of the particular Sentences and Propositions of Scripture considered in that Order and dependence wherein they are placed or by a due comparison of one part of Scripture with another so as that the Reader may gather the Sense of Scripture from the Scripture it self This is that which our Divines mean when they say that the Scripture is its own Interpreter And when they say at any time that the Spirit of God is the Interpreter of Scripture either they speak of the Objective evidence that the Spirit gives of the Sense of Scripture and then they understand it of the Spirit as speaking in the Scripture which being the Voice of the Spirit is to us as I said our Supream Rule Or they speak of the Spirit as the efficient cause of that Subjective light â—hat is let into our Minds inabling us to understand the Scriptures And this belongs to another inquiry and doth not concern the Question about the Rule of Interpretation Now when our Writers say the Scripture is its own Interpreter they are to be understood Metonymically As when they say the Scripture is the Supream Judge of all Controversies of Faith they mean no more but that it is Judex Normaâ—is or the Supream Rule of Judgement according to which Controversies are to be ultimately decided so by proportion is it in the present Cafe And as when the Papists speak of the infallible dectding of Controversies whether they say the Pope is the infallible Judge or the Sentence given by the Pope is the infallible Rule of decision it comes all to one So when our Divines say sometimes that the Spirit speaking in the Scripture is the infallible Interpreter of Scripture and other while that the Scripture is the infallible Rule of
Interpretation here is no such difference as should just give occasion to any to say that our Divines speak variously or uncertainly or that they agree not one with another or with themselves for in the issue the meaning of them all is one and the same Now here I must look back upon what I had said in the Introduction to my Discourse concerning the special immediate means of Interpretation viz. a due observation of the several circumstances of the Scripture to be Expounded and the comparing of Scripture with Scripture In the use of which means lies the applying of the right Rule of Interpretation It is the using of Scripture to expound Scripture And when a dark or difficult Scripture is compared with some other wherein the same Truth or Doctrine is more clearly and perspicuously delivered this is conceived by many learned Men to be intended in that of the Apostle concerning the Analogy of Faith Rom. 12. 6. Whether it be so or no I shall not at present debate much less determine Noâ— shall I inquire whether that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 form of sound Words spoken of by the same Apostle in 2 Tim. 1. 13. be the same with this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as some conceive it is But this I may have leave to say that I see no incongruity or inconvenience in using the Expression or in saying that to explain obscure places of Scripture by such as are more clear and easie is to expound Scripture according to the Analogy of Faith Analogy saith Quintilian is that which the Latines call Proportion the force whereof is this That what is in doubt may be referred to something like it that is out of question that so the uncertain may be proved by the certain And why may not the like use of the Word be allowed in this case Sure I am eminent Writers both of the Roman and Reformed Churches have thus used it Analogie says Aquinas is when the truth of one Scripture is evidenced not to oppose the truth of another The Analogie of Faith saith our learned Whitaker is the constant and perpetual Sentence of Scripture in those places that are undoubtedly plain and obvious to our Understandings I might alledge to the like sense many more Authors whose excellent Worth sets them sufficiently above the contempt of the Exercitator and others of his mind that jear and deride the Analogy of Faith But waving the terms that which I am concern'd to assert is the thing it self that in expounding Scripture we must be regulated and determined by the Scripture it self and that whatsoever it speaks darkly and uncertainly in any place is to be explained by it self in those other places where it speaks more plainly which plain places do sufficiently interpret themselveâ— by their own light Now this way of Interpreting Scripture by it self hath been approved of as the best and safest by most eminent Authors Ancient and Modern Clemens Alexandrinus Iraeneus Hilary and others are cited to this purpose by Chamier Rivet Dr. Holdsworth As Esdras and his Companions of old so should we now interpret Scripture by Scripture comparing among themselves those things that are Endited by the same Spirit saith the learned Grotius plainly referring to that in Neh. 8. 7 8. Mr. Hales of Eaton in his Golden Remains says Other Expositions may give Rules of Direction for understanding their Authors but the Scripture giveâ— Rules to expound it self When the Fathers saith the Bishop of Down confirmed an Exposition of one place of Scripture by the Doctrine of another then and then onely they thought they had the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Scripture demonstration and Matter of Faith and necessary belief and that this was the duty of the Christian Doctors Origen doth expresly affirm And however the Roman Doctors of this latter age especially have vehemently contended against this that the Authority of their Church may take place yet we find that in some of them that comes full up to what we say I shall give one instance Josephus a Costa as I find him cited by Chamier and Riveâ— Nihil perinde Scripturam videtur apâ—rire atque ipsa Scriptura Itaque diligens attenta frequensque lectio â—um meditatio collatio Scripturarum omnium fumma Regula ad intelligendum â—ihi semper visâ— naâ—… ex aliâ—â— Scriptur is aliae optime intelligâ—â—tur Nothing seems to me to open the Scripture like the Scripture it self Therefore diligent attentive and frequent Reading with Meditation and comparing of Scriptures hath alway seemed to me the chief Rule of all for understanding for by some Scriptures others are best understood CHAP. II. Argumentâ— to confirm the Proposition the first from the Scriptures sole sufficiency to be its own Interpreter made good by three things and first by its Perfection I proceed to some Arguments for the confirmation of this Second Proposition I shall pass over many of those that are numerously brought in by other Writers chusing to insist upon those that I take to be of greatest force and against which the greatest endeavours have been used to overthrow them My first shall be this The Scripture is of all other best fitted to be the Rule to guide us in the determining of its own sense and meaning Nothing else is so well qualified for this use And this may be evinced by its three properties its Perfection Perspicuity and Authentickness It is the most Perfect Perspicuous and Authentick Record of the Mind of God Of these Three I must distinctly Treat First this and this only is the perfect Record of the mind of God fully manifesting it to us so far as it is necessary for us to know it in order to our duty and our happiness The Apostle speaks clearly and fully for this 2 Tim. 3. 15 16 17. From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto Salvation through Faith which is in Christ Jesus All Scripture is given by inspiration from God c. Here two things are evidently Asserted viz. That the Scriptures contain in them what is sufficient both for a Minister of Christ to Teach and for any Christian to know to make him wise unto Salvation Neither of which can be if there be not that in the Scripture it self out of which the Mind of God therein deliver'd may be sufficiently understood without the suppliment of some other over-ruling Principle For 1. How can the Scripture make any man wise unto Salvation if it fall short in point of objective Evidence necessary to beget that Divine Knowledge wherein all saving Wisdom consists 2. How can it sufficiently furnish a Minister for his work of instructing his Hearers and conducting them to Life if from thence he cannot fetch enough to clear the Truth he is to deliver to them CHAP. III. The second branch of the first Argument the Scriptures Perspicuity proved SEcondly the Scripture is a
perspicuous Revelation of God's Will Whatsoever may be the ignorance or darkness of Men which hinders them from knowing what God hath said in these Sacred Records yet the objective perspicuity of them is generally asserted by Protestants against the Romanists Not that all Truths revealed in Scripture are so low and common as in their own Nature to be obvious to Man's Understanding but that as to the manner of their delivery they are so laid down in the Scripture as that they may be understood by and from the Scripture yet we mean not that every part or passage of Scripture is clear For that there are many difficulties therein we acknowledge But that the mind of God is somewhere or other in Scripture plainly propounded so far as it is necessary for us to know it one part of it giving Light to another so that the whole Scripture taken together is a Perspicuous Manifestation of his will This is proved by Moses's words in Deut. 30. 12 13 14. Speaking of the Law and the Apostles words Rom. 10. 6. c. Speaking the same of the Gospel Hence the written Word is frequently compared to a Light and is said to give understanding to the Simple Had not the Scriptures been Perspicuous how could Timothy in his Childhood have understood them How could our Saviour out of them have convinced the Sadduces of the Doctrin of the Resurrection Or the Apostles out of them prove irrefragably the truth of their Doctrin against the gainsaying Jews Or how could the Bereans try the Apostles Doctrin by searching the Scriptures These are undeniable Proofs that the Scriptures are Perspicuous and that they have a plain and certain sense obvious to a considerate Reader But all this will signifie nothing if the Scripture have not that Light in it that may discover it self and clear up its own meaning without borrowing Light from some other Principle Now because much of the stress of this Cause lies on this we must a little consider what is said against it The late Romanists do generally cry out that the Scriptures are obscure partly that they may have the fairer colour to take them out of the Peoples hands lest they should mistake or pervert them though none among them have been more guilty of that than their Doctors of greatest name for Learning partly that they may bring in their unwritten Traditions as expository of Scripture-Revelations and partly also that they may establish a necessity of an Infallible Visible Judge here on Earth to Interpret Scriptures and decide all Controversies Yet I know not any of them but will own that many things in the Scripture are clear But there is a late Writer that denies this My next work therefore shall be to deal with him and clear the Truth from his exceptions in some of the following Chapters of this Discourse CHAP. IV. The Exercitators exception against the Scriptures Perspicuity from the ambiguity of words Answered THe Belgick Exercitator whom I have oft mentioned before that he may make sure work rises higher in denying the Scriptures Perspicuity than any that I have ever met with and with confidence affirms the Scripture to be universally obscure and that no part of it is of it self clear and plain and thereupon denies that one part of Scripture can be expounded by another Yea this he laies as the foundation of his main Assertion against the Scriptures Interpreting it self And one great Reason he gives is what he hath taken a great deal of tedious pedantick pains to prove in his third Chapter That all speech being made up of Words and Phrases is abscure and doubtful because the words whereof it consists are capable of different significations and consequently may be taken in a various sense and thus it is with the Scripture it is universally ambiguous and therefore obscure To this I Answer 1. If this Reason hold then there is no Speech or Writing in the World but will fall under the same unhappy fate No Law of the Land no letter of a Friend no Oral Discourse no Treatise of whatsoever Subject and how accurately soever written shall be accounted Intelligible For all Writings and Discourses are made up of the same kind of Words and Phrases and capable of being adorn'd with the same Tropes and Figures that the Scripture is and every whit as liable to be taken in for different senses And thus no man shall know how to speak or write any thing that can be clearly understood and that excellent gift of Speech which God hath bestowed upon men to be an instrument of society and converse shall be of no other use but to be made an Engine of deceit and treachery Secondly if things be thus to what end did this Author trouble himself to Write and others to read this Book of his if all Speeches and Writings be ambiguous and obscure and not to be understood without an Interpreter of what use is this Jewel of his fancy Did he hope to lead the whole World of Interpreters out of their Labyrinths into the right path by such an ignis fatuus that by its ambiguities and uncertainties may scare and amuse them and carry them hither and thither according to the wind of their own imaginations Or hath he attain'd to a faculty above all other Writers even the best and holiest to write in such Words and Phrases as might open his meaning without entangling his Readers in ambiguities If he thinks his Book be free from this blemish methinks he might have had the modesty to conceive that the Pen-men of Scripture knew how to write as well as he If his thoughts of his Book were otherwise he might have kept it to himself and fed the Moths with it Thirdly yet again if it be thus that all words in whatsoever contexture be so ambiguous and obscure what will become of this Infallible Interpreter which our Author would set up For whatsoever Interpretation be made of any Scripture it must be framed in such words as other men use and as all kind of Writings are drawn up in and if when all is done these be obscure what are we the better For certainly according to this Authors argument even the first Principles of Nature and the most unquestionable Maxims of Philosophy when turn'd into Words and Sentences will be as ambiguous and consequently as dark as the Scriptures Fourthly whereas his impeaching the Scriptures of Ambiguity and Obscurity is not only to disable them from expounding themselves but that he may set up Philosophy as the only Interpreter he instances in several Scriptures which he says are thus Ambiguous and Obscure in the clearing whereof Philosophy cannot possibly afford us any help As for Example when he supposeth of our Saviour's Words in Joh. 5. 39. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it 's doubtful whether this be to be taken Imperatively search the Scripture or Indicatively ye do search the Scriptures Can any
Principle of Philosophy satisfie us whether the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there used be of the Indicative mood or of the Imparative So when he says it's doubtful whether our Saviours words to Peter John 21. 16 17 18. should be taken Interrogatively Dost thou love me Or Affirmatively Thou dost love me And his words to his Disciples Math. 26. 45. Whether they are to be read Imperatively sleep on now c. Or Interrogatively Do ye sleep on c And so of Pilat's words to our Saviour What is Truth Whether they are a serious question or an Irony In these and many other if the matter and coherence do not resolve us Philosophy cannot relieve us How then do these Allegations serve our Authors end which is that the Scripture cannot Interpret it self but all its Interpretation must be regulated by Philosophy Bùt Lastly I deny this Charge laid against the Scripture of its being Universally Ambiguous and Obscure as highly contumelious to God the Author of it For it supposeth either that he could not or that he would not speak his Mind to the Sons of Men for whose Eternal concerns he designed this Sacred Volume in such a manner as they might understand it and be bettered by it As it was out of Love and Mercy to Sinners that the Scriptures were Endited that they might have a sure Guide to Blessedness so they are Written for all sorts and ranks of Men to make use of and therefore they are for the most part drawn in a vulgar condescending style But if they cannot be understood without Philosophy yea a very great insight into Philosophy as this Author sometimes intimates not one of a thousand of them that have the Scriptures will be able to understand the Mind of God in them they being according to this Mans words so totallydark and doubtful CHAP. V. A second Exception from the Exercitators unsatisfiedness about the meaning of our Divines when they speak of any Scriptures being perspicuous in themselves removed SEcondly whereas it is usually said by our Divines that such places of Scripture as are clear and plain in themselves do Interpret such as are obscure the great Question is what do they mean by a place that is clear and perspicuous in or of it self I have made inquiry about this saith the Exercitator and can find nothing solid or satisfactory To this I answer in few words That Place or Text of Scripture is plain and perspicuous in it self whose sence so fairly riseth out of the Words and their connexion with what goes before and after that the Intelligent Reader need not miss of it if he be not wanting to himself And I appeal to any man that is not resolved to cavil whether there be not thousands of Scripture-Sentences whose sense is thus clear and evident But here the Exercitator Replies The words whereof Scripture-Propositions consist have their signification from Humane Institution and their sense depends upon common use If therefore the sense of Scripture be any where so plain as to be known by the Words then it is not Scripture but Usus Loquendi the common use of Speech that is the Rule of Interpretation But this says he is of all other the most dangerous and deceitful Rule to go by causing many monstrous conceptions of God and things Divine suitable to the apprehensions of the Ignorant and besotted Vulgar To this captious Objection I Answer Two things 1. We are now speaking of such Scriptures whose sense is obvious and so according to the Exercitators own Rule given in the beginning of his Discourse need no Interpreter For he plainly sayes if at least there be any plain sayings to be found that the proper Object of Interpretation is such a Speech as is obscure This Cavil therefore is here is very disingenuous being against his own premised Rule In Scripture there is somewhat common with other Writings and something proper to it self as each particular Writing hath The words it useth are of the same kind with those of other Writings and singly taken are supposed to have the like signification according to common use But as those words are framed into Propositions in the Scripture and those Propositions conjoyned in such a contexture of Discourse so they may and oft do carry a peculiar Sense which ariseth not from Humane Institution appointing the signification of such Words but from Divine Ordination placeing those Words in such an Order without which they would not signifie what they do And though the several Words and Clauses of Scripture taken separately from the place wherein they stand may have a dubious or indeterminate Sense yet take them together with the whole discourse to which they belong and whereof they are parts and the Sense may be undeniably clear and determinate And this is one way whereby Scripture expounds itself as the other is what hath been most insisted on by comparing dark places with those that are plain Take for instance one of those nominated by the â—xercitator the words of our Saviour in Matth. 5. 34. Swear not at all What it is to swear is I think well known though not seriously considered by the most And the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at all what it signifies in common use we all know And if this Clause were taken singly it would seem to import an absolute Prohibition of Swearing at any time in any manner whatsoever But take it as it here stands as a branch of that whole discourse that begins at Verse 33. and ends at ver 37. And so Interpreters understand our Saviours meaning either to forbid all Swearing by the Creature and in familiar Discourse or to caution them against the common conceit and practice that then obtain'd of Swearing rashly and fallaciously by the Creature upon supposal that such oaths were noâ— obliging because the name of God was not interposed CHAP. VI. A Third Exception that what is clear to one is obscure to another where he denies all Perspicuity and Obscurity but what is Relative BUT that which is plain to one may be obscure to another saith the Exercitator who thereupon asserts That there is no Perspicuity or Obscurity but what is purely Relative to the Understanding of the Reader or Hearer and according to his wonted modesty condemns the Reformed Divines and he might have added the Ancient Fathers for affirming the Scriptures to be in themselves Perspicuous though Obscure in regard of the indisposition of Mens Minds I Answer 1. If there be no Objective Perspicuity nor any-thing clear in it self but only as it relates to the actual exercise of Mens apprehensive Faculties then it seems there is no difference between a clear day and a cloudy but only in reference to our sight and the Sun must not be said to shine bright because Men that have lost their Eyes or are shut up in a Dungeon cannot see it But I think the vanity of such
a conceit is Perspicuous enough whether the Exercitator see it or not It hath been hitherto esteem'd by all Men as far as I know a considerable excellency in any Writer that his Speech and Stile is clear and perspicuous and the contrary Darkness and Obscurity hath been blamed in those who affect to Speak or Write cloudily and enigmatically which certainly implies that there is a Perspicuity and a contrary Obscurity that is absolutly inhering in the Speech it self And yet in the denial of this Wolzogen and his friend Velthusius joyn with the Exercitator asserting with him that there is no Perspicuity in the Scripture but what is Relative to those that Read or Hear it And this they endeavour to confirm or illustrate by Similitudes A Speech says Wolzogen can no otherwise be cal'd Perspicuous absolutely in it self than a Mans Blood can be said to be red while it runs in his Veins and no Eye sees it or the Snow that falls in the extream North-parts where no man feels the horror of it can be accounted Cold. These sayes he do consist in Sense without which we cannot have any Conception of them And so nothing is Perspicuous further than it is perceived To the like purpose Velthusius speaks That Light is not in the Object but in the Sense as heat is not in the Fire nor cold in the Ice but in the Sense of him that Feels either the one or the other no more than pain is in the Sword or Knife that makes a Wound So sayes he neither is clearness in the Object that is to be known but in the Mindes perception of it Truely I do not much admire these Mysteries of the New Philosophy Hitherto both Light and Colour Heat and Cold have been esteem'd qualities inherent in their proper Subjects and not to consist in a Relation But if it be as these Men say it seems nothing is Cold or Hot Light or Dark save only as and when it is discern'd by one that sees and feels it But on the contrary to pass by other Arguments we find in the History of the Creation that darkness was upon the face of the deep And when God said Let there be Light there was Light Both which were before there was any sensitive Creature in being to discern them If any shall here say as some are ready to do when clear Scripture goes cross to their darling Notions that those words in the History of the Creation are used not according to the reality of the thing but according to Vulgar Conception I shall not think such profane boldness worthy a Reply Perhaps it will be pleaded that the Scriptures were not written to teach us Natural Philosophy Be it so neither were they penned to teach us any falshood or to deceive us into mistakes concerning God or any of his Works All the several parts of that Sacred Volume are so ordered as to have some tendency immediate or remote to the great end for which it was Endâ—â—ed the conducting of us to Happiness But surely the God of Truth never designed to bring us to Happiness by a Lie Verily I have little encouragement to trust Mens Reason in matters of Revelation when I find them talking so absuâ—dly in matters of Natural Cognisance And yet when all is done Wolzogen grants that the Scriptures are so framed that nothing is wanting in them to render them perspicuous And truely as far as I understand this is all that our Protestant Divines mean when they say the Scriptures are perspicuous in themselves What 's the matter then why he tells us their meaning is very good but the Expression is incommodious Which is but another taste of his Civility this being his humour throughout his Book to nibble at somewhat or other in the most learned Writers of the Reformed Churches But I return to our Exercitator And Secondly I answer when the Apostle says 2 Pet 3. 16. that some of those things whereof St. Paul Treats in his Epistles are hard to be understood if there be no perspicuity or obscurity but what is Relative he might as well have said that they are all hard to be understood for doubtless there are some Men so stupidly ignorant or obstinately perverse that they understand none of them But surely when the Apostle says that some of them were difficult he did not intend to say they were all so Thirdly The Apostles preach'd the Gospel in the demonstration of the Spirit and of Power and did by manifestation of the Truth commend themselves to ever Mans Conscience in the â—…ht of God with such perspicuity and convincing evidence did they speak And yet as the same Apostle intimates their Gospel might be and was â—id to them that were lost in whom the God of this World had blinded the Minds of them which believe not lest the Light of the glorious Gospel which is the Image of God should shine unto them There is therefore an absolute objective perspicuity in the Scriptures themselves whatsoever may be the incapacity of Mens Understandings Lastly to conclude this I wonder at this Authors Wit or Memory that he so grosly contradicts himself in this very Chapter out of which this Exception is taken For having premised that the obscurity of Speech ariseth chiefly from its ambiguity and at large discoursed of the several sorts of Amphibolies in Words and Sentences all which do evidently prove if any thing an obscurity that lies in the Speech it self without respect to the Reader or Hearer he afterwards expresly tells us that there is a two-fold ambiguity of Speech the one absolute considered in it self and the other Relative and with respect to us By which he unravels what he had said in his third Paragraph acknowledging that a Speech may be ambiguous and consequently obscure in it self And if there be an absolute obscurity there is also an absolute perspicuity for which he before derided the Divines of the Reformation CHAP. VII 1. A fourth Exception against the Scriptures Perspicuity from the difference and contrariety between the simple sense of the words of Scripture and the true sense of the Author 2. The instances given to prove this consider'd e. g. Such as speak of the Arme and Finger of God 3. That in Jo. 14. 16. 4. Our Saviour's Words This is my Body 5. Those places where God is said to be Lord and King and to have begotten a Son and to love the World 6. The aforesaid distinction condemned and the Authors self-contradiction noted IT is further Objected by the Exercitator That the sense of Scripture is two-fold either sensus simpliciter dictus or Verâ—s And he thus Explains himself The sense of the Scripture is either the simple sense of the Words which they of themselves offer to the Reader or the true sense and meaning of the Author in those Words These sayes he are seldom the same but different yea opposite and the sense
which the words offer may be plain and easie when the sense that the Author intends by them which is a clean other thing is very dark and obscure And so confident is the Gentleman in this conceit that he superciliously slights Expositors of Scripture for not minding this distinction and for want hereof taking oft times the simple sense for the true one To make this wild and senseless distinon good he instanceth in several passages of Scripture wherein he would make us believe this Two-fold sense is to be found I shall therefore before I proceed endeavour to clear those Passages or the principal of them Sect. 2. One instance he gives is of those expressions in Scripture The Arme and Finger of God The simple sense of which Words and that which they do of themselves offer to the Reader he sayes is very obvious being known by common use but â—he thinks no Divine so void of Wit as to take that obvious sense for the true meaning of the Author By this it appears this Gentleman conceives that the sense which those Words of themselves offer is proper without any Trope or Figure as if God had a bodily Arme or Finger as a Man hath But by his favour he is greatly out The Arme and Finger of God according to common acceptation with any that are vers'd in the Scriptures have no other than an improper sense nor do they signifie any more than the Power of God though the word Arme or Finger either singly taken or applyed to Men signifies somewhat else according to that known Maxime Verba sunt intelligenda secundum subjectam materiam Words are to be understood according to the subject matter about which they are used And this holds in all manner of Speeches and Writings whatsoever the matter in hand directs to the sense of the Words A second instance is in Joh. 14. 6. where our Saviour says I am the Way the Truth and the Life What obvious sense it is that this Author conceives from common use of speech to be in these words different from our Saviours meaning I cannot divine Nor can I see how they can signifie any more or less to him that is acquainted with the Doctrine of the Gospel than what our Saviour means by them who calls himself The Way by no unapt Metaphor because as himself expounds it in the latter end of the Verse it is by Him that Sinners are to come to the Father that is to Reconciliation with him and fruition of him It is by Him that is by the Merit of his Blood by the Light of his Doctrine by the Conduct of his Pattern and by the Power of his Spirit And herein he is The Truth that is the Substance and real Completion of all the Types and Shadows under the Law and consequently he is The Life by a known Metonyme of the effect for the cause in that he is the Author that is the Purchaser and Bestower of that Eternal Life that Sinners come to enjoy in God A further instance is given in those words of our Saviour This is my Body where he affirms That the plain and easie sense which the words of themselves offer to the Reader is that which the Romish Church takes them in but the sense of our Saviour in speaking them which he grants to be that which the Reformed Churches give of them this he says is dark and obscure But I suppose he cannot be ignorant that there are considerable Doctors of the Romish Church eminent for Learning who have acknowledged that they should never have entertained that sense of the words which asserts Transubstantiation if the Authority of the Church had not moved them And our Writers have abundantly manifested the gross absurdity of that sense and among others Dr. Brevint in his late excellent Discourse of the Mystery of the Romish Mass hath clearly and to great satisfaction proved the Protestant sense of that speech of our Saviours from the very words themselves I cannot well understand by this Authors discourse of what setled Perswasion he is in matters of Religion He now and then insinuates something that carries with it a dislike of the Romanists and their way But it is plain enough by this and many other passages in his Book that the Reformed Churches are little befriended by him Lastly He instances in those Scriptures where God is said to be Lord of Heaven and Earth the King of Nations and King of Kings and where he is said to have begotten a Son Psal. 2. and to have loved the World Joh. 3. 16. In all which he says the obvious but mistaken sense and that which the Vulgar apprehend is that God after the manner of men is a Lord and King and doth beget and love which he esteems to be grosly absurd To these I answer distinctly 1. As for the places where God is called Lord and King and said to Reign over the Nations with all of like import in these we are taught by what we find elsewhere in Scripture to remove from God whatever savours of imperfection and to ascribe nothing to him but what suits with a most excellent and most perfect Being Nor do the aforesaid Expressions in their plain and obvious sense signifie either more or less than that God is the Universal Sovereign of the World Ruling his Creatures with infinite Wisdom and Power according to their different natures and conditions the Inferiour sort by instinct and natural necessity his Intellectual Creatures by Laws as the proper Instrument of Moral Government And what the Exercitators sentiments are about this I cannot conjecture If he be for that Novel Opinion of Thomas Anglus ab Albis that God doth not properly Govern us by Laws as Kings do their Kingdoms but as an Engineer doth his Engine by Physical Motion and that therefore he is call'd our Lord and King only in a Metaphorical sense I must enter a dissent against such an absurd and Atheistical conceit and put him to prove his Assertion and answer the Arguments that are in print against it 2. As for the second Of begetting a Son Psal 2. 7. Interpreters do much differ about it Some conceive the first and immediate sense of the words to respect David whom God had delivered out of his great afflictions and rais'd to a Kingdom which deliverance and exaltation was to him as a second Birth And this they illustrate by what is said of the Roman Emperors that they had two Birth-days the one of their Persons when they came into the World the other of their Empire when they were seated in the Throne and that Christ is here intended only as the Antitype prefigured by David Others understand these words properly and immediately of Christ and that with respect to one of these two either 1. To his Eternal Generation in reference to which he is called the Eternal and only begotten Son of God The truth of which Generation we
are upon Scripture-testimony to receive without searching into the manner it being a Mystery infinitely above our reach which therefore he that will boldly intrude into may justly fear to be overwhelm'd with its Glory Or 2. To the Temporal Manifestation of that Eternal Generation a thing being then said to be done when it is manifested to be done And so the words are applied by the Apostle Paul to our Saviours Resurrection whereby as the same Apostle says elsewhere He was declared to be the Son of God with power Though I know there is who understands those words of Christs Resurrection immediately and in it self partly because it was as it were a second Birth to the Humane Nature partly because it was as they conceive the beginning of his Installment into his Regal Office which might be called his Birth by Analogy to what was said before concerning the Roman Emperors I shall not take upon me to determine which of these ways of Explication is to be adhered to But be it what it will this I need not be afraid to say that it is Scripture if any thing that must clear the difficulty and decide the difference it is not Philosophy in its highest Exaltation that can be a sufficient Rule to resolve us the matter in hand being so wholly foreign to the best and clearest Natural Light 3. Then for the last instance Joh. 3. 16. where God is said to love the World though in this as in all other things we are not to measure God by our selves yet this is undoubted that by Gods love to Mankind is every where plainly and clearly meant his Will to do them good discovering it self in answerable effects and the Complacency that he takes in the good that he doth for them or works in them Nor do I think that any man who heedfully reads the Scriptures can take it otherwise And this is no way unbecoming the Divine Perfections but fully agreeing to his Nature and the Manifestations that he hath made of himself both by Natural and Supernatural Light Now as to this distinction which the Exercitator so much applauds condemning all others that are not as fond of it as himself I find sufficient reason to reject it and do affirm that the Words and Sentences of Scripture taken in such a coherence among themselves and connexion with the whole and otherwise than thus they have no sense that is properly theirs do exhibit to the Reader no other sense than what is indeed the Authors meaning being written for no other end but to signifie his mind for our safe guidance to Blessedness And to think that they have any other sense than what is indeed the truemind and meaning of the Author is â—o charge the Holy Scriptures with the vilest Imposture What would we think of that man that should either speâ—k or write so as that his words should carry one meaning and himself intend another Would he not be judged a Deceiver And shall we dare to fasten such a piece of Hypocrisie upon the Holy God and that in a business wherein Mans Everlasting Happiness is concern'd What thoughts have these men of God who can talk thus of the Scriptures that are his acknowledged Word But let it be consider'd before I leave this matter whether our Author do not by this distinction contradict himself For 1. When he is in preparation to his future discourse explaining what he means by the material Object of Interpretation he plainly asserts that Words are first and immediately the signification of the inward Conceptions of the Mind â—and because those Conceptions are representations of things in the Understanding hence the Words that declare those Conceptions are used to signifie and denote things Now if so how comes it about that the Words of Scripture can have a different sense from what the Author intends seeing as the Exercitator acknowledgeth they are signs or notes of the Conceptions of his Mind 2. This same Author when he is proving a multiplicity of true senses in the same Text of Scripture and that whatsoever Interpretations be they never so many and various are given if they be Truths in themselves they are also the true Expositions of that place useth this Argument That else God would be chargeable with deceiving Men by using such Words as he knew Men would be ready to take in such different senses as he never meant This the Author rejects with abhorrence as not agreeing with the Divine Perfections How well he agrees with himself and how this may be reconciled with the forementioned conceit of such a twofold sense as we have been speaking of the simple sense of the Words of Scripture and the true sense of the Speaker let the Reader judge CHAP. VIII 1. A fifth Exception That the plainest Scriptures may be wrested 2. A sixth from the multiplicity of Commentaries and Expositions removed IN the next place it will be said that the plainest Scriptures are liable to be wrested and perverted by Men of corrupt minds therefore they are not perspicuous enough to Interpret themselves Suppose what is indeed too true and sufficiently made good by our Adversaries in this cause that the plainest Scriptures may be perverted So may the best and truest Principles of Reason and Philosophy Nor can any Man devise how to speak or write so but a wicked and malicious Wit may put an absurd or horrid sense upon the most innocent Words And of this I think we have instances enough every day But what is this to the sense which the Words and Sentences of Scripture in such a Contexture and with reference to and dependence upon the Antecedents and Consequents and the whole Tenour of the Authors Discourse do offer to the Reader That the Scripture thus consider'd is of it self liable to such ambiguous senses is a profane and sensless calumny bringing that Holy Volume under the same condemnation with the Devils Oracles that were purposely contrived by that great Enemy of Mankind to cheat and abuse the Pagan World But may some say do not many take the Words of Scripture in a far different sense from what the Author of Scripture intended No doubt they do what then That is not because the Words give them that sense but because they impose that sense upon the Words to make them comply with their own apprehensions In the sixth place the Exercitator argues against the perspicuity of the Scriptures from the multitude of Commentaries Animadversions Interpretations for he loves to heap up words written by Learned Men upon the whole Scripture or the several parts of it whence he concludes it as a thing unquestionable that the Scripture is obscure so obscure that it cannot Interpret its own sense I answer That there are some difficulties in Scripture that may exercise yea and exceed the ablest Wits and that many things in it may be obscure to the Reader for want of using the
right means to understand is confess'd But the multitude of Expositions doth not at all prove the Scripture to be so obscure as to be disabled for being the supreme Rule to Interpret it self For whatsoever Notes or Commentaries are written upon the Bible by Learned Men they are either such as truly conduce to the supposed End the right understanding of the Scripture and consequently to the due practical improvement of what is so understood or they fail of this and do rather darken and cloud the Text. These of the latter sort do not deserve the Honour to be esteemed Interpretations of Scripture for they render the sense of it more inâ—…icate and perplex And truly it hath been no unusual thing for Men that write only to make ostentation of their Learning and draw the eyes of others upon them or to make trial of their Wits in their attempts upon the Scripture to vent some odd Notions that serve rather to amuse than edifie the Reader and leave him more in the dark than when he perused the Text alone without their Gloss as it hath fared with some voluminous Commentators upon Aquinas who under pretence of expounding their Author have run out into so many intricate and frivolous Questions that by that time they have done they have left the Authors Text less intelligible than it was before they medled with it Truly so it is with some that have undertaken to write upon the Holy Scriptures But I take such Mens Writings rather for Depravations than Expositions And the chief cause of this evil hath been what this Exercitator is not well aware of that they made too much use of their Philosophick Notions in their Endeavours to Interpret Scripture-Revelations On the other hand if Commentaries or Annotations on Scripture be such as do contribute any help towards the unfolding of the true sense this hath been chiefly by collecting and comparing the several parts of Scripture together and considering the circumstances of each Text expounded and so fetching the sense of Scripture from the Scripture it self which is the only sure and warrantable way of Interpretation CHAP. IX 1. The third and last Branch of my first Argument the Scriptures Authentickness 2. The Exercitators Exception removed 3. Wolzogen's Exception denying God to be the Interpreter of Scripture answered HAving vindicated the second Branch of my first Argument viz. The Scriptures Perspicuity from the many Exceptions made against it I proceed to the third and last viz. That the Scripture is the only Authentick Record of the Mind and Will of God For it is the certain and undoubted Voice of God himself and what that speaks He speaks And who so fit to Interpret the meaning of his Words as himself Ejus est Interprâ—tari cujus est condere is an approved Rule in the Civil Law He that made the Law is fittest to Interpret it And in the present case the Reason is evident God best knows his own Mind and he hath no where so plainly and fully revealed his Mind as in Scripture Certainly there can be none so sure and infallible Interpreter of these sacred Records as the Holy Spirit that endited them and he Interprets them not by suggesting to us any thing for their understanding which is not there already but by speaking to us more clearly from some part of Scripture what is deliver'd more darkly in others Can any Man or sort of Men in the World pretend to know the Mind of God better than himself or give us better assurance what his Mind is than the Word which himself hath appointed to be written for this very purpose Whatsoever sense may be put upon any Scripture-Assertion and by whomsoever framed it cannot challenge our undoubted reception unless we can discern the Voice of God in it And that is no where to be heard with evidence and assurance especially in matters of Supernatural Revelation which is that we chiefly deal with in this Controversie but from the Scripture it self But here the Exercitator comes in with his Reply For acknowledging that without controversie God is an Infallible Interpreter and that the Scripture is the Voice of God he nevertheless denies that therefore it will follow that the Scripture can be its own Interpreter or the Rule of Interpretation to it self because says he the same Author may write several Treatises and yet it follows not that the one should Interpret the other To this I answer The comparison is very unequal Men write of different Subjects many times and for very different Ends and may withal so far forget themselves or be so unconstant to themselves as to cross in one Discourse what they have written in another But God the Author of Scripture hath designed that whole Volume to one and the same Use and End to be a Declaration of his Mind to Men that they may thereby be directed in their greatest affairs and have a sure Guide to Happiness It is therefore every way most consistent with his Wisdom and Goodness so to order the enditing of Scripture in matters of so great excellency and necessity that his Mind may be known from the Scriptures themselves either by the plainness of the particular Sentences or by the dependence on and connexion with the Antecedents and Consequents or Collation with the more remote parts thereof But there is another Author who pretending to maintain the Protestant Cause against the Exercitator deals less candidly with us than that profess'd Adversary For in stead of answering the aforesaid Exception he says again and again That God is not nor can properly be said to be the Interpreter of Scripture or the Expositor of his own Mind therein And he gives us this strange reason for it Because to this it 's necessary that by an Oracle that is I suppose either by audible Voice or secret instinct he should according to the Enthusiasts fancy expresly pronounce to us that this or that is the sense of such or such a Scripture Unless he do this he cannot be allow'd by this Dictator to be the Interpreter of the Scriptures To this I reply Do we not all acknowledge that the Scripture is the Word of God and that God speaks to us in it and that what that says God says And is it not the usual Language of the Holy Ghost in the Bible that the Scripture saith thus and thus which sure can be no otherwise taken for truth or sense but as the Scripture is the Voice of God to us And Wolzogen himself says several times that in the Scripture God speaks to us after the manner of men And seeing sometimes the Text is so plain that it speaks clearly its own mind and sometimes what is spoken in one part of Scripture is explained by what is spoken in another both which himself acknowledgeth why may it not with as much propriety be said that God is the Interpreter of his own Mind in Scripture though he use no
other Voice than that of the Scripture in speaking to us For how improper soever such an Expression may seem to this Gentleman it is agreeable to Scripture-language And me thinks he who so hotly contends for the Usus loquendi as to make that the only supreme infallible Rule of expounding Scripture might give our Reform'd Divines leave to speak according to this Use without his supercilious censure In the mean time this Author may do well to consider whose Cause he most favours by such manner of arguing I know none that can so heartily thank him for it as the Romanists who use the same way of cavilling against us when we say that the Scripture or the Spirit of God in and by the Scripture is the sole supreme Judge of all Controversies of Faith This say they cannot be unless the Spirit of God do by an audible Voice decide the Controversie telling the one party they are in the right and the other they are in an error And because he doth not so in the Scripture therefore they deny him to be the supreme Judge of Controversies by the Scripture Thus Gretser the Jesuit in the Conference at Râ—tisâ—on Seventy five years ago Behold says he we are here disputing the Cause If the Spirit of God do by the Scriptures judge and determine Controversies let him now come let him come and pass sentence out of this Book the Bible that lay before him and say Thou Gretser art wrong and thou H. art in the right Now what doth Wolzogen by his Argumentation but justifie the profane insolency of that petulant Jesuite The Antients were of another mind they acknowledged God speaking in the Scripture to be the Judge of Controversies Thus speaks one of them to his 〈…〉 Nemo vobis credat nemo nobis de Coelo quaerendus c. Let none give credit to us or you we must seek a Judge from Heaven but what need we go thither to him having his Testament here in the Gospel And if the Spirit of God may with congruity enough be said to speak in the Scriptures as Judge of Controversies he may with as good congruity be acknowledged to speak in the Scriptures as Interpreting his own Mind there laid down And so I have done with my first Argument CHAP. X. A second Argument from the Scriptures being the only Rule of Faith affording a double Proof for the Scriptures being its own Interpreter MY next Argument follows That which is the only Rule of Faith is the only Rule to interpret its own sense But so is the Scripture That the Written Word of God is the only Rule of Faith is acknowledged by all that sincerely own the Protestant Cause Now from hence I thus argue 1. The supreme Rule of Faith is that which infallibly guides and determines us per Modum Objecti what we are to believe Now it is the Scripture in its true and genuine meaning that we are bound to believe Whatsoever therefore objejectively determines what we are to believe must accordingly determine the sense of Scripture And if any thing else besides the Scripture be the Rule to determine this that must eo ipso upon that very score be acknowledged for the Rule of Faith 2. Whatsoever is the Rule of Faith must be the Rule of deciding all Controversies of Faith This I think no Man will question Now let but this be supposed that the Scripture is the only supreme Rule of deciding all Controversies of Faith which no sound Protestant can deny it will necessarily follow That it must be the supreme Rule of clearing all Doubts and Difficulties within it self For where the Scripture is on both sides own'd for the Rule the knot of the Controversie lies in this whether this or that be the sense of the Scriptures that are alledged on both sides for were that agreed the Controversie would cease and whatsoever determines that decides the Cause Thus much the Exercitator acknowledges What ever therefore it be that 's made the Rule of Interpreting Scripture and determining the sense of it is thereby made the Rule of deciding all Controversies of Faith and is to such as so use it the Rule of their Faith CHAP. XI 1. An Exception against this Argument affirming Scripture and Reason jointly to be the Rule of Faith 2. This Novelty disproved and condemned AGainst this Argument some may have the confidence it may be to make this Exception That Scripture is not the only Rule of Faith The Papists join unwritten Traditions with the Scripture and will have us take both together for the compleat Rule of Faith This I shall not deal with there having been so much said by our Divines about it in the Controversies between us and the Church of Rome But there is another Generation of Men that join Human Reason with the Scripture to make up the Rule of Faith Lambertus Velthusius one of the Seniors of the Gallo-Belgick Church at Utrech is charged with this by Vander Weayen who cites this among many other erroneous Positions out of one of that Authors Belgick Tracts That Scripture and Reason are the Rule of Faith So then we have here a new unwritten Word found out to be part of the Canon So fertile of Monsters is this Novaturient Age. But I hope this Doctrine will not be so easily received as it is boldly obtruded Hitherto Principles of Reason and Articles of Faith were wont to be contradistinguish'd and though some things knowable by Natural Light are likewise propounded to our belief in Scripture yet such were never that I know of owned for Points of Faith otherwise than as they were attested in Scripture And in all Logick that I have been acquainted with Arguments à Testimonio are put into one rank and those that are drawn à Natura rei are put into another these latter properly belonging to Science the former to Faith Our Understandings saith C. Streso and after him Dr. Tailor apprehend things three ways The first is 〈◊〉 whereby it receives first Principles The second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereby it draws Consequences from those Principles The third is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of such things as we assent to from Testimony And it is a known speech of St. Austin Quod intelligimus debemus rationi quod credimus Autoritati That we understand we owe to Reason but that we believe we owe to Authority And we have hitherto taken it to be essential to a Christians Faith that in its Assent it rely upon the Infallible Veracity of the Revealer as the ratio formalis credendi Perhaps it will here be said for I cannot imagine what else can be said That the Principles of Reason are the Word of God and by him written in our Minds therefore our Assent to them is a belief of Divine Testimony as well as our Assent to what is written in the Bible and consequently they are part of the Rule of Faith
What can be the meaning of this that these Principles are written in our Minds I cannot understand any further than this that there is begotten in our Minds a clear perception and firm perswasion of them But the great Question will be By what Act doth God write these in our Minds or beget in us this perception and perswasion of them Surely they will not say that when God creates the Soul of Man this perception or perswasion of these Principles is concreated by him in and with the Soul for if so how is it that during our Infant-state we are such strangers to them and do so continue till we come gradually by observation and experience to be acquainted with them And when we come to discern them and to be perswaded of them how come we to be assured that they are of God There must be some difference between the Testimony and the Thing testified The Principles of Reason are supposed to be the Res testata the Thing testified But what is the Testimony or the Actus Testificandi My perception or perswasion cannot be it for if so then whatsoever I perceive and am fully perswaded of I must believe to come from God and what will that come to at last These Principles of Reason are not Complex Propositions form'd by God in our Minds or suggested to us by a Divine Afflatus this would make every Man an Enthusiast The best account I can give of them is that they are such General Truths as have their foundation in the nature of things and their mutual habitudes and respects which our Reason apprehending doth therein discover the aforesaid Principles thence resulting And because it is God alone who gives to all things their several Beings and constitutes them in such and such habitudes each to other and hath given us our Reason whereby we are enabled to discern them therefore he is said to be the Author of those Principles which lie fundamentally in his Workmanship And we do not take them for Truthus upon the credit of any foregoing testimony that God gives to us of them but we assent to them propter evidentiam râ—i because our Reason sees them perfectly agreeable to the nature of things and thereby finding them to be certainly true thence it gathers that they are of God from whom all Truth comes But now the method of Faith is widely different from this Here we first own the testimony of God speaking in the Scriptures and thence we are perswaded that what the Scripture speaks is true and so we come to embrace the many severals therein asserted by yielding a particular assent to them as we find them But will some say before we believe the Scriptures we must be convinced by Reason that these Scriptures are of God Very true but the effect of such a conviction is not properly Faith but Knowledge And when I know by satisfying Grounds of Reason that the Scripture is indeed the Voice of God then do I by Faith assent to what that speaks as Gods testimony And whereas there are some Truths which are knowable in some measure by Natural Light and yet are revealed likewise in the Scripture it is commonly and truly said by our Divines that as they are received by Natural Light and upon Rational Grounds so they are the Objects of Science but as they are revealed in the Scripture so and only so they are the Objects of Faith which as the Apostle tells us is the evidence of things not seen that is of things not discernable by Natural Light whether of Sense or Reason or at least that are not consider'd as such when we receive them as Objects of Faith which therefore is call'd the evidence of them because it discerns the truth and reality of them in the infallible testimony of the Revealer Now besides what hath been already said it may further be proved that Reason is not any part of the Rule of Faith For 1. Were this granted it would necessarily follow that Scripture of it self is an imperfect Rule and if so it is no Rule at all That cannot be own'd for a Rule that is not adequate and commensurate to what is to be regulated by it The known description of a Rule given by Varinus and so frequently quoted by our best Authors hath never that I know of been questioned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Rule or Canon is an immutable Law and an unerring Measure which at no hand will admit of addition or diminution This is one great Argument used by our Protestant Writers to shut out Popish Traditions from being any part of the Rule of Faith because the Scripture is a perfect and sufficient Rule of it self and must be so or else it cannot be a Rule at all Of which the Reader may see enough for his satisfaction in the Learned Bishop of Down his Ductor Dubitantium Lib. 2. Cap. 3. Rule 14. p. 359 c. And the Argument is every whit as good to exclude Reason as Tradition in this case And that the Scripture is a perfect discovery of the Mind of God so far as is necessary for us to know it I have proved before in my first Argument 2. The Principles of Reason as I have formerly shewed in the proof of my first Proposition have no formal existence any where but in the Minds or Writings of fallible Men considering them as separate from the Scriptures for set the Bible aside there is no Infallible and Authentick Record of those Principles to which we can have recourse And this utterly disables them for being so much as a partial Rule of a Christians Faith 3. Principles of Natural Reason let us suppose them never so fixt and infallible are wholly aliene to matters of supernatural Revelation which are the proper Object of Faith And to measure these by them were as ridiculous as to attempt by a Carpenters Rule to take the distance of the Heavens or to spread a Fowlers Net to catch the Winds However therefore there is as hath been already acknowledged and maintain'd great use of Reason and its Principles in subordination and instrumental subserviency to the knowledge of Divine Matters yet that it is in any degree to be owned as the Rule of our Faith must not will not cannot be allowed by any that are true to the Christian Cause CHAP. XII An Exception of the Exercitator grounded upon a distinction of the Scriptures taken materially or formally propounded and the folly and fallacy of it detected BUt here the Exercitator gives us a distinction which he makes often use of as being very fit for his turn That the Scripture is taken either materially and so it signifies no more but the bare Words Phrases and Sentences of Scripture or formally and so it signifies the sense and meaning of these Words and Sentences Now says he when we say the Scripture is the Rule of Faith we do not mean the bare words but the
sense and that is the thing we inquire into by the help of Philosophy and when we have thereby obtain'd the sense of Scripture-Propositions that sense we own for the Rule of our Faith and of deciding Controversies in Religion But adds he when the Reformed Doctors say the Scripture is its own Interpreter they can mean only the Words and Sentences of Scripture without the sense for it is the sense that they are seeking for and that cannot be the Rule to find out it self To this I answer 1. The distinction of the Scripture consider'd materially and formally or in respect of the matter and form is generally received But was never that I know of taken in the sense of this Author but in a far different meaning viz. The Scripture as to the matter is the Word of God and formally consider'd is the same Word as written But this Gentlemans Exposition of it serves his turn very well viz. That the Words and Phrases of Scripture are as rude matter till the sense as the form be given it by Philosophy or Humane Reason But 2. The distinction as here used is a miserable subterfuge arguing some Wit but no Honesty For when we say the Scripture is the Rule of Faith and it is the Rule of Interpretation to it self in both we mean neither the words nor the sense separately but conjointly For 1. The Scriptures are no otherwise the Rule of our Faith than as they are the Revelation of the Mind of God to us Now the Words or Sentences separated from the true sense supposing they could be so separated are not the Mind of God and the sense separated from the Words and Sentences if it might be so separated would be no Revelation for we know not the Mind of God but by the Words and his Mind as clothed with these Words or these Words as exhibiting his Mind so they are our Rule Again 2. When we say the Scripture is a Rule of Interpretation to it self we mean that if the place under consideration be plain it delivers its own sense to the Reader that well minds the contexture and dependence if it be dark we have recourse to some other plain Scripture and by the evident sense of that wherein the Mind of God lies more clearly in the words we find out his Mind in that other where it lay more darkly The fallacy of this Author in charging us to mean only the Words of Scripture when we say the Scripture is its own Interpreter lies in this he would make the World believe that we mean it of one and the same Sentence of Scripture even where it is most obscure Now as himself premiseth that Interpretation supposes some obscurity in the thing to be Interpreted so he could not but know that in the case of obscurity we mean it of the Scripture according to its different parts that the Scripture where it is plain is a Rule of Exposition to it self in those parts that are more intricate which himself also acknowledgeth to be our meaning elsewhere in his Book And yet we use no such incongruity as he supposeth in saying the Scripture expounds it self each part of Scripture being Scripture no more than in saying that the Civil or Municipal Law expounds it self when one part of the Law explains another CHAP. XIII 1. An Answer to some other Objections against the Scripture being its own Interpreter e. g. That Protestants assert a necessity of the Spirits Illumination 2. What Correspondency hath one part of Scripture with another c. 3. Some difficult places of Scripture are not explained elsewhere 4. Many Rules of Interpreting Scripture are prescribed by Divines both Ancient and Modern I Shall now consider what may be further Objected against my present Assertion besides what I have already met with in clearing my foregoing Arguments And first the Exercitator Objects That the Divines of the Reformed Churches maintain a necessity of the Spirits Internal Illumination for our right understanding of the Scripture therefore the Scripture is not a sufficient Interpreter of it self I answer What the Spirits enlightening is and how far necessary may be more seasonably discuss'd in another place and therefore I intend to speak something to it in an Appendix to this Discourse But at the present we are to consider that the Spirit is said to make known to us the Mind of God two ways 1. Objectively as it speaks to us in the Scripture which is of the Holy Spirits enditing 2. Effectively as it acts in us to help our weak understandings Now these two are widely different one from the other The former notes the Objective Evidence that is given us of Gods Mind which is by the Scripture and this is enough to render the Scripture a sufficient Rule of Interpretation to it self whether the other were necessary or no because there is in the Scripture a sufficiency in the nature of an Objective Light to discover the Will of God the latter concerns only the Subjective Light which the Spirit affords to our dark understandings that we may discern what is in the Scripture the necessity whereof doth not at all impeach the sufficiency of the former because that which makes this latter necessary is not any obscurity in the Object but an indisposition in the Subject or Faculty that is to apprehend it But it 's further objected What correspondency hath one part of Scripture with another or what right or power hath one Pen-man of Scripture over the Writings of another that the words of the one should be Interpreted by the others Thus argues the Exercitator To which I answer 1. May we not with much more reason say What correspondency hath Philosophy with Scripture Have not the several parts of Scripture all which were endited by one and the same Infallible Spirit more correspondency one with another than any of them can have with Philosophy which is the immediate product of fallible Reason 2. The Author may do well to consider what good correspondency there is between the several parts of his own Book and whether this Objection do not evidence him to be inconsistent with himself For in his third Chapter when he would prove that the words in 1 Kings 3. 12. concerning the Wisdom of Solomon are to be understood by an Hebrew Idiotism and mean no more than that the Wisdom given to Solomon was very eminent and above the ordinary rate he appeals to two other places that speak of the Piety of Hezekiah and Josiah and says Hoc ita se habere ex duobus aliis ejusdem Scriptoris locis non obscure elucescit c. That it is so appears plainly by two other places of the same Writer viz. 2 Kings 18. 5 6. and C. 23. 25. Which he says can no otherwise be truly understood but in this sense that their Piety was eminent and extraordinary It seems our Author was then in the mind that one part
yet accomplished will be made clear by the event when they come to be fulfilled If there be any difficulties in any one part of Scripture which cannot be clear'd from some other by the best inquiry we can make it will be a vain thing to attempt the finding of it out any other way but we must be in such cases content to be ignorant of their meaning Nor yet will those Scriptures be utterly useless or in vain to us if from their obscurity we can learn this needful Lesson the more reverently to adore the Majesty of the written Word and more humbly to acknowledge our own ignorance and weakness And to this may be referr'd what is objected about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the sense is not obvious Yet again it is objected If the Scripture be its own sufficient Interpreter what mean those many Rules that Divines give for the right understanding of Scripture If the Scripture it self be the only Rule what need is there of all these Thus the Exercitator who makes a particular enumeration of several Rules that are given by St. Austin and others To this childish Cavil which the Author brings in by the by I answer Whatsoever Rules are given by Divines for the right Interpretation of Scripture such as are sound and good are only to direct the Reader how with most ease and greatest certainty to fetch the sense of Scripture from the Scripture it self Those Rules therefore being but subordinate and ministerial do no way contradict or overthrow this which is the Supreme and Autoâ—ratorical Suppose a Master-workman having a Building to frame imploy some under him who are as yet raw and unskilful till they have gotten some insight into the Carpenters or Masons Art when he shews them as they must have a learning how to use the Square or the Rule or the Plumb-line surely his direction that he gives them doth not at all argue the uselessness or insufficiency of those Instruments for the purpose to which they are designed but rather the contrary so is it in the present case those inferiour and subservient Rules that are prescribed by any for the expounding of Scripture are designed and directed if they be such as they should be to teach Men how to make use of the Supreme Rule the Scripture it self for the better finding out of the Mind of God in it Having confirm'd my Proposition vindicated my Arguments for it and answer'd the Objections against it it is time for me to draw to a Conclusion As for the Exercitator with whom I have mostly dealt in this Controversie when I weigh his Arguments I cannot but wonder at his confidence But he who hath no better Weapons must fight with a Bull-rush And it is now become the mode of Polemick Writers that have Prurient Wits to sharpen their dull Arguments with high confidence in themselves and a proud contempt of their Antagonists in both which this Author excels but it is such an excellency for which no Wise or sober Man will envy him THE Conclusion THE Author whom I have chiefly and designedly dealt with hitherto having engaged himself in a Contest with the whole World of Christian Writers especially with the Expositors of Scripture and having in his own apprehension won the day comes in his Epilogue to make preparation for his Triumph bringing forth his Spoils and telling us how greatly he hath bless'd the World with his Exploits and lest we should be ignorant of our Happiness acquir'd by his Victorious Arms he sets it out in six considerable Points 1. He tells us This new way of Interpretation being sure and infallible will if it be taken forthwith banish all Disputes about the sense of Scriptures and thereby restore Peace to the Christian World But I wonder how this should be effected by Philosophy which is it self so full of Disputes and the Professors whereof are at such variance among themselves Let them first reconcile their own Differences before they undertake so great an Enterprise elsewhere 2. It will be a great ease to the Interpreter because whatever sense he can make of any part of Scripture if Philosophy allow it for a Truth he may be sure it is the sense of that Text this way allowing a plurality of immediate senses in the same Scripture and where it is thus it is easier says he to find the true meaning than where according to the Protestants opinion the sense is but one And yet sure when we speak of inquiring after the sense of Scripture we mean the whole sense not part of it only And if many senses may be more easily found out than one then perhaps our Author may find it an easier thing to gain a thousand Proselytes than one to his new way 3. This will save Men the labour of searching Commentators because in this way they may by their own industry find out the Mind of God without any help from others And so they may according to his Principles without ever looking into the Bible at all 4. By this way we may best find out all Corruptions Depravations and Mutilations of the Original Text whether Hebrew or Greek And is it not pity the Antient Church did not think of this happy Expedient that they might have call'd a Council of Learned Philosophers such as Porphyrie Celsus and others to draw them up a more correct Copy of the Bible 5. 6. By this we may know how to judge of all various Lections which are Genuine which not yea by this we may discover the Errours of Translations made out of depraved Copies or Spurious Readings though we have no skill at all in the Original Tongues Doubtless a singular Receipt that will help a Man to distinguish of Colours in the darkest Mid-night as well as at Noon-day We see what a rare Pampharmacon this AEsculapius hath prescribed which he may well call his Nostrum that can work as great Wonders as the Headsman's Ax that infallibly cures all Diseases with one Blow For that his grand design is utterly to cashier the Scripture as useless and unprofitable is plain enough by sundry passages in his Book but especially that in his Epilogue which I lightly touched at in the first part of my Discourse Chap. 6. but deserves a more severe Castigation The Scripture with him is of no use to instruct us in any thing we know not nor yet to confirm us in what we know All the use he allows it is only this that by reading therein we may be occasion'd and excited to consider of the things there treated of and examine the truth of them by Philosophy And as much as this might be said of the Jews Talmud or the Turks Alcoran Was there ever any who call'd himself a Christian since the Christian Name was heard of that hath manifested a more vile esteem of Gods Written Word or a more bold contempt of the whole Christian Doctrine Hath God in mercy left us this only
disposing the mind for a right understanding and receiving that which the Scripture propounds For they suppose what the Scripture plainly affirms and what none ever denied but Pelagius and his followers that the mind of Man by the Fall is blind in the things of God that it cannot rightly and sufficiently unto salvation discern the things of the Spirit when presented to it unless that inward blindness be removed That the Scripture propounds to us the Truths we are to receive but the Spirit disposeth us to receive them which the Reverend Bishop of Chester thus expresseth The same Spirit which revealeth the Object of Faith generally to the Universal Church viz. by the H. Scripture which was given by the motion and operation of the Spirit of God as he had said a few lines before doth also illuminate the understanding of such as believe that they may receive the Truth For Faith is the Gift of God not only in the Object but also in the Act. And a little after concluding his Discourse on this Head he saith Thus we affirm not only the Revelation of the Will of God but also the Illumination of the Soul of Man to be part of the Office of the Holy Spirit of God against the old and new Pelagians That Subjective Light whereby the mind of Man is enabled to see Divine Truths this all sound Protestants own to come from the Spirit of God immediately irradiating the mind and curing that spiritual darkness that possesseth it whereby it is indisposed for understanding spiritual things in a spiritual manner but all the Objective Light or evidence that we have of the Mind of God they acknowledge to lie in the Scripture it self And therefore our Learned Whitaker in his Contest with the Romish Doctors makes this clear and candid profession in the name of all the Protestants Internas Persuasiones sine externo Verbo tanquam Satanae ludibria cavemus Ex Scripturis Sapimus cum Scripturis Sentimus propter Scripturas Credimus We shun Internal Perswasions without the External Word as the Delusions of Satan We fetch our Wisdom from the Scriptures we regulate our Sentiments by the Scriptures we build our Faith upon the Scriptures But Wolzogen as he deals most disingenuously with our Protestant Divines in reporting their Doctrine inserting somewhat of his own that quite changes its meaning and so rendring it more obnoxious to censure so he is very variable and uncertain in delivering his own mind And yet in the winding up says as much as all that comes to which he together with the Exercitator calls Enthusiasm For he tells us That the Spirit corrects that corruption of the mind which hinders us from discerning the sense of Scripture And That he exerts his power about the constitution of our minds which he had acknowledged before to be cover'd with the darkness of a natural ignorance by enlightening them But then he says This is not by putting any new light into our minds for all that shines in the Scripture Where he strangely confounds the Objective and Subjective Light as if they were all one Sure it is not enough for a Mans seeing of visible Objects that there be an External Light in the Air but there must be an Internal Light in the Eye and if this be lost as it is in the blind it must be restored or the Man will never see though there were never so much Light about him Yet after all the aforesaid Author tells us elsewhere That the Spirit of God so powerfully and efficaciously affects our minds by enlightening exciting moving leading them that the darkness of our natural ignorance being dissipated we may savingly perceive the Divine Objects presented to us in the Scripture And again he says The Eye of the mind being vitiated the Holy Spirit restores its sight And yet more I grant says he that in this business the Spirit of God imprints a new light upon our minds if by this be meant that he gives us as it were a new faculty of receiving that Light that shines in the Scripture not any new Light i. e. not any new Objective Light distinct from the Scriptures Now truly this for any thing I can see is that very Doctrine of our Reform'd Divines which the Exercitator had so boldly charged with Enthusiasm and that with this Authors approbation But I perceive there are some Men whereof the Exercitator is one who make account that all the darkness Men are in even as to matters Spiritual is only a want of such a Light as shall discover the Object without curing the Faculty Thus Schlichtingius writing against Meisuerus in defence of Socinus says Homo intellectu praeditus in divinis mysteriis ita caecus est quemadmodum is qui oculos quidem habet sed in tenebris sedet amove tenebras lumen affer videbit Oculi hominum sunt intellectus lux est Christi doctrina Man endued with understanding is no otherwise blind in Divine Mysteries than as he who hath eyes but sits in the dark remove the darkness and bring him a light and he will see The eyes of a man are his understanding the light is Christs doctrine To this purpose speaks the Author of a late Pamphlet that when once the mystery of Christ Jesus was revealed even Humane Reason was able to behold and confess it not that Grace had alter'd the eye-sight of Reason but that it had drawn the Object nearer to it But that defect of the Mind of Man which the Scripture speaks of is evidently an internal darkness not only a darkness about him but a darkness within him which the greatest external light without something else will never redress no more than the bringing of a light into a dark room can make a blind Man see And if it were not thus I see no reason why Man should be counted any more blind or ignorant in reference to matters of Heaven and Eternity than in reference to Arts and Sciences and common Trades which he is wholly at a loss in till the Principles of them be clearly and distinctly propounded to him But lamentable experience makes it abundantly manifest that Men of quick understanding and greatest proficiency in these matters yet remain as blind as Beetles in Divine Mysteries notwithstanding all outward means of Instruction The Apostle Paul was train'd up in the Doctrine of the Law at the feet of Gamaliel and very strict he was in the righteousness of the Law according to the understanding that he had of it And yet being destitute of the Spirit of Grace he tells us that he was all that while without the Law because he was destitute of the true spiritual knowledge of it That Disciplinary knowledge that he had from his Teachers was not sufficient because he wanted the inward light of the Spirit to cure his blindness and remove his prejudices This the Apostle John calls Giving us an understanding
That nothing is in the Understanding that hath not been first in the sense Which says he the Divines receiving for an undoubted truth did never call off their minds from their senses and finding the knowledge drawn from thence to be very lame and imperfect and next to nothing they judged all rational knowledge to be no better yet happening by chance sometimes to make use of their mere understanding in the perception of some things and thereby attaining some true and solid knowledge which they found to be of a far other nature than that which they used to fetch from the senses therefore they took this latter kind of knowledge to be something Divine and Supernatural To this I answer 1. By what Power or Authority doth this confident Gentleman break Windows into the breasts of others and take upon him to know the secret thoughts and inward conceptions of their minds Did they ever tell him that this was their apprehension of things or that their Doctrine of Supernatural Light was built upon the Authority of Aristotle or deduced from any of his Axioms Or doth his New Philosophy furnish him with skill sufficient to search the hearts of Men touching their particular Sentiments as he pretends it doth to shew him the mind of God in Scripture-Revelations I think it furnisheth him for both alike But I wish it had taught him better to know himself 2. Neither were Aristotle nor his Followers such Dolts or Blockheads in maintaining the forementioned Axiom as to take it in that absurd meaning that nothing could be received into the Understanding but what is the Object of Sense For they clearly maintain the knowledge of those things that fall not under sense as of God and Angels and of Universals that are abstracted from sense But that all our knowledge of things without us comes in by the Senses especially by those two that are not unfitly called the Senses of Discipline Sight and Hearing is I think evident enough by all Experience besides what we find in Scripture concerning the knowledge we have of God which is either Natural or by Revelation Now as for the former the Apostle sure was not deceived by Aristotle's Axiom when he tells us That the invisible things of God from the Creation of the World are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his Eternal Power and Godhead And for the knowledge of things revealed we are taught by the same Apostle that Faith cometh by hearing And our Saviour's most usual method of Preaching by Parables may shew us how requisite it is for Man in this state to have his understanding inform'd even in things Spiritual and Heavenly by the help of sense and sensible Objects The other passage is that where he says That this Supernatural Light is a thing unintelligible he knows not what to make of it nor how to conceive of it Is it says he something ordinary or is it extraordinary To his Demand I answer It is beyond the reach of corrupted and depraved Nature and so it is extraordinary but it is the inseparable priviledge of renew'd Nature and so far it is ordinary for it is communicated to all who partake in the saving Grace of Christ. But 2. Whereas this Author says He knows not what this enlightening of the Spirit is I easily believe him considering what our Saviour says of the Spirit of Truth which he promised to his Disciples That the World could not receive him because it seeth him not neither receiveth him And it is no wonder for Men to speak slightingly or contemptuously of the things they know not Upon which very account many excellent Truths plainly revealed in the Gospel are by audacious Wits exploded and derided as unintelligible Mysteries Yet 3. Me thinks Mens Reason might tell them if it were not wofully blinded by pride prejudice or passion that the unaccountableness of the nature of a thing or of the manner how it is can be no sufficient Argument against its existence The most perspicacious Inquirers into the Secrets of Nature do acknowledge themselves convinced of the certain existence of many things the nature whereof and the manner of their production they are not able to conceive much less to discover Thou knowest not says Solomon what is the way of the Spirit nor how the Bones do grow in the Womb of her that is with Child It is beyond the ken of Mans understanding infallibly to know or demonstratively to prove 1. The way of the Spirit or Soul whether it be produced by Creation or Traduction or what other way And 2. How the Body is form'd in the Womb. I know some learned Men have gone far in their Discoveries but the ablest of them have been put to a stop meeting with some knots which they could not untie I might ask these Curious Questionists How they can solve the many Doubts that may be raised about the Species of sensible Objects and about the Phantasms in the Mind or give us a satisfying account whence they come how they are framed and where it is that they are first received Or I might demand of them Which way the Soul and Body are united to each other and how they come to act one upon another with a thousand more difficulties that occur where the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is unsearchable though the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be undeniable How much more may this be affirm'd of things purely revealed the sublimity whereof so vastly exceeds the former Secondly Another thing these Men dislike is That the Spirits enlightening of the Mind is said to be Immediate 1. Now if the word Immediate be taken as it is sometimes explain'd for such as supersedes Man's use of God's appointed means as if he were to expect some internal voice or impulse to reveal to him the Mind of God we disclaim all Immediate Actings of the Spirit in this sense But if Immediate be taken as it may very properly for such an operation of the Holy Spirit as doth Immediatè attingere mentem that by it self without the interposition of any second cause reacheth the mind of Man so we maintain that there is no effectual operation of the Spirit of God upon the Soul of Man but what is in this sense Immediate For what created Agent is there to come between the Spirit of God and the Soul of Man or that can by its own efficiency come at the Soul of Man to work upon it This nothing can do but an Infinite Spirit If any will say That there is something else comes between the Spirit of God and the Soul of Man in this business let them assign what it is Is it the Scripture it self That can act but Objectively nor can it do that further than it is understood and believed That therefore which works upon the Mind by a proper efficiency to redress the indisposition of the Faculty and to enable it to know and
of Scripture may have correspondency with another and this so far as that the one may expound the other But now the case is alter'd If it be replied in his behalf That these places by him quoted were penned by one and the same Writer and therefore might well have correspondency each with other but this makes nothing for those who interpret one part of Scripture by some other that was not written by the same Hand I rejoin That the first and second Book of Kings were endited by the same Spirit I grant and shall make some use of it in my third Answer to this Authors Objection But that they were both written by the same Hand or suppose they were that the Writer intended by the latter to explain what he had written in the former is more than he or any other for him can prove 3. The Scriptures though written by parts and at several times and by several persons yet they all own God for their Author by whose Spirit they were endited and they are all together to be taken for his Counsel to Sinners And then what injury or incongruity is there in making use of what one hath written more plainly to unfold what was more darkly written by another When we compare the Evangelists together to explain what one says more briefly by what another lays down more fully we do not in this so much inquire into the sense and meaning of the Evangelists as into the Mind of God whose Secretaries they were The like may be said of the Prophets If the Prophets or Apostles spake of their own heads or wrote only a signification of their own private Sentiments there might be some colour for this Objection But the Apostle tells us That no Prophesie of Scripture is of private Interpretation that is the Prophets in their Writings were not the Interpreters of their own Mind but of the Mind of God by whom they were sent and by whose Spirit they were acted as it follows in the next Verse For Prophesie came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost And thus much the Exercitator acknowledgeth where he saith That God is the Author of the Scriptures and that he did always guide his Amanuenses to write the Truth giving them the assistance of his unerring Spirit and that whatsoever they wroteâ—… pure Truth free from all mixture of Fâ—â—shood or Errour But there is another Discourse prefixed to a latter Edition of the so oft-mentioned Exercitation and thought by many to come from the same Author the Writer whereof sticks not to assert this audacious Falshood That the Prophets in their Narkatives and in all matters of Speculation that is whatsoever was not matter of moral Duty did disagree among themselves and â—onsequently that what is said by one is not to be explained by the words of another Which with other passages of like import does at once call in question the whole Truth and consequently the Divine Authority of the Scriptures For if the Pâ—â—men of Scripture elash one against another in their Writings either God was not the Author of whâ—â— they wrote but themselves or the God of Truth must be charged with Falshood for of two diâ—…ent Opinions both cannot be true Whose design it is that the Author of that Theologico-Political Tractat drives except that of the great Enemy of Mankind I know not But he sufficiently manifests a vile esteem of the Holy Scriptures and a desire to beget the like in others For he takes very earnest pains with the utmost of his art and skill to â—â—ke up and exagitate their seeming disagreements as real contradictions casting a great deal of scorn upon all Expositors as Fools or Madmen that attempt to reconcile them His discourse in this and sundry other odious passages which I abâ—or to mention doth apparently tend to promote the cause of the Antiscripturists besides the help 〈◊〉 affords which is not a little to the Romish Interest The Author indeed would seem by some Expressions here and there to intimate his dislike of the Ponâ—ifician Party But we know it is consistent enough with the Politick Principles of Men of that way to speak much more than he hath done against that very Cause that they are studiously projecting under that Covert to advance But I return from this Digression to what I was about If any thing in the Laws of a Kingdom be difficult and perplex and there be something in some other Law of the same Kingdom though written or printed by other hands that speaks more clearly of that matter what wrong is it to the Law or the Law-maker or Printer if a Learned Council comparing one with another expound that which is more dark in one part of the Laws by that which is more perspicuous in another both proceeding from the same Authority and both obliging to the same persons Judge alike in the present case This Objection therefore is of no force But it is further urged That there are some difficult places of Scripture that are no where explained in any other part and some things that being but once spoken in Scripture cannot be explained by any parallel place And here our â—â—ercitator refers us for instances to his great Friend Stapleton For answer 1. Whereas it is said there are difficulties in some parts of Scripture that are no where cleared how does any Man know this Doth it follow that there is no such thing because we cannot find it Do we think our selves of so piercing or capacious understandings that nothing in the Scripture that is intelligible can escape our discovery Those who have acquainted themselves with Antient and Modern Expositors do know that many difficulties which former Interpreters have in vain struggled with and some that they have wholly left untoucht either as not apprehending them to be difficulties or conceiving them insuperable have been made very clear and plain by some later Writers Verily God will have us know that the opening of his Mind doth not depend only or chiefly upon the pregnancy of Mans Wit but upon his gracious assistance and blessing which he affords or withholds when and where himself sees fit Again the Scriptures were penn'd not only for the past and present but for all succeeding Ages of the Church to the end of the World And as some parts of them which peculiarly concern'd some Ages past were perhaps better understood in those Ages than they can be by us now as certainly many things were that belong'd to the Jewish Oeconomy so I know not but we may rationally suppose that some other parts of Scripture which to us seem unintelligible may have special reference to the Church in after-Ages and that those whom they so nearly concern shall have more light afforded for the understanding of them in their days than we have in ours As without doubt some Prophetick Scriptures not