Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

be, the mud is only stirred that it might be cast out, and your. hearts cleansed from it. Be not discouraged, therefore: for there is no means in the world, so apposite to the destruction and subduing of sin, as the Scripture; though, at first, it may seem, instead of subduing sins, to strengthen them.

6. Many are discouraged from studying the Scriptures, because their memories are so treacherous and unfaithful, that they can retain nothing: when they have read the Scripture, and would recollect what they have read, they can give no account of it, either to themselves or others. Nothing abides upon them: and therefore they think it were as good give over, as thus continually to pour water into a sieve; and inculcate truths upon such a leaky memory, where all runs out.

This is, indeed, the complaint of many.

But,

(1) This should rather put thee on a more frequent and diligent study of the Scripture, than discourage thee from it.

More pains will supply this defect: thou must the oftener prompt, and the oftener examine thyself, the more forgetful thou art. Memory is the soul's steward; and, if thou findest it unfaithful, call it the oftener to account. Be still following it with line upon line and precept upon precept, and continually instil somewhat into it. A vessel, set under the fall of a spring, cannot leak faster than it is supplied: a constant dropping of this heavenly doctrine into the memory will keep it, that, though it be leaky, yet it never shall be empty.

(2) Scripture truths, when they do not enrich the memory, yet may purify the heart.

We must not measure, the benefit we receive from the Word, according to what of it remains, but according to what effect it leaves behind. Lightning, than which nothing sooner vanisheth away, yet often breaks and melts the hardest and most firm bodies in its sudden passage. Such is the irresistible force of the Word: the Spirit often darts it through us: it seems but like a flash, and gone; and yet it may break and melt down our hard hearts before it, when it leaves no impression at all upon our memories. I have heard of one, who, returning from an affecting Sermon, highly commended it to some; and, being demanded what he remembered of it, answered, "Truly, I remember nothing at all; but, only, while I heard it, it made me resolve to live better than ever I have done, and so by God's grace I will." Here was now a Sermon lost to the memory, but not to the

affections. To the same purpose, I have somewhere read a story of one, who complained to an aged holy man, that he was much discouraged from reading the Scripture, because his memory was so slippery, that he could fasten nothing upon it which he read: the old Hermit (for so as I remember he was described) bid him take an earthen pitcher, and fill it with water: when he had done it, he bid him empty it again, and wipe it clean that nothing should remain in it; which when the other had done, and wondered to what this tended, "Now," saith he, though there be nothing of the water remaining to it, yet the pitcher is cleaner than it was before: so, though thy memory retain nothing of the word thou readest, yet thy heart is the cleaner for its very passage through."

(3) Never fear your memory; only pray for good and pious affections.

Affection to the truths, which we read or hear, makes the memory retentive of them. Most men's memories are like jet, or electrical bodies, that attract and hold fast only straws or feathers, or such vain and light things: discourse to them of the affairs of the world, or some idle and romantic story, their memories retain this as faithfully as if it were engraven on leaves of brass; whereas the great and important truths of the Gospel, the great mysteries of heaven and concernments of eternity, leave no more impression upon them, than words on the air in which they are spoken. Whence is this, but only that the one. sort work themselves into the memory through the interest they have got in the affections, which the other cannot do? had we but the same delight in heavenly objects, did we but receive the truth in the love of it, and mingle it with faith in the hearing, this would fix that volatileness and flittiness of our memories, and make every truth as indelible, as it is necessary. That is in Answer to the Sixth Objection.

7. Others complain, that the Scripture is obscure, and difficult to be understood they may as well, and with as good success, attempt to spy out what lies at the centre of the earth, as search into the deep and hidden mysteries, which no human understanding can fathom or comprehend. And this discourageth them. To this I answer,

(1) It is no wonder, if there be such profound depths in the word of God, since it is a system and compendium of his infinite and unsearchable wisdom; that wisdom, which, from the beginning of the world, hath been hid in God.

Those deep truths, which your understanding cannot reach, require your humble veneration.

(2) The Scripture is suited to every capacity.

It is, as it is commonly expressed, a ford, wherein a lamb may wade and an elephant swim. And, herein, is the infinite wisdom of God seen, in wreathing together plain truths with obscure, that he might gain the more credit to his Word: by the one, instructing the ignorance of the weakest; by the other, puzzling and confounding the understanding of the wisest. This also adds a beauty and ornament to the Scripture: as the beauty of the world is set off by a graceful variety of hills and vallies, so is it in the Scripture: there are sublime truths, which the most aspiring reason of man cannot overtop; and there are more plain and easy truths, in which the weakest capacity may conyerse with delight and satisfaction: no man is offended with his garden, for having a shady thicket in it; no more should we be offended with the word of God, that, among so many fair and open walks, we here and there meet with a thicket, which the eye of human reason cannot look through.

(3) Those truths, which are absolutely necessary to salvation, are as plainly, without either obscurity or ambiguity, recorded in the Scripture, as if they were, as the Mahometans think concerning their Alcoran, written with ink made of light.

There, the necessity of faith in Jesus Christ, of repentance for dead works, of a holy and mortified life, are so clearly set down, that scarce have there any been found so impudent, as to raise controversies about them: and is it not peevish, to quarrel at the Word for being obscure in those things, which if thou hast used thy utmost diligence to understand, the ignorance of them shall not at all prejudice thy salvation? Bless God, rather, that he hath so clearly revealed the necessary and practical duties of a Christian Life, that those are not involved in any mystical or obscure intimations; but that thou mayest, without doubt or dispute, know what is of absolute necessity, to be either believed or practised, in order to salvation. Be assured of this, that what with all thy labour and diligence thou canst not understand, thou needest not; and that what is needful, is plain and obvious, and thou mayest easily understand it.

(4) The Scripture is obscure: but hath not God offered us sufficient helps for the unfolding of it?

Have you not the promise of his Spirit to illuminate you? 1 Cor. ii. 10. God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit: for the

Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God. Have we not his Minister, whose office it is to instruct us, and lead us into the inmost sense of the Scriptures? Nay, have we not the Scripture itself, which is the best interpreter of its own meaning? usually, if it speak more darkly in one place, it speaks the same truth more clearly in another: compare Scripture with Scripture, and you will find it holds a light unto itself: the oftener you read and the more you ponder on those passages that are abstruse, the more you will find them clear up to your understanding. So that neither is this any reasonable discour agement from studying the Holy Scriptures.

8. Others may say, they are doubtful, because they see many of those, who have been most conversant in the Scripture, perverted and carried aside into damnable errors, and yet still have pleaded Scripture for the defence of them.

I answer,

True, the Devil hath, in these our days, busied himself to bring a reproach upon Scripture, through the whimsies and giddiness of those, who have pretended most acquaintance in it. But, let not this be any discouragement: for this ariseth not directly from the influence which the Scripture hath on them, which is the rule of truth only; but from the pride and selfconceit of a few notionists, who wrest it to their own perdition: and, though they boast much of Scripture to countenance their opinions; yet Scripture, misunderstood and misapplied, is not Scripture. Indeed there is no other way to discern truth from error, but only by the Scripture rightly understood; and there is no way rightly to understand it, but diligently to search it. But, to say that therefore we must not read the Scripture, because some wrest it to their own destruction, is alike reasonable, as to say, that therefore we must not eat nor drink, because that some eat to gluttony and others drink to giddiness and: madness. The Apostle St. Peter tells us, 2 Epist. Chap. iii. v. 16, that, in St. Paul's Epistles, there were some things hard to be. understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction: shall we therefore conclude, that neither his Epistle nor any other of the Scriptures should be read by us; because that, in some, instead of nourishment, they have occasioned only wind, flatulency, and> ill-humours? If this had been his purpose, it had certainly been wery easy for him to have said, "Because they are hard to be

understood, and many wrest them to their own destruction, therefore beware that you read them not:" but, instead of this, he draws another inference, ver. 17, 18. Ye therefore, beloved..... beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness: But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord.....Jesus Christ: he saith not, "Beware that you read them not," but, "Beware how you read them." This is the true apostolical caution, which tends not to drive us from the Scriptures, but to make us more studious and inquisitive in them, lest we also be perverted by the cunning craftiness of men, who lie in wait to deceive. And this, the Primitive Parents thought the best and surest means, to preserve their people from error and seduction: it were almost endless to recite to you, those many passages, wherein they do most pathetically exhort all, of all ranks and conditions, of each sex, of all ages, to a diligent perusal of the Holy Scriptures: and, so far were they from taking it up in a language unknown to the vulgar, or debarring the laity from reading it, that the translations of it into the common tongue of each country were numerous, and their exhortations scarce more vehement and earnest in any thing, than that the people would employ their time and thoughts in revolving them. It is therefore a most certain sign, that that Church hath false wares to put off, which is of nothing more careful than to darken the shop; and, assuredly, the wresting of the Scriptures by some who read them, cannot occasion the destruction of more, than that damnable idolatry and those damnable heresies have done, which have been brought into and are generally owned and practised by the Church of Rome, through the not reading of them.

ii. Thus you see, as it was in Josiah's time, how much dust and rubbish this Book of the Law lies under. I have endea voured to remove it. And shall now proceed to those ARGUMENTS, WHICH MAY PERSUADE YOU TO A DILIGENT SEARCH AND PERUSAL OF THE SCRIPTURES.

The Jews, indeed, were so exact, or rather superstitious, in this, that he was judged a despiser of those Sacred Oracles, who did not readily know how often every letter of the alphabet occurred in them. This preciseness God hath made use of, to deliver down his Word to us, unvaried and uncorrupted. It is not such a scrupulous search of the Scripture, to which I now

« AnkstesnisTęsti »