And there is not any truth of greater importance for men to be established in; for unless they have a, full assurance of understand- ing in themselves, unless they hold their persuasion of the sense of Scripture revelations from God alone, if their spiritual judgment of truth and falsehood depend on the authority of men, they will never be able to undergo any suffering for the truth or to perform any duty unto God in a right manner. The truths of the gospel and the ways of religious worship, for which any believer may be called to suffer in this world, are such as about whose sense and revelation in the Scripture there is great difference and controversy among men; and if there be not an assured, yea, infallible way and means of communicating unto all believers a knowledge of the mind and will of God in the Scripture concerning those things so controverted, the grounds whereof are fixed in their own minds, but that they do wholly depend on the expositions and interpretations of other men : be they who they will, they cannot suffer for them either cheerfully or honourably, so as to give glory to God, or to obtain any solid peace and comfort in their own souls; for if a man under his suffer- ings for his profession can give himself no other account but this, that what he suffers for is the truth of God revealed in the Scrip- ture, because such or such whom he hath in veneration or esteem do so affirm and have so instructed him, or because this is the doctrine of this or that church, the papal or the reformed church, which it hath prescribed unto him, he will have little joy of his suffering in the end. Yea, there is that which is yet worse in this matter, as things are stated at this day in the world. Truth and error are pro- miscuously persecuted, according unto the judgment, interest, and inclinations of them that are in power ; yea, sometimes both truth
124 CAUSES, WAYS, AND MEANS, ETC. [BOOK VI., PART II.
and error are persecuted in the same place and at the same time, upon errors differing from both. Dissent is grown almost all that is criminal in Christian religion all the world over. But in this state of things, unless we grant men an immediate understanding of their own in the mind and will of God, yea, a full assurance therein, there will be nothing whereby a man who suffers for the most important truths of the gospel can in his own soul and con- science distinguish himself from those who suffer in giving testimony unto the most pernicious errors; for all outward means of confidence which he hath, they may have also.
It therefore behoveth all those who may possibly be called to suffer for the truth in any season, or on any occasion, to assure their minds in this fundamental truth, that they may have in themselves a certain undeceiving understanding of the mind and will of God as revealed in the Scripture, independent on the authority of any church or persons whatsoever; the use of whose ministry herein we do yet freely and fully allow.
Nor, indeed, without a supposition hereof, can any man perform any duty to God in an acceptable manner, so as that his obedience may be the obedience of faith, nor can upon good grounds die in peace, since the just shall live by his own faith alone.
Wherefore, our present inquiry is, —
How believers, or any men whatever, may attain a right under- standing in their own minds of the meaning and sense of the Scrip- tures, as to the doctrine or truths contained in them, in answer unto the design of God, as unto what he would have us know or be- lieve; or, —
How they may attain a right perception of the mind of God in the Scripture, and what he intends in the revelation of it, in opposi- tion unto ignorance, errors, mistakes, and all false apprehensions, and so in a right manner to perform the duties which by it we are instructed in.
In answer unto the inquiry proposed concerning the knowledge and understanding of believers in the mind of God as revealed in the Scriptures, I shall consider, —
First, The principal efficient cause; and, secondly, All the means, internal and external, which are appointed of God thereunto.
As to the first of these, or the principal efficient cause of the due knowledge and understanding of the will of God in the Scripture, it is the Holy Spirit of God himself alone ; for, —
There is an especial work of the Spirit of God on the minds of men, communicating spiritual wisdom, light, and understand- ing unto them, necessary unto their discerning and apprehending aright the mind of God in his word, and the understanding of the
CHAP. I.] NECESSITY OF THE SPIRIT FOR ILLUMINATION. 125
mysteries of heavenly truth contained therein. And I shall add hereunto, that among all the false and foolish imaginations that ever Christian religion was attacked or disturbed withal, there never was any, there is none more pernicious than this, that the mysteries of the gospel are so exposed unto the common reason and understand- ing of men as that they may know them and comprehend them in a useful manner, and according to their duty, without the effectual aid and assistance of the Spirit of God.