4. A constant design for growth and a progress in knowledge, out of love to the truth and experience of its excellency, is useful, yea, needful, unto the right understanding of the mind of God in the Scriptures. Some are quickly apt to think that they know enough, as much as is needful for them; some, that they know all that is to be known, or have a sufficient comprehension of all the counsels of God as revealed in the Scripture, or, as they rather judge, of the whole
CHAP. VII.] MEANS FOR UNDERSTANDING THE MIND OF GOD. 207
body of divinity, in all the parts of it, which they may have disposed into an exact method with great accuracy and skill. No great or useful discoveries of the mind of God shall I expect from such per- sons. Another frame of heart and spirit is required in them who design to be instructed in the mind of God, or to learn it in the study of the Scripture. Such persons look upon it as a treasury of divine truths, absolutely unfathomable by any created understanding. The truths which they do receive from thence, and comprehend ac- cording to their measure therein, they judge amiable, excellent, and desirable above all earthly things ; for they find the fruit, benefit, and advantage of them, in strengthening the life of God in them, conforming their souls unto him, and communicating of his light, love, grace, and power unto them.
This makes them with purpose of heart continually to press, in the use of all means, to increase in this wisdom, — to grow in the knowledge of God and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. They are pressing on continually unto that measure of perfection which in this life is attainable; and every new beam of truth whereby their minds are enlightened guides them into fresh discoveries of it. This frame of mind is under a promise of divine teaching: Hos. vi. 3, " Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord." Prov. ii. 3-5, " If thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for un- derstanding; if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God." When men live in a holy admiration of and complacency in God, as the God of truth, as the first infinite essential Truth, in whose enjoyment alone there is fulness of all satis- factory light and knowledge; when they adore the fulness of those revelations of himself which, with infinite wisdom, he hath treasured up in the Scriptures ; when they find by experience an excellency, power, and efficacy in what they have attained unto; and, out of a deep sense of the smallness of their measures, of the meanness of their attainments, and how little a portion it is they know of God, e do live in a constant design to abide with faith and patience in con- tinual study of the word, and inquiries into the mind of God therein, — they are in the way of being taught by him, and learning of his mind unto all the proper ends of its revelation.
5. There are sundry ordinances of spiritual worship which God hath ordained as a means of our illumination, a religious attendance whereunto is required of them who intend to " grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."
And this is the first head of means for the due improvement of our endeavours in reading and studying of the Scriptures, that we may come thereby unto a right understanding of the mind of God
208 CAUSES, WAYS, AND MEANS, ETC. [BOOK VI., PART II.
in them, and be able to interpret them unto the use and benefit of others. What is the work of the Holy Spirit herein, what is the aid and assistance which he contributes hereunto, is so manifest from what we have discoursed, especially concerning his operations in us as a Spirit of grace and supplication (not yet made public),1 that it must not be here insisted on.
It may be these means will be despised by some, and the proposal of them to this end looked on as weak and ridiculous, if not ex- tremely fanciful; for it is supposed that these things are pressed to no other end but to decry learning, study, and the use of reason in the interpretation of the Scriptures, which will quickly reduce all reli- gion into enthusiasm. Whether there be any thing of truth in this suggestion shall be immediately discovered. Nor have those by whom these things are pressed the least reason to decline the use of learning, or any rational means in their proper place, as though they were conscious to themselves of a deficiency in them with respect unto those by whom they are so highly, and indeed for the most part vainly, pretended unto.
But in the matter in hand we must deal with some confidence. They by whom these things are decried, by whom they are denied to be necessary means for the right understanding of the mind of God in the Scriptures, do plainly renounce the chief principles of Christian religion; for although the Scripture hath many things in common with other writings wherein secular arts and sciences are declared, yet to suppose that we may attain the sense and mind of God in them by the mere use of such ways and means as we apply in the investigation of truths of other natures is to exclude all con- sideration of God, of Jesus Christ, of the Holy Spirit, of the end of the Scriptures themselves, of the nature and use of the things de- livered in them ; and, by consequent, to overthrow all religion. See Prov. xxviii. 5.