And this first sort of means which we have hitherto insisted on are duties in themselves, as well as means unto farther ends ; and all duties under the gospel are the ways and means wherein and whereby the graces of God are exercised : for as no grace can be exerted or exercised but in a way of duty, so no duty is evangelical or accepted with God but what especial grace is exercised in. As the word is the rule whereby they are guided, directed, and mea- sured, so the acting of grace in them is that whereby they are quick- ened ; without which the best duties are but dead works. Materially they are duties, but formally they are sins. In their performance, therefore, as gospel duties, and as they are accepted with God, there
1 The treatise to which Dr Owen alludes was subsequently published, and appears in this volume of his works, page 235. — Ed.
CHAP. VIII.] MEANS FOR UNDERSTANDING THE MIND OF GOD. 209
is an especial aid and assistance of the Holy Spirit. And on that account there is so in the interpretation of the Scriptures ; for if with- out his assistance we cannot make use aright of the means of inter- preting of the Scripture, we cannot interpret the Scripture without it. The truth is, they who shall either say that these duties are not necessarily required unto them who would " search the Scriptures," and find out the mind of God for their own edification, or so as to expound those oracles of God unto others, or that they may be per- formed in a manner acceptable unto God and usefully unto this end, without the especial assistance of the Holy Spirit, do impiously, what lies in them, evert the whole doctrine of the gospel arid the grace thereof.
That which, in the next place, might be insisted on is the consi- deration of the especial rules which have been, or may yet be, given for the right interpretation of the Scriptures. Such are those which concern the style of the Scripture, its especial phraseology, the tropes and figures it makes use of, the way of its arguing ; the times and sea- sons wherein it was written, or the several parts of it ; the occasions under the guidance of the Spirit of God given thereunto ; the design and scope of particular writers, with what is peculiar unto them in their manner of writing; the comparing of several places as to their difference in things and expressions; the reconciliation of seeming- contradictions, with other things of an alike nature. But as the most of these may be reduced unto what hath been spoken before about the disposal and perspicuity of the Scripture, so they have been already handled by many others at large, and therefore I shall not here insist upon them, but speak only unto the general means that are to be applied unto the same end
CHAPTER VIII.
The second sort of means for the interpretation of the Scripture, which are disciplinarian.
The second sort of means I call disciplinarian, as consisting in the due use and improvement of common arts and sciences, applied unto and made use of in the study of the Scriptures. And these are things which have no moral good in themselves, but being indifferent in their own nature, their end, with the manner of their management thereunto, is the only measure and standard of their worth and value. Hence it is that in the application of them unto the interpretation of the Scripture, they may be used aright and in a due manner, and they
VOL. iv. 14
210 CAUSES, WAYS, AND MEANS, ETC. [BOOK VI., PART II.
may be abused to the great disadvantage of those who use them ; and accordingly it hath fallen out. In the first way they receive a bless- ing from the Spirit of God, who alone prospereth every good and honest endeavour in any kind ; and in the latter they are efficacious to seduce men unto a trust in their own understandings, which in other things is foolish, and in these things pernicious.
1. That which of this sort I prefer, in the first place, is the know- ledge of and skill in the languages wherein the Scripture was origi- nally written; for the very words of them therein were peculiarly from the Holy Ghost, which gives them to be n^* lr?.^!!, ivords of truth, and the Scripture itself to be "*£* -WW, a right, or upright, or perfect writing, Eccles. xii. 10. The Scriptures of the Old Testa- ment were given unto the church whilst it was entirely confined unto one nation, Ps. cxlvii. 19, 20. Thence they were all written in that language, which was common among, and peculiar unto, that nation. And this language, as the people itself, was called Hebrew, from Eber the son of Salah, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, their most eminent progenitor, Gen. x. 21-24; for being the one original tongue of mankind, it remained in some part of his family, who pro- bably joined not in the great apostasy of the world from God, nor was concerned in their dispersion at the building of Babel, which ensued thereon. The derivation of that name from another original is a fruit of curiosity and vain conjecture, as I have elsewhere de- monstrated.