226 CAUSES, WAYS, AND MEANS, ETC. [BOOK VI., PART II.
our own reasons and understandings. But the inquiry herein is, what supernatural aid and assistance our minds and natural reasons stand in need of to enable them to receive and understand aright things spiritual and supernatural. And if it be true that no more is required unto the due understanding and interpretation of the Scriptures but the exercise of our own reasons, in and by the helps mentioned, — namely, skill in the original languages, the art of ratiocination, and the like, which are exposed unto all in common, according to the measure of their natural abilities and diligence, — then is the sense of the Scripture, that is, the mind of God and Christ therein, equally discernible, or to be attained unto, by all sorts of men, good and bad, holy and profane, believers and unbelievers, those who obey the word and those who despise it ; which is contrary to all the promises of God and to innumerable other testimonies of Scripture.
CHAPTER IX.
Helps ecclesiastical in the interpretation of the Scripture.
Thirdly, There are means and helps for the interpretation of the Scripture which I call ecclesiastical. Those I intend which we are supplied withal by the ministry of the church in all ages. And they may be referred unto three heads, under which their usefulness to this purpose is pleaded: as, — 1. Catholic or universal tradition; 2. Consent of the fathers; 3. The endeavours of any persons holy and learned who have gone before us in the investigation of the truth, and expressed their minds in writing, for the edification of others, whether of old or of late. These things belong unto the ministry of the church, and so far as they do so are sanctified ordinances for the communication of the mind of God unto us.
1. It is pleaded by some that the Scripture is to be interpreted according to catholic tradition, and no otherwise. And I do acknow- ledge that we should be inexpressibly obliged to them who would give us an interpretation of the whole Scripture, or of any book in the Scripture, or of any one 'passage in the Scripture, relating unto things of mere supernatural revelation, according unto that rule, or by the guidance and direction of it. But I fear no such tradi- tion can be evidenced, unless it be of things manifest in the light of nature, whose universal preservation is an effect of the unavoidable reason of mankind, and not of any ecclesiastical tradition. More- over, the Scripture itself is testified unto unanimously and unin- terruptedly by all Christians to be the word of God ; and hereby are all divine truths conveyed down from their original and delivered
CHAP. IX.] MEANS FOR UNDERSTANDING THE MIND OF GOD. 227
unto us. But a collateral tradition of any one truth or doctrine besides, from Christ and the apostles, cannot be proved ; and if it could be so, it would be no means of the interpretation of the Scrip- ture but only objectively, as one place of Scripture interprets another, — that is, it would belong unto the analogy of faith, contrary to which, or in opposition whereunto, no place ought to be interpreted. To pretend this, therefore, to be the rule of the interpretation of Scripture actively, as though thereby we could certainly learn the meaning of it, in part or in ivhole, is fond. Nor, whatever some do boast of, can any man living prove his interpretation of any one place to be dictated by or to be suitable unto universal tradition, any otherwise but as he can prove it to be agreeable to the Scrip- ture itself; unless we shall acknowledge, without proof, that what is the mind and sense of some men who call themselves " The church" at present was the mind of Christ and his apostles, and of all true believers since, and that infallibly it is so. But this pretence hath been abundantly and sufficiently disproved, though nothing seems to be so to the minds of men fortified against all evidences of truth by invincible prejudices.
2. The joint consent of the fathers or ancient doctors of the church is also pretended as a rule of Scripture interpretation. But those who make this plea are apparently influenced by their supposed in- terest so to do. No man of ingenuity who hath ever read or con- sidered them, or any of them, with attention and judgment, can abide by this pretence; for it is utterly impossible they should be an authentic rule unto others who so disagree among themselves, as they will be found to do, not, it may be, so much in articles of faith, as in their exposition of Scripture, which is the matter under con- sideration. About the former they express themselves diversely ; in the latter they really differ, and that frequently. Those who seem most earnestly to press this dogma upon us are those of the church of Home; and yet it is hard to find one learned man among them who hath undertaken to expound or write commentaries on the Scripture, but on all occasions he gives us the different senses, ex- positions, and interpretations of the fathers, of the same places and texts, and that where any difficulty occurs in a manner perpetually. But the pretence of the authoritative determination of the fathers in points of religion hath been so disproved, and the vanity of it so fully discovered, as that it is altogether needless farther to insist upon it. And those who would seem to have found out a middle way, between their determining authority on the one hand, and the efficacy of their reasons, with a due veneration of their piety and ability (which all sober men allow), on the other, do but trifle, and speak words whose sense neither themselves nor any others do understand.