40 ANIMADVERSIONS ON A TREATISE
live unto him. To say that God would not do this, would not make such a revelation (besides the reflection that it casts on his goodness and wisdom), is indeed to say that he would not do that which we say he would do. The truth is, all the harangues we meet withal about the obscurity of the Scripture, are direct arraignments of the wisdom and goodness of God. And if I were worthy to advise my Roman Catholic countrymen, I would persuade them to desist from this enterprise, if not in piety, at least in policy; for I can assure them, as I think I have done already, that all their endeavours for the extenuation of the worth, excellency, fulness, sufhciency of the Scripture, do exceedingly confirm Protestants in the truth of their present persuasion, which they see cannot be touched but by such horrible applications as they detest.
4. But yet they say, " Scripture is not so clear but that it needs interpretation, and Protestants have none to interpret it, so as to make it a means of ending differences." I confess, the interpretation of Scripture is a good and necessary work ; and I know that He who " was dead, and is alive for ever," continues to give gifts unto men, according to his promise, to enable them to interpret the Scripture for the edification of his body, the church. If there were none of these intei-preters among the Protestants, I wonder whence it is come to pass that his comments on and interpretations of Scripture, who is most hated by Romanists of all the Protestants that ever were in the world, are so borrowed and used (that I say not stolen) by so many of them ; and that, indeed, what is praiseworthy in any of their church, in the way of exposition of Scripture, is either borrowed from Protestants or done in imitation of them. If I am called on for instances in this kind, I shall give them, — I am persuaded, to some men's amazement who are less conversant in these things ; but we are beside the matter. " It is of an infallible interpreter, in whose expositions and determinations of Scripture sense all Christians are obliged to acquiesce; and such a one you have none." I confess we liave not, if it be such a one as you intend, whose expositions and interpretations we must acquiesce in, not because they are true, but because they are his. We have infallible expositions of the Scripture in all necessary truths, as we are assured from the Scripture itself; but an infallible expositor, into whose authority our faith should be resolved, besides the Scripture itself, we have none. Nor do I think they have any at Rome, whatever they talk of to men that were never there: nor, I suppose, do they beheve it themselves; for indeed if they do, I know not how they can be freed from being thought to be strangely distempered, if not stark mad. For, not to talk of the Tower of London, this I am sure of, that we have whole cart-loads of comments and expositions on the Scripture, written by
ENTITLED FIAT LUX. , 41
members of the church, men of all orders and degi-ees ; and he that has cast an eye upon them knows that a great part of their large volumes are spent in confuting the expositions of one another, and those that went before them. Now, what a madness is this, or child- ishness, above that of very children, to lie swaggering and contending one with another, before all the world, with fallible mediums about the sense of Scripture, and giving expositions Avhich no man is bound to acquiesce in any farther than he sees reason, whilst all this while they have one amongst them who can interpret all; and that with sucli an authority as all men are bound to rest in, and contend no farther ! And the farther mischief of it is, that of all the rest this man is always silent as to exposition of Scripture, who alone is able to " part the fray." There be two things which I thirdv, verily, if I were a Papist, I should never like in the pope, because methinks they argue a great deal of want of good nature. The one is (that we treat about), that he can see his children so fiercely \vraugle al^out the sense of Scripture, and yet will not give out what is the infallil^le meaning of every place, at least that is controverted, and so stint the strife amongst them, seeing it seems he can if he would ; and the other is, that he suffers so many souls to lie in purgatory when he may let them forth if he please, and, that I know of, liath received no order to the contrary. But the truth is, that neither the Roman- ists nor we have any infallible living judge, in whose determination of the sense of Scripture all men should be bound to acquiesce, upon the account of his authority. This is all the difference : we openly profess we have none such, and betake us to that which we have, which is better for us; they, pretending they have, yet acting con- stantly as if they had not, and as indeed they have not, maintain a peq^etual inconsistency and contradiction between their pretensions and their practice. The Holy Ghost, speaking in and by the Scrip- ture, using the ministry of men furnished by himself with gifts and abilities, and lawfully called to the work, for the oral declaration or other expositions of his mind, is that which the Protestants cleave unto for the interpreting of the Scripture, which itself discovers when infallible ; and if Papists can tell me of a better way, I will quickly embrace it. I suppose I may, upon the considerations we have had of the reasons offered to prove the insufficiency of Scripture to settle us in the truth, and to end our differences, conclude their insufficiency to any such purpose. We know the Scripture was given us to settle us in the truth, and to end our differences; we know it is "profitable" to that end and purpose, and "able to make us wise to salvation." If we find not these effects wrought in ourselves, it is our o^vn fault ; and I desire that for hereafter we may bear our own blame, without such reflections on the holy word of the infinitely blessed God.