It follows, therefore, that those who have been intrusted with such an inestimable gift, should make a right use of it. Scrip ture itself teaches what that use is, namely, to perform it. In order to perform it, we require knowledge, knowledge which is open to all who possess rectitude of heart.2
Myriads of annotations were not written in the Church of the Old Testament, although the measure of light vouchsafed was far more scanty then than now ; nor did learned men think, that the Church of the New Testament required to be immediately laden with such helps. Every book, when first published by a prophet or an apostle, bore in itself its own interpretation) clear by its inherent light, being accommodated to the then existing state of things. The text, which must have been continually in the mouth of all, and read by all, maintained itself its own per spicuity and integrity. The saints did not employ themselves in diligently selecting the berries, as if the other portions of Holy Scripture were fit only for the pruning-hook ; nor did they occupy their time in accumulating the encumbrances of com mentaries. They had the Scriptures [and they found them all- sufficient]. The unlearned could refer for oral instruction, to those who were learned in the Old and New Testaments.
1 We may add ; They who have not tasted it, give the precedency before it to all compositions of mere men, however profane, however vain, however wanton, however foolish, " Hinc iliac lacrymse."
2 Comp. Ps. xxv. 14, Matt. xi. 25, John vii. 17; 1 Cor. ii. 14. For there is not one of those, who possess rectitude of heart, that will allow the saving power of those passages to be snatched from himself by any hermeneutic arts whatever.