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Author and Revealer, who is (in the phrase of St. John) light, and in whom there is no darkness at all, 1 John i. 5.

Sometimes the things spoken of are so mysterious and sublime, that our limited and weak apprehensions can hardly reach them. Sometimes the manner of speaking, even concerning common things, is dark and dubious. The apocalypse is received into the canon, together with the other parts of Scripture; the sense of it has been much sought and searched after by pious and inquisitive men in all ages of the church; and yet we have reason to believe, that it has never yet been thoroughly understood by any man.

The beginning of St. John's Gospel is so far intelligible, as that it plainly enough establishes the divinity of our Lord, and his co-eternity with God the Father; but yet nobody, I think, will say, that the sense of every term in that chapter is so clear and easy, as that no Christian, of whatever rank or degree, can, upon perusing, and attentively considering the whole, miss the meaning of it.

Even the discourses of our blessed Lord are somewhat dark and intricate in some parts of them. That with Nicodemus about regeneration, John iii, and that with the men of Capernaum about eating his body and blood, John vi., have in them what will command and exercise our utmost attention. And his account of the destruction of Jerusalem in St. Matthew, chapter xxiv, is so interwoven with that of the day of judgment, that it is very difficult to distinguish exactly, what expressions belong to the one, and what to the other.

And then, as to St. Paul in particular, his doctrines of justification by faith and not by works; of election and reprobation; Gal. ii. 16; his description of the struggle between sin and the law in the natural man, as yet unassisted by grace, Rom. vii; and his account of the spiritual body, with which we are to rise at the last-day, 1 Cor. xv, are sufficient instances of the truth of St. Peter's assertion, that in him particularly are some things hard to be understood.

This truth therefore being supposed, I proceed now,

in the

II. Second place, to give some account, how these obscure passages came to have a place in Scripture: how it could not otherwise be but that the holy writings should, in some parts of them, be dark and difficult, even to those, who lived at the time when they were written, and yet more so to us, who live at this distance from the age of the apostles.

And the plain account of this matter is, that, though the Scripture was written by men under the immediate inspiration and guidance of the Holy Ghost; yet were those men, at the time of this inspiration, left to the free use of their own natural faculties and powers, and to express themselves, every one after their particular fashion and manner: the Holy Ghost, though it presided over the minds and pens of the apostles, so far as to preserve them from error, yet doth not seem to have dictated to them, what they were to say, word by word, but in that to have left them, in good measure, if not altogether, to themselves. Which appears plainly from hence, in that we find the several writers of the New Testament always in their several proper and peculiar characters; and as different in their styles, almost, as one human author is from another.

For what is left to men to express, placed only under an over-ruling power, which necessitates them to speak nothing but truth, must need be expressed, though always truly, yet, after the unequal imperfect manner of men, sometimes more darkly, and sometimes more clearly. I say therefore, that the apostles and evangelists, making use of their natural faculties and ways of speech, in committing to writing the truths delivered to them, it could not be expected, that they should speak always with the same degree of perspicuity; because no other writer does so.

Further, the nature of some things they delivered was such, so high and heavenly, so obscure and alto

gether unknown to men, that the language of men could not but fail under them, when they were to express them. They were of necessity sometimes to fall short, in what they said, of what they imagined and conceived; and, for want of fit and adequate terms, to clothe their thoughts in unequal and improper ones. Particularly as to St. Paul, who had been in the third heaven, and there heard things unutterable; was it to be expected, that, when he came down from thence, he should have spoke of those mysteries, after a clear and satisfactory manner? No, those to whom he spake, must have been in the third heaven too, thoroughly to have understood his meaning.

It is no wonder therefore, that there should be passages in Scripture of a doubtful and uncertain meaning, even to those who lived at the time when that Scripture was penned. It is yet less a wonder that there should be many more such with regard to us, who live at this distance from the age of the apostles.

For consider we with ourselves, what manner of men the apostles were in their birth and education; what country they lived in; what language they wrote in; and we shall find it rather wonderful, that there are so few, than that there are so many things that we are at a loss to understand. They were men (all except St. Paul) meanly born and bred, and uninstructed utterly in the arts of speaking and writing. All the language they were masters of was purely what was necessary to express themselves upon the common affairs of life, and in matters of intercourse with men of their own rank and profession. When they came therefore to talk of the great doctrines of the cross, to preach up the astonishing truths of the Gospel; they brought to be sure their old idiotisms, and plainness of speech along with them. And is it strange then, that the deep things of God should not always be expressed by them in words of the greatest propriety and clearness?

The eastern manner of thinking and speaking, at

that time especially, when the Scripture was wrote, was widely different from ours, who live in this age, and this quarter of the world. The language of the East speaks of nothing simply, but in the boldest and most lofty figures, and in the longest and most strained allegories. Its transitions from one thing to another are irregular and sudden, without the least notice given. Its manner of expressing things is wonderfully short and comprehensive, so as to leave much more to be understood than is plainly and directly spoken. And this also cannot but contribute to make the holy writings seem, in some parts of them, obscure to such as are used to throw their thoughts and their words into a quite different mould.

Beyond all this, we, at this distance, cannot be exactly acquainted with the occasions upon which some parts of Scripture were written; which nevertheless, are the true and proper keys that open the meaning of them. We see not the frequent allusions to customs then known and in use. We are in the dark to many of the objections made to the apostles' doctrine, which are tacitly obviated and answered by them in their epistles, without being mentioned. Under these, and many other disadvantages, the holy Scriptures must needs lie, with regard to the obviousness of their sense and meaning to us at this distance: and it can be no blemish to them, therefore, if that meaning be not always obvious.

I might, with truth, add one thing more upon this head, that, where the interpretation of Scripture has any difficulty, that difficulty is often, in good measure, owing to the preposterous endeavours used by some men to explain and clear it. The multiplicity of comments written upon Scripture, and the variety of all the possible senses of any text, started by those writers, have been so far from reaching the end aimed at, the dissipating all doubts and difficulties, that they have cast a mist over many places, which of themselves were plain

and clear; and have rendered some, that were rcally a little obscure, yet more unintelligible.

Numberless volumes have been written on Scripture, in every age almost since it was published; and still the later writers have generally striven to distinguish themselves from the elder, by some new guess, by saying somewhat that hath not been said before. And thus the mind of an honest inquirer is perplexed and confounded, and, in the midst of a thousand false meanings, easily loses sight of the true one.

But still it will be said, that these are only rational accounts, how Scripture comes in some places to be obscure, not at all justifications of its being so. God, who inspired the apostles to write the holy Scripture, might, if he had pleased, have suggested to them the very words also, in which it was to be written; and, by that means, have made it all clear and easy, and took away all occasion of doubts and disputes concerning it. And since he could have done so, why was it not done, if so be Scripture were designed for a rule of faith and manners? For can a rule be too certain ? Can a man know too plainly what he is to do, and what he is to believe?

In answer to this therefore, I shall shew, as I proposed, in the

III. Third place, that it carries no reflection upon the divine goodness or wisdom, that the Scripture is not in every part as plain and clear, as it was possible to have been made.

For first, the goodness of God is by no means obliged to do every thing for us that is possible to be done, but only that which is fitting and sufficient, in order to the end it designs. Now the end proposed by God, in causing the Scripture to be written, is to afford us a complete rule and measure of whatever is to be believed or done by us. If, therefore, in all points of faith and practice, Scripture is sufficiently plain and clear,

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