A27017:574
The Saints' Everlasting Rest
The saints everlasting rest, or, A treatise of the blessed state of the saints in their enjoyment of God in glory wherein is showed its excellency and certainty, the misery of those that lose it, the way to attain it, and assurance of it, and how to live in the continual delightful forecasts of it and now published by Richard Baxter ...The saints everlasting rest, or, A treatise of the blessed state of the saints in their enjoyment of God in glory wherein is shewed its excellency and certainty, the misery of those that lose it, the way to attain it, and assurance of it, and how to live in the continual delightful forecasts of it and now published by Richard Baxter ...
London: printed by Rob. White for Thomas Underhil and Francis Tyton, 1650
THE SAINTS Everlasting REST. PART II. › Chapter 4 › Section 6
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1SECT. VI.
- 1§. 6.
Secondly, And here I would have those men, who cannot endure this resting upon *humane Testimony, to consider of what necessity it is for the producing of our Faith. Something must be taken upon trust from man whether they will or no: and yet no uncertainty in our Faith neither. First. The mere illiterate man, must take it upon trust, that the book is a Bible which he hears read, for else he knows not but it may be some other book. Secondly, That those words are in it, which the Reader pronounceth. Thirdly, That it is translated truly out of the original languages. Fourthly, That the Hebrew and Greek Copies, out of which it was translated, are true Authentic Copies. Fifthly, That it was originally written in these languages. Sixthly, Yea and the meaning of divers Scripture passages, which cannot be understood without the knowledge of Jewish customs, of Chronology, of Geography, &c. though the words were never so exactly translated. ⟨p. 211⟩All these with many more the vulgar must take upon the word of their Teachers. And indeed a faith merely humane, is a necessary preparative to a faith Divine, in respect of some means and Praecognita necessary thereto. If a Scholar will not take his masters word, that such letters have such or such a power, or do spell so or so: or that such a Latin or Greek word hath such a signification; when will he learn, or how will he know? Nay how do the most learned linguists know the signification of words in any language, and so in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, but only upon the credit of their Teachers and Authors? And yet certain enough too in the main. Tradition is not so useless to the world or the Church as some would have it; Though the Papists do sinfully plead it against the sufficiency of Scripture, yet Scriptures sufficiency or perfection is only in suo genere, in its own kind, and not in omni genere, not sufficient for every purpose. Scripture is a sufficient rule of Faith and life, but not a sufficient means of conveying it self to all generations and persons. If humane Testimony had not been necessary, why should Christ have men to be witnesses in the beginning? And also still instruments of persuading others, and attesting the verity of these sacred records to those that cannot otherwise come to know them?