Secondly, It doth denote the rarity of it. It's hardly and difficultly obtained: Gold and silver is not so common as the stones of the street: There are but few mines of gold, to the mountains of earth. And thus for the most part, the Churches of God have been so corrupted with errors, that very little gold did appear. It was a rare thing to have any one truth of God made known. In the Old Testament, under many Kings, Idolatry and Superstition had so prevailed, that the book of the Law of God in Josiahs time was a rare thing; and in Asa's time, They had been without the Law, and a teaching Prophet for a long while, 2 Chron. 15 3. And in Popery not only the covering was thus deformed, but the very foundations were shaken. So that it's not so easy a matter to obtain the truth, that is found out with much prayer, humility, holiness of life, and industrious using of all means appointed by God. There are few, it may be none, who though they build gold and silver, do not also add some hay and stubble. So that this very expression, Truths are gold, are precious stones, and they lie one by one, called therefore unions, they say should teach us, not to be confident, not to rest in our own understanding. Search the Scriptures, [Greek or Hebrew], John 5.39. Some make it a metaphor from those that with much labour dig into a mine of gold. So that the Scripture that is the mine, where all the gold and silver is, there we must dig, thence we must replenish our selves.
Secondly, It doth denote the rarity of it. It's hardly and difficultly obtained: Gold and silver is not so common as the stones of the street: There are but few mines of gold, to the mountains of earth. And thus for the most part, the Churches of God have been so corrupted with errours, that very little gold did appear. It was a rare thing to have any one truth of God made known. In the Old Testament, under many Kings, Idolatry and Superstition had so prevailed, that the book of the Law of God in Josiahs time was a rare thing; and in Asa's time, They had been without the Law, and a teaching Prophet for a long while, 2 Chron. 15 3. And in Popery not only the covering was thus deformed, but the very foundations were shaken. So that it's not so easie a matter to obtain the truth, that is found out with much prayer, humility, holinesse of life, and industrious using of all means appointed by God. There are few, it may be none, who though they build gold and silver, do not also adde some hay and stubble. So that this very expression, Truths are gold, are precious stones, and they lie one by one, called therefore uniones, they say should teach us, not to be confident, not to rest in our own understanding. Search the Scriptures, 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, John 5.39. Some make it a metaphor from those that with much labour dig into a mine of gold. So that the Scripture that is the mine, where all the gold and silver is, there we must dig, thence we must replenish our selves.
