A90280:304
Of the divine original, authority, self-evidencing light, and power of the Scriptures. With an…Of the divine originall, authority, self-evidencing light, and povver of the Scriptures. With an…
Of the divine original, authority, self-evidencing light, and power of the Scriptures. With an answer to that enquiry, how we know the Scriptures to be the Word of God. Also a vindication of the purity and integrity of the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Old and New Testament; in some considerations on the prolegomena, & appendix to the late Biblia polyglotta. Whereunto are subjoined some exercitations about the nature and perfection of the Scripture, the right of interpretation, internal Light, revelation, &c. / By John Owen: D.D.Of the divine originall, authority, self-evidencing light, and povver of the Scriptures. With an answer to that enquiry, how we know the Scriptures to be the Word of God. Also a vindication of the purity and integrity of the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Old and New Testament; in some considerations on the prolegomena, & appendix to the late Biblia polyglotta. Whereunto are subjoyned some exercitations about the nature and perfection of the Scripture, the right of interpretation, internall Light, revelation, &c. / By Iohn Owen: D.D.
Oxford: printed by Henry Hall for Tho, 1659
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Sect. 14. Let us then a little, without prejudice or passion, consider who, or what these men were, who are the supposed Authors of this work. 1. Men they were (if any such were) who had not the Word of God committed to them in a peculiar manner, as their forefathers had of old, being no part of his Church or People, ⟨p. 241⟩but were only outwardly possessors of the Letter, without just Right or Title to it; utterly uninterested in the promise of the communication of the Spirit, which is the great Charter of the Churches preservation of truth: Isa. 59. 21. 2 Men so remote from a right understanding of the Word, or the Mind and Will of God therein, that they were desperately engaged to oppose his Truth in the Books which themselves enjoyed in all matters of importance unto the Glory of God, or the Good of their own souls, from the beginning to the ending.1 The foundation of whose Religion, was infidelity, and one of their chief fundamentals an opposition to the Gospel. 3. Men under the special Curse of God, and his vengeance, upon the Account of the Blood of his dear Son. 4. Men all their days feeding themselves with vain fables, and mischievous devices against the Gospel, labouring to set up a new Religion under the name of the old, in despite of God, so striving to wrestle it ⟨p. 242⟩out with his curse to the utmost. 5. Men of a profound ignorance in all manner of Learning and knowledge, but only what concerned their own dunghill Traditions;2 as appears in their stories, wherein they make Pyrrhus King of Epirus, help Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem; with innumerable the like fopperies. 6. Men so addicted to such monstrous figments, as appears in their Talmuds, as their successors of after ages are ashamed of, and seek to palliate, what they are able; yea for the most part Idolaters and Magicians, as I shall evince. Now I dare leave it to the judgment of any godly prudent person, not addicted to parties and names of men, who is at all acquainted with the importance of the Hebrew vowels and Accents unto the right understanding of the Scripture, with what influence their present fixation hath into the literal sense we embrace, whether we need not very clear evidence and Testimony, yea undeniable and unquestionable, to cast the rise and spring of them upon the invention of this sort of men.