A95413:117
The doubting conscience resolved. In answer to a (pretended) perplexing question, &c. Wherein is…
The doubting conscience resolved. In answer to a (pretended) perplexing question, &c. Wherein is evidently proved, that the holy Scriptures (not the pope) is the foundation whereupon the Church is built. Or, That a Christian may be infallibly certain of his faith and religion by holy Scriptures. By William Twice D.D. Prolocutor of the Assembly of Divines. Written at the desire of Samuel Hartlib, Esquire, for the satisfaction of his friends beyond the seas; and now divulged in print for more public edification.The doubting conscience resolved. In answer to a (pretended) perplexing question, &c. Wherein is evidently proved, that the holy Scriptures (not the pope) is the foundation whereupon the Church is built. Or, That a Christian may be infallibly certain of his faith and religion by holy Scriptures. By William Tvvisse D.D. Prolocutor of the Assembly of Divines. Written at the desire of Samuel Hartlib, Esquire, for the satisfaction of his friends beyond the seas; and now divulged in print for more publick edification.
London: printed for Thomas Matthews, 1652
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.
Obj. If any should here object, that the Scriptures themselves bear witness of their own clearness, according to that, Thy Word is a Lantern to my feet, and a light unto my paths.
Obj. If any should here object, that the Scriptures themselves bear witness of their own cleerness, according to that, Thy Word is a Lanthorn to my feet, and a light unto my paths.
I answer: All the Commands of God are his Word, and so are all his Works which are through his Word; for it is confessed by all, that God sets forth his Word by Nature, the Creature, Signs, Wonders, beneath, above, and by infinite ways; also the Scriptures witness that many things neither are nor can be written. Therefore the Word of his Voice is taken diversly in the Scriptures, and so by consequence, all that is called Gods ⟨p. 76⟩Word is not necessarily to be understood of the Scriptures. Hereunto add, that at that time many parts of Scripture were not yet written; wherefore the evidence of the thing manifestly proveth, that this is not spoken of the whole Argument and Letter of the Scripture, for as much as the Figures of the Prophecy of the Apocalypse, and infinite other things belonging to the fulfilling of those Prophecies, were hidden from the Prophets themselves, and the Fathers, (much more then from others) and are yet hidden. Christ himself speaks in parables, to the end that men may hear with their ears and not understand. The Scripture it self in very many places witnesseth that the Word of God is secret, obscure, hidden, and discovered only to the Spirit, or to the Godly only, to whom God reveals it, so that in the Scriptures there are more testimonies of their obscurity, than of their clearness; yet is not ⟨p. 77⟩the Scripture hereby either rejected, or slighted. For even before the Law was given and written, men had a certain light, by the help whereof they might (if they would) have found out the truth more clearly than we; and although in the New Testament a great light be risen, yet must we not think that in the Old Testament there was a mere blindness; whence we may reason, that God thought it not useful for us to reveal all things to us; but though all things perhaps be not necessary to be known, yet nevertheless there may be had a certain and infallible way of interpreting, by the help whereof the most and most necessary Controversies may be decided, of which if trial be made, a clear light and mere harmony may be shown in such Scriptures, as according to the opinion of many are obscure; it is possible also that there should be not a few other ways of illustrating that which is obscure, although this ill-tried way