A complete body of divinity in two hundred and fifty expository lectures on the…A compleat body of divinity in two hundred and fifty expository lectures on the…

[8.] THE Native perspicuity of the Scriptures will appear, if we consider those things, 1 THAT all Scripture expressions are suited to the language of mankind. God speaks every thing there according to the way and manner that men express themselves in, one to another, and that for the Grammar, R••twick & Logic of it. Christ tells Nicodemus that he spake earthly things to him; Joh. 3.12. They were heavenly truths, but they were clothed with earthly expressions, i.e. Such as men that dwell upon earth are wont to use: The Grammar of them is such as is suited to our speech; and hence the same literal sense is to be put upon the words that they sound in vulgar speech: The Rhetoric is such as men make use of, to speak in Metaphors, Metonymies, Allegories, and Similitudes, & are to be so interpreted; the Logic of them is such as man's Reason is wont to make use of, whether Axiomatical or Syllogistical; and hence are to be so taken, hence the word is called Logical milk; 1 Pet. 2.2. 2. THAT there is but one sense belongs to one Scripture. If there were diverse senses belonging to it, it would make it intricate & unintelligible; but no Scripture hath more senses belonging to it. My meaning is, there is but one construction of the words; there is but one lateral meaning; for if there were more senses that one belonging to any text, God should use equivocation, which is impudence to charge him withal; nay, in reality, to say it hath more sense, is to say that it hath no sense at all; for that whose signification is not restrained to one, hath no certainty in it at all. It is true, (1.) THIS one sense may be applied to divers Subjects. Thus in typical Scriptures, the things spoken may be applied both to the Type and Antitype, as Psal. 2. & 16. & elsewhere. That all Allegories, and many Scripture Histories. So the story of Abraham's two Wives, Gal. •. Here therefore, the Allegory it self and the ••••ry, make but one entire sense. (2.) THIS one sense may include divers particular things under it. But that makes it not divers for we know that a general includes all specials: and so, where the words are few, the sense may be very comprehensive. Th•• in each command […] Decalogue, there is abundance contained: Because under a general Precept or Prohibition, all of the kind and every species, is contained. (3.)