§. XIX.
Literature is first the Knowledge of Latin, Greek and Hebrew.But let us examine this Literature, which they make so necessary to the Being of a Minister; as in the first Place, the Knowledge of the Tongues, at least of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The Reason of this is, That they may read the Scripture, which is their only Rule, in the Original Languages, and thereby be the more capable to comment upon it, and interpret it, &c. That also which made this Knowledge be the more prized by the Primitive Protestants, was indeed the dark Barbarity that was over the World in the Centuries immediately preceding the Reformation; the Knowledge of the Tongues being about that Time, (until it was even then restored by Erasmus and some others) almost lost and extinct. Before the Reformation the Prayers of the People were in the Latin Tongue.And this Barbarity was so much the more abominable, that the whole Worship and Prayers of the People were in the Latin Tongue; and among that vast Number of Priests, Monks and Friars, scarce one of a Thousand understood his Breviary, or that Mass which he daily read and repeated: The Scripture being, not only to the People, but to the greater Part of the Clergy, even as to the literal Knowledge of it, as a sealed Book. The Zeal and Endeavours of the first Reformers commended.I shall not at all discommend the Zeal that the first Reformers had against this Babylonish Darkness, nor their pious Endeavours to translate the holy Scriptures: I do truly believe, according to their Knowledge, that they did it candidly: The Knowledge of Languages commendable, and Schools necessary.And therefore to answer the just Desires of those that desire to read them, and for other very good Reasons, as maintaining a Commerce and Understanding among divers Nations by these common Languages, and others of that Kind, we judge it necessary and commendable that there be publick Schools for the Teaching and Instructing such Youth, as are inclinable thereunto, in the Languages. And although that Papal Ignorance deserved justly to be abhorred and abominated, we see nevertheless, that the true Reformation consists not in that Knowledge; The Papists Literature and Knowledge, especially the Jesuits.because although since that Time the Papists, stirred up through Emulation of the Protestants, have more applied themselves to Literature, and it now more flourisheth in their Universities and Cloysters, than before, (especially in the Ignatian or Jesuitick Sect) they are as far now as ever from a true Reformation, and more hardened in their pernicious Doctrines. But all this will not make it a necessary Qualification to a Minister, far less a more necessary Qualification than the Grace of God and his Spirit; because the Spirit and Grace of God can make up this Want in the most Rustick and Ignorant; but this Knowledge can no Ways make up the Want of the Spirit in the most Learned and Eloquent. The Spirit is the truest Interpreter of the Scriptures, whether from the Original Languages, or without them.For all that which Man, by his own Industry, Learning and Knowledge in the Languages can interpret of the Scriptures, or find out, is nothing without the Spirit; he cannot be certain, but may still miss of the Sense of it: Whereas a poor Man, that knoweth not a Letter, when he heareth the Scriptures read, by the same Spirit he can say, This is true; and by the same Spirit he can understand, open, and interpret it, if Need be: Yea, finding his Condition to answer the Condition and Experience of the Saints of old, he knoweth and possesseth the Truths there delivered, because they are sealed and witnessed in his own Heart by the same Spirit. And this we have plentiful Experience of in many of those illiterate Men, whom God hath raised up to be Ministers in his Church in this Day; so that some such, by his Spirit, have corrected some of the Errors of the Translators, as in the Third Proposition concerning the Scriptures I before observed. A poor Shoemaker, that could not read, refutes a Professor of Divinity’s false Assertions from Scripture.Yea, I know myself a poor Shoemaker, that cannot read a Word, who being assaulted with a false Citation of Scripture, from a publick Professor of Divinity, before the Magistrate of a City, when he had been taken up for preaching to some few that came to hear him; I say, I know such a one, and he is yet alive, who though the Professor, who also is esteemed a learned Man, constantly asserted his Saying to be a Scripture Sentence, yet affirmed, not through any certain Letter-knowledge he had of it, but from the most certain Evidence of the Spirit in himself, that the Professor was mistaken; and that the Spirit of God never said any such Thing as the other affirmed, and the Bible being brought, it was found as the poor Shoemaker had said.