An Apology for the True Christian Divinity / Being an explanation and vindication of the principles and doctrines of the people called Quakers

by Robert Barclay

§. V.

Answ.I answer; Not at all. The Proposition itself declares how much I esteem them; and provided that to the Spirit from which they came be but granted that Place the Scriptures themselves give it, I do freely concede to the Scriptures the second Place, even whatsoever they say of themselves; which the Apostle Paul chiefly mentions in two Places, Rom. xv. 4. Whatsoever Things were written aforetime, were written for our Learning, that we through Patience and Comfort of the Scriptures might have Hope. 2 Tim. iii. 15, 16, 17. The Holy Scriptures are able to make wise unto Salvation, through Faith which is in Jesus Christ. All Scripture given by Inspiration of God, is profitable for Correction, for Instruction in Righteousness, that the Man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto every good Work.

For though God doth principally and chiefly lead us by his Spirit, yet he sometimes conveys his Comfort and Consolation to us through his Children, whom he raises up and inspires to speak or write a Word in Season, The Saints mutual Comfort is the same Spirit in all.whereby the Saints are made Instruments in the Hand of the Lord to strengthen and encourage one another, which doth also tend to perfect and make them wise unto Salvation; and such as are led by the Spirit cannot neglect, but do naturally love, and are wonderfully cherished by, that which proceedeth from the same Spirit in another; because such mutual Emanations of the heavenly Life tend to quicken the Mind, when at any Time it is overtaken with Heaviness. Peter himself declares this to have been the End of his Writing, 2 Pet. i. 12, 13. Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in Remembrance of these Things, though ye know them, and be established in the present Truth; yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this Tabernacle, to stir you up, by putting you in Remembrance.

God is Teacher of his People himself; and there is nothing more express, than that such as are under the New Covenant, need no Man to teach them: Yet it was a Fruit of Christ’s Ascension to send Teachers and Pastors for perfecting of the Saints. So that the same Work is ascribed to the Scriptures as to Teachers; the one to make the Man of God perfect, the other for the Perfection of the Saints.

As then Teachers are not to go before the teaching of God himself under the New Covenant, but to follow after it; neither are they to rob us of that great Privilege which Christ hath purchased unto us by his Blood; so neither is the Scripture to go before the teaching of the Spirit, or to rob us of it.

Answ. 2.Secondly, God hath seen meet that herein we should, The Scriptures a Looking-Glass.as in a Looking-Glass, see the Conditions and Experiences of the Saints of old; that finding our Experience answer to theirs, we might thereby be the more confirmed and comforted, and our Hope of obtaining the same End strengthened; that observing the Providences attending them, seeing the Snares they were liable to, and beholding their Deliverances, we may thereby be made wise unto Salvation, and seasonably reproved and instructed in Righteousness.

The Scriptures Work and Service.This is the great Work of the Scriptures, and their Service to us, that we may witness them fulfilled in us, and so discern the Stamp of God’s Spirit and Ways upon them, by the inward Acquaintance we have with the same Spirit and Work in our Hearts. The Prophecies of the Scriptures are also very comfortable and profitable unto us, as the same Spirit enlightens us to observe them fulfilled, and to be fulfilled; for in all this it is to be observed, that it is only the Spiritual Man that can make a right Use of them: They are able to make the Man of God perfect (so it is not the Natural Man) and whatsoever was written aforetime, was written for our Comfort, [our] that are the Believers, [our] that are the Saints; concerning such the Apostle speaks: For as for the others, the Apostle Peter plainly declares, that the Unstable and Unlearned wrest them to their own Destruction: These were they that were unlearned in the Divine and Heavenly Learning of the Spirit, not in Human and School Literature; in which we may safely presume that Peter himself, being a Fisherman, had no Skill; for it may with great Probability, yea Certainty, be affirmed, Logick.that he had no Knowledge of Aristotle’s Logick, which both Papists and Protestants now,[47] degenerating from the Simplicity of Truth, make the Handmaid of Divinity, as they call it, and a necessary Introduction to their carnal, natural, and human Ministry. By the infinite obscure Labours of which Kind of Men, intermixing their Heathenish Stuff, the Scripture is rendered at this Day of so little Service to the simple People: Whereof if Jerome complained in his Time, now twelve Hundred Years ago, Jerome Epist. 134. ad Cypr. Tom. 3. saying, It is wont to befal the most Part of learned Men, that it is harder to understand their Expositions, than the Things which they go about to expound: what may we say now, considering those great Heaps of Commentaries since, in Ages yet far more corrupted?

[47] 1675.