He that hears truth aright, that is, understands it well, must not stand out of, but in the truth itself.
Therefore neither is it any wonder that all men do not understand and conceive those things that are brought forth by the light. Those only that stand in it are alone capable thereof.
The case being thus, we see of how great concernment it is continually to exhort and excite men to turn unto the light that is in them, that so they may go on to such a condition and measure therein, as to be fit to understand aright the word: that is, the truth of God, because out of this there can be nothing understood, and concluded from the words and writings given forth from the light, but mere opinions, and probably errors. This light, Christ, &c. is the truth and word of God, as hath been already said, and every where appears by what we have hitherto laid down: for this is a living word, and translateth man from death to life, is powerful, and enableth a man to bear witness of it every where.
This is also the true rule according unto which all our actions are to be squared.
This hath the pre-eminence before any writing, scripture, doctrine, or any thing else that we meet with from without. We are born into the world, and brought up, as every body knows; from the very first we hear differences, every one pretends that he knows the matter, and hath truth: one holds forth this, another that, to us. If now the light which is in every man that comes into the world, shall not be judge, whither shall we go? To believe all, is impossible; to reject all, no less: who shall be judge here? Who else can be, but the light within us? For whatsoever comes from without, is the thing to be judged of: who then fitter; seeing this is infallible?
Again, is not this, (the light,) that by which we must see and know God, and so consequently that by which we must judge all things divine? Certainly it is: then it follows also, that we can judge of no doctrine, of no book that is divine, but by this light; and judging it thereby to be divine, it cannot but be truly so. As for example, if we experience that the book called the Bible, in regard of the divine doctrine therein comprised, hath such an harmony with that in which God is known, that he must needs have been the author of it; there cannot rationally any more powerful demonstration be demanded.—With them that are thus, the Scripture may become living and powerful, and not a dead letter, as it must needs be to those men who have no feeling of this thing. And from hence then it is apparent, seeing this light must be preferred to all things whatsoever that we meet with from without, that then Man must first of all be directed to this: for without it what profit is there, I pray, to be reaped any where by any external sign but by it? Lay the book of the Scripture freely before any man; let him also have all the fitness the universities can give him, to look into it in its proper language in which it may have been first written, what will all be without the light? Nothing. The letters, the words, are not the Scriptures, but the meaning alone is the Scripture, and this meaning can never be truly and justly hit, but by those alone that stand in the same light, out of which the Scriptures proceeded.
These are they then to whom the Scripture is a co-witness, and as a seal of their being sons of God; while by experience they find themselves, every one according to his measure, in the same condition in which the saints formerly were, who spake and wrote all those things comprehended in the book of the Scripture; these then have the true understanding and meaning of the Scriptures, not those that imagine unto themselves a meaning by opinion and guess, through a thousand imaginations, without the least assurance of not erring; which becomes the very ground of all jangling and contention.
In fine, this light in every man is the means to come to the knowledge of God. And seeing all external signs must needs presuppose this knowledge, therefore itself must need be immediate, without any external sign: that signs must presuppose such a knowledge, is undeniable; for these signs must either be words or effects, works or miracles.
If words, we see at first an impossibility in the thing itself: for words are created and finite, and God who should make known himself by them, uncreated and infinite: and therefore here is so infinite a difference, that there is no manner of agreement, nor any thing in the words by which they might be capable to do it. But again, if you fly to the meaning of the words, as being fit for such a thing, then that which we say will more manifestly appear; as put a case, for example-sake, that God, about to make known himself by words, should say, ‘I am God,’ and that this should be the sign by which he would make himself known, we see clearly, that it would be impossible for a man at first to know God by this: for if he should comprehend any thing out of the sense of the words, he must needs formerly have had the signification of the word, God, and what he is to understand by it: in like manner, if God maketh his will known to man, the knowledge of God, which hath its original from the true light, must precede and convince him, that that manifestation can be from none but God alone, whereupon he is then sufficiently assured.
If by effects, or outward miraculous works, it is the same thing; for these are no less created, no less finite: and though we might observe something in the nature of a thing, which might be too difficult for the power of any creature, which we know, to effect; yet this at the utmost would be but a demonstration taken from our impotency, and not from the nature and all the operations of it; and this kind of demonstration could not be certain and stable, till we were able clearly and distinctly to see that there was not a concurrency of many causes to produce such an effect, but that it must needs have been caused by an infinite and unlimited cause, whom we call God? But who knoweth this? Or who can declare it?