To the Right Honorable, Lord Rich, Baron of Leeze
The Supplement on Galatians 6 by Ralph Cudworth To the Right Worshipful Chapter 6 Chapter 6: Verse 1 Excursus: Brotherly Correction and Christian Reproof
Chapter 6: Verses 2–5 Chapter 6: Verses 6–10 Chapter 6: Verses 11–16 Chapter 6: Verses 17–18 The Conclusion: Appendix on Subscriptions and Titles to the Epistles
To the Right Honorable, Right Virtuous, and Most Truly Religious Lord, Robert, Lord Rich, Baron of Leeze, etc. Grace and peace.
THE holy Scriptures (Right Honourable) given by divine inspiration, and penned by the holy men of God, Prophets, Apostles, and
Apostolic writers, not by private motion, but as they were guided by the Holy Ghost; are not only commended by God, and left unto the Church as a pretious depositum carefully to be kept in their integrity
(for which cause the Church is called the ground and pillar of truth.
1. Tim. 3. 15.) nor to be defended only by the sword of the Magistrate, against Heretikes, Schismatikes, and men of scandalous life, in which respect he is called (and that truly,) Custos vtrius{que} tabula: But also to be the pillar and foundation whereon to rest our faith; the touch-stone of truth; the shop of remedies for all spiritual maladies; an anchor in the blasts of Temptation, and wages of affliction; a two edged sword to foil and put to flight our spiritual enemies; the only
Oracle to which we must hare recourse, and whereat we are to enquire the will of God: In a word, the bread and water of life, whereon our souls are to feed unto eternal life. Therefore we are commanded to search the Scriptures as for silver, and to seek in them as for treasures, to read in them continually, to meditate of them day and night, to use them as bracelets upon our armies, and frontlets between our eyes; to teach them to our posterity, and to talk of them when we are in our houses, and when we walk by the way, when we lie down, and when we rise up. And great reason there is of this commandment, seeing that (as an ancient writer saith) Quicquid in cis docetur veritas est: quicquid praecipitur bonitas est: quicquid promittitur foelicitasest: that is, Whatsoever is taught in them, is truth it self: whatsoever is commanded, is goodness it self: whatsoever is promised, is happiness it self. They being of such perfection, that nothing may be added unto them, nor any thing taken from them: of such infallible certainties, that heaven and earth shall sooner passe away, then one title fall to the ground: so pleasant and delight∣full, that they exceed the honey and the honey comb: and so profitable, that no treasures may be compared unto them: seeing they are able to make us wiser then our enemies, then the aged, then our teachers: to make us wise unto salvation; to give us an
inheritance among them that are sanctified: nay, able to save our souls. Which being so; I cannot sufficiently wonder, that any calling themselves Christians should make less account of the book of God, then the Romans in old time, did of their twelve Tables, and other
Heathens of their Ritual books: or then the Iewes at this day doe of their Talmud, the Turks of their Alcoran, the Aethiopians of their
Abetelis: especially that those which profess themselves Divines, should so distaste the holy Scripture, that leaving it the clear fountain of the water of life, they should betake themselves to the troubled streams of mens deuises, and digge unto themselves pits which will hold no water. Wherein the schoolmen (I mean the Centenaries, the Summists, and Quodlibetaries) are chiefly (if not only) to be censured, who setting aside the Scriptures have vanished away in vain speculations in their Questions upon Lombard the Master of the Sentences, and upon Thomas their new Master. So that had it not been for some few Glosses (which notwithstanding like the gloss of Orleans doe often corrupt the text) Nicolaus de Lyra, Hugo de S. Charo, and Peter Comestor (whom I should have named first, being so good a text man, that (as his name importeth) he did eat up the text, as the poor mans horse drank up the moon) we should not have had among such a multitude of writers, one poor comment upon the Bible for divers hundred years. And no maruaile, seeing it is an ordinary thing for young novices in Popish Universities (and I would it were but there only) not to lay the foundation of their study in Divinity upon the rock, but upon the waters: that is, not upon the Scripture, but upon Aquinas, or some such Summist: and to read the Scripture no further then they give them light for the understanding of their School-doctors Witness one of their own writers, who testifieth of himself that he had studied School-divinity and the Canon Law for the space of 16. years, and yet never so much as saluted either the Scriptures or the Fathers. Which course they take, either because they presume to understand, about that which is
writē, cōntrary to the commandment of the Apostle, Rom. 12. 3. or for that they judge the Scriptures too simple and shallow for them to wade in, as not affording them sufficient matter for their wits to work upon. Not considering that whilst they condemn the simplicity of the Scriptures, & look beyond the Moon, in the mean time with Thales they fall into the ditch: and that whilst they strive with the wings of their wit to soar above the clouds of other mens conceits, they sink into a Sea of absurdities and errors. Nor yet remembering that the Scripture hath great majesty joined with simplicity, and as great difficulty mixed with plains and facilitie: and therefore not unfitly resembled by S. Gregorie, to the main Ocean in which the lamb may wade & the Elephant may swim. For the spirit of God hath in wonderful wisdom so tempered the Scriptures, that they are both obscure & perspicuous: in some places like a clasped or sealed book.
Isa 29. 11. in other places like a book that is opened. Apoc. 5. 5. being both easy & difficult. easy, in that the entrance into the word, giveth light and understanding so the simple. Psal. 119. 130. Difficult, in that some things are hard to be understood. 2. Pet. 3. 16. and hard to be interpreted. Ebr. 5. 11. Easy, to inuite vs to read and learn thē:
Difficult, to exercise vs lest we should cōndemn them. From the easy and plain places are gathered principles of religion, both articles of faith & rules of good life, which we call Catechisms. The difficult places require interpretation, & the Cōmentaries of the learned. Both which are necessary in the church of God. Catechisms have a necessary use, both in regard of the simple, who are to be fed with milk, being but babes in Christ: and of the learned who are strong men in Christ, that they may hare some rule, whereby to try the spirits, consonant to the analogy of faith, and the doctrine of the orthodox Fathers of the Church: which Paul calleth the forme of knowledge. Rom. 2. 20. and The form of doctrine. Rom. 6. 17. and a pattern of wholesome words. 2. Tim. 1. 13. which formes of doctrine were in use in the primitive church in the Apostles days, as it is
manifest Heb. 6. 1. where the Apostle sets down the principal points of the Catechism, calling them the doctrine of the beginning of Christ. And after the Apostles, we find that they were used by the learned Fathers, both of the Greek and Latin Church. Clement Alex. had his Pedagogue. Cyril of Jerusalem his Catechism and Mystagog. books. Origen (that famous Catechist) his books o of principles.
Theodoret his Epitome 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. Lactantius his Institutions. Augustine his Enchiridion. Hugo de S. Victore his books of the Sacraments, or mysteries of Christian religion. And it were greatly to be wished that as in other reformed churches beyond the Sea, they have a set Catechism which all men follow; and in the church of Rome one approved by the Council of Trent: so there were an uniform Catechism enjoined by public authority to be used in all
Families, Schools, and Churches in this land, that we might all with one mind and one mouth, judge and speak the same thing.
Now as Catechisms gathered out of plain and easy places are necessary for the simple: so Commentaries are as necessary for the understanding of such places as are more abstruse and difficult. Our
Savior Christ (the great Doctor of the Church) hath by his own practise given us a president hereof in expounding the law, Matth. 5. in expounding all hard parables to his disciples a part: for the text saith, that he unfolded or expounded them unto them. Mark 4. 33.
That he interpreted untothem in all the scriptures the things which were written of him. Luk. 24. 27. That he opened unto them the scriptures. v. 32. And they hare bin always so accounted in the Church of God. For the Iewes (as we know) had their Per•shim, the Greek church their Scholia, the Latin Church their Glosses, with other Paraphrases, & Expositions. Neither was it ever called in question by any, save by the fantastical Anabaptists, who rest only upon immediate relations. And some preiudicate Papists, who hold the consent of all Catholics to be the true Scripture, both the gloss,
and the text, the written word, but inkie Divinity, and a dead letter.
And certain arrogant spirits who with Nestorius skorne to read any Interpreters. But how Commentaries ought to be written, it is not so easy to define, there being such difference as well in regard of the manner of writing, as of the measure. For besides that the Popish writers make four several senses of the Scripture, commending
Jerome to excel in the Literal, Origen in the Allegorical, Ambrose in the Analogical, Chrysostome in the Topological; they have above fifty several ways of expounding the Scripture, as their own writers doe record. In the measure, we find some too tedious, as the two
Alphonsi, Tostatus, and Salmeron, who upon every small occasion digress from the text, or rather take occasion to enter into infinite frivolous questions, which breed strife rather then godly edifying whichis by faith. For there is not so short a Chapter in the Bible, upon which the former mouth not about eight score questions: whereupon his volumes grow to that bigness, that one contracting his Commentary upon S. Matth. and drawing it into an Epitome, yet could not so abridge it, but that it contained about a thousand pages in folio in the largest volume, & smallest character. The other is so short with his 12 volumes upon the Evangelists, that he might well have contracted leaves into lines, and lines into letters. Which tedious discourses, and impertinent excursions from the text, serve for no other end but to cast a mist before the eyes of the reader, and draw (as it were) the vail of Moses over his face, so that he cannot see the meaning of the holy Ghost. Others on the contrary are too short, and compendious, offending as much in brevity, as the former in prolixity: by name, Emanuel Sa the Jesuit, whose Commentaries upon the Bible are shorter then the text it self, like to those of Apollinaris, of whom Jerome writeth, that a man which readeth them, would think he red Contents of chapters, rather then
Commentaries. But as for the manner: the literal sense (which our author here followeth) is the only sense intended by the Spirit of
God: the Allegorical, Tropologicall, Analogical, being but several uses and applications thereof: For the Scripture (consisting in the sense not in the letters) is profitable to teach, and improve, as Paul saith: whereas from the Allegorical sense no necessary argument can be taken (as their own doctors confess) either to confirm or confute any point of doctrine: & therefore much less from the Tropological, or Analogical. And as for the measure, in regard of brevity or prolixity, the golden mean hath always been judged by the learned to be the best, which is not only to give the bare meaning paraphrastically, but to make collection of doctrine and application of uses; yet briefly, rather pointing at the chief heads, then dwelling long upon any point.
Some are of opinion that a Commentor is only to give the literal sense of the place, without making further use of application, or instruction: To which I could easily subscribe, if all the Lords people could prophesy, or if all were able to handle the word of God, the sword of the spirit: For as to an expert Musitian who is acquainted with the concords or rules of discant, it is as good a direction to have only the ground as if he had every point pricked out unto him, being inured to the division upon every point, as it falleth out in the ground: So to him that is acquainted with the word of God, a short and concise handling of the Scripture, may be as good a direction as if every point were discoursed at large. But because all readers are not strong men in Christ, some being but babes, who must have every thing minced, and cut small unto them before they can receive it. Neither all teachers expert, & prompt Scribes, like to Ezra, nor mighty in the Scripture as Apollos, such as are able to divide the word a right, and apply it fitly as they ought. (Some being deceitful workmen perverting it to their own destruction, in pressing the two dugges of the Scripture, the Old and New Testament, that in steed of milk, they suck nothing but blood: Others, unskillful, casting wild
Colloquintida into the pot of the children of the prophets, being too hasty to learn, and too ignorant to know of themselves, what they
should have gathered). There∣fore to help the ignorance of the one, and hinder the malice of the other (and so to profit the most) beside the meaning, he hath briefly drawn out such doctrines as naturally arise from the text, shewing withal, how they ought to be applied for confutation, correction, instruction, consolation. Which he hath done with such dexterity, (artificially matching together two things, heretofore insociable, Breuitie, and Perspicuitie) that the like (I take it) hath not been performed heretofore by any Expositor upon this
Epistle: which we may well call the key of the new Testament, in that it handleth the weightiest points of doctrine, whether we consider the necessary knowledge thereof, or the controversies of these times.
Therefore Luther after he had once publicly expounded it, toke in hand again, and interpreted it the second time, beginning (as him∣self saith) where he ended, according to the saying of Syracides,
When a man hath donne what he can, he must begin again. Which Commentary, seeing it hath found such good entertainement amongst us, being but a foreigner, and having lost much of his strength, and taken wind by changing from language to language, as wine from one vessel to another: I doubt not but this, being a freedenizen, will find the like favor and acceptance, therather, if it will please your Honour to vouchsafe it your countenance: To whose protection and patronage I here commend it, as S. Luke did his
Histories to the most noble Theophylus: desiring hereby to testify my humble duty unto your Honor, and my thankfulness to God for the riches of his grace bestowed upon you in my study of the Gospel, for your zeal of gods glory, your love of the truth, and of all those that unfainedly embrace the truth.
And thus fearing to hinder the course of your more serious cogitations & actions, I humbly take may leave: desiring the Lord, who hath promised to honour those that honour him, that as he hath made you Honourable in your noble progenitors, so he would make