understand what is here set do^\Ti, my answer is, that I am
2 ON cnmsTiAN doctkine. [preface.
opinion that it can be of no use to anybody. There is a third class of objectors ^vho either really do understand Scripture well, or think they do, and who, because they know (or imagine) that tliey have attained a certain power of interpreting tlie sacred books without reading any directions of the kind that I propose to lay down here, will cry out that such rules are not necessary for any one, but that everything rightly done towards clearing up the obscurities of Scripture could be better done by the unassisted grace of God.
3. To reply briefly to all tliese. To those who do not understand what is here set do^\Ti, my answer is, that I am not to be blamed for their want of understanding. It is just as if they were anxious to see the new or tlie old moon, or some very obscure star, and I should point it out with my finger : if they had not sight enough to see even my fmger, they would surely have no right to lly into a passion with me on that account. As for those who, even though they know and understand my directions, fail to penetrate the meaning of obscure passages in Scripture, they may stand for those who, in the case I have imagined, are just able to see my finger, but cannot see the stars at which it is pointed. And so both these classes had better give up blaming me, and ^vay instead that God would grant them the sight of their eyes. For though I can move my finger to point out an object, it is out of my power to open men's eyes that they may see either the fact that I am pointing, or the object at which I point.
4. But now as to those who talk vauntingly of Divine
Grace, and boast that they understand and can explain Scripture without the aid of such directions as those I now propose to lay down, and who think, therefore, that what I have undertaken to write is entirely superfluous. I would such persons could calm themselves so far as to remember that, however justly tliey may rejoice in God's great gift, yet it was from human teachers they themselves learnt to read. Now, they would hardly think it right that they should for that reason be held in contempt by tlie Egyptian monk Antony, a just and holy man, who, not being able to read himself, is said to have committed the Scriptures to memory through hearing them read by others, and by dint of wise meditation to have