Fourth, from the fruit produced by this reading.
Fourth, from the fruit produced by this reading.
§ 487. (IV) From the fruit produced by this reading. Whatever can instruct the laity salutarily, can supply them with life-giving consolation, can correct faults of behavior in them, can arm them against Satan, and can make them wise unto eternal life, from this they must not be kept away but rather must be invited to it. The reading of Holy Scripture can instruct the laity salutarily, can supply them with life-giving comfort, can correct faults of behavior in them, can arm them against Satan, and can make them wise to eternal life. Therefore the laity must not be keep from reading Scripture but rather must be invited to it.
The minor premise is proved, because holy men of God recorded the books of Holy Scripture by one and the same Spirit for one and the same end: for the instruction, consolation, and exhortation of humans, or, to say it in a word, for their salvation (John 5:39; 20:31; Rom. 15:4; Eph. 6:17; 2 Tim. 3:15-17). How cruel and contrary to the leading of nature it is to deny a newborn infant his mother’s milk, his appropriate and kindred food! It is just as savage a crime to take the Word of grace away from the Lord’s flock, the Word by which the inner man should be nourished for eternal life. How perilous it is for a soldier in the field to lay down his arms and expose himself to the fury of the foe! It is just as perilous to prevent the devout from reading Scripture because, according to Christ’s example (Matt. 4:3), we must do battle with Satan from the Scriptures. In fact, it is not merely useful but also necessary for the laity to be incessant in their reading of Scripture. After all, to whom the discernment of divine truth from human visions belongs, to them it also belongs to consult the norm of truth, that is, the Holy Scriptures. But now, the discernment of divine truth from human visions belongs also to the laity (Matt. 7:15; John 10:5, 27; 1 Thess. 5:21; 1 John 4:1). Therefore consulting the norm of truth—that is, the Holy Scriptures—also belongs to them. Chrysostom, or whoever else is the author of the Opus imperf., homily 44, puts it beautifully: “When you intend to buy a coat, you go around to one or two dealers, and when you have found the better clothes, you buy from him. How is it not necessary for the people to go around to all the teachers and seek where the sincere truth is being sold and where the corrupt is being peddled, to listen to them all as they confess, then pick the most true? Should not that be more important than a coat?” Augustine, De unit. eccles., c. 10: “One should not agree with the Catholic bishops if at any place they perhaps are misled to think something contrary to God’s canonical Scriptures.”
Bellarmine makes the exception: “Scriptures indeed do provide the faithful with great consolation, but they do this to the learned when the Scriptures are read and to the unlearned when they are explained by preachers.” We respond. Scripture was written not only for the learned but also for the crude and unlettered, as is evident from our third argument and from Chrysostom, De Lazaro, homily 3. Therefore both the learned and the untaught can grasp doctrine and consolation from it. Just as the work of the ecclesiastical ministry, consisting of the preaching of the Word, is common to all the members of the Church, so also the use of Scripture is general, pertaining to all the children of the Church because it is the great inheritance of the children of God in this life. (We have discussed the rest of the exceptions of Bellarmine and Costerus in our treatise On Scripture [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 1], §§ 99ff.)