Page:Delineation of Roman Catholicism.djvu/80

 word which I command you, neither shall ye 'dsuhleh aught from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your Sod which I command you," Deu.L iv, 1, 2. Having the same people 8asembled on another occasion, he teaches them thus: "These words which I corn- nmad you this day shall be in thy heart. Thou shalt teach them dili* gendy unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou wailtest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up," Deut. vi, 7. Thus the fathers were hound to te. acA rid/gently these things to their children in their family. .and this shows that every father had access to Scripture in a language which they understood. Moses entertained no fear that the people would misinterpret it, or wrest it to their destruction. It is probable that many a Jew did so; and yet that was no reason against every Jew's possessing a copy of the law. In numberless places of. the pro* phets we have instructions to the same mount. And we f3nd that Timothy knew the Scriptures from his childhood, for which he was commended by St. Paul. (2 Tim. iii, 15.) We see, then, that, under the Jewish law, the Scriptures were put into the hands of. all kinds of persons, young and old, male and female, learned and unlearned, priest and people, with a command to read them and teach them to others, so that the faith of' all might rest upon this f.otmdation. (2.) Nor was this order of' things changed under the gospel; for we need but run through the first verses of' the epistles written by St. Paul, Peter, Jmes, and Jude, and we will find them addressed to the faithful of all the churches, a8 well as to the pastors: "To all that be in Rome, called to be saints,",Rom. i, 7; "To the saints and faithful in Jesus Christ which are at Ephesus," Eph. i, 1. "To all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons,'* Phil. i, 1. Thus the private members of' the church were addressed; from which we learn that they could understand them, as they were put into their hands for the express purpose of making them wise unto salvation. Moreover, this is the use which Jesus Christ would have us make of Scripture, that we might know him to be the Messiah. "Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and these are they which testify of me," John v, 39. Indeed, we find our Saviour attributing the erroneous opinions of the Sadducees to their ignorance of Scripture: "�e do err, not knowing the Scriptures," Matt. xxii, 29. It was out of the Scripture that St. Peter and St. Paul proved our Sa- our to be the fessiah, and converted the Jews to Christianity. The its contents. "These were,"says St. Luke, "more noble Jews in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of' mind, and searched the Scriptures daily whether these tiinos were .o,"Acts xvii, ] 1. After this, how can an)r one ni.m that the faithful ught blindly to believe their pastors, and not to exercise their own judgments ?. Is not this to condemn what the Scriptures praise ? (3.) Add to this, the primitive Christians, in whose days there were heresims in abundance, did not restrain any person from reading the Scriptures. For there is no one thing so much 'resisted on by fathers and councils as the neceasity that all persons, without exception, should be well acquainted with tho word of God. 3. But we will imw present some objectisms to  argmnmnts amt 1

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