Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/328

 324 Gilbert also know something of the details of the method he employed in instruction. Like many of the Reformers, Bucer held the belief that the Bible could not be satisfactorily interpreted by studying texts in isolation, but that all the passages bearing on any subject should be brought together; this method he follows in his commentary on the Gospels, which seems to have been a result of his public lectures, and it was the method of his teach- ing, for he was accustomed to compare various passages, and weigh them with critical judgment, something which his skill in the original languages enabled him easily to do. This sug- gests that he did not bring before his pupils an apparently finished piece of dogma, but allowed the Scriptures to inter- pret themselves, as it were, by the comparative method, and went through in the class-room the processes of analysis and criticism, thus stimulating and encouraging his hearers to do the like for themselves, as he believed they ought to do. 18 This procedure was not wholly planned in advance, but had the life of spontaneity, for Bucer, continuing his compari- son, brought up from memory pertinent passages from the Fathers and so considered them as to discover which of their opinions in matters of faith, and which of their judgments about the Scriptures were in agreement. He concluded his lectures with Psalms harmonious in subject with the matter he had dealt with. But though able to bring forth stores of learning in such profusion that one of his admirers, thinking of the meaning of his Latin name, called him the horn of plenty of Cambridge, his teaching was orderly. 19 This was true not only of his individual lectures, but of his courses as wholes. He regretted that the ministers at Strassburg followed no sys- tem in selecting parts of the Bible for exposition, and suggested that they go through the entire New Testament, comparing its various parts with each other. 20 Turning from Bucer's practice to his theory of teaching, we read as follows: God gives also teachers, on whom the gift of the Holy Spirit confers ability to teach from the Scriptures and the other signs and judgments of God, and to 18 Baum, op. cit., p. 366. 19 Scripta Anglicana, p. 886. 20 Baum, op. cit., p. 402.