48 sotn,'z'ut,,. [Boo? ?. darkness and obscurity do not properly belong to them. They are represented as a bgAt, as ?)pposed to darkness, calculated to instruct, ?dz. and be profitable for doctrine, reproof, instruction in righteous- hess. Some passages, indeed, might be difficult to some persons at tim, and more are doubtless become so by length of time. But that the principal part of the New Testament is plain enough cannot be with any modesty denied; and as it regards the rest, what at first sight is difficult ma)-, with due consideration of our own and the help of others, be made easy; what is obscurely expressed in one place may be clearly expressed in another; and what is clearly expressed in no place we may safely, for that very reason, conclude it is not now necessary for us to understand. "Secret things belong to God." 6. The following passage is quoted as one which, in the view of Roman Catholics, destroys that clearness or plainness which we ascribe to Scripture: "As indeed in all his [St. Paul's] epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which there are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their destruction," 2 Pet. iii, 16. On this pas- sage I remark,--1. As there were only some things that were hard to be understood, the manit things contained in them were plain and easily understood. 2. The word �pefi?o?, to wrest, torture, distort, supposes a v/o/en? offered to Scripture, which none would be found gull .ty of who would be earnearly inquiring the way of salvation. 3. Those who did wrest the Scriptures were the unlearned, 6? al?aOe?c, either the unreadrob/e, who would not receive instruction, or rather those who were not disc/- /,/?d, and therefore not instructed properly in Scripture doctrines; and the a�?p?gro?, the ua?tab/e, or un.?ettled, who were, as St. James ex- presses it, ?xo?, double-minded. St. Paul, writing to the same kind of people, viz., Christians, who were Jews by birth, gives us the reason why some things which he taught were hard to be understood. It was not because the things themselves were unintelligible, but because the people were dull in apprehension. (Heb. v, 11.) To minds thus pre- occupied very- plain things appeared very mysterious. It is so with persons of the Romish communion at this day. The most intelligent and liberal among them have their minds so prepossessed and bewil- dered with the ideas of a visible, universal, and infallible church, with a visible head and apostolical succession; with the merit of good works, penances, pilgrimages, purgatory, &c., that many of the plaineat pas- sages in the word of God are to them quite unintelligible. Coming to the Bible with minds thus prepossessed, they must find many things mysterious and inexplicable, because it is impossible to bend them to what they have already fixed in their minds as truth. In this unhapl ?- condition they generally find it more comfortable to let the Bible alone and acquiesce in the dogmas of the church. Moreover, Roman Catho-. lics, arguing from this passage, suppose that the bulk of Christians mus? be unlearned, ,mdtsciplined, and ignorant; and it will be allowed that the Church of Rome has always kept the bulk of its members in that con- dition. But this is not a Christian state of things. Peter speaks of being unlearned as a sinful state, the same as being unstable. Every Christian, therefore, is required to be/?arned in the things that relate to the salvation of his soul, that is, to be learned in the Scriptures; for I
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