Chapter 7. Of The Interpretation Of Scripture
(1) When people declare, as all are ready, to do, that the Bible is the Word of God
teaching man true blessedness and the way of salvation, they evidently do not mean what
they, say; for the masses take no pains at all to live according to Scripture, and we see
most people endeavouring to hawk about their own commentaries as the word of God,
and giving their best efforts, under the guise of religion, to compelling others to think as
they do: we generally see, I say, theologians anxious to learn how to wring their
inventions and sayings out of the sacred text, and to fortify, them with Divine authority.
(2) Such persons never display, less scruple or more zeal than when they, are interpreting
Scripture or the mind of the Holy Ghost; if we ever see them perturbed, it is not that they
fear to attribute some error to the Holy Spirit, and to stray from the right path, but that
they are afraid to be convicted of error by, others, and thus to overthrow and bring into
contempt their own authority. (3) But if men really believed what they verbally testify of
Scripture, they would adopt quite a different plan of life: their minds would not be
agitated by so many contentions, nor so many hatreds, and they would cease to be excited
by such a blind and rash passion for interpreting the sacred writings, and excogitating
novelties in religion. (4) On the contrary, they would not dare to adopt, as the teaching of
Scripture, anything which they could not plainly deduce therefrom: lastly, those
sacrilegious persons who have dared, in several passages, to interpolate the Bible, would
have shrunk from so great a crime, and would have stayed their sacrilegious hands.
(5) Ambition and unscrupulousness have waxed so powerful, that religion is thought to
consist, not so much in respecting the writings of the Holy Ghost, as in defending human
commentaries, so that religion is no longer identified with charity, but with spreading
discord and propagating insensate hatred disguised under the name of zeal for the Lord,
and eager ardour.
(6) To these evils we must add superstition, which teaches men to despise reason and
nature, and only to admire and venerate that which is repugnant to both: whence it is not
wonderful that for the sake of increasing the admiration and veneration felt for Scripture,
men strive to explain it so as to make it appear to contradict, as far as possible, both one
and the other: thus they dream that most profound mysteries lie hid in the Bible, and
weary themselves out in the investigation of these absurdities, to the neglect of what is
useful. (7) Every result of their diseased imagination they attribute to the Holy Ghost, and
strive to defend with the utmost zeal and passion; for it is an observed fact that men
employ their reason to defend conclusions arrived at by reason, but conclusions arrived at
by the passions are defended by the passions.
(8) If we would separate ourselves from the crowd and escape from theological
prejudices, instead of rashly accepting human commentaries for Divine documents, we
must consider the true method of interpreting Scripture and dwell upon it at some length:
for if we remain in ignorance of this we cannot know, certainly, what the Bible and the
Holy Spirit wish to teach.
