we have found it, let us resolve not lightly to vary from it; not without strong reasons, and clear convictions to the contrary; and even then to do it with modesty, and be content to enjoy our own private opinions, without endeavouring to make proselytes, or troubling the peace of the church, for the sake of them. Let us pay a due deference, though not a blind obedience, to so great an authority. And let us not reverence her decisions only, but make use of her admirable words also, which she puts into the mouth of every one, who desires to grow in the knowledge of Scripture.

"Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scripture to be written for our learning, grant, that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them; that by patience and comfort of thy holy word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us through Jesus Christ our Lord."

THIRD

SERMON

ON THE SAME SUBJECT.

Which they that are unlearned, and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction. -2 PET. iii. 16.

FROM the former part of the verse, I have already taken occasion to discourse to you largely concerning the obscurity of Holy Writ. In the latter part of it, which I have proposed now to handle, St. Peter gives us an account of the ill impressions that these difficult parts of Scripture make often on the minds of weak Christians; they are wrested by them (he tells us) to their own de

struction.

By unlearned men, the apostle means not such as wanted that which we commonly call learning, but such as were not well skilled in divine things: by unstable, such as, not being well grounded in the faith, were, upon that account, easy to be drawn aside into pernicious opinions and destructive errors. Such, he says, as these, wrest, i. e., misunderstand, misapply, and pervert the writings of St. Paul, and the other Scriptures: and this they do, to their own destruction: that is, to their eternal ruin in another world. So that the meaning of this whole passage is, that some men, not being firmly rooted and grounded in the true faith of Christ, and being by consequence of an uncertain and wavering judgment in matters of religion, were apt to make an ill use of the difficult places of Scripture, and to turn them to such a sense as destroyed Christianity; and such therefore as could not but end in the destruction of those who asserted and maintained it.

This at first sight perhaps may seem an hard saying.

What! will some men say, shall a man be ruined eternally for a misunderstood place of Scripture? Shall they who own the divine authority of the Holy Writ (as it is plain these persons did) and who are studious to know and embrace the true sense of it every where, if in some obscure passages they should mistake it, be answerable for that mistake, at the hazard of their salvation?

Better, at this rate, had it been, that the Bible should never have been given men, if it be so very fatal a thing to make a wrong exposition, even of the most doubtful and intricate parts of it.

I shall endeavour to give an answer to this complaint, by stating the just bounds, and shewing the great reasonableness of St. Peter's assertion; and shall then make use of the truth of the text, thus explained and justified, in some observations and inferences, that it will afford us.

In order to state the bounds of the assertion, it will be fit to consider, more particularly,

I. First, what is strictly to be understood here by wresting of Scripture.

II. Secondly, what kind of passages in Scripture they were, that are said to have been thus wrested.

I. As to the first of these, it must be considered that, to wrest Scripture, doth, in strictness of speech, signify, not only to misinterpret and misunderstand it, out of weakness and ignorance, as any Christian may blamelessly do, but with some degree of perversity and wilfulness to force an unnatural and false construction upon it, in order to make it fall in with our corrupt opinions and prejudices, which we have beforehand entertained, and resolved not to part with. Thus much is intimated by the original word sge6a5v, which signifies, either to detort or turn away, or to torment, and put to the question. In the first of these senses, when applied to Scripture, it implies, that these wresters of it bent and

warped the straight line and measure of their duty, on purpose to make it suit with their own crooked opinions. In the second (which comes to much the same,) that they did as it were torment and vex it, till it spake according to their minds.

II. Secondly, we are to observe, what kind of passages in Scripture they were, which these men are said to have wrested. They were such as were hard to be understood, (so the preceding words speak), and such as for that very reason, there was no necessity that they should understand; and yet these men would pretend to understand them, and to be very positive also, and peremptory in their opinions concerning them. Further it appears, that these places treated not of slight indifferent points of doctrine, but of such as were of the utmost concern and moment; such as were the foundations of the Christian faith, and the very pillars that supported the whole frame of religion. I say, it appears that they treated of such points as these, from the foregoing parts of this chapter, where St. Peter discourses of the day of judgment, of its certainty, and of the wise reasons for which God was pleased to delay it; and represents some men as scoffing at these doctrines, and saying, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were, ver. 4. To convince these scoffers he urges the authority of St. Paul to them; who in his epistles had maintained the same assertions, not always however expressed with such a degree of evidence and clearness, as might be thought necessary to prevent all mistakes from whence ill men had taken an occasion to abuse his words to a quite different sense, and to pervert his meaning. So that the points of doctrine, to which these wrested texts referred, were great and fundamental ones and which it was of the last importance to be rightly instructed in. And to this we may add also a

Third remark, that this forced interpretation of obscure passages was in opposition to other plain and

evident texts. For since (as I have already discoursed to you) there is no point of moment, but what is somewhere or other plainly and perspicuously delivered in Scripture, and since these wrested places of Scripture, which St. Peter speaks of, related, as you have heard, to points of moment; it follows, that they who wrested them, did it in contradiction to other plain and perspicuous parts of Holy Writ.

The full import of the text, therefore, under these several explications, will be, that they who, being misled by pride and vanity, or any other lust and passion, perverted the sense of Scripture, in order to make it suit with their own wicked practices, or justify their ill opinions; who vexed and tortured texts, in order to make them speak such language as was for their purpose; who did this in passages very hard to be understood, and therefore not necessary to be understood, and in points of doctrine which were of the utmost concern and importance, and interpreted these passages, in relation to these points, quite contrary to other plain and express places of Scripture; these men, I say, are very justly and reasonably said, to have wrested the Scriptures to their own destruction. For surely there was such a complication of insincerity, pride, and obstinacy in this manner of wresting Scripture, as deserved such a condemnation.

And therefore to that question, shall a man be eternally ruined for a misunderstood place of Scripture? We answer, yes, doubtless, under those circumstances which we have before explained, if it be a fundamental point, about which he is mistaken, and be much his own fault that he is mistaken.

A misunderstood place of Scripture may overthrow one of the prime articles of faith, which God has made necessary to be believed in order to salvation: or it may destroy the morality of the Gospel, by introducing a loose opinion concerning life and manners. By wresting one single passage of Holy Writ, a man may either deny the Lord who bought him, 2 Pet. i. 1; or turn the