every country, there shall be added different countries and remote ages,
wherein the speakers and writers had very different notions, tempers,
customs, ornaments, and figures of speech, &c., every one of which
influenced the signification of their words then, though to us now they
are lost and unknown; it would become us to be charitable one to another
in our interpretations or misunderstandings of those ancient writings;
which, though of great concernment to be understood, are liable to the
unavoidable difficulties of speech, which (if we except the names of
simple ideas, and some very obvious things) is not capable, without a
constant defining the terms, of conveying the sense and intention of the
speaker, without any manner of doubt and uncertainty to the hearer. And
in discourses of religion, law, and morality, as they are matters of the
highest concernment, so there will be the greatest difficulty.


23. Especially of the Old and New Testament Scriptures.

The volumes of interpreters and commentators on the Old and New
Testament are but too manifest proofs of this. Though everything said in
the text be infallibly true, yet the reader may be, nay, cannot choose
but be, very fallible in the understanding of it. Nor is it to be
wondered, that the will of God, when clothed in words, should be liable
to that doubt and uncertainty which unavoidably attends that sort of
conveyance, when even his Son, whilst clothed in flesh, was subject to
all the frailties and inconveniences of human nature, sin excepted. And
we ought to magnify his goodness, that he hath spread before all the
world such legible characters of his works and providence, and given all
mankind so sufficient a light of reason, that they to whom this written
word never came, could not (whenever they set themselves to search)
either doubt of the being of a God, or of the obedience due to him.