within his comprehension, and that, unaided by note or comment,
catechism or liturgical preparation, he is to find out for himself
what he is bound to believe and practise, and that whatever he
conscientiously understands by what he reads is to be HIS religion.
For he has found it in his Bible, and the Bible is the Religion of
Protestants!

Would I then withhold the Bible from the cottager and the artisan?--
Heaven forfend! The fairest flower that ever clomb up a cottage
window is not so fair a sight to my eyes as the Bible gleaming
through the lower panes. Let it but be read as by such men it used
to be read; when they came to it as to a ground covered with manna,
even the bread which the Lord had given for his people to eat; where
he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little
had no lack. They gathered every man according to his eating. They
came to it as to a treasure-house of Scriptures; each visitant taking
what was precious and leaving as precious for others;--Yea, more,
says our worthy old Church-historian, Fuller, where "the same man at
several times may in his apprehension prefer several Scriptures as
best, formerly most affected with one place, for the present more
delighted with another, and afterwards, conceiving comfort therein
not so clear, choose other places as more pregnant and pertinent to
his purpose. Thus God orders it, that divers men (and perhaps the
same man at divers times), make use of all His gifts, gleaning and
gathering comfort as it is scattered through the whole field of the
Scripture." Farewell.



LETTER VII.