Quest. CLXIII. Is the Scripture to be tried by the Spirit, or the Spirit by the Scripture, and which of them is to be preferred?
Answ. I put the question thus confusedly, for the sake of those that use to do so, to show them how to get out of their own confusion. You must distinguish, 1. Between the Spirit in itself considered, and the Scripture in itself. 2. Between the several operations of the Spirit. 3. Between the several persons that have the Spirit. And so you must conclude,
1. That the Spirit in itself is infinitely more excellent than the Scripture. For the Spirit is God, and the Scripture is but the work of God.
2. The operation of the Spirit in the apostles was more excellent than the operation of the same Spirit now in us; as producing more excellent effects, and more infallible.
3. Therefore the holy Scriptures which were the infallible dictates of the Spirit in the apostles, are more perfect than any of our apprehensions which come by the same Spirit (which we have not in so great a measure).
4. Therefore we must not try the Scriptures by our most spiritual apprehensions, but our apprehensions by the Scriptures: that is, we must prefer the Spirit’s inspiring the apostles to indite the Scriptures, before the Spirit’s illuminating of us to understand them, or before any present inspirations, the former being the more perfect; because Christ gave the apostles the Spirit to deliver us infallibly his own commands, and to indite a rule for following ages; but he giveth us the Spirit but to understand and use that rule aright.
5. This trying the Spirit by the Scriptures, is not a setting of the Scripture above the Spirit itself; but is only a trying the Spirit by the Spirit: that is, the Spirit’s operations in ourselves and his revelations to any pretenders now, by the Spirit’s operations in the apostles, and by their revelations recorded for our use. For they, and not we, are called foundations of the church.
John iv. 1, 2, 6; John xviii. 37; viii. 47.
Acts xvii. 11, 12; Matt. v. 18; Rom. xvi. 26; Matt.
xxviii. 20; Luke x. 16.
Rev. ii. 2; Jude 17; 2 Pet. iii. 2; Eph. iv. 11, 12; 1 Cor.
xii. 28, 29; Eph. ii. 20.