Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
Ver. 39. Search the Scriptures] Audite saeculares, comparate vobis Biblia, animae pharmaca, Listen to the world, compare with your Bibles, the medicine of our souls, saith Chrysostom. But Bibles lie (like old almanacs) moulding in corners, while play books (the devil's catechisms) are even worn out with overly diligent perusal. It is a sad complaint which Reverend Moulin makes of his countrymen, the French Protestants; While they burned us, saith he, for reading the Scriptures, we burnt with zeal to be reading from them. Now with our liberty is bred also negligence and disesteem of God's word. Is it not so also with us?
They are they which testify of me] The babe of Bethlehem is bound up in these swathing bands. He is both author and matter of the Scriptures, and is therefore called the Word. The dignity of the Scriptures (saith one) and the majesty of Christ mutually look on one another: as the sun doth on the stars, and the stars on the sun. For as the excellency of the sun appears by the glory of the stars, to whom it giveth light; so the majesty of Christ is manifest by the Scriptures, to whom he giveth credit. On the other side, as the glory of the star is magnified, because it is the light of the sun; so the credit of the Scriptures is exalted, because they concern the Son of God.