Every word of God [is] pure: he [is] a shield unto them that put their trust in him.
Ver. 5. Every word of God is pure: he is a shield.] Albeit all the sacred sentences contained in this blessed book are pure, precious, and profitable; yet as one star in heaven outshineth another, so doth one proverb another, and this is among the rest, velut inter stellas luna minores, an eminent sentence often recorded in Scripture, and far better worthy than ever Pindar's seventh ode was to be written in letters of gold. a Every word of God is pure, purer than "gold tried in the fire," Rev 3:18 purer than "silver tried in a furnace, and seven times purified." Psa 12:6 Julian, therefore, that odious apostate, is not to be hearkened to, who said there was as good stuff in Phocylides as in Solomon, in Pindar's odes as in David's psalms. Nor is that brawling dog Porphyry to be regarded, who blasphemously accuseth Daniel the prophet, and Matthew the evangelist, as writers of lies, Os durum! harsh speech. The Jesuits, some of them, say little less of St Paul's epistles, which they could wish by some means censured and reformed, as dangerous to be read, and savouring of heresy in some places. b Traditions they commonly account the touchstone of doctrine and foundation of faith; the Scriptures to be rather a Commonitorium, as Bellarmine calls it, a kind of storehouse for advice, than cor et animam Dei, the heart and soul of God, as Gregory c calls them, - a fortress against errors, as Augustine. d The apostle calleth concupiscence sin - at non licet nobis ita loqui; but we may not call it so, saith Possevine, the Jesuit e The author to the Hebrews saith, "Marriage is honourable among all men"; but the Rhemists, on 1 Corinthians 7:9, say that the marriage of priests is the worst sort of incontinence. Christ saith the sin against the Holy Ghost hath no remission. Bellarmine f saith that it may be forgiven. The Council of Constance comes in with a non obstante against Christ's institution, withholding the cup from the people at the sacrament. And a Parisian doctor g tells us, that although the apostle would have sermons and service celebrated in a known tongue, yet the Church, for very good cause, hath otherwise ordered it. Bishop Bonner's chaplain called the Bible, in scorn, ‘his little pretty God's book,' and judged it worthy to be burnt, tanquam doctrina peregrina, as strange doctrine. Gilford and Raynolds said it contained some things profane and apocryphal. Others have styled it the ‘mother of heresy,' and therefore not fit to be read by the common people, lest they suck poison out of it. Prodigious blasphemy! Of the purity and perennity of the holy Scriptures, see more in my True Treasure, pp. 85, 139.
He is a shield to them that put their trust in him.] See Genesis 15:1 See Trapp on " Gen 15:1 " Proverbs 29:25 .
a Oda septima Pind. tantae fuit admirationis apud Rhodios ut fuerit scripta in templo aureis literis, &c. - Joh. Manl., Loc. Com., 414.
b Spec. Europae.
c Greg., in iii. Reg.
d Firmamentum contra errores. - Aug. in Johan., i. Tract. 2.
e Possevin, Appar. sac. Verbo Pat. Antiq.
f Lib. ii. De Poenit., cap. 16.
g Montan. in 1 Cor. xiv.