Chapter 1.—The Interpretation of Scripture Depends on the Discovery and Enunciation of the Meaning, and is to Be Undertaken in Dependence on God’s Aid.

1.  There are two things on which all interpretation of Scripture depends:  the mode of ascertaining the proper meaning, and the mode of making known the meaning when it is ascertained.  We shall treat first of the mode of ascertaining, next of the mode of making known, the meaning;—a great and arduous undertaking, and one that, if difficult to carry out, it is, I fear, presumptuous to enter upon.  And presumptuous it would undoubtedly be, if I were counting on my own strength; but since my hope of accomplishing the work rests on Him who has already supplied me with many thoughts on this subject, I do not fear but that He will go on to supply what is yet wanting when once I have begun to use what He has already given.  For a possession which is not diminished by being shared with others, if it is possessed and not shared, is not yet possessed as it ought to be possessed.  The Lord saith “Whosoever hath, to him shall be given.”10    Matt. xiii. 12.  He will give, then, to those who have; that is to say, if they use freely and cheerfully what they have received, He will add to and perfect His gifts.  The loaves in the miracle were only five and seven in number before the disciples began to divide them among the hungry people.  But when once they began to distribute them, though the wants of so many thousands were satisfied, they filled baskets with the fragments that were left.11    Matt. xiv. 17, etc.; xx. 34, etc.  Now, just as that bread increased in the very act of breaking it, so those thoughts which the Lord has already vouchsafed to me with a view to undertaking this work will, as soon as I begin to impart them to others, be multiplied by His grace, so that, in this very work of distribution in which I have engaged, so far from incurring loss and poverty, I shall be made to rejoice in a marvellous increase of wealth.

CAPUT PRIMUM. Inventione et enuntiatione nititur Scripturae tractatio; quae cum Dei auxilio suscipienda.

1. Duae sunt res quibus nititur omnis tractatio Scripturarum; modus inveniendi quae intelligenda sunt, et modus proferendi quae intellecta sunt. De inveniendo prius, de proferendo postea disseremus. Magnum opus et arduum, et si ad sustinendum difficile, vereor ne ad suscipiendum temerarium. Ita sane si de nobis ipsis praesumeremus: nunc vero cum in illo sit spes peragendi hujus operis, a quo nobis in cogitatione multa de hac re jam tradita tenemus, non est metuendam ne dare desinat caetera, cum ea quae data sunt coeperimus impendere. Omnis enim res quae dando non deficit, dum habetur et non datur, nondum habetur quomodo habenda est. Ille autem ait: Qui habet, dabitur ei (Matth. XIII, 12). Dabit ergo habentibus, id est, cum benignitate utentibus eo quod acceperunt, adimplebit atque cumulabit quod dedit. Illi quinque et illi septem erant panes, antequam inciperent dari esurientibus; quod ubi fieri coepit, cophinos et sportas satiatis tot hominum millibus impleverunt (Id. XIV, 17-21; et XV, 34-38). Sicut ergo ille panis dum frangeretur accrevit, sic ea quae ad hoc opus aggrediendum jam Dominus praebuit, cum dispensari coeperint, eo ipso suggerente multiplicabuntur, ut in ipso hoc nostro ministerio, non solum nullam patiamur inopiam, sed de mirabili etiam abundantia gaudeamus.