The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity In Modern English, Vol. 1 by Richard Hooker & Bradley Belschner & Brian Marr

Author:Richard Hooker & Bradley Belschner & Brian Marr [Hooker, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Davenant Press
Published: 2019-03-11T05:00:00+00:00

—Thomas Cartwright, Replie, p. 26

(4.) First, when they argue that “Wisdom instructs men in every good way”[103] and have inferred from this that no action is good unless wisdom leads to it by Scripture, do they not see that they thereby exclude all the ways wisdom teaches men except for one, namely Scripture? The bounds of wisdom are large and within them much is contained. Wisdom instructed Adam in Paradise. Wisdom gave the patriarchs knowledge of holy things even before the giving of the law. By the wisdom of the Law of God, David surpassed all other men in understanding, and in the same way Solomon surpassed David, learning from this same wisdom many things beyond the law. There are as many ways to do well as there are voluntary actions, so whenever we do something well when we might have done it badly, we demonstrate wisdom. If St. Paul, in saying that all Scripture is profitable for instruction in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16), meant to say that Scripture taught all forms of well-doing without exception, limit, or distinction, Scripture would have to teach every conceivable art, since every art teaches how to do something well or badly.[104] Wisdom teaches men every good way, but she does not teach every good way in the same way. Whatever men or angels know is a mere drop of her inexhaustible fountain, and she has scattered her treasures throughout the whole world in various ways. And as her ways are manifold, so are the different ways she teaches. Some things she reveals to us by the sacred books of Scripture and others by the glorious works of nature. She teaches some things by a spiritual influence from above, and others only through experience and practice in the world. We must not so admire one of her ways of working that we disgrace her in another, but let us rather adore all her ways as best fits their place and degree.

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