"The outward reading of the word, without the inward working of the spirit, is nothing. The precise Pharisees, and the learned Scribes, read the scriptures over and over again. They not only read them in books, but wore them on their garments. They were not only taught, but were able themselves to teach others. But because this heavenly teacher had not instructed them, their understanding was darkened, and their knowledge was but vanity. They were ignorant altogether in that saving truth, which the prophet David was so desirous to learn. The mysteries of salvation were so hard to be conceived by the very apostles of Christ Jesus, that he was forced many times to rebuke them for their dulness, which unless he had removed by opening the eyes of their minds, they could never have attained to the knowledge of salvation in Christ Jesus. The ears of that woman Lydia would have been as close shut against the preaching of Paul, as any others, if the finger of God had not touched and opened her heart. As many as learn, they are taught of God." Archbishop Usher, in his sum and substance of the Christian Religion, observes, "that it is required that we have the spirit of God, as well to open our eyes to see the light, as to seal up fully in our hearts that truth, which we can see with our eyes: for the same Holy Spirit that inspired the scripture, inclineth the hearts of God's children to believe what is revealed in them, and inwardly assureth them, above all reasons and arguments, that these are the scriptures of God." And farther on in the same work, he says, "the spirit of God alone is the certain interpreter of his word written by his Spirit; for no man knoweth the things pertaining to God, but the Spirit of God." Our great Milton also gives us a similar opinion in the following words, which are taken from his Paradise Lost: ----"but in their room---- Wolves shall succeed for teachers, grievous wolves, Who all the sacred mysteries of Heaven To their own vile advantages shall turn Of lucre and ambition, and the truth With superstition's and tradition's taint, Left only in those written records pure, Though not but by the spirit understood." Of the same mind was the learned bishop Taylor, as we collect from his sermon de Via Intelligentiae. "For although the scriptures, says he, are written by the spirit of God, yet they are written within and without. And besides the light that shines upon the face of them, unless there be a light shining within our hearts, unfolding the leaves, and interpreting the mysterious sense of the spirit, convincing our consciences, and preaching to our hearts; to look for Christ in the leaves of the gospel, is to look for the living among the dead. There is a life in them; but that life is, according to St. Paul's expression, 'hid with Christ in God;' and unless the spirit of God first draw it, we shall never draw it forth."