Excerpt from A Commonplace Book to the Holy Bible, or the Scriptures Sufficiency Practically Demonstrated: Wherein the Substance of Scripture, Respecting Doctrine, Worship, and Manners, Is Reduced to Its Proper Heads; Weighty Cases Are Resolved, Truths Confirmed, and Difficult d104s, Illustrated and Explained

I. To prevent prejudice. DO not make a judgment from reading one or two texts at the beginning of any head; for possibly they may not at the first sight appear so pertinent to the matter as others do which follow: they may be only argumentative, and not positive; for the author so placed them on purpose that they might run in order as they lie in the Bible, that the reader might go to any text of either Testament without turning backward and forward; and thence it hap pens sometimes, that the scriptures least to the purpose first occur to view.

Likewise, pass not sentence upon any text under any head, as im pertinent to the subject there, until it be seriously weighed; for possi bly in so doing thou mayest discern something in that Scripture which thou never didst observe before, nor mightest have taken notice of, had not the head or subject there turned thy thoughts upon it.

And then the author doubteth not but that the composure itself, when judiciously considered, will prevent another censure, namely, that it is a needless work, as having been done already by others; this being a performance of another nature than any yet extant, and will be more serviceable in sundry Views. For notwithstanding any other helps, the finding out of apt scriptures for illustrating or confirming any truth which may be upon our thoughts, has ever been, and still is, a difficult and laborious work; and thence men ofttimes use scriptures either not apt, according to the intent of the Holy Ghost, or such the genuine sense of which is doubted.

And as for the use of concordances herein, each man's memory must record the scriptures; for they must first occur to his thoughts, then his judgment must fix upon some word therein under which the text is placed; and it is possible not to hit the right term under which it is, and ofttimes look a long time ere he comes to it, because of the multi tude of words there used; and haply miss it at last too, and be put upon searching under another term. But here we need only turn to the subject inquired after, and without any such stops find scriptures full and apt thereto, by whatsoever terms or phrases they are express ed, occur to our eye at an instant; and mostly all that the Scripture affords on that subject.

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