清教徒的释经
THE PURITANS AS INTERPRETERS OF SCRPTURE
(J.I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness, chapter 6, pp. 97-105.)
林慈信译

引言：罗杰斯牧师论《圣经》
INTRODUCTION:
JOHN ROGERS’ SERMON ON THE BIBLE

We introduce … by repeating John Howe’s account of an episode described to him by Dr Thomas Goodwin. During his student days, said Howe, Goodwin,

having heard much of Mr. Rogers of Dedham [an early Puritan Boanerges] took a journey … to hear him preach on his lecture day. … Mr. Rogers was … on the subject of … the ????ures. And in that sermon he falls into an expostulation with the people about their neglect of the Bible; … he personates God to the people, telling him, “Well, I have trusted you so long with my Bible; you have slighted it, it lies in such and such houses all covered with dust and cobwebs; you care not to listen to it. Do you use my Bile so? Well, you shall have my Bible no longer.” And he takes up the Bible from his cushion, and seemed as if he were going away with it and carrying it from them; but immediately turns again and personates the people to God, falls down on his knees, cries and pleads most earnestly, “Lord, whatever thou dost to us, take not thy Bible from us; kill our children, burn our houses, destroy our goods; only spare us thy Bible, only take not away thy Bible.” And then he personates God again to the people: “Say you so? Well, you will use it, whether you will love it more … observe it more … practice it more, and live more according to it.” By these actions (as the doctor told me) he put all the congregation into so strange a posture that… the place was a mere Bochim, the people generally … deluged with their own tears; and he told me that he himself, when he got out … was fain to hang a quarter of an hour upon the neck of his horse weeping before he had power to mount; so strange an impression was there upon him, and generally upon the people, upon having been expostulated with for the neglect of the Bible.

清教徒为圣经运动；《圣经》，世上最宝贵的珍藏
A BIBLE MOVEMENT; GREATEST TREASURE ON EARTH

上面的故事正好说明清教徒的核心信仰。会众的反应显示，罗杰斯指到他们良心最敏感的一点。因为清教徒骨子里是一场《圣经》运动。对一位清教徒来说，《圣经》实在是这世界能提供最宝贵的珍藏。他最深的信念是，敬畏上帝就必须敬重《圣经》，事奉上帝就必须遵行《圣经》。在清教徒的思想中，没有比忽略创造万物的上帝所写的话更为侮辱祂；也没有比珍贵《圣经》、研读它、顺服它、宣扬它的教训更能高举祂。清教徒的标记就是深深的尊敬《圣经》 – 永活上帝的的永活话语 ，同时全心去认识、遵行《圣经》所吩咐的一切事。
This anecdote takes us to the very heart of Puritanism. The congregation’s reaction shows that Rogers was touching their conscience at its most sensitive point. For Puritanism was, above all else, a Bible movement. To the Puritan the Bible was in truth the most precious possession that this world affords. His deepest conviction was that reverence for God means reverence for ????ure, and serving God means obeying ????ure. To his mind, therefore, no greater insult could be offered to the Creator than to neglect his written word; and conversely, there could be no truer act of homage to him than to prize it and pore over it, and then to live out and give out its teaching. Intense veneration for ????ure, as the living word of the living God, and a devoted concern to know and do all that it prescribes, was Puritanism’s hallmark.

我们在这里要研究清教徒解释《圣经》的原则与方法，和检讨它们的素质。
参考材料非常丰富：解经指引，讲章，论文，《圣经》注释。我们可以随意采用任何著作，因为我们会发现，清教徒们的信念在任何课题上差不多是完全一致的。
Our present task is to study the principles and methods, and to assess the quality, of Puritan biblical interpretation. Source-material, consisting of both hermeneutical directories and sermons, treatises and commentaries, is abundant. We may draw on these sources indiscriminately, for on all the matters we shall discuss we find the Puritans to be virtually unanimous.

一般的观察：清教徒的圣经观
GENERAL REMARKS: PURITANS’ VIEW OF BIBLE

我们首先注意清教徒如何面对《圣经》；我们要指出三点。
Three general statements about the way the Puritans tackled the interpretative task can be made at once.

第一：圣经时代与今天文化隔阂不大
FIRST: NO DISTANCE BETWEEN BIBLICAL TIMES AND PRESENT AGE

第一，清教徒解经家是「前现代人」，意思是他们并没有今天大部份的人那样觉得文化之间、时代之间的差异与隔阂。他们也没有今天很多《圣经》学者一样持着一些「宗教进化」的猜测理论。这些理论简直使《圣经》学者瘫痪。清教徒没有觉得自己与《圣经》人物和后者的经历之间，因着时间的过去而有什么差距；反之觉得与他们有一种亲切感，因为大家都属同一人类，同样面对、敬畏这位不变的上帝，与祂相交；同样在一些相同属灵问题上挣扎。（这种信念智慧吗？绝对是！）
First, Puritan exegetes are pre-modern, in the sense that they do not bring to the Bible the pervasive sense of difference and distance between cultures and epochs that is so much part of today’s mind-set; nor do they bring with them the imaginative ideas of religious evolution that cripple so many modern biblical scholars and corrupt so much of their expository work. Instead of feeling distant from biblical characters and their experiences because of the number of centuries between them, the Puritans felt kinship with them because they belonged to the same human race, faced, feared, and fellowshipped with the same unchanging God, and struggled with essentially the same spiritual problems. (Was that wisdom? Yes!)

第二：文法/历史解经法
SECOND: GRAMMATICAL-HISTORICAL EXEGESIS

第二，清教徒所采用的「文法 – 历史解经法」，虽然在表达上比较单纯，其实是非常高水准的。任何熟读清教徒（如亨利马太）的注释的人，马上会看到这一点。
Second, Puritan grammatical-historical exegesis of texts, though often naively expressed, is remarkably competent, as any knowledgeable reader of, for instance, Matthew Henry’s great expository commentary on the whole Bible will soon see.

第三：解经的目的：应用

第三，清教徒解释《圣经》的目的是要应用经训，因为，应用《圣经》是他们所关注的核心，也是他们特殊的强项。我们马上会发现这一点。
Third, Puritans exegeted ????ure in order to apply it, and as application was the focus of their concern so it was the area of their special strength, as will appear.

两项预设TWO PRESUPPOSITIONS

清教徒的解经建立在两项预设上；他们的方法可以用六点来归纳。
Two presuppositions governed their approach to interpretation; six rules sum up their method.

第一预设：《圣经》的本质FIRST: NATURE OF ????URE

第一项预设有关《圣经》的本质。对清教徒来说，《圣经》的全部与每一部份都是上帝口中的话语：笔之于书的上帝的话，上帝心意的启示，上帝旨意的宣告，都为教导人。《圣经》的内容是上帝永恒的真理，或说《圣经》所记录的历史过程就是上帝在创造宇宙以前的永恒计划在历史中的实现。从这意义上来看，「《圣经》所立定、所写下的，都是上帝心里的《圣经》的摘录与副本；《圣经》在永恒里于上帝的心中写成。」因此我们必须相信，这么多不同背景与性格的作者、以这么多不同的手法与问题所传递的，是上帝同一心意的统一表达 (the unified expression of a single divine mind)，是上帝旨意与计划的完整、一致（虽然不简陋）的启示。
The first presupposition concerns the nature of ????ure. To the Puritans, ????ure, as a whole and in all its parts, was the utterance of God: God’s word set down in writing, his mind opened and his thoughts declared for man’s instruction. The content of ????ure is God’s eternal truth, or the historical process which the Bible records and interprets is just the temporal outworking of God’s eternal plan, formed before the world was. In this sense, “what our ????ures have set down and written, is all but extracts and copies taken out of the ????ures in God’s heart, in which they were written from everlasting.” That which was delivered by such a multiplicity of human authors, of such different background and characters, in such a variety of styles and literary forms, should therefore be received and studied as the unified expression of a single divine mind, a complete and coherent, though complex, revelation of the will and purpose of God.
对研究《圣经》的清教徒来说，是上帝在说预言，上帝在记录历史、诠释教义、宣扬赞美、写下异象（这些是《圣经》的内容）；他也知道，读《圣经》的人必须相信这些不仅是上帝在古时候祂默示诸卷《圣经》时候所说的话，而是上帝对每一个时代的每一位信徒所说的话。 华森 (Thomas Watson) 说：「你要这样想：上帝在《圣经》的每一行都在向你说话。」因为，事实就是如此。「《圣经》所说的，就是上帝所说的。」
To the Puritan Bible student, it was God who had uttered the prophecies, recorded the histories, expounded the doctrine, declared the praises, written the visions, of which ????ure was made up; and he knew that ????ure must be read, not merely as words which God spoke long ago, in the actual inspiring of the biblical books, but as words which God continues to speak to every reader in every age. “Think in every line you read that God is speaking to you,” says Thomas Watson – for in truth he is. What ????ure says, God is saying.

圣经无限的深度
????URE’S DEPTHS UNLIMITED

正如上帝的心意是无法测度的，同样地，《圣经》里有无限的深渊，「它《圣经》所储藏的珍宝是使用不尽的。」正如约翰罗宾逊说，在任何时候，「上帝还有更多的真理，要在祂圣洁的话语中展开。」我们解释《圣经》的人永远不可能穷究上帝的思想；我们万不可这样的想象。「你永不可像你拥有足够的知识；你必须更完备的研究上帝的话…」上帝保守我们谦卑；祂使我们「不断的依靠祂，借着祂的话来教导我们，向我们启示祂自己；在这时代中，祂必不会带任何人到人能了解，发现的经训的尽头。」
Just as God’s mind is unfathomable, so there are illimitable depths in ????ure: “the stores of truth laid up in it are inexhaustible.” It is always the case that, in the famous words ascribed to John Robinson, “the Lord hath more truth yet to break forth out of his holy word.” As interpreters, we never reach the end of God’s thoughts, and must nor permit ourselves to imagine otherwise. “Never think you have knowledge enough; study the word more fully. …” God safeguards our humility by keeping us “in continual dependence on him for teaching and revelations of himself out of the word, never in this world bringing any soul to the utmost of what is from the word to be made out and discovered.”
清教徒往往与奥古斯丁异口同声说：《圣经》有浅水地，小羊都可以在那里喝水，但是《圣经》也有深水处，大象可以在那里游泳：这些深处就是有学问的、敬虔的人还需继续探索。 因此，所有的基督徒都必须有这样的心态来研究《圣经》：我们知道的太少，必须渴慕学习更多，必须仰望上帝向我们揭开祂自己的话语。
The Puritans often echo Augustine’s remark that, just as there are shallows in ????ure where a lamb may wade, so there are depths in ????ure where an elephant may swim – depths which the most learned and godly have yet to plumb. All Christians, therefore, should approach their study of ????ure knowing that they know but little, longing to learn more and looking to God himself to open to them his own word.

第二：圣经的内容：信仰与任务
信仰：认识上帝，上帝的旨意
SECOND: SUBJECT MATTER OF ????URE: FAITH AND DUTY
FAITH: KNOWING GOD, GOD’S WILL

第二方面的预设有关于《圣经》的内容，《圣经》的主题。「《圣经》主要教导什么？」《小要理问答》第三问这样问。答案是：「…人必须对上帝有怎样的信仰，和上帝要求人要尽那些义务。」我们来考虑这答案的涵意。首先，《圣经》告诉我们，应该对上帝有怎样的信仰。意思是：《圣经》向我们显示关于属灵事实的真理，这时堕落的理性不可能掌握的，只有圣灵才能使我们察验。因此我们必不可信靠自己 (we must distrust ourselves)，承认我们在这世界的本性里，又无能又盲目。我们必须祈求圣灵来向我们解释《圣经》。Thomas Goodwin 说：「使圣灵写下这话语的。」
This brings us to the second presupposition, which concerns the subject-matter of ????ure. “What do the ????ures principally teach?” is the third question of the Shorter Catechism, and the answer is: “… what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.” Consider the implications of this answer. First, ????ure teaches us what to believe about God – that is, it sets before us spiritual truths concerning spiritual realities, truths beyond the grasp of fallen reason which only the Holy Spirit can enable us to discern. Therefore we must distrust ourselves, confess our natural inability and blindness in this realm, and invoke the aid of the Spirit to interpret ????ure to us. “It was the Spirit that wrote that word,” says Goodwin.
因此，没有任何人私下的了解，若没有天上的记录官 （指圣灵）的帮助，能明白这些事。唯有圣灵在那地方隐藏了知识的宝藏，也只有圣灵知道在那里；因此，藉祷告来揭开上帝的心怀，获得知识的钥匙，打开上帝的书房，领我们到祂的文件与笔记面前，是何等的有益！
… therefore … no man’s or men’s private understandings, without the aid of that public secretary of heaven, can understand them… he only hid the treasures of knowledge in that field, and he only knows where they lie; what an advantage is it then by prayer to unlock God’s breast, obtain the key of knowledge that unlocks God’s study, and can direct to all his notes and his papers!

欧文没有写得这样的可爱，他直截了当地说：
Less quaintly, but more categorically, Owen makes the same point:
我相信 …这是基督教信仰的一项坚定不移的原则，就是：若要认识到上帝
在《圣经》里的心意，必须不断迫切祈求圣灵那属天的帮助，因为若不是这样，就没有其它办法。
I suppose… this may be fixed on as a common principle of Christianity; namely, that constant and fervent prayer for the divine assistance of the Holy Spirit, is such an indispensable means for the attaining the knowledge of the mind of God in the ????ure, as that without it all others will not be available [will not avail].

Baxter 说：「你读经之前，读经之后，诚恳地祷告，求圣灵，就是默示《圣经》的那一位，向你解释，带领你进入真理。」
“Before and after you read the ????ure,” says Baxter, “pray earnestly that the Spirit which did indite it, may expound it to you, and lead you into the truth.”