Popery condemned by scripture and the fathers - End Time Deception

212 POPERY CONDEMNED BY
then, perhaps, his readers may acquiesce in hivS
assertion.
From the supposed obscurity of the scriptures,
the R. draws another
proof of their insufficiency.
" To refer a man," says he, " to the
*'
Scriptures as his only guide, is to refer the
"'
benighted traveller to an intricate path, in-
" stead of giving him a guide to conduct him
**
through it, and enable him to avoid the pre-
'*
cipiccs, which may be in the way *."
He had formerly assented, with the apostle
Paul, to the usefulness of scripture ; but it
seems this utility consists in leading persons
astray. Moses certainly did not imagine the
doctrines transmitted by him to the Church hke
•'
an intricate path to the benighted traveller,'*
when he said to Israel,
" Thou shalt teach them
*'
diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of
*'
them when thou sit test in thine ho'jse, and
**
when thou w^alkest by the vvay, and when
" thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
**
And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon
" thine hand ; and they shall be as frontlets be-
*'
tween thine eyes. And thou shalt write them
*''upon the posts of thy house, and on thy
" gates f.*^' Let us observe how the Bereans
stumbled over " precipices,'* by perusing the
scriptures : " They searched them daily, whe-
* P. 90. f Deut. vi. 7.— 9.
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