Note 176 — Chapter III · OUR INCAPACITY OF JUDGING, WHAT WERE TO BE EXPECTED IN A REVELATION; AND THE CREDIBILITY, FROM ANALOGY, THAT IT MUST CONTAIN THINGS LIABLE TO OBJECTIONS.

[It is not to be understood that Butler would not have the ordinary rules of interpretation applied to the Holy Scriptures. Because the interpretation, “if not gathered out of the words, must be brought into them.” We cannot interpret them as if we knew beforehand, what the Holy Ghost meant to say; as Spinoza proposes to do, in his Philosophia Scripturæ Interpretes. The student will do well to consult Benson’s Hulsean Lectures on Scripture Difficulties: King’s Morsels of Criticism: Storr, Exertationes Exeget.: Michaelis, Introd. ad. Nov. Test.: and Featley’s Key.]