清教徒的释经

杨宁

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

 
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 Scriptures.  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
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        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 Scripture, and serving God means obeying Scripture.  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 Scripture, 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 Scripture 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 SCRIPTURE

 

        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 Scripture.  To the Puritans, Scripture, 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 Scripture 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 Scriptures have set down and written, is all but extracts and copies taken out of the Scriptures 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 Scripture was made up; and he knew that Scripture 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 Scripture says, God is saying. 

 

 

圣经无限的深度

SCRIPTURE’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 Scripture: “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 Scripture where a lamb may wade, so there are depths in Scripture where an elephant may swim – depths which the most learned and godly have yet to plumb.  All Christians, therefore, should approach their study of Scripture 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 SCRIPTURE: 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 Scripture.  “What do the Scriptures 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, Scripture 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 Scripture 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 Scripture, 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 Scripture,” says Baxter, “pray earnestly that the Spirit which did indite it, may expound it to you, and lead you into the truth.”

 

 

人的义务DUTY

 

        还有，《圣经》教导我们知道自己的义务。《圣经》对我们的教导，是要我们实行的。因此，我们研究《圣经》，必须以使自己生命井井有条为目标。我们若不断的努力实行所学到的真理，上帝一定赐福给我们的研经。 那么。我们的知识必越来越深，越来越广阔；不然的话，就落为空谈，和理性的错误。 欧文说：

        Also, Scripture teaches us our duty.  Its instruction is for practice.  It must be studied, therefore, for the purpose of setting our lives in order.  And God will only prosper our study if we continually exercise ourselves to live by what we learn.  Then our knowledge will deepen and expand; but otherwise it will run out into sterile verbiage and mental error.  Owen says:

“圣洁福音真理的理念，若与圣洁生活习惯分开，不能活下去，至少不能发扬光大。 我们学习一切真理，都是为了实行，因此我们若去实行，必学习良多 (As we learn all to practice, so we learn much by practice)。 … 只有这样，我们才会有把握，我们所学到的，所知道的，真正是真理。因此我们的主告诉我们：「   」（约7：17）。…这样的人必被带领进入更多的知识。因为人在世上的年日，心思是能不断领受亮光与知识的，只要正确地使用思想，和在顺服上帝的事上不断努力。若不是这样，心思就很快充满其它的观念，以致真理的泉源不能把真理流进人的心中。”

The true notion of holy evangelical truths will not live, at least not flourish, where they are divided from a holy conversation.  As we learn all to practice, so we learn much by practice. …  And herein alone can we come unto the assurance, that what we know and learn is indeed the truth.  So our Saviour tells us, that “if any man do the will of God, he shall know the doctrine whether it be of God” (John 7:17). …  And hereby will they be led continually into farther degrees of knowledge.  For the mind of man is capable of receiving continual supplies in the increase of light and knowledge whilst it is in this world, if so be they are improved unto their proper use and in obedience unto God.  But without this the mind will be quickly stuffed with notions, so that no streams can descend into it from the fountain of truth.

 

因此，若要正确地解释《圣经》，人必须敬虔，谦卑，常常祷告，有受教和顺服的灵；不然，心思不论充满着什么观念，都不可能明白属灵的事实。

He who would interpret Scripture aright, therefore, must be a man of a reverent, humble, prayerful, teachable and obedient spirit; otherwise, however tightly his mind may be “stuffed with notions,” he will never reach any understanding of spiritual realities. 

 

 

六项解经原则

SIX PRINCIPLES OF BIBLE INTERPRETATION

 

        现在我们来看清教徒如何解释《圣经》，可以用六点来归纳他们的原则：

We turn now to the Puritan’s approach to the task of interpretation itself.  Their governing principles may be summarized under the following heads:

 

[1] 按字意和文法解释《圣经》。宗教改革者反对中世纪教会的作法；后者低看《圣经》的「字意」，追求《圣经》「属灵」（喻意）的意思。宗教改革者坚持：《圣经》的字意 – 即文法上，自然的，作者的原意 – 乃是《圣经》的唯一意思。 解经的目的，就是藉谨慎留意上下文和文法，找到此原意。清教徒完全同意。

[1]《Interpret Scripture literally and grammatically.  The Reformers had insisted, against the medieval depreciation of the “literal” sense of Scripture in favour of the various “spiritual” (allegorical) senses, that the literal – i.e., the grammatical, natural, intended – sense was the only sense that Scripture has, and that it was this sense that must be sought in exposition through careful attention to the context and grammar of each statement.  The Puritans fully agreed. 

 

你若想明白一段有争议性经文的真正意思的话，要留意经文的完整性，其主题，和上下文。

If you would understand the true sense … of a controverted Scripture, then look well into the coherence, the scope and the context thereof. 

 

《圣经》除了在经文字句里的意思以外，没有其它的意思…要解释任何人的心意，必须正确地了解他所用的字；这又须要我们认识他说话所用的语言，还有语言里的一些惯用词，以及一些造句和表达的方式…不了解原文为解经者带来多么多的困惑与错误…

There is no other sense in it [Scripture] than what is contained in the words whereof materially it doth consist. …  In the interpretation of the mind of anyone, it is necessary that the words he speaks or writes be rightly understood; and this we cannot do immediately unless we understand the language wherein he speaks, as also the idiotism [idiom] of that language, with the common use of and intention of its phraseology and expressions. …  And what perplexities, mistakes and errors, the ignorance of these original languages hath cast many expositors into … especially among those who pertinaciously adhere unto one translaton … might be manifested by instances … without number. 

 

        当然，有些经文的原意就是喻意的 (allegorical)。清教徒是这样对待《雅歌》。James Durham作出一些有趣的观察：

Of course, there might be places in Scripture where the literal sense was itself allegorical.  The Puritans all regarded the Song of Solomon as a case in point, and James Durham has some interesting remarks on the subject:

 

我接受《雅歌》有字意的意思；可是我说，从历史上的经文（即：雅歌）找出的，首先不是这「字意」，而是比喻和喻意中属灵的意思，这就是《雅歌》在字意上的意义 (literal meaning)。因为什么是字意上的意义？就是圣灵的原意，在一段经文流露出的，不论是直说还是喻意的，都从不同表达的方法综纳起来… 好像在解释比喻上，《圣经》的喻意…是非常清楚的。

I grant it hath a literal meaning; but I say, that literal meaning is not … that which first looketh out, as in historical Scriptures … but that which is spiritually … meant by these allegorical and figurative speeches, is the literal meaning of this Song. … for a literal sense (as it is defined by Rivet out of the school-men) is that which floweth from such a place of Scripture, as intended by the Spirit in the words, whether properly or figuratively used, and is to be gathered from the whole complex of expressions together … as in the exposition of parables, allegories and figurative Scriptures is clear.

 

        可是 Durham指出，中世纪时期，不正当的灵意解经是另外一码事：因为「喻意解经是一回事，解释喻意的圣经是另一回事。」Durham认为，只当自己有充足理由认为是在解释一段喻意的经文的时候，才喻意地解释。

        But, Durham notes, this is quite different from the illegitimate allegorizing of which the medievals were guilty; for “there is a great difference between an allegorical exposition of Scripture and an exposition of allegorical Scripture.”  Durham expounds allegorically only when he has reason to think that it is an allegory that he is expounding. 

 

[2] 解释《圣经》必须一致和谐。《圣经》既然是上帝的话，表达上帝唯一的旨意，它所宣称的一切事都是真理，经文之间不可能有真正的冲突。特别注重表面的矛盾，是不敬虔的表现。Bridges 继续说：

[2] Intepret Scripture consistently and harmonstically.  If Scripture is God’s word, the expression of a single divine mind, all that it says must be true, and there can be no real contradiction between part and part.  To harp on apparent contradictions, therefore, says Bridge, shows real irreverence.  Bridge continues:

 

You know how it was with Moses, when he saw two men fighting, one an Egyptian, and another an Israelite, he killed the Egyptian; but when he saw two Hebrews fighting, now, saith he, I will go and reconcile them, for they are brethren; why so, but because he was a good man, and gracious? 

同样地，一位蒙恩的信徒看见《圣经》与埃及人，或异教徒作者，或旁经争战的时候，他来杀掉那位异教徒…埃及人或旁经；可是当他看到两段经文之间有差异（看来如此，其实事实上不是这样），蒙恩信徒说，噢，他们是弟兄，他们必须和好。我必须努力，尽力而为使他们和睦。若有人看见一些经文表面上的冲突的时候就利用机会来说，看，《圣经》有怎样的矛盾；而不尽力取调和。这说明什么？岂不是说明人性的败坏，对主话语的恶意？因此，我们必须在这事上提防。