TAKING AWAY THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
By R. F. Cottrell
“Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge; ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.” Luke xi, 52. The learned expositors of the law, in the days of our Saviour, were the greatest hindrance in the way of the common people, to prevent their coming to the knowledge101of the truth. The people looked up to them as leaders and guides, and they would not enter in themselves, that others might follow, but on the contrary, they strove to prevent those that would, if left to their own judgment, have embraced the truth. It is just so now. Learned ministers will not receive the plainest Bible truths themselves, and if others are disposed to enter into the store-house of knowledge, they will prevent them if possible. The best means to effect this their object is the same that was used by those lawyers of old, namely, to take away the key of knowledge. Reading is the key to all the sciences. To acquire a knowledge of these, it only necessary to read with care the books in which they are truly set forth. And since the holy Scriptures are in the hands of the people, all might determine for themselves the truth or falsity of any doctrine, had not the lawyers taken away the key of knowledge. The time was when the reading of the Scriptures by the common people was prohibited; but since this has become impracticable, the same thing is virtually effected by the mystical principle of interpretation. When a person has adopted any principles of interpretation but the literal, he is a stranger to the great truths of the word, almost as much as if he had no Bible. And his condition is indeed worse, because he perverts that word to his condemnation which might have been, and was intended, for his salvation. If the Bible does not mean what it says, who shall tell us what it does mean? And if every one has a right to give the Scriptures a spiritual meaning to suit his own taste, it will be forced to sustain every false theory extant; and infidelity may continue to taunt the believer in revelation with the confusion of doctrines in the Christian world, as the legitimate fruits of a revelation claiming to be divine. Who are responsible for this defamation of the word of God? Will not those who have taken away the key of knowledge, by following what is called spiritual interpretation, have to answer for this blasphemy of the word?—those who tell us that life means happiness, and death means a higher life, that the resurrection means a revival of religion, or the ascension of disembodied spirits at the death of the body, and all the thousand vagaries that are taught as revealed truth. Truly, they have taken away the key of knowledge. They will not have the truth themselves, and those that would receive it are hindered, being bewildered in the fog of mystical interpretation, and drunken with the wine of Babylon. R. F. COTTRELL.