Augustine: “… I do not doubt that all this was divinely arranged for the purpose of subduing pride by toil, and of preventing a feeling of satiety in the intellect, which generally holds in small esteem what is discovered without difficulty … Nobody, however, has any doubt about the facts, both that it is pleasanter in some cases to have knowledge communicated through figures, and that what is attended with difficulty in the seeking gives greater pleasure in the finding … the Holy Spirit has, with admirable wisdom and care for our welfare, so arranged the Holy Scriptures as by the plainer passages to satisfy our hunger, and by the more obscure to stimulate our appetite. For almost nothing is dug out of those obscure passages which may not be found set forth in the plainest language elsewhere” (On Christian Doctrine, Book II, Chapter 6).
B. B. Warfield: “It is very plain that he who modifies the teachings of the Word of God in the smallest particular at the dictation of any ‘man-made opinion’ has already deserted the Christian ground, and is already, in principle, a ‘heretic.’ The very essence of ‘heresy’ is that the modes of thought and tenets originating elsewhere than in the Scriptures of God are given decisive weight when they clash with the teachings of God’s Word …”
Rene Pache: “The wresting of the sense of the Scriptures – here is a plague from which Christendom still suffers! May God give us grace not only to receive the divinely inspired Scriptures but also to interpret them correctly and to apply them to our own lives! Then we shall be able to talk about them with authority, ‘speaking as it were oracles of God’ (I Peter 4:11)” (The Inspiration & Authority of Scripture, p. 231).
