Fat Pastures of the Soul

With Thomas Cranmer

What are we to make of the Bible? A smorgasbord of ancient wisdom, some to be enjoyed, the rest discarded if it does not take our fancy, meet today’s social standards, or simply looks too foreign and exotic even to venture onto our palette? Are bits of it rotten through and poisonous? So many would have us believe, including many Christians, who apply their own Procrustean measure to the Scriptures and lop off whatever bits they find wanting. Such an approach will not get us in far, this Advent, or ever. The Scriptures are no cadaver to be carved, but the living Word of God aglow with life and nourishment. In Advent, rather than heaping our favoured seasonings on top and swallowing with a grimace, we must learn to acquire their taste.

The study of Scripture brings health, Cranmer argues, not only to the individual, but to society. Deviation from Scriptural norms upsets both, not in the forensic sense of law and punishment, but with the same inevitability as eating a rotten apple upsets your bowel. The divine law is more like natural law than man-made edicts. By reading, marking, learning and inwardly digesting Holy Scripture, we become what we eat. The servant of God exhorts the prince, who in turn acts as exemplar to his people, and they to their children.

Thus Scripture imparts the order, loving obedience and duty which are necessary for a society to cohere and to thrive. If we mistakenly excise and discard its nutritious parts, we will be defenceless against demonic germs that assail our corporate Body; worse, if we mix it with foreign poison, we invite their sickness within. Advent is the time to welcome to Lord, but to welcome Him alone: and this means repelling all that is not of Him. Sacrament and Scripture are our healthful medicine and sure defence. —T.P.

From A Prologue or Preface to The Great Bible, 1540, Thomas Cranmer

Dost thou not mark and consider how the smith, mason, or carpenter, or any other handy craftsman, what need soever he be in, what other shift so ever he make, he will not sell nor lay to pledge the tools of his occupation. For then how should he work his feat, or get his living thereby? Of like mind and affection ought we to be towards holy scripture. For as mallets, hammers, saws, chisels, axes, and hatchets, be the tools of their occupation; so be the books of the prophets, and Apostles, and all holy writers inspired by the holy ghost, the instruments of our salvation. Wherefore let us not stick to buy and provide us the Bible, that is to say, the books of holy scripture; and let us think that to be a better jewel in our house than either gold or silver. For like as thieves be loth to assault an house where they know to be good armour and artillery, so wheresoever these holy and ghostly books be occupied, there neither the devil nor none of his angels dare come near. …

Hitherto all that I have said, I have taken and gathered out of the foresaid sermon of this holy doctor, saint John Chrysostom. Now if I should in like manner bring forth what the selfsame doctor speaketh in other places, and what other doctors and writers say concerning the same purpose, I might seem to you to write another Bible, rather than to make a preface to the Bible. Wherefore in few words to comprehend the largeness and utility of the scripture, how it containeth fruitful instruction and erudition for every man: If anything be necessary to be learned, of the holy scripture we may learn it. If falsehood shall be reproved, thereof we may gather wherewithal. If anything be to be corrected and amended, if there need any exhortation or consolation, of the scripture we may well learn.

In the scriptures be the fat pastures of the soul, therein is no venomous meat, no unwholesome thing; they be the very dainty and pure feeding. He that is ignorant, shall find there what he should learn. He that is a perverse sinner, shall there find his damnation to make him to tremble for fear. He that laboureth to serve God, shall find there his glory, and the promissions of eternal life, exhorting him more diligently to labor. Herein may princes learn how to govern their subjects; Subjects obedience, love, and dread to their princes; Husbands how they should behave them unto their wives, how to educate their children and servants; and contrary, the wives, children, and servants may know their duty to their husbands, parents, and masters. …

Briefly, to the reading of the scripture none can be enemy, but that either be so sick that they love not to hear of any medicine, or else that be so ignorant that they know not scripture to be the most healthful medicine.

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