But we fail to do that. We hear crazy things these days, particularly from the television preachers. Absurd things that are utterly unscriptural, and so much of this nonsense is accepted because Christian men and women are not checking for themselves. We do not want everybody going around beetle-browed and cynical about everything, but we do have to be certain that the preacher is showing his work and not just plucking texts out of the air.
What is the right of private judgement? At the time of the Reformation the first three principles to be articulated and uncovered were the sufficiency of Scripture alone, the duty or right of a private judgement of Scripture, and the doctrine of the justification by faith alone. We are thinking about the second. Luther and others began to teach that the Scripture is the sole authority. The church at Rome said, no, it is the Scripture as interpreted by the church, by the Church Fathers, by church councils. The Reformers said, no, the Scripture is clear in its teaching; it is perspicuous. Popes have erred greatly; church councils have made increasing mistakes as time has gone by. Human judgement has fogged the Scripture. Now private judgement, of course, does not mean that any individual can make Scripture to mean whatever he wants it to mean. No prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation; we have no right to bend it to our minds. Our task is to seek to understand what Scripture means by comparing Scripture with Scripture, and by following the analogy of faith. Scripture is the yardstick that determines all disputes in matters of religion.