I know I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: I love Puritan titles; you never have to wonder what you’re about to read. And if the main title isn’t enough, the chapter titles fill in even more details.
Having completed “Our arguments whereby we prove that the supreme decision in interpreting scripture belongs not to the church, but to the scriptures themselves and to the Holy Spirit,” William Whitaker addresses “The state of the question, concerning the means of finding the true sense of scripture.” The first means he lists is one that ought to be the easiest, but I’m afraid is likely to be the most neglected.
 In the first place, prayer is necessary for reading the scriptures so as to understand them; and on that account David so often begs of God to illuminate his mind and to open his eyes; and, in Matth. vii. Christ says, “Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and ye shall find: knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” And James, chap. i. v. 5, says: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.” Whence a certain father said, that he profited more in the knowledge of scripture by prayer, than by reading and study. And Origen, in his 12th Homily on Exodus, says that we must not only apply study in order to learn the sacred word, but also supplicate God and entreat him night and day, that the Lamb of the tribe of Juda may come, and, taking himself the sealed book, vouchsafe to open it. Augustine too, in his book De Scala Paradisi, c. 2, writes thus admirably upon this subject: “Reading inquires, meditation finds, prayer asks, contemplation tastes: whence the Lord himself says, ‘Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.’ Seek by reading, and ye shall find in meditation: knock by prayer, and it shall be opened to you in contemplation. Reading does, as it were, set the solid food at the lips; meditation breaks and chews it; prayer gains a relish; and contemplation is the very sweetness itself which gives us pleasure and refreshment. Reading is in the rind, meditation in the marrow,, prayer in the demand of desire, contemplation in the delight of the sweetness now acquired.” Thus far Augustine. And Jerome says to Læta: “Let reading follow prayer, and prayer reading.” This should be always the first means, and the foundation of the rest. —William Whitaker, Disputations on the Holy Scriptures (Soli Deo Gloria, 2005), 467–468.
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