When William Whitaker died at age 47, he was a rising scholar and churchman at the University of Cambridge.
He published several books, including his most well-known, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, Against the Papists, Especially Bellarmine and Stapleton, referred to simply as A Disputation on Holy Scripture.
In this blog post, I’d like to introduce you to Whitaker and his work by way of 25 quotations. These quotations are provided with their page references; they have been edited for spelling and punctuation.
I hope you are encouraged and even intrigued by his statements, perhaps even enough to read his classic work on Sola Scriptura. In these quotes and his work, you’ll find a scholar with a high view of Scripture and a sincere desire to defend them against heresy to the glory of the triune God.
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As the brightest light appears in the sun, so the greatest splendor of divinity shines forth in the word of God.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 290
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Nothing is more certain than the word of God and the Scriptures because it is God who addresses us in his word and teaches us through his word.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 286
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If hope springs from the Scriptures, then faith; for hope is supported by faith. Therefore, all things necessary may be derived from the Scriptures.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 649
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There is nothing which truth fears so much as to be prevented from appearing in public and being exposed to the examination of all men.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 11
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The blind cannot perceive even the light of the sun; nor can they distinguish the splendor of the Scriptures, whose minds are not divinely illuminated. But those who have eyes of faith can behold this light.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 290
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The Scriptures are sufficiently clear to admit of their being read by the people and the unlearned with some fruit and utility.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 364
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But the scripture is so full of divine light as to dispel our blindness with its rays and make us who before saw nothing in this light to see light.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 381
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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.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 467
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A lamp hath light in itself, whether men look upon that light or not: so also the scripture is clear and perspicuous, whether men be illuminated by it, or receive from it no light whatever.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 381
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The Scriptures are to be read publicly in such a manner as that the people may be able to derive some advantage from them. But they cannot be useful to the people in an unknown tongue.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 238
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Scripture hath for its author God himself; from whom it first proceeded and came forth. Therefore, the authority of scripture may be proved from the author himself since the authority of God himself shines forth in it.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 289
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Our second argument stands thus: The people should not be deprived of those arms by which they are to be protected against Satan. Now the Scriptures are such arms: therefore, the Scriptures should not be taken away from the people; for taken away they are, if the people be prevented from reading them.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 237
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If what these men teach be true, we are in a miserable condition; we are involved in infinite errors of the grossest kind and cannot possibly be saved. But if, as I am fully persuaded and convinced, it is they who are in error, they cannot deny that they are justly condemned if they still persist in their errors.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 15
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For the mysteries of scripture are like gems, which only he that knows them values; while the rest, like the cock in Aesop, despise them, and prefer the most worthless objects to what is most beautiful and excellent.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 366
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Then the scripture is called lucid, not only because it hath light in itself, but because it illuminates us, dispels the darkness of our minds, and brings us new light, which is what no lamps can do. For a lamp is beheld by those who have eyes; but to those who are blind no lamp shews light.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 381
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The sense of scripture, therefore, is but one—the literal; for it is folly to feign many senses, merely because many things follow from the words of scripture rightly understood. Those things may, indeed, be called corollaries or consequences, flowing from the right understanding of the words, but new and different senses they are by no means.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 408
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We must not bring any private meanings, or private opinions, but only such as agree with the mind, intention, and dictate of the Holy Spirit. For, since he is the author of the Scriptures, it is fit that we should follow him in interpreting scripture.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 410
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In forbidding the people to read the Scriptures, and performing their service in a strange language, they plainly take away all mutual converse of God with the people, and the people with God, and interrupt the intercourse and communion of the Deity with man.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 705
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Our arms shall be the sacred Scriptures, that sword and shield of the word, that tower of David, upon which a thousand bucklers hang, and all the armor of the mighty, the sling and the pebbles of the brook where with David stretched upon the ground that gigantic and haughty Philistine.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 19
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Scripture, as we have already said, hath one simple meaning, which may be clearly gathered also from the Scriptures themselves; and although the scripture hath not voice and speech like a man, yet does it speak plainly as a law; and God himself speaks in the scripture, and scripture is on that account styled the word of God.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 445
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Our opinion is, that the supreme decision and authority in the interpretation of scripture should not be ascribed to the church, but to the scripture itself, and to the Holy Spirit, as well speaking plainly in the Scriptures as also secretly confirming the same in our hearts.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 447
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Some things may seem contradictory in Scripture, to a man who does not consider them with sufficient attention; yet it is certain, nevertheless, that Scripture is in perfect harmony with itself. God willed that some such shews of contradiction should occur in Scripture, that we might be so the more excited to diligence in reading, meditating upon, and collating the passages together…
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 377
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Christ taught the people in their mother-tongue; so also the apostles and disciples of Christ, as well when upon the day of Pentecost they published the gospel in a known tongue, as afterwards when, scattered over the whole world, they taught all nations in their own native languages. Hence we draw our conclusion thus: The holy doctrine of the gospel is not contaminated when preached or taught in the vernacular tongue.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 242
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How could such men have written so divinely without the divine inspiration of the Holy Ghost? They were, almost all, illiterate men, learned in no accomplishments, taught in no schools, imbued with no instruction; but afterwards summoned by a divine call, marked out for this office, admitted to the counsels of God: and so they committed all to writing with the exactest fidelity.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 294
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It is folly to suppose that Satan can be driven away by bare ceremonies, exorcisms, gesticulations, and outward fopperies. We must fight with arguments drawn from scripture, and the examples of the holy fathers. The Scriptures are the only arms which can prevail, or ought to be used against him. Those, therefore, who take the Holy Scriptures away from the people, leave them exposed, naked to Satan, and hurl them into most certain destruction.
William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, 237
