March 29, 1602

John Lightfoot (March 29, 1602 to December 6, 1675) was an English clergyman and scholar. His many books were influential with his parishioners and colleagues. He was for decades the Master of St. Catherine's College, Cambridge, and though it is difficult to reconstruct the significance of seemingly archaic arguments, often, later, the fact is his influence continued throughout his life, a span which included civil war, the Interregnum, and the Restoration. Lightfoot managed to both guide and stay above, temporal affairs. Is it possible to make sense of his rhetoric in our scientific era?

One aspect of this effort is the under appreciated fact that you cannot understand the arguments of another if you do not grasp what the writer is responding to. We only imagine we understand our contemporaries because that to which they respond is something we have in common. This is quickly lost as generations go on. But at best reading text written in a different era, at best, you only hear half of the dialogue.

Let's take as an example the issue of sacrifice. This seems incomprehensible today. That a living thing should die, because this does honor to another. How is that supposed to work? Actually, I don't know. But maybe we can roll back the rhetoric to some extent, looking at a passage of 17th century religious prose.

Here is the text written by Lightfoot, and included in our resource, which is
The Whole Works of the Rev. John Lightfoot: Master of Catharine Hall, Cambridge, Volume 7,  edited by John Rogers Pitman (1822).

That reliance upon Christ, comes not into date, till a man do the best he can, to fit himself to be a sacrifice for that altar. The altar's sanctifying of the gift, came not in date, till the offering was fit for the altar. There must be these concurrents: first, it must be of the clean kinds of beasts or birds, oxen, or sheep, or goats, sparrows, pigeons, or turtles; not dog, cat, ass, bear; not a crow, raven, owl, or vulture. ....

[But notice]...how little..[a person] can [really] do of good when they have done their best. And then lay such a heart upon the altar; Christ and the altar sanctifies the gift, and makes out for it.....

....Faith... is more than fancy, or thinking or hoping you shall be saved by Christ...It is working and labouring in the way of God's commandments, till you be weary and heavy laden; and then resting yourselves in Christ for safety and refreshing.

This language has a real meaning in the world of which mankind is a part. It is this reality which vivifies efforts such as Lightfoot is making to corral people to a goal of which he has personal experience. My point has nothing to do with Christianity, which for us now, is a rhetorical system we are trying to see through, like water over a stream bed. What is going on with these words.  How did people hear them and go home and be better people. Here is how they could have heard, the above:

First paragraph-- you have to sincerely try, and that, first off, includes being careful with external behavior. Don't put a cat on the altar if you know that is disrespectful.  

Second paragraph -- Part of really trying to be a good, faithful, whatever,  involves an internal examination of your own nature. Your own heart (motives, thoughts, intentions) objectively examined may well show you that your efforts are inadequate, no matter how hard you try. 

Third paragraph -- What you may find, then, is a realization that you are not a separate unit from the rest of the world, you are just part of reality, but that partialness is of a larger something that you do not fully grasp, but you can detect glimmers of beauty that allow you to suspect its qualities. 

End of exegesis of Reverend Lightfoot. He spoke a different language but lived in the same reality as we do.