severe trial, which proved to her as the furnace to the gold, and laid the foundation for that settled peace and joy, which afterwards possessed and filled her whole soul to overflowing. Her aunt observing that her sleep had departed from her, and that her nights were very restless and disturbed, thought it needful to sit up with her until nearly morning. She enquired the cause of her uneasiness; she said, “O! aunt, what a sinner I am; pray for me;" and again, "I am afraid to sleep, lest I should drop into hell.' She requested her aunt to send for her dear minister, who was very soon at her bed side, endeavouring to pour into her mind the oil of consolation. At her request he prayed with her, and directed her to look to Jesus the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world. This she was soon enabled to do. After a few days of tribulation, she obtained such joy and peace in believing, that she could not describe it. One morning, when her aunt took her breakfast to her bed side, she said, "Oh! aunt, I have had better food than that, to-night, I am so happy." "Gentle Jesus, heavenly Lamb, She thanked God, that in his kind providence he had brought her under the sound of the Gospel of his dear Son, and the teaching of the Sunday-school; to which she said she was so much indebted, as a means, under God, of good to her soul. She particularly requested to see her dear teacher, that she might thank her for all her kindness to her in the school. When her teacher visited her, she regretted that she was so very ill, that she could scarcely speak to her; but when she left her, she thanked her, and said, "I hope we shall meet in heaven." She requested also, that she might be permitted to see and speak to some of the neighbours, who lived near her aunt, and when they came, she begged of them to think more about their souls, and to keep the sabbath holy. She was often urging her sisters to pray; she said, “I don't mean to say prayers, I want to hear you groan under the burden of sin, and cry for deliver ance." One day as her pastor was sitting beside her bed, she said, "I hope, sir, when I am buried, you will speak to the Sunday-school children, from the 1st verse of the 14th chapter of John, and tell them how much I feel for their souls." When apparently dying, she said, "What a mercy it is that I was led to seek the Lord in time," and with all the strength that she could summon, begged of her sisters to seek him before it was too late. For the last three days of her life she was quite unable to speak, although quite sensible till the last. HINTS ON THE INTERPRETATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. NO. IV. PASSING by for the present any further notice of the spiritual method of interpretation, discussed in our last, we shall proceed to illustrate a third principle, as important to be borne in mind as either of the two formerthat, the sense of passages of Scripture is to be determined by a reference to the context. Nothing can be more natural or plain than that where subjects are treated of in continuous narration, disputed or ambiguous passages should be explained by their connection with the subject of which they form part. It is a plan of proceeding which suggests itself to the mind without effort, as serviceable in doubtful points. "Let us see, before we take your solution for granted, what is said in the rest of the chapter." And yet perhaps more errors are built on the violation of this rule than any other. Certain texts are taken apart from their proper connexion, and held up to view as advocating some extreme principle, contrary to sound doctrine, which a thorough investiga tion of the context would instantly dissipate. And often do we find particular passages introduced in controversy as supporting unsound views, which when examined connectedly, are found to have no bearing on the subject. To take an illustration which occurs to me. It is well known that the Quakers consider it to be contrary to Christ's command, and sinful, to take an oath in any cause before a court of justice, and they ground their resolution on our Lord's words in Matt. v. "I say unto you, swear not at all." And St. James's exhortation, But above all things, my brethren, swear not." Now it must be confessed that these isolated statements, if they are unmodified by the context, directly forbid the practice, and are favourable to the Quakers' hypothesis. But if we examine the whole of the passage in which they occur, we shall find that no such general principle was intended to be laid down, and consequently all scruple as to the unlawful nature of an oath, as far as they are concerned, is removed. Our blessed Saviour was commenting on an exhortation contained in the law, that when men took a vow, attesting it by an oath, they should be careful to pay it. These voluntary vows, in which God is called to witness our determination, are better to be dispensed with: "Swear not at all." And further, as from this practice there grows a natural tendency in common conversation to call God to attest our resolutions by some solemn form of adjuration, I command " 'that your communication be yea, yea, and nay, nay.” I shall not argue whether this be an accurate paraphrase of the passage alluded to, but it is clear, from the context, that our Lord's prohibition extends only to two subjects: 1st, voluntary vows made by oath; 2nd, conversations interspersed with the same language. Taking an oath, then, before a magistrate, is a case which is nowhere touched upon, and to which Christ did not refer. The other reference from St. James might also be dissected in the same manner. So too, if the doubtful passage were taken from 1 John iii. "He that is born of God doth not commit sin, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God," and a man were to argue from hence that one characteristic of the true believer is perfect freedom from actual sin; the context, with which this statement stands connected in the end of the first and the beginning of the second chapter, plainly shews that the Evangelist was referring only to the impossibility of a real child of God living in a course of habitual deliberate sin, because this would prove him to be the child of the devil of itself, and not a child of God. In our private devotional reading, we shall find this rule to be invaluable. It will often prove the clearest commentary to obscure passages which we could have, and impart a vitality and beauty to them most conducive to practical piety, by fixing their sense definitely, where their effect would be otherwise marred and weakened by their leaving on the mind only a vague and general idea. To give one instance: supposing that we had reached in our private reading that beautiful passage, (2 Cor. iii. 17.) "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." A discursive and superficial reader applies it in general to that freedom of soul which the Gospel of Christ really received imparts; and, in a secondary sense, this is undoubtedly true. But when we come to examine the rest of the subject with which this sentence stands connected, we find that St. Paul refers simply to one particular branch or development of this gospel freedom, viz: deliverance from that deplorable mental blindness, which prevents us from receiving the truths of Christ crucified in the love of them, such as was spread over the heart of the Jewish people. The idea, when thus narrowed and defined, becomes much more effective in its practical application, and suggests many points of self-examination and enquiry, which would lose half their force by being generalized. In carrying out this rule, I need only add, that it will be necessary to read the Scriptures connectedly, according to their subjects rather than the artificial division of chapters. This division is indeed exceedingly useful, but sometimes interrupts the train of thought or argument which the writer is following out. Thus the sermon on the mount should be read as a whole; our Saviour's conversation with his disciples from the xv. (perhaps the xiii,) to the xviii. chapters of St. John in the same manner, and many of the Epistles; and others, as the Epistle to the Hebrews, broken up into two or three portions, where the argument divides itself, or one part of the subject is laid aside as sufficiently explained. Closely connected with this, is the next principle of interpretation to be laid down, which I shall call the comparative principle, in other words, that the sense of the inspired record is to be ascertained by a comparison of its various parts. Doctrines are not generally found stated in the Bible in a technical or dogmatic form once for all, as in the Creeds, or the confessions of the reformed faith, but are to be gathered from the combination of various passages which mould together and harmonize in support of the true principle. And this is well accounted for, when we remember the form in which the New Testament has come down to us, not so much as a number of catechisms of doctrine, for the use of those who had no elementary knowledge of Christianity, as narratives and letters for the confirmation and building up of those who had been already partially instructed in its fundamental and leading principles. With this object all the Epistles were written, the Acts of the Apostles, and one Gospel, as it is expressly stated in the outset, "that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed." Hence, doctrines are often taken for granted, incidentally introduced, or explicitly stated, only in order to correct some error which had obscured or corrupted them, rather than exhibited in their order, as we should do in compiling a catechism. The duty then of comparing the various Scriptures together, in order to obtain a digest of the true Christian doctrine, becomes of the utmost importance. And here we must be careful not to compare the whole of the Bible indiscriminately, because it is composed out of the productions of ages widely separated, and written by men-inspired of course by God's Holy Spirit—of very different characters, talents, learning, and abilities. The style, therefore, the phraseology, the mode of reasoning and thoughts, the sublimity of language, is perceptibly different, and must be taken into account in our comparisons. In endeavouring to ascertain the teaching of the word of God on any given point, we shall find it to be the most useful, as well as the most correct method of proceeding, to take one text which bears on the doctrine in hand, and study all that is said by the writer in connexion with it, both before and after the passage which we have taken as our starting point. In some |