like manner particular texts are to be interpreted in accordance with
the gist of the Bible as a whole.

This is just the mistake the Jews made, of building up theories on
particular texts, and which Jesus corrected when he said: "Search the
Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and these are
they which testify of me" (John v, 39), or, as the Revised Version puts
it: "Ye search the Scriptures because ye think that in them ye have
eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me," which
appears to be the better rendering. The words "ye think" is the key to
the whole passage. He says in effect: "You fancy that eternal life is to
be found in the book. It is not to be found in the book, but in what the
book tells you about, and here I am as a living example of it." It is
just the same with everything else. No book can do more than tell you
about a thing; it cannot produce it. You may study the cookery book from
morning till night, but that will not give you your dinner.

What Jesus meant was, that we should read the Scriptures in the same way
we should read any other book of practical instruction. First think what
it is all about; then look at the nature of the general principles
involved, and then see what instruction the book gives you for their
practical application. _Then go and do it_. And remember also a further
difference between reading about a thing and doing it. A book is for
everybody, and can therefore, only give general instruction; but when
you come to do the thing you will always find it works with some
personal modifications,--not departures from the general principles you
have read about, but specializations of them--and in this way you will
learn much that is not to be got out of books, even the best.

I remember many years ago, when I was much younger, asking one of our