on and anguish, upon
every soul of man that doeth evil; of the Jew first, and also of the
Gentile; but glory, honor, and peace to every man that worketh good; to
the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: for there is no respect of
persons with God." Rom. 2:8-11. If now we turn to the epistle of James,
we find that the faith without works which he condemns as dead is one of
mere empty notions--an inoperative belief _about_ Christ instead of that
hearty trust _in_ him which brings the heart and life into subjection to
his authority. In a word, Paul condemns, as dead, works without faith;
James, faith without works. The one rejects dead works (Heb. 9:14); the
other, dead faith. Between these two judgments there is no
contradiction. We have dwelt somewhat at large upon this example of
alleged contradiction for the purpose of full illustration. The same
mode of reasoning might be applied to many other passages, where a
knowledge of the writer's design is essential to the true apprehension
of his meaning.

Such being the importance of the scope, the question arises: How shall
it be ascertained? Here mechanical rules will be of little avail. The
attentive and judicious reader will be able, in general, to gather it
from the various indications given by the writer himself, or from the
known circumstances in which he wrote, just as in the case of other
writings.

Sometimes an author directly _states_ his general end, or his design in
writing a particular section of his work. An example of the former kind
is John 20:31: "These things are written that ye might believe that
Jesus is the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through
his name;" of the latter kind, 1 Cor. 7:1: "Now concerning the things
whereof ye wrote unto me," etc.; whence we learn that in this particular
chapter the apostle's design is to answer certain inquiries of the
Corinthian Christians in regard to the relation of marriage. More
commonly the writer's scope is indicated indirectly by various
_inferential remarks_, as in the passage already quoted: "Therefore we
conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law,"
which is in fact a statement of the apostle's design in the preceding
argument. See Horne's Introduct., vol. 2, pp. 266, 267, where the author
follows Morus, Hermeneutica, 1.2.2.

Sometimes a clear light is shed upon the design of a writer or speaker
by a knowledge of _historical circumstances_; especially, of his own