position and that of his opponents. The twenty-third chapter of Matthew,
in which the Saviour exposes the wickedness and doctrinal errors of the
scribes and Pharisees, and denounces upon them the judgments of heaven,
cannot be thoroughly understood without a knowledge of the system of
Pharisaism, and the high position of authority and influence which the
Pharisees held; sitting, as they did, in Moses' seat, imposing upon the
people their human traditions in place of God's commandments,
substituting a religion of outward forms for one of inward faith, love,
and obedience, and thus taking away from the people the key of divine
knowledge. It was necessary that the Son of God, to whom the church
belonged, who came to shed his blood for her redemption, and to
establish her in the principles of truth and holiness, should expose
with unsparing severity the wickedness and ignorance of these scribes
and Pharisees, for the instruction of his people in all coming ages. A
knowledge of the same historical circumstances throws a strong light on
the apostle's aim in writing to the Romans and Galatians. Had we fuller
information respecting the false teachers referred to in the epistle to
the Colossians and the pastoral epistles, we should understand more
clearly the apostle's arguments against them.

But the surest means of ascertaining a writer's scope is the repeated
and careful perusal of his words. The biblical student should early form
the habit of reading over with earnest attention a whole book at a
sitting--the epistle to the Romans, for example, or that to the
Hebrews--without pausing to investigate particular questions; his aim
being to throw himself as fully as possible into the general current of
thought, and to be carried forward by it to the writer's final
conclusions. When he has thus made himself familiar with the scope of
the work as a whole, he will be better prepared for the examination of
the particular difficulties that offer themselves in the course of the
author's argument.

4. The word _context_ (Latin, _contextus_) signifies literally _a
weaving together_; and is appropriately used, therefore, to denote the
web of a writer's discourse. The scope is the _end_ which a writer
proposes to accomplish: the context gives the _form and manner of its
accomplishment_. With reference to a given passage, the context has been
loosely defined to be that which immediately precedes and follows. More
accurately, it is the ser