The Scriptures are crowded with references to the cities, mountains, plains, deserts, rivers, and seas of Palestine and the surrounding regions; to their climate, soil, animals, and plants; to their agricultural products and mineral treasures; to the course of travel and commerce between the different nations; in a word, to those numerous particulars which come under the head of geography and natural history.  The extended investigations of modern times in these departments of knowledge have shed a great light over the pages of inspiration, which no expositor who is worthy of the name will venture to neglect.

And if one collect and illustrate the various allusions of Scripture to the manners and customs of the ancient Hebrews, to their civil institutions and their religious rites and ceremonies, he will compose a volume on biblical antiquities.

The connection, moreover, which the covenant people had with the surrounding nations, especially the great monarchies which successively held sway over the civilized world—­Egypt, Assyria, Chaldea, Greece, Rome—­requires an extended knowledge of ancient history, and, as inseparably connected with this, of ancient chronology.  Biblical chronology constitutes, indeed, a science of itself, embracing some very perplexed and difficult questions, the solution of which has an important bearing upon the passages of Scripture to which they have reference.

7.  We do not affirm that all the above-named qualifications are necessary to a saving knowledge of God’s word.  Its great essential doctrines and precepts are so plain that the unlettered reader, who brings to the work an honest heart, cannot fail to understand them.  In this respect God has made the vision so plain “that he may run that readeth it;” and the road to heaven so direct that “the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.”  But the interpreter of Scripture is expected to unfold the meaning of the difficult passages also, as far as human investigation will enable him to do so.  They are a part of “all Scripture given by inspiration of God,” which the apostle affirms to be “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”  He should spare no effort, therefore, to ascertain their exact sense, and to expound this sense to others with all possible fidelity and clearness.

8.  There is a human and a divine side to biblical interpretation—­a human side, because the Scriptures address men in human language, and according to human modes of thinking and speaking; a divine side, because they contain a true revelation from God to men, and differ in this respect from all other writings.  The neglect of the human side leads to visionary schemes of interpretation, in which the writer’s fancy is substituted for the sober rules of criticism, and the word of God accommodated to his preconceived opinions.  The rejection, open