7.  That the interpreter may make a wise and effective use of all the helps that have been enumerated, he needs especially that sound and practical judgment which is called in ordinary discourse good sense.  Investigations respecting the meaning of terms, inquiries concerning the scope, reasonings from the context, the comparison of parallel passages, the use of ancient history, chronology, and archaeology—­that any one or all of these processes combined may lead to valuable results they must be under the guidance of that sound judgment and practical tact by which the interpreter is enabled to seize the true meaning of his author and unfold it with accuracy, or is at least kept from far-fetched and fanciful expositions where the author’s real sense is involved in obscurity.

(1.) This quality of sound judgment will preserve the interpreter from inept expositions for which a plausible reason many be assigned.

Thus, when the Saviour says to Martha, who “was cumbered about much serving:”  “One thing is needful,” these words have been interpreted to mean one dish—­not many and elaborate preparations, but a single dish.  A sound judgment rejects at once this interpretation as below the dignity of the occasion, and not in agreement with what immediately follows:  “Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”  The one thing needful is such a devotion of the soul to Christ as Mary manifested.  So the words:  “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?” (John 21:15), have been explained to mean:  more than these fish, or the employment and furniture of a fisherman—­an ingenious substitution, one must say, of a low and trivial meaning for the common interpretation:  more than these thy fellow-disciples love me, which accords so perfectly with Peter’s former profession:  “Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended.”  Matt. 26:33; Mark 14:29.

Interpreters who ordinarily manifest sound judgment and skill are sometimes betrayed into inept expositions through the influence of some preconceived opinion.  The psalmist says, for example (Psa. 17:15):  “As for me, in righteousness shall I behold thy face:  I shall be satisfied upon awaking with thy likeness;” that is, with the contemplation of thy likeness, with apparent reference to Numb. 12:8:  “The likeness of the Lord shall he behold.”  This passage is ordinarily interpreted correctly of the vision of God upon awaking in the world to come.  And this view is sustained by other like passages:  “In thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Psa. 16:11); “Truly God shall redeem my soul from the power of Sheol; for he shall take me,” (Psa. 49:15), where Tholuck well says:  “He who took an Enoch and a Moses to himself, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, will also take me to himself;” “Thou shalt guide me by thy counsel, and afterwards