Devotional 9: The Analogy of Faith: Scripture Interprets Scripture

The Confession Read

The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.

— Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 1, Section 9

Introduction

The King James Bible lies open on the table before you. You have been reading Galatians, and you have come to a passage that stops you cold. Paul writes that the law was given by a mediator, that the seed came four hundred and thirty years after the promise, that Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the Jerusalem that now is. You have read these words before, but this morning they will not yield their meaning. A cloud settles over the page. You are tempted to close the book and reach for something simpler: a devotional, a commentary, a preacher's summary. The words are there, but they are dark. Every believer who has walked with the Scriptures for any length of time knows this experience. It is not unbelief that makes the passage dark. It is the nature of a book that speaks of eternal things in human language, spanning centuries and covenants, ranging from creation to the end of all things. Some things in Scripture are hard to understand. Peter acknowledged as much when he wrote that in Paul's letters are "some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction." The question is not whether there will be difficulties. The question is what we do when we encounter them. The Westminster Divines, in this ninth section of the first chapter, give us the answer. It is a practical, liberating, and thoroughly Reformed principle. The key that unlocks dark passages is not hidden in the decrees of a distant magisterium. It is not discovered by retreating into a private inner light. The key is Scripture itself. The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself. This is the hermeneutical principle of the Protestant Reformation. Luther used it to challenge the Pope. Calvin confounded the Anabaptists with it. The Puritans, heirs of the Reformation, built a whole architecture of biblical exposition upon it. And it is given to you, dear reader, as the divinely appointed means of finding your way through the darkest valleys of the sacred text. When one passage is obscure, let another passage shed its light. When one Scripture is hard, let another Scripture be the interpreter. The Bible is a self-interpreting book, and the Spirit who inspired it illuminates the searching reader who comes with the whole counsel of God already in view. What we consider together here is not a technical rule for scholars. It is a pastoral gift for the humblest believer who opens the Book and prays, "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law."

Scripture Foundation

The Apostle Peter, writing of the prophetic writings of the Old Testament, lays down a principle at the heart of the Reformed doctrine of the analogy of faith. 2 Peter 1:20-21 — Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The Greek word translated "interpretation" is epiluseos, from a verb meaning to loosen, to unbind, to release — as a knot is untied. Peter is telling us that the loosing of prophetic meaning is not a private affair. He is not saying, as some Anabaptists taught, that the Spirit gives a wholly new meaning to the obedient reader in isolation from the rest of the Bible. Rather, the prophecy itself did not originate from the prophet's private will, so its interpretation cannot rest upon the reader's private fancy. The same Spirit who gave the prophecy governs its interpretation in harmony with the whole body of revealed truth. This verse, beloved, is a key proof text for the doctrine the Divines are articulating. If the meaning of Scripture were manifold — one thing to me, another to you — then the interpreter might claim a private key for each text. But the meaning is one, and the Spirit who inspired the whole has given the whole to be the context for interpreting each part. The Apostle Paul, writing to the church at Corinth, gives us the method by which this self-interpretation takes place. 1 Corinthians 2:13 — Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. The Greek word sunkrinontes, translated "comparing," carries several shades of meaning. It means to combine, to fit together, to interpret one thing by reference to another. In the Septuagint, this word describes the interpretation of dreams: when Joseph said interpretations belong to God, then compared Pharaoh's two dreams, reading the one by the light of the other. Paul is telling us that the proper method of understanding spiritual things is not to read them in isolation but to set them side by side. The Holy Spirit does not teach us to take a single verse and wring a doctrine from it; He teaches us to bring the whole symphony of Scripture to bear upon each individual note. This is precisely what the Westminster Divines mean when they say a difficult passage "must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly." The word sunkrinontes is the vocabulary of comparison, of collation, of bringing texts into conversation with one another. It is the practice of the Reformed exegete who, when he encounters a hard text, asks not "What does my favourite teacher say?" nor "What does my inner light suggest?" but "What do the Scriptures say elsewhere?" Our Lord Jesus Christ gave us the perfect example of this method on the very day of His resurrection. Luke 24:27 — And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. The Greek word diermeneusen, from which we get our English word "hermeneutics," means to interpret thoroughly, to explain by traversing the whole field. Christ did not take a single prophecy and impose a meaning upon it. He began at Moses — the five books of the law — and worked through all the prophets: the historical books, the major prophets, the minor prophets. He interpreted each one in the light of the whole. The entire Old Testament, rightly understood, is a tapestry of which He is the central thread. The dark passages of Isaiah's suffering servant found their meaning in the bright passages of David's coronation psalm. The obscure types of the tabernacle were illuminated by the clear prophecies of the coming Priest after the order of Melchizedek. This is the infallible rule of interpretation in its most exalted form, exercised by the living Word Himself. The Prophet Isaiah, writing eight centuries before Christ, calls us to this practice of searching the Scriptures. Isaiah 34:16 — Seek ye out of the book of the LORD, and read: no one of these shall fail, none shall want her mate: for my mouth it hath commanded, and his spirit it hath gathered them. The Hebrew verb darash means to seek with care, to search diligently — the same word used of seeking the Lord Himself. The prophet calls us to bring the same earnestness to searching the book of the Lord that we bring to seeking the Lord of the book. And note the reason: "none shall want her mate." Within the book itself, every passage has its complement, its interpreting partner. The fearful visions of judgment in the earlier part of Isaiah have their "mate" in the promises of restoration in the latter part. The dire warnings of the law have their mate in the consolations of the gospel. The book of the Lord is a book of pairs, in which no truth stands alone but is always confirmed and illuminated by another. The Psalmist, whose devotion to the Torah was the very heartbeat of his piety, declares a truth that undergirds everything the Confession teaches here. Psalm 119:160 — Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever. The Hebrew phrase rosh debareka emet is more literally "The head of thy word is truth." The word rosh can mean head, beginning, sum, or chief point. The Psalmist is saying, by the Spirit, that the essential principle, the governing head, the comprehensive sum of God's word is truth. Individual judgments, precepts, and promises are true, but their truth is most fully seen when they are taken together, when the whole body of revealed truth illuminates each of its parts. This is the presupposition of the analogy of faith. Because God is the author of all Scripture, and because God is truth, the whole of Scripture is truth. No part can be rightly interpreted in a way that contradicts another part. The sum — the whole, the synthesis, the comprehensive body — is truth, and all proper interpretation must harmonise part with part. We see this principle worked out in the practice of the Berean Christians, commended by the Apostle as more noble than those in Thessalonica precisely because they subjected even apostolic preaching to the test of Scripture interpreting Scripture. Acts 17:11 — These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. The Greek word anakrinontes carries the forensic sense of examining, cross-examining, sifting evidence. The Bereans did not receive Paul's teaching uncritically, nor reject it out of hand. They took his words back to the Scriptures. They compared prophecy with prophecy, type with antitype, promise with fulfillment. By this comparison of spiritual things with spiritual, they confirmed that what Paul proclaimed — that Jesus was the Christ, who had to suffer and rise from the dead — was precisely what the Scriptures had foretold. They had no magisterium, no council of rabbis, no private revelations. They had the Scriptures, they had the Spirit who gave the Scriptures, and they had the noble readiness of mind to search them. The Spirit, through the self-interpreting Word, led them into all truth.

What the Divines Meant

The Westminster Divines lived in an age when the meaning of Scripture was contested on every side. Rome claimed that only the Church — and by "the Church" Rome meant the Pope and his bishops in council — could rightly interpret the Bible. The Anabaptists and other enthusiasts claimed the Spirit spoke directly to the individual believer, often without reference to the written Word, and that the "inner light" was the ultimate interpreter of truth. The Socinians subjected the text of Scripture to human reason, treating it as a book to be dissected rather than a Word to be obeyed. The Arminians, closer to the Reformed in general method, were introducing an interpretive approach that isolated verses from their biblical context to defend doctrines the Reformed believed could not survive a whole-Bible reading. It was in this crucible of controversy that the Divines forged this brief but weighty section. Its nine-and-thirty words carry the weight of centuries of careful Reformed reflection on the nature of biblical interpretation. The first thing the Divines affirm is that there is an infallible rule of interpretation. The word "infallible" is chosen with precision. The Divines are not saying that every interpreter is infallible. They knew that the best of men, even the most learned and godly, are fallible. Calvin misinterpreted passages. Luther misinterpreted passages. The Westminster Divines themselves were not infallible in their exegesis. But the rule by which interpretation is to be carried out — that rule is infallible. And what is that rule? It is Scripture itself. This is a radical claim. Against Rome: the Pope is not the infallible interpreter. Against the enthusiasts: private revelations are not the infallible interpreter. Against the rationalists: human reason is not the infallible interpreter. There is only one infallible interpreter of Scripture, and that is Scripture. The best commentary on the Bible is the Bible. The Reformers had recovered this principle from the early church. Augustine wrote, "In the clearer passages of Scripture, we are to seek the understanding of the obscure ones." Clement of Alexandria taught that the Scriptures are their own best expositors. But it was Luther and Calvin, in their battles with Rome and the radical Reformers, who brought this principle to its fullest expression. Luther wrote that "Scripture is its own light." Calvin, in his commentary on 2 Peter, argued that true interpretation must be drawn from Scripture itself, not from the opinions of men. The Westminster Divines gathered up this inheritance and codified it in the Confession. The second affirmation is that the true and full sense of any Scripture "is not manifold, but one." This is a direct repudiation of the medieval theory of the fourfold sense of Scripture: every passage supposedly has a literal sense, an allegorical sense, a tropological or moral sense, and an anagogical or eschatological sense. This method, which dominated the church for a thousand years, turned the Bible into a wax nose that could be twisted to mean anything. A simple historical narrative could be allegorised into a treatise on the Trinity. A moral command could be spiritualised into a prophecy about the papacy. The literal sense was lost in a wilderness of fanciful interpretations. The Divines, following the Reformers' recovery of the grammatical-historical method, insisted that every passage of Scripture has one true meaning: what the human author intended under the superintending inspiration of the divine Author. This is not to deny that some passages have a typological depth that becomes clear in the light of later revelation. The Divines themselves would have affirmed that the brazen serpent lifted up in the wilderness was a type of Christ lifted up on the cross — as our Lord Himself taught. But this typological meaning is part of the one true sense as intended by God. It is not a secondary, allegorical meaning imposed by the interpreter's fancy. The practical consequence is weighty. If the sense of Scripture is one, interpretation is not an endlessly creative exercise but a discipline of discovery. The meaning is there in the text, determined by the divine Author, and the interpreter's task is to find it, not to create it. Two believers, faithfully applying the rule of Scripture interpreting Scripture under the illumination of the same Holy Spirit, should arrive at the same understanding of any passage necessary for salvation. They may differ on points of lesser clarity, but on the great truths, the self-interpreting Word will lead them into one mind. The third affirmation is that when there is a question about the sense of a Scripture, "it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly." The Divines assume — and this is the teaching of Section 7 as well — that some passages are darker and some are brighter. The perspicuity of Scripture, as we saw in Section 7, does not mean every passage is equally clear to every reader. It means the essential truths of salvation are so clearly taught somewhere in Scripture that the ordinary believer, using ordinary means, can understand them. And the present section tells us what those ordinary means are. When you encounter a dark passage, do not throw up your hands. Do not retreat into agnosticism. Do not rush to the nearest commentary — though commentaries have their subordinate and useful place. Go first to the Scriptures. Find the passages that speak more clearly on the same subject, and let the bright places interpret the dark. This is why the Westminster Divines and the Reformed tradition after them insisted on a thorough knowledge of the whole Bible. The analogy of faith — the principle that individual passages must be interpreted in harmony with the whole system of biblical truth — can only be applied by those who know the whole of Scripture well enough to bring its clear teachings to bear upon its obscure ones. This is a principle for every Christian who reads the whole Bible, who meditates upon it day and night, who stores up its words in the heart. When a dark passage is encountered, the bright passages already hidden in the heart shine their light upon it. The Divines were guarding against an error that has plagued the church in every age: building a doctrine on a single, obscure passage while ignoring the clear teaching of the rest of Scripture. Every heresy has been supported by some text twisted from its context and isolated from the whole counsel of God. The Socinians based their denial of the Trinity on verses speaking of the Father as the only true God, ignoring the many passages that equally affirm the deity of the Son and the Spirit. The enthusiasts based their claims of new revelation on isolated texts about the Spirit's teaching, ignoring the passages that close the canon and declare Scripture sufficient. The only safeguard against such errors is the principle that Scripture interprets Scripture — the whole interprets the parts — and no doctrine can stand on a single obscure text if it contradicts the clear teaching of the whole Bible.

Theological Depth

The Puritan theologian John Owen devoted his learning to defending the analogy of faith. In his treatise The Causes, Ways, and Means of Understanding the Mind of God Revealed in Scripture, Owen argues that the first rule of interpretation is to bring a humble and teachable spirit to the text. The second, inseparable from the first, is to compare Scripture with Scripture. "The only infallible rule of interpretation," Owen writes, "is, that the Scripture itself be admitted to declare its own meaning, by comparing one place with another." He is careful to note that this is the ordinary means by which every believer, led by the Spirit, grows in understanding — not merely a scholarly tool for advanced students. "The Holy Ghost, who is the author of the Scripture, is the only authentic interpreter thereof. And He continueth to perform that office in and by the Scripture itself." Owen elaborates by distinguishing the analogy of faith from the scope of individual passages. The analogy of faith, he explains, is "the constant and invariable sense of the Scripture in all necessary truths," the doctrinal framework that emerges when the whole Bible is read together. The scope of a passage is "the principal design and intention of the Holy Ghost in any portion of Scripture." Both must govern our interpretation. We must read each passage in light of its immediate context — what the author is arguing, what situation he is addressing — and in light of the whole body of divine truth, so that no interpretation of a single passage contradicts what the rest of Scripture plainly teaches. The Genevan theologian Francis Turretin, whose Institutes of Elenctic Theology was the standard Reformed textbook for generations after the Assembly, treats the interpretation of Scripture with characteristic precision. In his locus on Scripture, Turretin asks whether there is one sense of Scripture or many, and defends the Westminster position. "The sense of Scripture," he writes, "is not manifold, but one." He acknowledges that Scripture uses figures, parables, types, and prophecies, but insists these are not separate "senses" — they are different literary vehicles for conveying the one true meaning. When Christ speaks of the Father as a husbandman and believers as branches, He is not giving an allegorical meaning alongside a literal one; He is using a figure to convey a single truth about the spiritual union between Himself and His people. Turretin is helpful on how the analogy of faith functions as both a positive and negative rule. Positively, it directs us to interpret obscure passages in light of clear ones. If James seems to teach justification by works, we must interpret it in light of Romans and Galatians, where Paul teaches justification by faith alone. Negatively, the analogy of faith forbids any interpretation that contradicts the clear teaching of Scripture elsewhere. Turretin calls this the fundamental rule: "No exposition is to be admitted which conflicts with the analogy of faith or the consent of the Scriptures." The Puritan Thomas Watson, blending theological depth with pastoral warmth, gives us a memorable illustration. In his Body of Divinity he writes: "The Scripture is to be its own interpreter. As the diamond only cuts the diamond, so the Scripture only is to interpret the Scripture." The image is precise. No other stone can scratch a diamond, no metal can cut it — only another diamond can shape and polish a diamond. So it is with the Word of God. No human philosophy can interpret it. No church tradition can bind it. No private revelation can unlock it. Only the Word of God, in the hands of the Spirit of God, can interpret the Word of God. Watson goes on to illustrate the principle with practical examples. When we read in one place that God repents, and in another that God is not a man that He should repent, the clear passage — God is not a man that He should repent — must interpret the obscure one. The statement that God repents must be understood figuratively, as an accommodation to human understanding, describing not a change in God but a change in His dealings with men. When we read that Christ says, "My Father is greater than I," and also that He and the Father are one, the passage that speaks of Christ's eternal deity must interpret the passage that speaks of His incarnate humiliation. Christ is equal to the Father in His divine nature; He was made lower than the Father in His human nature. Without the principle of Scripture interpreting Scripture, neither of these passages could be rightly understood. The Princeton theologian Benjamin Warfield, in his essay on "The Westminster Doctrine of Holy Scripture," argues that Section 9 is the necessary complement to Section 7. Section 7 affirmed that Scripture is clear in all things necessary for salvation. But clarity to whom? To the reader who follows the divinely appointed method of comparing Scripture with Scripture. Warfield writes: "The perspicuity of Scripture is not an absolute perspicuity that renders all study unnecessary, but a conditional perspicuity that is realised when the reader comes to the text with the whole Scripture in view, and interprets the parts by the whole." Warfield is insistent that the one sense of Scripture does not deny its manifold applications. The same passage may have an immediate historical application, a typological application pointing toward Christ, and a moral application for the believer's life — all aspects of the one true sense intended by God. The historical sense tells us what happened; the typological sense tells us what it foreshadowed; the moral sense tells us how it applies to our conduct. All three are governed by the one meaning of the text, and none contradicts the others. John Calvin, whose commentaries remain a model of the self-interpreting method, gave the Reformed tradition its clearest example of this principle. In his preface to the Institutes, Calvin writes that the proper method is "to leave nothing obscure, but to explain one passage by another." He consistently refuses to impose an external meaning on the text, letting Paul interpret Isaiah, the Psalmist interpret Moses, Christ interpret the prophets. And he insists that the Word of God carries its own evidence: "Scripture bears upon its face as clear evidence of its truth as white and black do of their colour, and sweet and bitter of their taste." But that evidence is seen only by those who read Scripture as a whole, in the light of the Spirit, allowing the clear parts to illuminate the obscure. The Cambridge Puritan William Perkins, whose treatise The Art of Prophesying was the handbook for Puritan preachers for a century, gives us a practical method for applying the analogy of faith. He lays down four rules. First, gather the interpretation from the scope and circumstances of the passage itself — what comes before and after, to whom the words are spoken, for what purpose. Second, the interpretation must agree with the articles of faith summarised in the Apostles' Creed and the Ten Commandments, which Perkins sees as the Bible's own summary of its essential teaching. Third, the interpretation must be consistent with parallel passages, the clearer governing the darker. Fourth, when a passage is genuinely ambiguous and cannot be resolved by these means, suspend judgment and wait upon God for further light, rather than impose an uncertain meaning that may lead others astray. Perkins's fourth rule is a wise pastoral caution. The Divines taught that Scripture is its own infallible interpreter, but not that every difficulty can be resolved in this life. There are mysteries in the Word of God that will not be fully understood until faith gives way to sight — the Trinity, the incarnation, the secret operations of the Spirit in regeneration, the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. The analogy of faith gives us enough light to walk by; it does not give us a complete map of every mystery. There is a godly humility in acknowledging that some things we see through a glass darkly.

Puritan Application

First, let this doctrine humble you before the Word of God. The Scriptures are not a collection of isolated proof texts to arrange around your own theological preferences. They are not a quarry from which you extract building stones for your own system. They are a living, organic whole, the product of a single divine Mind, and every part bears a relation to every other part. When you come to the Bible, come with your mind open and your heart subdued. Do not come determined to find what you already believe. Come determined to hear what God has said. Let the whole of Scripture correct, expand, and deepen your understanding of every part. Scripture's self-sufficiency as its own interpreter means you must be a learner even as you are a reader. Be willing to have your cherished interpretations challenged by passages you have overlooked. Be willing, as the Bereans were, to search and to test. "He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him." How much more folly to settle a doctrine before the whole Scripture has been heard? Second, make the whole Bible your constant companion. The analogy of faith can only be applied by those who know the faith — and the faith is revealed in the whole Bible, not in a dozen favourite passages. A man who reads only the Psalms will know comfort, but not the law that drives him to the Comforter. A man who reads only the Epistles will know doctrine, but not the history of redemption that the doctrine explains. A man who reads only the Gospels will know Christ, but not the full significance of His death and resurrection apart from the sacrifices and prophecies of the Old Testament. To interpret Scripture by Scripture, you must have Scripture in your mind and heart. Not in fragments, but in its fullness. Read the whole Bible. Read it systematically. Read it prayerfully. Hide its words in your heart. Then, when you encounter a dark passage, the bright passages will already be within reach, stored up by the Spirit to shine their light in the moment of need. Third, beware of private interpretation in the wrong sense. Peter warns that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation. He means that the meaning of Scripture is not the product of any individual's isolated judgment. He is not forbidding you to read the Bible alone or think for yourself; he is warning you against making your own mind the measure of the text. The enthusiast reads a verse, feels a strong inward impression, and concludes that the Spirit has given him the meaning, without ever comparing his impression with the rest of the Bible. The sectarian finds a single passage that seems to support his peculiar doctrine and builds a whole theology upon it, ignoring the hundred passages that contradict him. The proud man reads only to confirm what he already believes, never allowing the Word to correct him. All of these are forms of private interpretation. The remedy is the communio sanctorum, the communion of the saints: the living church, whose teachers can help us avoid eccentric interpretations; the whole church of all ages, whose creeds and confessions summarise what the whole Bible teaches; and above all, the communion of the biblical authors themselves, who, though they wrote in different ages and languages, spoke with one voice because they spoke by one Spirit. Fourth, when you encounter a difficult passage, do not despair and do not skip it. The Divines teach you what to do: search it by other places that speak more clearly. This is a discipline, and like all disciplines, it requires patience and practice. Take up your concordance — or, in our day, the digital tools that make this searching so much easier — and find every passage of Scripture that addresses the same subject. Read them all in their contexts. Note where they agree and where they seem to differ. Let the clear passages interpret the dark. Let the many interpret the few. Let the explicit interpret the implicit. And above all, pray. The same Spirit who inspired the words is present to illuminate them. Ask Him to open your eyes. Wait upon Him. Trust that He who gave the Word for your instruction will not leave you in darkness concerning anything you truly need to know. "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." Fifth, use this principle as a shield against error. Every false teacher quotes Scripture. The devil himself quoted Scripture in the wilderness, twisting it from its context and its true meaning. How can you discern between the true use of Scripture and its abuse? By this rule. When you hear a preacher or teacher make a claim, ask: Does this interpretation fit with the whole teaching of Scripture? Or does it rest upon a single verse taken in isolation? Does it harmonise with the clear teaching of the Bible on this subject? Or does it contradict passages that speak more plainly? The test of the analogy of faith is simple, and it is available to every believer. You do not need to be a scholar to ask, "What does the rest of the Bible say?" You need a working knowledge of the Scriptures and a willingness to search them. This is your defence against the winds of doctrine that blow through the church in every generation. Sixth, let this doctrine fill you with confidence. The Scriptures are not a labyrinth designed to confuse you. They are not a code that only the initiated can crack. They are clear where it matters most, and where they are less clear, they contain within themselves the means of clarification. The same God who gave you the Book has given you the key to the Book, and the key is the Book itself. You may open it with confidence, read it with expectation, search it with diligence. And you may trust that the Spirit who dwells in you will guide you into all truth: not by new revelations, not by private impressions, but by the Word itself, as you compare spiritual things with spiritual and let the bright places illuminate the dark. This is the liberty of the children of God: to read their Father's letter, to understand it by the help of the Spirit, and to live by its light.

Prayer

O Lord God of truth, who hast given us Thy Word to be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, we bow before Thee in thanksgiving and humble dependence. We confess that we have often been slothful in searching the Scriptures. We have skipped over hard passages rather than labouring to understand them. We have trusted the opinions of men more than the teaching of Thy Spirit through Thy Word. We have built doctrines upon isolated texts without comparing them with the whole counsel of Thy will. Forgive us, we beseech Thee, and grant us a more noble and diligent spirit, as was in the Bereans of old. Teach us, O blessed Spirit, to interpret Scripture by Scripture. When a passage is dark, lead us to the passages that speak more clearly. When we are tempted to despair of understanding, remind us that Thou hast not spoken to conceal Thyself but to reveal Thyself, and that the things necessary for our salvation are plainly set forth in Thy Word. When we are tempted to impose our own meanings upon the sacred text, check us by the analogy of faith and by the one true sense which Thou hast determined. Grant us a deep and comprehensive knowledge of the whole Bible, that we may bring its clear teaching to bear upon every difficult place. Write its words upon our hearts, that they may be our meditation day and night, and that in the hour of perplexity the Spirit may bring to our remembrance what Thou hast spoken. Protect us from every wind of doctrine, from every plausible error that twists the Scriptures to its own destruction, and from the pride that insists upon its own interpretation against the consent of the whole body of revealed truth. Above all, we pray, let this rule of interpretation lead us always and ever to Christ, in whom all the Scriptures find their centre and their goal. As He expounded to the disciples on the road to Emmaus the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures, so cause our hearts to burn within us as we trace His glory through every book, every chapter, every verse, until we see Him face to face in the kingdom of our Father. We ask all this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the living Word, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end. Amen.