MISSREAD PASSAGE
of
SCRIPTURE.
| I. | The Kingdom of Christ. | 1 |
| II. | The Dues of Cæsar and of Christ. | 14 |
| III. | “Unto This Last.” | 25 |
| IV. | Law and Life. | 38 |
| V. | The Lost Birthright. | 53 |
| VI. | No Place of Repentance. | 69 |
| VII. | The Curse of the Ground. | 86 |
| VIII. | The Easily Besetting Sin. | 102 |
| IX. | The Law of Abstinence. | 117 |
MISREAD PASSAGES
OF
SCRIPTURE.
BY
Author of “The Divine Life in Man,” “The Home Life,” &c., &c.
New York:
CARLTON & LANAHAN,
805, BROADWAY.
1869.
[iii]PREFACE.
The accompanying Sermons on “Misread Passages of Scripture” form part ofa series which the author projected, but which through ill health he hasbeen unable to complete. He sends them forth in this imperfect form, incompliance with the wish of the publishers; and in the belief too thatthe topics of some of them will not be without interest, in the conflictof thought on theological subjects which waxes rather than wanes year byyear.
The reader will see that much space has not been occupied with criticaldiscussions; nor has the author gone out of his way to correct theEnglish version of the Scriptures. He appreciates fully the value ofcritical inquiries; but it is wonderful how the sense of leadingpassages of the Bible gets moulded, apart from, and even in defiance of,critical considerations, by the bias of the various theological schools.Each school makes, if not its own version of the Bible, its owninterpretation of the leading passages; and tradition plays an importantpart in the Protestant as well as in the Roman Church. The text beingaccepted, each party makes its own version of it, and widely differentsenses are extracted from the same words. Hence it happens that[iv]important passages of Scripture have certain ideas associated with themin the popular mind, which, if they are erroneous, are not to becorrected by a simple announcement, on competent critical authority, ofthe true rendering of the text.
The author of this little volume believes that there are some veryp