The accompanying Sermons on “Misread Passages of Scripture” form part of
a series which the author projected, but which through ill health he has
been unable to complete. He sends them forth in this imperfect form, in
compliance with the wish of the publishers; and in the belief too that
the topics of some of them will not be without interest, in the conflict
of thought on theological subjects which waxes rather than wanes year by
year.
The reader will see that much space has not been occupied with critical
discussions; nor has the author gone out of his way to correct the
English version of the Scriptures. He appreciates fully the value of
critical inquiries; but it is wonderful how the sense of leading
passages 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 own
interpretation of the leading passages; and tradition plays an important
part in the Protestant as well as in the Roman Church. The text being
accepted, each party makes its own version of it, and widely different
senses are extracted from the same words. Hence it happens that
important passages of Scripture have certain ideas associated with them
in the popular mind, which, if they are erroneous, are not to be
corrected by a simple announcement, on competent critical authority, of
the true rendering of the text.
The author of this little volume believes that there are some very
popular but very detrimental misapprehensions, not of the true reading
only, but of the true bearing of many important passages; and he offers
this slight contribution towards a true understanding of them in the
earnest hope that it may stimulate some so to search the Scriptures as
to find in them not the confirmation of cherished dogmas, far less
stones for the slings of theological war, but the Word of Eternal Life.