Studying The Bible Or Brief Criticisms On Some Of The Principal Scripture Texts

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1870 edition. Excerpt: ...It would be hard to authenticate a single instance of the existence of a translation of the Gospels into the vulgar tongue of any country into which Christianity was established, at any time within the first four centuries. The clergy, or those engaged and interested in the business of dealing out spiritual edification, whose testimony we have alone on the subject, mutually criminate and re-criminate each other according as they grasp or lose their hold on the ascendency (and so are held to be orthodox or heretical) with corrupting the Scriptures." Four hundred years are a long time, and in that day when books were few and only in manuscript, how much of forgery and interpolation might have been resorted to and passed unnoticed and undetected, and even if now and then one were found out, how easy to smuggle it up and keep it away from the public, lest it might injure the church, or if approved of, to let it" remain as the real " Simon Pure," that it may "help the cause along! " Even as worse things are now hidden and smuggled up in her corrupt and deceiving heart. " A grain of mustard seed, which is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree."--Matt. xiii. 32. Jesus must have been very ignorant and. unobservant of the seeds and habits of plants to have thought mustard the smallest of seeds, when there are seeds so minute as not to be perceptible to the naked eye, and there are many herbs whose stature and size exceed that of the mustard tree. ' " Shall cast them into the furnace of fire, and there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."--Matt. xiii. 50. Would an earthly parent cast his children into a furnace of fire, let them...

A compelling history of atheism in American public life A much-maligned minority throughout American history, atheists have been cast as a threat to the nation's moral fabric, barred from holding public office, and branded as irreligious misfits in a nation chosen by God. Yet, village atheists—as these godless freethinkers came to be known by the close of the nineteenth century—were also hailed for their gutsy dissent from stultifying pieties and for posing a necessary secularist challenge to majoritarian entanglements of church and state. Village Atheists explores the complex cultural terrain that unbelievers have long had to navigate in their fight to secure equal rights and liberties in American public life. Leigh Eric Schmidt rebuilds the history of American secularism from the ground up, giving flesh and blood to these outspoken infidels, including itinerant lecturer Samuel Porter Putnam; rough-edged cartoonist Watson Heston; convicted blasphemer Charles B. Reynolds; and atheist sex reformer Elmina D. Slenker. He describes their everyday confrontations with devout neighbors and evangelical ministers, their strained efforts at civility alongside their urge to ridicule and offend their Christian compatriots. Schmidt examines the multilayered world of social exclusion, legal jeopardy, yet also civic acceptance in which American atheists and secularists lived. He shows how it was only in the middle decades of the twentieth century that nonbelievers attained a measure of legal vindication, yet even then they often found themselves marginalized on the edges of a God-trusting, Bible-believing nation. Village Atheists reveals how the secularist vision for the United States proved to be anything but triumphant and age-defining for a country where faith and citizenship were—and still are—routinely interwoven.

365 Gospel-Centered Devotions for the Whole Year Mornings can be tough. Sometimes, a hearty breakfast and strong cup of coffee just aren’t enough. Offering more than a rush of caffeine, best-selling author Paul David Tripp wants to energize you with the most potent encouragement imaginable: the gospel. Forget “behavior modification” or feel-good aphorisms. Tripp knows that what we really need is an encounter with the living God. Then we’ll be prepared to trust in God’s goodness, rely on his grace, and live for his glory each and every day.