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PERVERTING SCRIPTURE

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Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 24, 1860

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 16, No. 10.

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PERVERTING SCRIPTURE.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

It is not strange that the mass of the people have such erroneous ideas of the teachings of the Bible, considering the trust and confidence they have in their ministers, many of whom seem to care only to please the people and get their patronage. If the Bible does not sustain their doctrines, they will vary a text to suit their own liking, and repeat it so, until the people believe it to be genuine scripture.
A Methodist minister here, in a sermon quoted Rev. xxii, 18, thus: "If any man add unto the words of this book, God shall add unto him eternal woe!" Query. Did he not bring the curse of that text on his own head? I think he did.
Another man while preaching a funeral sermon went on to tell about the immortal souls' leaving the body at death, and going away to glory, just as though it was all scripture, and then added, Peter says, "Wherefore comfort one another with these words." Now this is the language of Paul, and not Peter. And what are the words he refers to? Hear him: "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." I Thess. iv, 13-18.
How different are the words of Paul from those of the preacher, and yet they were received for the truth. It is a fact that we cannot often hear a sermon, unmixed with home-made scripture. Tell a man that a soul that sinneth it shall die, and you are answered, "Why, don't the Bible say they shall die the death that never dies, or some like expression?" which they verily think is Bible.
D. M. CANRIGHT.
Kinderhook, Mich.