A Word of Preface

We use the expression, “Stumbling Stones,” merely by way of accommodation. The most devout and patient students of the Word of God fail to find inconsistencies, contradictions or real discrepancies in the Bible. All difificulties are due either to the imperfection of the medium of transmission, human language; or to the imperfection of the receptacle of the truth, the human mind itself. Our limited capacity, or our limited point of view and range of vision, may account for apparent imperfections, obscurities and disagreements in the Divine Word.

The purpose of this little book is not so much to reach those who accuse and assault the Inspired Word, as to help believers. That old Saint, Kleker, told D’Aubigne, that to remove one difficulty out of the way of a caviller only makes way for another; and that, if one will only take Christ as a complete Saviour and make a full surrender to Him, difficulties will commonly vanish. We believe that it is the heart that makes the theology; and that most of our doubts may be ultimately traced to an “evil heart of unbelief” that departs from the living God.

Nevertheless even the most candid and reverent believer finds in the Word of God, especially in the English Bible, some difificulties or hindrances in the way of his understanding, if not of his faith; and such disciples it is our humble aim to help:

1. By removing unnecessary stumbling
stones out of their way;

2. By enabling them to understand what may have been obscure;

3. By laying down certain laws or “canons” of Interpretation;

4. By exposing devices of Satan and other adversaries of the truth;

5. By showing the entire symmetry and self-consistency of the Truth itself.

Where real contradiction exists. Error must be present. Either the error lies in what we mistake for the truths as a mirage is mistaken for a reality; or the error lies in our own organs of visio7i our eye, being diseased, sees double where the object is single. A true believer runs no risk in calmly and resolutely examining into any alleged difficulty or discrepancy in the Bible. If one encounters a supposed ghost on a dark night, the best way is to walk up to it, and look it squarely in the face. To flee from a supposed apparition may leave a lingering doubt whether the ghostly illusion were a reality or not: a bold touch would have dispelled both the illusion and the doubt. To wait patiently and to search diligently is to find even the most formidable difficulties vanish, and to see the error to be one of our own ignorance or misapprehension. Nay, it often happens that stumbling stones become stepping stones, and hindrances are changed to helps.

2320 Spruce St, Philadelphia Pa.
October, 1890.