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Sermons Preached in Union Chapel, Manchester
Sermons Preached in Union Chapel Manchester Author:Alexander Maclaren General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1859 Original Publisher: printed for private circulation Subjects: Religion / Sermons / Christian Religion / Christianity / Baptist Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the ... more »General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: Jlfl SERMON I. THE STONE OF STUMBLING. Matthew xxi. 44. " Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder." As Christ's ministry drew to its close, its severity and its gentleness both increased -- its severity to the class to whom it was always severe, and its gentleness to the class from whom it never turned away. Side by side, through all His manifestation of Himself, there were the two aspects, -- "he shewed Himself froward" (if I may quote the word) to the self-righteous and the Pharisee; and he bent with more than a woman's tenderness of yearning love over the darkness and sinfulness, which in its great darkness dimly knew itself blind, and in its sinfulness stretched-out a lame hand of faith, and groped after a divine deliverer. Here, in my text, there are only words of severity and awful foreboding. Christ has been telling those Pharisees and priests that the kingdom is to be taken from them, and given to a nation that brings forth the fruits thereof. He interprets for them an Old Testament figure, often recurring, which we read in the 118th Psalm -- (and I may just say, in passing, we get here his interpretation of that psalm, and the vindication of our application of it, and other similar ones, to Him and His office). " The stone which the builders rejected," said He, " is become the head of the corner;" -- and then, falling back on other Old Testament uses of the same figure, He weaves into one t...« less