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Untitled Article
very method put them -upon examining , considering * and judging for themselves . . Indeed this was our Lord ' s usual method . He very seldoitf expressly asserted that he was the Christy except in his discourses with those who were already convinced of it by the evidences he had produced . To them lie made no scruple to declare it
and to reason with them in a manner suitable to that charac - ter and instruct them in the purport of his heavenly message * But those who disbelieved , or doubted , he only referred to The proofs he gave of his divine mission , and required them to give these an impartial consideration . " If I bear witness / 'said he , " of myself , my witness is not true ; the works which I do in my Father ' s name , they bear witness of me , that the Father hath sent me . If I do hot the ' works which no other
man did , believe me not ; but if I do , though ye believe not me , believe the vvork& , that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me , and I in him / 7 So sparing was he in expressly asserting his character as being the Christ , that the Jews objected against him oft this very account , John x . 24 . * How long dost thou make us to doubt ? " i . e . hold us in suspense .
' If thou be the Christ , tell us plainly / ' Jesus answered them , cc I told you , and ye believed not : the works which I do in my Father ' s name , they bear witness of me : " as if he had said , < c -1 had much rather that your belief in me should be the result of the conviction of your own judgments , founded on the evidence of the miraculous attestations from God that he hath
sent me , which I have presented in such abundance before your senses , fend through them to your understandings than on any express declarations of my own ; which , taken separately from these works , would have little rational credibility /* Now certainly this was very fair , open * and sincere ; Here was nothing that looks like deceit or artifice , or a design to impose on the credulity of mankind . Here is n © cover of ambiguous words or phrases , no intricate or mysterious harangue , no farfetched reasdhings , no allusive abuses or allegorical interpretations oi scripture-passages , by which evil men or enthusiasts delude the ignorant , and overwhelm their firrinds in thicker darkness . Jesus dealt with inen as reasonable creatures , and in
a manner that obliged them to exercise their reason : he placed faith in himself on such a footing , that they could not come at it , but bv the conviction of their understandings ; but then he placed tfie evidences which must produce that conviction in the most obvious manner before their senses . He required of them only to open their eyes and cars , and consider seriousljr of what they saw and heard j and then they could not xxiiss of
Untitled Article
540 On the Interview of Je $ u&with John's Disciples *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1806, page 540, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1729/page/36/
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