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Untitled Article
6 / fn the discourse which has exeked the animadvfersiofi g erf this author , I have said , " that Christ is so plainly and uniformly represented throughout his history * as a human beings that I cannot but believe that an untaught unprejudiced reader would never have suspected the humble prophet of Nazareth to be any other than a man , like other ' men , invested indeed with
great powers for some very important and benevolent purposes /* After some appropriate exclamations upon my * unfortunate blindness to the light of truth , " the author proceeds ( p . 18 ) to disprove iny assertion * ** Suppose , ' ' says he , " an unprejudiced and attentive reader began and went through the gospel history , is it at all likely he would be led to conclude that Jesus Christ is a mere man . like other men , when at the first
outset he is told by an angel , that Mary should conceive of the Holy Spirit , and the child born should be called God with us ? As he goes on reading , he is told that the Word was made flesh , &c- Add to these the solemn declaration of the apostles that he is the true God—God over all—Alpha and Omega , and
the like . " Observe here , that our enlightened writer , in order to disprove the assertion that Christ , throughout his history
is represented as a human being , first quotes a passageirorn the preface to the gospel of Matthew , \ Vhich is no part of the evangelical history , But an incredible fable appended to it ; stnd then skipping over the whole of the gospels of Matthew , Markyand Luke , the plain narrators of the historv of Christ , he cites two
or three obscure passages from the gospel of John ; and then , passing over the history of the Acts , he makes a quotation or two from the Epistles and the Revelation . I must inform my worth y opponent , that by the word history , I mean , history , and not epistle , or prophecy ; and I may Ifcave it to the judgment of
the impartial reader whether it may not be fairly concluded from the gentleman ' s own induction , that the unprejudiced iind attentive reader , would find little , or nothing , in favour of the , doctrine of the pre-existence of Christy in four , out of five of the historical books .
From these facts I have deduced what appears to me to be the fair conclusion , that the commonly received doctrine of the divinity of Christ " rests upon detached passages from mystical discourses contained in the gospel of -John , and upon some figurative expressions in the epistles of Paul ; to which
my worthy ammadyerter replies ( p . 26 ) , in the following reluarkable words : " Whatever figurative expressions may be found in Paul ' s epistles , I cannot conceive what mystical discourses Mr , B . alludes to in John ' s gospel . " Such is the advantage of spiritual light and heavenlv wisdom ^ over mere qatu- *
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$ 9 O Msntarfo on Mr . Prbtid * § Piamphtet .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1806, page 590, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1730/page/30/
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