On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    The Primate and his editors , it is true , refer to Mark iv . 25 . and Rom . viii . 32 . for authorities ; but the passages are not in the least similar to that in question . If the

    apostle had intended the sense put upon the words , he would have thus written , OV cpoLvs ^ uobsis sv crag ™ ; sSikoliwOy } sv irvsvu * ccri : the first clause would thus express the subject of what is predicated concerning it in the second and

    subsequent clauses ; and this form is a very common usage in every Greek writer . The Greek text , adopted by the editors , would be literally thus : " And without at controversy , the mystery of godliness is great : who was manifested

    iti the flesh , was justified by the spirit , " &c , which , if it be any sense ^ is a sense very remote from the meaning of St . Paul . And this brings me to my second argument .

    The false teachers , to whom the writer alludes throughout this epistle , prided in their superior wisdom , and protended to teach tin * deepest mysteries , while they affected to despise the apostolic

    teachers for Jhe plainness and simplicity of their doctrines . It is to this leading feature in the character of the impostors , that the apostle here glances . The mystery

    i » J godliness is confessedly great ; as though he had said , * The doctrine of the gospel , which the deceivers from purposes of fraud and lucre , hold forth and teach as -mysterious , is , 1 acknowledge , a

    * Thus in Bion Idyl , i . 5 O , § fs t ( A , ^ % meaiis lam immortal ^ actd cannct die ; so also Sophocles , saying that the laws of Jupiter were not liable to corruption or change , Writes fAi < y < x $ iv tovtgij Stos ovSfe . ynPOTxci , A great God exists in tbemyfior dpes it dctay jtiftb age . The apofttle , in ascribing Seot to Christ , deinies his meaning by premising that he uses the word in a mysterious or figurative sense , and opposing it to " * £ ? , a principle of corruption .

    Untitled Article

    great mystery . " He then proceeds to shew in what the mystery consisted , and with his usual energy and dexterity , places it 0 * those very points of faith , which were denied by the Gnostics , Mystery , according to Paul and

    his divine master , was a comparisonor a parable ; See Matt . xiii . 12 . Rom xi * ^ 5 . -which ' had- -an external literal sense , and an internal moral one . On one side ot

    the comparison it was , therefore , apt to appear paradoxical or contradictory , but just and true in the other . The leading idea of deity * is exemption from death ; hence 9- £ 0 £ of tea meant immortal * , and

    thus stood opposed to < rccg % 9 which is liable to corruption . While the Gnostics maintained that the Christ was a God , they denied that he had a real human body , or in the language of that

    age , that he came or appeared in the flesh * they also denied that the spirit justified his claims by his resurrection from the grave and ascension into heaven ; whilst

    actuated by Jewish bigotry , they endeavoured to oppose the preaching and reception of his gospel in the world at large . These are the dogmas , at which the apostle appears to me to glance ; and his meaning is to thiscfiVCti ** "Tlie

    mystery of the gospel , so far tfrolu being wliat the false brethren pretend it to be , is the very reverse ; Christ was a real man , and there - fore mortal , and proved the divi - nity of his mission byh is triumph

    Untitled Article

    Strictures upon the Improved Fer « iow .-rl Tim . iii . 16 . and iv . 1 . 39

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1809, page 39, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1732/page/39/