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introduce the written use of Latin , after it ceased to be a vernacular tongue , to the notice of Europe . The celebration of their ritual in that language was , perhaps , alone sufficient to keep its embers alive for a splendid though a late revival . ^ i
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Justin Martyr lived before the in vention of the strange and contradictory creeds which are now by th " great majority of believers held to contain the essence of the Christian faith : he had indeed imbibed those ideas of Christ which were adopted
by the heathen conyerts , to raise the dignity of their suffering Master . The man Christ Jesus was a stumblingblock to their pride ; and accustomed as they and their forefathers had been to " Gods many and Lords many , ' it is not surprising that they should
fall into errors of this kind -y but from the evidence just produced , it is plain that Justin was so far from believing him to be God equal to , and in the same sense with the Father , ( an idea which at that time had probably never
entered into the mind of man , ) that he was very doubtful whether he could bring sufficient proof merely of hispreexistence and miraculous couception ; and was anxious to persuade the Jew whom he sought to convert , that these points had nothing to do with the main
question , whether Jesus was the Christ , Happy would it be , if at least the Protestants of the present day , would lay aside the notion of the infallibility of their own creeds , and with the candour and meekness which characterize true Christianity , join with those who differ from them , in calmly
investigating the questions at issue between them ; owning that all are to be commended , and not anathematized , for obeying the command of their Master , to " search the scrip tures ; " and not take upon trust tlie
dark , mysterious and contradictory doctrines , which cannot be laid before them in scripture language , and were therefore only collected from thenci by inference . I remain , Sir , Respectfully your ' s ,
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146 Justin Martyrs Testimony concerning Christ .
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Sir . OUR brethren who call themselves orthodox believers , are fond of quoting the Fathers , whenever they can find a passage in their writings which affords support to the mysterious doctrines which they so zealously espouse : but Justin Martyr , o » e of the earliest of these , would , if he had lived in our times , have been found far indeed below the standard usually required ; and not rising with much apparent firmness , above the scantiest creed of the Unitarians . We are told by Thonlas Emlyn , that this
Father " disputing" with a Jew , and pleading for the honour of Jesus Christ , whom he calls a God by the will of the Father , and one who ministered to his will before his
incarnation : This person attempts to shew that Jesas Christ did pre-exist of old , as a God ( in his sense , ) and was born afterwards of the Virgin 5 but because , as he says , there were some who confessed him to be Christ , and yet denied thosq points of his pre-existence and liis miraculous birth of a
virgin , that Father calmly says to his adversary , ' If I shall not demonstrate these things , that he did pre-exist , &c . and was born of a virgin 3 yet still the cause is not tost , as to his being the Christ of God ; if I do not
prove that he did pre-exist , &c . it is just to say that I am mistaken in this thing only , and not to deny that he is the Christ * , for whosoever he be , it is every way demonstrated that he is the Christ . ' And as for those
Christians who denied the above-mentioned things , and held him to be only a man , born in the ordinary way , lie only says of 1 hem * to whom I accord not / He does not damn those who differed from him , nor will say that the Christian religion is subverted , and Christ an impostor , and a broken reed to trust on , if he be
not the very Supreme God , ( the ranting dialect of our profane age !) no , but still he is sure that he is the true "Christy whatever else he might be mistaken in . " Emlyn ' s Tracts .
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^—Sir , Feb . 10 , 1813 . WHILE reading Gibbon ' s Bom < I was struck with a note , Vol . iii . 8 vo . p . 267 , containing lines too < toparagins to the first Christian Empero r to render their insertion at all uo * countable . Their singularity pd uceu me to attempt a translation , whici will subjoin with the original" Lors Constantin dit ces propres p » r ° * « Tai renv ^ ers ^ le cuile des idoles $
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1815, page 146, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1758/page/18/
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