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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.
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one in us ; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me . ' < 4 That this was a customary phraseology in the sacred writing's , see 1 Cor . iii . 8 : < Now he that planteth and he that watereth are o ?? e '—united in interest , design and affection Turn also to Gen . xli . 25 , where , afrer Pharaoh had related his
two dreams , Joseph says , the dream of Pharaoh is one ; " that is , the two dreams signify the same thing . 44 II will be scarcely necessary , after what has heen said , to trouble you with many observations on the next three texts 5 which only convey the general important
doctrine , the ground of Mr . Meadley ' s consolation and hope , emphatically expressed by himself , as his friends recollect with pleasure , in the severity of his last sickness , that the Lord Jesus acted in all thing's , and will act in all thing's to the end , by authority and commission from the Father . This would indeed have been
evident to 3011 all , if Dr . Gray had vouchsafed to go on with his quotation from John xii . 9 > to the end of tlie 10 th verse : c He that hath seen me hath seen the Father j and how sayest tbou , shew us the Father ? Believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in me ? The
words which I speak unto you , / speak not of myself ; but the Father who dvoelletk in ? ney he doth the works ? See also verses 49 , 50 . The same observation will apply to the term ImmanneJ , quoted by the Doctor , under his second class of texts ; and to every passage in which the Lord Jesus is represented as the medium of the manifestation of the goodness and power of God
44 The next te « it , which the Doctor quotes , is intended by him to prove the pre-existeuce of Jesns Christ John viii . 50 : ' Before Abraham was , I am . ' In the former part of the chapter we find our Saviour disputing- with the prejudiced and big-oted Jews , who , on his promising- to those who believed in him l that they 1
should be made free , replied with indignation , ' that they were Abraham ' s seed , and were never in bondage to any man . * Jesus explains to them that the slavery to which he referred was the slavery of sin , from which h < came to set them free . On their re-nsset-tiiig- th «* ir privileges as Abraham ' s seed , Jesus assigns to the dispositions they manifested a very different origin , I speak that which I have seen of my Father , and ye do that which ye have seen with your Father ) * rhy which we are no more authorized to understand him as asserting , ( hat lie was existing- in a former state a separate and distinct being from the Father , than we can suppose him to mean that the Jews had pre-existed , and literally seen the devil doings any
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thing , but—alluding- to that sure and satisfactory knowledge which men receive by ocular inspection—that he had the most certain knowledge of the will of God , that will which God gave him to repeal to mankind , and which is perfectly just and true , proceeding from God 5 just as all things bad and false are said to proceed from the devil .
44 After much captious and prejudiced altercation , in the course of his replies to which , our Saviour charg'es them with * seeking to kill him , a man that had told them the truth which he had heard from God , this , ' says he , * did not Abraham ; * 4
on the contrary , he rejoiced to see my day , aad he saw it , and was glad . * He saw his dai / j not himself in a pre-existent state . The Jews , however , maliciously perverting his wards , reply , 6 thou art not yet fifty years old , and hast thou seen Abraham ? ' Our Lord had never
mentioned seeing Abraham , but spoke of Abraham seeing ' his day , that is , the gospel nines , in which it was expressly revealed to Abraham , ( Gen . xxii 18 , ) 4 all nations should be blessed in his seed . * He
therefore answers them , not according to their perverted construction , but according to the true and obvious meaning of his own words , and tells them , that Abraham both might , and did , see his day , for that before Abraham was he was—in the
counsels of the Almighty , who revealed his mission to Abraham ; before whom , even i from the foundation of the world , * the Lord Jesus was appointed to be the Word
of God to men . 44 What has been said will explain our Lord * s meaning in Dr . Gray ' s next quota-4
tion , from the prayer which he offered up , a little before his crucifixion , ' to * his Father and our Father , to his God and our God . * He had finished , Jhe says , the work which God had given him to do , and he now pi ays , ( John xvii . 5 , ) that God would * glorify him with the glory which he had with him before the world was * If these
beginning * , but conferred on liiin in the fulness of time , when he had finished the work which was given him , we have then a very clear and consistent notion of hte exaltation to the right hand , of God , of his being constituted the Head over all things to his church , of his coming again in glory to judge the world , and of his being appointed to this high office 4 because he is the Son of Man . ' cc Other similar expressions are i »
words are supposed to refer to glory which had been already enjoyed by him , as another and different being * from the Father in a state prior to this , how could it be considered as a reward ? But if we consider this glory as existing in the Divine counsels , and appointed for him from the
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£ 84 Proceedings at Stmderland relating to Mr . Meadley ' s Monument .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1819, page 284, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1772/page/4/
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