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PART I . CONCLUDED . The process of the deification of Christ was aided by another and a most powerful principle of the human breast . The offence of the cross was among the earliest impediments of the
Gospel . The Jews accounted him accursed that was hanged on a tree . The Gentiles despised the whole nation of Israelites , and held in supreme contempt a teacher of that nation , who had , by the confession of his followers , suffered capital punishment in its most degrading shape . How could he be the Messiah , the one argued , whose unacceptance with God was declared by the
sufferings which he underwent ? Is it likely , thought the other , that I should relinquish the teachings of Plato and Pythagoras , of Aristotle and Cicero , to take up with the delusions of a crucified Jew ? These difficulties , we know , were felt . Constantly were they thrown in the way of the Christian missionaries . "What is there surprising in the fact that they should meet them by
declaring , that the outward meanness was compensated by an inward glory ? Their pride would prompt them to rank their master as highly as they could ; and their benevolence , too , would be concerned to remove as far as possible every stumblingblock . At first , they would be content to appeal to the mighty deeds and eminent wisdom of the crucified Teacher . When it
was replied that still he was but a crucified Jew , how natural the rejoinder , that he was the Son of God , understanding that phrase rather in a heathenish than a Gospel sense , and straining it to signify a mysterious relationship of nature between the Creator and the Redeemer . Thus the offence of the cross would be
removed , the objector silenced , and pride and benevolence alike gratified . How objectionable to many of the early converts was the fact of Christ ' s crucifixion , may be easily gathered from the visionary notions of the Gnostics respecting his person . Rather than believe that the Messiah had suffered the death of a
malefactor , they maintained that he had been crucified only in appearance—that a mere phantom of Jesus had been tortured unto death . The indisposition to receive a palpable fact which drove the Gnostics to this most groundless and absurd imagination , might , it is easy to see , lead others to ascribe that dignity to his nature which belonged exclusively to his character . Of the two
resources the latter was the more plausible . That pre-eminent greatness did belong to Jesus , no one could for a moment doubt . Whether it sprung from the Deity within his breast , or the Deity in the universe , was a metaphysical question , which might be determined either way without leading to absurdity , and which those whose pride was concerned in the solution of it mi g ht , with no great difficulty , answer in agreement with their inclina-
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY .
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109
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1832, page 109, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1806/page/37/
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