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

    bfelief , and their sect spread ih all quarters . Nor is ^ surprising that the Apostle * s report of sach a miracle as the bodily ascent of Jesus into heaven should receive credit , when we consider the popularity of their cause at Jerusalem *—( p . 123 . ) How many things doubtful , or merely possible , are here assumed as certain , to account for the continued profession and spread of the Gospel !

    That the faith of the Apostles would revive after the crucifixion , which , it is allowed , dissipated their fondest hopes for the time ; and that it would revive by recollecting , amidst the bitterness of present disappointment , a series of previous frauds , practised upon them or by them in support of these now obviously false hopes : that Peter , the man of impulses—the zealous and the wavering—the boaster and the coward , should have been the

    cool , consistent , deep-designing intriguer , who conducted the farce of a pretended resurrection , and revived by the Wesley-like mixture of religion and ambition * in his character , the zeal and confidence of the other disciples , are positions founded on anything but the history of fact and the philosophy of human nature ; and the alleged popularity of the Christian cause at Jerusalem' must be taken with some latitude , when we remember that the ruling

    powers were in deadly league against it , and that its popularity with the people had arisen from false hopes of empire now damped at least by the crucifixion . But the revival of popularity on behalf of the Gospel is accounted for by the pretended resurrection ; and a parallel is found in the history of Sabbathai Sevi , whose followers , after his death , * gave out that he was transported to heaven like Enoch and Elijah . ' The author labours to show that

    the apostles may have pretended that of Christ , without the cheat being exposed . I have only two observations to make on his conjectural account of the matter . The first is , that by his own showing , the apostles must have encumbered themselves with needless difficulties by the imposture , if such it was , considering the easy credulity of the people they had to deal with and the already existing * popularity * of the Gospel . He supposes * that Peter—himself continuing to believe that Jesus was the Messiah ,

    and that though his body was crucified , dead , and buried , yet that his spirit had departed to heaven , and would return again in the flesh to judge the world—would not hesitate , for the sake of increasing the effect of these doctrines , to concert with the other apostles the pious fraud of reporting that the body of Jesus had returned to life and ascended to heaven in his sight /—( p . 127 . ) So Peter and the other apostles believed the spiritual resurrection of Christ , and invented the bodily to increase the effect of the

    * Such a mixture of religion and ambition existed in the character of John "VYesl « y > and might equally have combined in that of Peter . '—Note , p . 128 . The . question is , whether it did * and more especially whether there are any signs of its influencing Peter to the coune ascribed to trim a * the time supposed , vi * ., that of M $ 4 # niai and bit Lord ' * erwtffalon .

    Untitled Article

    SS 6 Orthodoxy and Unhellefi

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1832, page 836, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1826/page/44/