On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
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
But to returnk This whole passage is thus rendered by the late Mr . Wakefield . " And confessedly great is this mystery- of godliness ., which was manifested in flesh , vindicated by the spirit , seen by messengers ( that is apostles )" , proclaimed among gentiles , believed on in the world s taken up with glory . "
But supposing the word Oeos- not to be an interpolation but the genuine reading , still the passage has no relation to any fancied mystery in the person of Christ , which never formed any part of Apostolic preaching , ( if we haveafaithful account of their ministry ^) as this mystery is said to do , but only to the manifestation of God in , or by the doctrine and miracles of Jesus Christ ; for this is that which was preached to the gentiles and believed on irr the world . '
His next pretended assertion of the New Testament , that Christ is God / ' is in these words , " God who hath purchased the Church with his own blood /* Acts xx _ 28 . If the person who is here represented as shedding his blood to purchase the Church be properly God > it will involve irk it the idea that the
divine being is material , and capable of suffering and death , which is so repugnant to all our notions of God , so gross and absurd as not to be admitted by any rational being . . If by his own blood we understand the blood which was by him appointed to be shed for that purpose , and on that account called his own
blood , it will relieve the passage from that preposterous idea ; but then it will be destructive of the end for which it is brought by this writer . We are certai n however , from the correct language of the New Testament , that the blood here spoken of is not the blood of God , but of Jesus Christ ; an ellipsis must therefore be supposed , and that the pronoun he is to be understood as having
Christ for its antecedent though not expressed , which is no unusual thing in the New Testament ; so i John iii . 5 . "Ye know that he was manifest to take away our sins , ** where there is no antecedent to the pronoun he but the Father , yet he . cannot be intended , and we are under the necessity of understanding the words of Jesus Christ , though he is not mentioned in the
context : so vei ; se 16 th of the same chapter , " hereby perceive we the love of God , in that he ( Christ ) laid down his life for us . " Besides , some of the ancient versions read , cc the Church of the Lord / ' and the Syriac , which is of the highest antiquity
and authority , reads , the Church or the Messiah which he hath purchased with his own blood / ' So far therefore is the passage frooi asserting that-, ic Christ is God , " that it cannot rationally be interpreted consistently with sue !) an idea *
Untitled Article
236 An Examination of the Remarks on Stones Sermon .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1807, page 236, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2380/page/12/
-