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
and in the catalogue of secondary . truths , he inserts the pre-existenceof \ > and the making of all things by Jesus Christ , arid the doctrine of atonement and of divine influences . What his Arian brethren will say to this new classification of their peculiar and favourite doctrines I know not . For my own part I ao kowledge no such distinction . All revealed truth must be important truth . JSut that is not the whole of the present question . What I contend for is . that the incarnation , or rather the
incarceration of the Creator and Governor of the world in a human body , is an idea so stupendous ^ and to the evangelists so perfectly new , that if they were men , with the feelings of men , it must have wholly occupied their imaginations , " their memories ^ their tongues and their pens ; thev could no more
cease to think , to speaic or to write upon the amazing subject , than they could cease to breathe * And to compose the history of this extraordinary personage without once alluding to , or even without principally insisting upon , his superangelic nature , dignity and offices ^ would be a moral impossibility very nearly bordering upon a physical one . And they who can believe this , ought not to reproach the Athanasians , or , the believers in transubbtantiation , with credulity * .
* When it was believed at Lystra , Acts , xiv . in consequence of the miraculous « ure of the cripple , that the gods had descended in the shape of men , the whole city was in a commotion , and Paul and Barnabas with difficulty prevented the yriests and the people front offering sacrifices to them . All this was perfectly natural , and exactly what might be expected in such circumstances . But when the Maker and Supporter of all things actuall y descends into this world and appearg in a human form , the men whom he chuses as his associates and disciples , knowing
his superior rank and dignity , nevertheless eat and drink and converse with him ¦ with the greatest familiarity , they interrogate him , and at times reprove him , as if lie had been an ordinary man . They even sit down to write his history , but takt no more notice of his pre-existent dignity , attributes and works , nor of his condescension and humiliation in assuming human nature , than if no such event had ever taken place . And yet our Arian brethren see nothing in all this but what is perfectly natural and credible ; nothing to excite their astonishment , or , to stagger
their faith ? I assume that his disciples while they conversed familiarly with hirr ^ luiew at the same time the dignity of his person , from the stress which the Arians lay upon " those strong and conclusive passages which require no comment , ' and "which my friend has alleged from the evang-eli t John . For either the disciples did Inow the superior dignity of Christ , and yet conversed with him upon terms of perfect familiaritv , which is incredible * or , they were not , during his life time , apprized of his dignity , and then these texts , the sense of which is so very p lain
and obvious , " must Lave been understood by the persons to > whom they were spoken in a seme very different from that which the Arians annex to them , and perfectly compatible with the simple humanity of Christ . 1 leave it to my friend to decide upon which of the horns of this fatal dicinma he may chuse to fasten
himself . I would <* nly observe with respect to thar excellent prayer in which our JLord petitions to be received to the glory which he had with the leather before the ¦ world was , and which is thought by many to put the doctrine of his pre-exi stence fceyond rill contradiction , that the apostles do not appear to have gained any new information fron * it . Immediately afterwards they converse with him familiarly *
Untitled Article
54 ? Mr . Behham * s Strictures on Carpenter ' s Lectures .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1807, page 542, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2385/page/34/
-