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Untitled Article
And here I cannot but suspect that my friend will be read y tor accuse me , if not of " great ingenuity /* at least , of tc laboured criticism / ' in-iny explanation oi this difficult -text , in order to Force upon it a sense contrary to its u plain and obvious * ' ' meaning . But what would be his own reply to an honest papist ; who should press him with the plain obvious meaning of the wordsr
** except ye eat the flesh of the son of man &nd drink his blood , ye have no life in you . " I presume-that he would urge , that common sense required that these expressions should be interpreted figuratively , of receiving our Lord ' s doctrine . This X
suspect would give no more satisfaction * to the catholic ^ who had been accustomed to the literal interpretation , than my ex ^ planation of the other text satisfies him . But , at any rate , let him please to recollect , that in whatever sense the expressions CQ flesh and blood , " are to beunderstood whether literal or fi gurative , that it is in that sense only , that this flesh and blood is described as coming down from heaven . See v . 51 * We
cannot allow our Arian brethren to interpret this phrase of the doctrine of Christ when they are arguing with the papists , and of tht person of Christ when they are contending with the Unitarians . It is too much for them to insist upon , having " both strings to their bow / 5
v . John viii . 58 . Jesus said unto them , Verily , verily , I say Unto you before Abraham was , I am /' It may not be amiss to notice ^ era passant , the absurdity of the argument which is commonly drawn from this text in favour of what is called , the divinity of Christ . The text in Exodus , iii . 4 , is mistranslated in our English bible , . i am tha r i am , arid thou shalt say to the children of Israel , i am , hath sent me unto you . " The text in John is also mistranslated ,- " before Abraham was I am . ' And from these two errors combined , that greatest of all errors is deduced , that Jcsu £ Christ is the " i am / ' or the self-existent Jehovah * Upon such foundations rests that doctrine , which , according to a well-known symbol of faith , " whosoever believeth not , shall ,
without doubt , perish everlastingly /' Mv friend docs not carry bis argument quite so far . He says no more than that he argues the pie -e istenee of Christ , from his declaring , Cfc before Abraham was I ani / J And he'leaves it to his Uni ' cir ! ui opponents bv their " ingenuity a /» d laboured criticism ' to vxplrim it away in the best n ? . anncr they can - Ana it will not require much of cither to give it a different ^ and most unquestionably the \ ruc interpretation . '• he word to hesupphcJ alter the verb , cc I am , " in order to make the sentence coujpictc is hc D or , the Christ . $ o our trans-
Untitled Article
^ 48 Mr . BelshairCs Strictures on Carpenter ' s Leciures *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1807, page 548, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2385/page/40/
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