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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.
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and the party to which we belong have been accustomed to associate with them , and may be as remote from the true meanin g of the speaker , or the writer , as the East is from the West . While , on the contrary , the interpretation which ' we reject as far-fetched and unnatural , may in fact , be the real meaning of
the author . " the common phraseology of St . Paul s epistles , " says Mr . Locke , in his admirable preface , " every one uses familiarly , and thinks he understands , but it must be observed , that if he has a distinct meaning , when he uses those words , and phrases , and knows himself what he intends by them , it is always according to the sense of his own system . So that a ] I this knowledge and understanding which he has in the use of
these passages of sacred scripture reaches no further than this , that he knows , ( and that is very well ) , what he himself says , but thereby knows nothing of what St . Paul said in them . The apostle wrote not by that man ' s system ^ and so his meaning cannot be known by it . " In order therefore to ascertain the true meaning of the apostle * s language , we are to consider not merely the sense in which we , and our r « arty have been
accustomed to understand it , but the sense which properly belongs to it , according to the established rules of just and legitimate
criticism . My friend concedes without hesitation , p . 17 £ , that , " the pre-existetice of Christ is not mentioned by the apostle Paul amongst the first principles and primary articles of the Christian faith , but is commonly mentioned by him incidentally , as a motive to the exercise of some Christian virtue / ' Surely these evangelists and apostles must have been men of a very singular kind , and very different from men of the present generation , since they could live and converse for months and even years , freely and familiarly , with a personage whom they knew to be
the Maker and Governor of the world , without discovering any symptoms of awe or surprise , and in writing the history of his life and doctrine could either omit that stupendous fact altogether , as unworthy of serious notice , or if they mentioned ' it at all , could mention it merely incidentally , as amongst other topics , a motive to virtue * And this omission of the
evangelists isthe more inexcusable , as my worthy friend denies , p . 174 , that t 4 r a mere man inspired by God , and enabled to work miracles would answer all the purposes of an angelic or super-angelic being . For men are influenced , greatly influenced by the messenger and by the ambassador who is sent to them . It is when we consider Christ as sent from heaven , as more nearly related to God , and dearer to him than any other being , that
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J ? $ 8 Mr . Belsham ' s Strictures on Carpenter ' s Lectures .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1807, page 588, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2386/page/24/
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