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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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pretatit > n , in . cither ca ^ c , the doc * trine of the pre-existence of Jesus Christ will be established the ground of Mr . IJ / s arguments to support the contrary idea overthrow iK and his reasoning reJ " tiled .
1 proceed then to adduce some arguments to prove that this passage , with what follows , is the words of the evangelist . Tin ' s I shall do by shewing that the verse in question , that is the thirteenth and those that follow , cannot be a continuation of our Lord ' s
discourse with Nicodemus *• . If the whole of the connexion from the 10 th to the end of the 21 st verse is not tfye words of Christ , it will follow that , there must be a transition somewhere > -. where that discourse terminates , and
where the evangelist begins to speak . That transition I contend , is at the end of the 12 th verse ; and that in the 13 th verse , referring to the local ascent of Jesus Christ into heaven , the evangelist says , cc no man hath
ascended into heaven , " &c . and if xhb observations which will be offered presently prove the necessity of supposing such a transition , it will I think appear that in no other part of this connexion can
it be so natural as at the beginning of this verse . The abruptness of the transition and the apparent connexion of the 12 th and 13 th verses , is no real objection to such a supposition ; because we have a trau-
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472 Mr ^ marsom ' s Defence of the T ^ re existence oj Christ . Let . IT .
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sition of this writer ' s equally abrupt , where the connexion and construction of the passage is precisely the same as that before us . 46 John , says lief , bare witness
of him , and cried , saying , Tills was he of whom I spake , Iil- that comer h after me , is preferred before rne : for he , was be lore me , and of his fulness have all we received- and £ race for crace . " In this passage , the words , and
of his fulness , &c . though they seem to be a continuation of the testimony of the baptist , are iu reality no part of it ; but are , " as all allow , " the words of the evangelist . But if we adopt Mr . VVakefield ^ rendering of the passage before us , cc Now no one , &c . " instead of , and no one , " this apparent objection will be
weakened , if not entirely done away , the transition will be easy , and naturally introduce what the evangelist afterwards says respecting . JesusC hrist . In order to establish this point I shall offer the following considerations .
First , 1 observe that in the 14 th verse it is said , " and as Moses lifted up the serpent \ in the wilderness , even so must the son of man , uvJ /^ S ^ va / , have been lifted un . " This I conceive to be the
i tvui * rendering of the -words , and if so , they refer to the death of Christ , or to his bring lifted up , as a fact which had already taken place , and make it almost
im-. * Dr . Priestley more than intimates that these cannot be the words of Jesus Christ to Nicodemusj but that they are the words of the evangelist . In a note on the text ( Harmony of the Gospel . % p . % 7 , ) he says , why may we not consider it , " ( the phrase , " who is in heaven" ) as a clause inserted by the evangelist ( conformably to what he had . written , ch . i . 18 . ) as a fact ( true at ? the time he wrote ) that demonstrates Christ ' s divine mission , or that he came down from heaven , and the truth of all that he taught ? If our Lord really spoke those words X'O Nicodkmus , they must have been hard to be understood by him ^ indeed " f Chap . i ,- X 5 , 16 .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1808, page 472, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2396/page/16/
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