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
that it was with great difficulty &ny accusation could be substantiated against him , to render him Criminal in the eye of tlieir law ; arid he was at last put to death , because he pretended to be the son of God . It was the want of
sufficient proof on his part , that he was the Mefcsiah , which in their opinion rendered him worthy of death ; for the same law , that condemned him as a pretender , obliges tha J * ws to submit to the true Messiah when he comes .
But , because some Jdws take tip stones to kill him , for n breach of the Sabbath , and for saying , according to their interpretation of his wards , that he made himself God , and equal
tvith God , you take upon yourself to assert , that it was their opinion , he pretended lo be the first cause of all things . These passagos do not appear to me to convey any such meaning . They would have stoned him for
blasphemy , because he pretended to an authority over their law , which was the greatest crime imaginable ; and when they say to him , thou makest thyself God , it is clear , that their idea was , you take upon yourself an authority , which can belong to none but God . < c What right canst thou , who art only a man like one of us , have to break
the law of Moses , and to bring as an authority for such a breach , that God is employed on the Sabbathday , as at all other times , in acts of benevolence ?' ' Our S . aviour removed their objection to him , that he was a Sabbath breaker , by shewing , thnt his actions on that day were not in those prohi-
Untitled Article
bited by the law , and we shall see bye and bye , that hi > answer to them proved , that he claimed no authority , as God , to supersede their law . I am astonished , that in the
present century , the terms God and Lord , recurring perpetually in the Bible , should be so little understood by the generality of Christians . The word Lord curu veys to an English ear a very
different idea from " that in the original . We understand by it in common life a peer , or the son of a peer , and could not , except in ridicule , give it to inferior per . sons ; but the term in the original
may be and is applied to all ranks . The Italians and the Germans , whose ideas of nobility differ very much from our ' s , are freed from this obscurity , because the terra which we have rendered Lord , is
in their language equally proper for the highest and the lowest of the people , and is applied to tho Creator of all things . The same you know to be the case with ihe term God in the ancient
languages ; which , though in ours it is by long use appropriated to th $ first cause of all things , was given in former times to men of rank and dignity . A little attention to the phrase , thou makest thyself God , would have convinced you ,
that the Jews , wicked as they were , did not suppose that h © pretended to be their Jehovah , or equal to him , but only , that , he protended to a power , which could belong to one alone divinely instructed by God , and which they did not believe of him . I am , &c
Untitled Article
4-90 dw the Testimony <* f the jews io the Person of Ckri&t *
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1808, page 490, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2396/page/34/
-