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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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his knowledge of the divine counsels and will by laborious study and investigation ; or by the spirii which was given to him with - out measure ? Is it possible then to believe this to be the meaning of our Lord's words ?
The manner in which our Lord expresses himself in this passage ^ evidently supposes , the asce ? tsiou of the son of man ( whatever is meant by it ) to be future . Mr . Belsham says it means u to be instructed in the mind and will of
God , to search into divine truth . " Did our Lord then by this expression , ( as this interpretation necessarily implies ) intend to inform the Jews , that he was not then so instructed ; that he was not then acauainted with divine
X truth ; but that he should acquire that knowledge at some future period ?
For this meaning of the phrase , cc To ascend up into heaven ^ " Mr . Belsham however appeals to 4 Beza , KapheliuSj Doddridgc , and many others , " It is not de »
nied that they may have given that senso of the phrase in chap . iii . 13 . and why ? Obviously to get rid of the difficulty which attaches to the common
supposition , that those are the words of Jesus Chrjstj which 1 luive endeavoured to refute in a former Letter .: That difficulty appears to have induced them to suppose , that in that single
passage the phrase must have an unusual and figurative meaning . l $ ut hfive they given that meaning to tho phrase in the passage under consideration , or in any othei : where it occurs ? The reader
would naturally suppose they had , by Mr . l > ebh * un referring to their interpretation of thp phrase on
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this verse * But this is not the case , at least with respect to Doddridge ^ ( whom only I have had an opportunity of consulting , ) who understands the phrase here of a literal ascent into heaven
his words are , " [ What ] then if ye shall see the son of man ascend up into heaven , where he was before ? would you then understand what was meant by the bread of life coming down from thence , as the food of the world ? Or
would you then believe , that I came down from heaven , notwithstanding the objection you have made as to the meanness of my parentage ? " And in a note he says , " What Christ here says of his ascension , may be further
intended to intimate the necessity of taking the discourse in a figurative sense s as it would so soon be evidently impossible to eat his fleshy which was to be received into heaven . "
If the interpretation of the phrase , in chap . iii . 13 . given by those learned expositors , is to be referred to , as the meaning of the phrase wherever it occurs , ( and unless it is , the reference to it by
Mr . Belsham here is impertinent , and proves nothing as to the meaning of the phrase , " Ascend up where he was before J *) then every plain passage that relates to the local ascension of Jesus Christ
will j ^ e mere figurative language , and' the fact that he is gone into heaven and set down on the right tiarjd of God will be entirely sub-, verted , -Apply their interpretation of the phrase to our Lord ' s words to Mary , chap . xx . 17- * Mr . Belsham has done to I ) i = >
words , chap . ' vi . 6 * 2 . ( and there js as much propriety in doing so in the one case u . > lji the ot | icr , ) and
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552 Mr . Marsom ' s Defence of the Pre ^ existence of Christ . Let . Ill
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1808, page 552, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2397/page/28/
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