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he appeared , and chose to appear , in the tank of a merii | ilseH ^ i | . ^ | I $ te , like most other things written by that rational and able divine , is verj r good sense ; but 1 venture to say , it is not " the sense of the apostle in this place . This interpretation is too vague to he
the real purport of the original When the apostle , as he often does , uses a figurative language / his figures , though bold , are always natural , every competent reader is able to trace a strong analogy between the literal and the
metaphorical application of his words : but what analogy can be traced between the form of God and the possession of divine power , or between the resigning of this power and " the form of a slave" ? Form is an external
appearance , a figure addressed to the eye : whereas power itf an abstract idea , incapable of being represented by any outward symbol : and the apostle , if he wished to express the miraculous endowments of Jesus , which were altogether invisible , by a sensible allusion , would have been as
inappropriate , as the writer who endeavours to delineate the brightness of noon , by a term that implies the absencfe of light . Nor can a single expression be found in the New Testement , that favours such an explanation . This interpretation , moreover ,
is not peculiarly characteristic of our Lord : for the apostles received miraculous powers , which they faithfully employed to the same grand purpose ; yet it would be an unwarrantable use of language to say , that any of them
was in the form of God . Finally , if the miraculous power vested in Jesus , constituted the form of God , and his being divested of this , the form of a slave , the above interpretation must be erroneous ; because it is not true that he ever did direst himself of his
divine power , for he continued , we have reason to believe , in the possession of that power until he expired on the cross ; though , in obedience to the will of God , he did not use it for his own deliverance . If , indeed , the
power from God gave him the form of God , while his declining the use of it for his own benefit , reduced him to the form of a slave , he was in the form of God and in the form of a slave at one and the same time . With as little truth mid propriety
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may it be asserted , as your Correspondent C . * & E | £ ji . # , ] does too confidently assert , that the phrase * ' form of God , " means " the majesty which Jesus might have displayed had he employed his miraculous powers for
his own aggrandisement . " According to this tiotion , Jesus being in the form of God can onlymean , that he might have been in the form of God ; and his divesting himself pf it , signifies not that he divested himself of what he
actually was , but of what he might have been . To be in the form of God , aud a power to be in that form , not , indeed , carried into effect , are as different as fact and non-entity ; nor could the apostle , in asserting the former , mean the latter without a
confusion of ideas , chargeable only on some of his mistaken expounders . Clement , in his Epistle to the Corinthians , chap . xvi . thus expresses his opinion , that Jesus might have employed for his own aggrandisement , the miraculous power given him by
the Almighty : Xgi $ -o $ Ir , < rov $ ovk y ]\ Qsv sv KOtxTtoj a , ka , tyv £ LO ( . ' $ 9 ovbuVs-> ¦ ¦ -. ¦ ... » - .. gvjcpowiotf xanreg . ovY&i&evos ; " Christ Jesus did not come with splendour , arrogance and pride * though he had the power ^ o to do . " This language is
very different frcto that of the apostle , and equally different must be his meaning if we allow him to be a correct , sober writer . This meaning I now proceed to state and justify , it being , in the main , the same with that of my friend Dr . Alexander .
Now , I maintain first , that the words of the apostle have an immediate reference to the opinions of the Gnostics , and that this reference leads to the true interpretation of the
passage ; this I assert , because he expressly notices the false teachers in more places than one of this Epistle , ( see chap . i . 17 , iii . 17 >) because he uses the very words which were used
by the impostors , such as p > fP ? sk £ V ( x ) € Ts wg av 6 § cjuifo $ ^ &c . ; and lastly , because the facts he enforces ate i » direct opposition to their sentirnertts-Those who object to D * . Alexander V exposition do not perceive that there is a close connexion between
the transfiguration and the crucifixion of our XonJ . The -Jews expected their Messiah to . continue immortal on the earth ; and the transfi guration
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124 Biblical Critici $ m . < - ~ On Philip , ii . 5—11
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1818, page 124, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2473/page/44/
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