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
Father for ' « legions of angels . " He emptied himself of it . He was in the likeness of men , or other men , as I have proved from Judges xvi . 7 ; and "being found in fashion as a man , or a common man , he endured the sufferings of a malefactor .
The whole passage , viewed through this medium of interpretation , is in close dependent connexion ; and it is a strong objection to the rendering of your Correspondent , that this continuity of argument and illustration is broken and disturbed by the
introduction of foreign topics and remote allusions . " Being in the likeness of men , and in structure proved to be a man , he humbled himself / * The being found in the voluntary condition of a common man , or submitting to the
sufferings of a common man , is an instance of self-humiliation ; the having a proper human body is not in point or to the purpose . What has the introduction of the heresy of the Phantomists to do here ? What possible connexion has it with the
argument , to be told in the midst of exhortations to " have the same mind as was in Jesus , " that he was in corporeal structure , physically and properly a man ? What possible relation has •* the being found in structure as a man , " with efficacy of example ?
Your Correspondent is even reduced for the support of his hypothesis , to change the drift and purpose of the apostle ' exhortation , and to keep out of sight that he was inculcating a lesson of humility , with
which certainly Christ ' s having a proper human body has nothing to do , though his descending into a human body from a higher state of existence , according to the Gnostic and Platonic systeirts , might be relevant . Your Correspondent , not , I am persuaded ,
with any disingenuous view , but from the pre disposing bias of a favourite system , expounds the preceding words of the apostle thus : " Let each of you have in view , not his own interest only , but that of others ; " though I cannot see how this makes for his
supposition of refuting the Docettz itiore than the received sense . Let tfee reader , however , look back to ver . 3 , " Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory ; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better that ) thernselv e * t" tvhich is followed
Untitled Article
in ver . 5 , with , " Let this mind be hi you , which was in Christ Jesus / ' arid he may possibly be enabled to judge who are to be classed among the ' mistaken expounders . "
It is assumed by your Correspondent , that the transfiguration and the crucifixion have a close connexion ; but he has not attempted to meet the argument drawn from the transfiguration of Moses on mount Sinai . ** The Jews , " he says , " expected their Messiah to continue immortal on the
earth ; " and the transfiguration , the symbol of Christ ' s future glory , was , it seems , calculated to confirm the apostles in this belief ; against which Jesus guarded them by prophetically directing their attention to his
crucifixion . «* The object of the transfiguration / ' we are further told , " was to inculcate , on the one hand , the evanescence of Moses and the law , and the perpetuity of Christ and his gospel on the other . " The voice from the
cloud , whence the splendour also came , might , indeed , do this ; but it is a most unfortunate position that the splendour also was so intended , for it vanished away ; while the countenance of Moseshad continued to shine ,
even after he had descended , and while speaking to the people he " put a veil on his face . ' * Jesus , therefore , is supposed to say , € i you perceive that my gospel will be perpetual , because the radiance which is the symbol of it is evanescent . ^
As to the vanishing splendour being meant to shew that his earthl y immortality was not intended , I can see no necessary link of connexion between visible splendour and immortality * If the Jews expected that their Messiah would be immortal , there is no reason
to suppose that they expected him also to have a luminous body : it does not , therefore , appear why this persuasion of the disciples , if they had it , should have been confirmed bv the visible irradiation of the person of Jesus . When " the skin of Moses ' s face shone , " and continued to shine after his descent
from the mount , the Jeios drew no such inference respecting Moses ; nor any other inference , than that he had stood in the presence of God , whose symbolical glory still rested upon him . If to be " in the form of GoA" refer t © the sptendmVr 6 ri the Motlnt , and if it mean alfco . " to be imti&brtal , and
Untitled Article
IQ 2 Biblieal Grttieism *—Reply to Dir . Jones on Philip , ii . 5—11 .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1818, page 192, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2474/page/40/
-