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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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not seem fortunate in the selection of his instances . He asks , * ' What , can be more impracticable than all attempts to reconcile Luke iv . 22 , and Matt , xiii . 55 , both proving that Jesus was the son of Joseph and Mary , with Matt . L . 18 , and John L 9 , 14 ? " Now ,
admitting the fact of the miraculous conception , the text , Luke iiL 23 , 4 < being , as was supposed 9 the son of Joseph , " whether we read the word supposed or reg'ister&d , at once removes this exceedingly trifling' objection . With regard to John L 9 , 14 ,
the objector first begs the question , that the texts can only be explained in his own manner , and then decides that they cannot be reconciled with the testimony of Jesus being the son of Joseph . How Christ being the true light , " ( ver . 9 , ) is inconsistent with his being the son of Joseph , he does not condescend to say ; but as to the €
* word being made flesh , " ( ver . 14 , ) he must know that the original may be rendered " the word was flesh ;" and that in this case , so far from any impracticability of reconcilement , the texts literally , coalesce ; and if , as I have before proved , the word in Jewish
phraseology was a mere periphrasis for God himself , operating by his wisdom and power , " the word becoming flesh , " however foreign to our mode of expression , means no more than the man Christ Jesus being " the power of God and the wisdom of God , ' * or
anointed with his wisdom and power , and is equally consistent ( admitting the fact ) with Jesus being the son of Joseph . The words , on either scheme of interpretation , form a significant
refutation of the phantomist heresy , and , as harmonizing with passages to the same effect in the acknowledged writings of the Apostle John , carry with them their own evidence of
authenticity . That no gospel of apostolical authority was extant at the period when Luke wrote his , ( which Lardner has , I think , satisfactorily shewn , ) may be
the office . He was not aware that he was also removing one of the strongest supports of Christianity , —the argument from the independence of testimony . Had the jgogpete concurred in the choice and particularity of focts , we should then fcave bfcen told of a plan of conceited imposture .
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allowed without leaping to the very summary conclusion , that no other gospel was written afterwards . It is said , that of Matthew's having written any gospel , " the only testimony we have is that of Papias : " but , if this
were so , what is there to impugn the testimony of Papias ? He is thought to have been acquainted with John , the Apostle : but Irenaeus , who knew John ' s disciple , Polycarp , bears also testimony to Matthew ' s having written a gospel 3 and the same writer gives a similar attestation to the fact of Mark
and John having each written a gospel , and quotes , as a part of the gospel written by John , the opening of the very proem which so much perplexes and astounds the detecter of Spurious Christianity— " In the beginning was the Word . "
It is one of the strong holds of Unitarian Christianity , that three out of the four evangelists afford no intimation of the deity of the Son of God . The conclusion follows , that any thing
in the fourth gospel which should appear to introduce doctrines incompatible with the simple humanity of the Messiah , must have been intended by the writer in some different sense : for
this is not the addition of any omitted fact , but the addition of a stupendous revelation , altering the whole basis both of the Jewish and Christian systems . As Matthew was himself a disciple , and as Mark and Luke transcribed the things related by Peter and Paul , the latter of whom heard the
history of Jesus from the older apostles , the thrfce first evangelists must have been qualified to tell whatever was known respecting the person and character of Jesus ; and the supposition
that John declared something omitted by them , in an article affecting the very essence of Christianity , is both disparaging to the former apostles and incredible m itself . The more so as ,
since the gospels were not written for the original promulgation of Christianity , but for the purpose of recording the facts and discourses which had already been promulgated by preaching , hail
the apostles preached the literal doctripe of a deity or a super-angelical spirit incarnate in the human nature of JeBua of Nazareth , the people of the churches Which they founded would necessarily be astonished that all the tfctfte evangelists should fcave over-
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710 The Canonical Gospels thesupport of Unitarian Christianity
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1820, page 710, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2495/page/22/
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