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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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remarks apply , and are merely episodieal , containing the appearance of the consoling angel and the sweat of blood ( a phenomenon , we may observe , likely to excite suspicion * but which is by no means unprecedented : see Theol .
Repos . VI . 347 ) : nor shall I attempt any answer to the questions , How the faets came to be known ? Whether Jesus himself reported what he had said ? Whether the Holy Spirit revealed it afterwards , &c . ? Cavils of a similar ilature may be brought to bear on a
variety of particulars in these ancient narrations , and thus the whole gospel history may be pulled to pieces . What we have to ask is , what credit is due to the text , and what is the authority of the writer ? And if the old copies
sanction the one in its general integrity , and the early churches acknowledged the other , we ought to be satisfied that there is sufficient ground for the fact , though we may not be enabled to ascertain precisely in what manner it was made known to the
evangelist . But this prayer , it seems , is very * unworthy of Christ . " If this writer believe Christ to be God , or a secondary God , he may consistently think the supplication of Christ unworthy of him ; but if Jesus were properly a man , as Peter and Paul
affirmed * and as the Jews expected their Messiah would be , this is merely finding fault with his possessing the infirmities of our common nature ; for as to his knowledge of his high destination , and his intimate participation of the counsels of the Eternal , it is well observed by the writer in the
Theological Repository , that " highlyagitated state of mind , the thing might for a moment appear hi a different light : our Lord well knew that the appointments of God , even when expressed in the most absolute terms , are not always so intended . We have more instances than one of similar
orders and appointments , by which nothing was meant but the trial of a person ' s faith . This was the case when Abraham was ordered to offer up his beloved son Isaac , " This
objection has therefore only force in respect to those who believe Christ to be a person in a plural godhead , or a / superangelic , pre-existent spirit , the necessary instrument of the Deity ' s communications . Your readers cannot fail to remark , that , like some other
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attempts which have lately been made through the medium of the Repository , the suspicion which it is endeavoured to cast upon this affecting incident , deprives the Unitarian of an important proof of the simple humanity of the Messiah . We are told that he €€ wished to
avoid pain ; " that " his pain was incomparably less than that which thousands of his followers have willingly endured in his cause , with motives infinitely inferior to his ; " and we are asked , <* What conceivable ties could Jesus have had to this world which
could have made life so exceedingly desirable to him ? " Now it is merely begging the question ( passing by the miserably poor and paltry vieWtaken by the writer of the sufferings of Jesus ) to say that Jesus wished to avoid pain , or that what he wished to obtain was
longer life . His motives are degraded in order to favour the writer ' s positions : and as to the incomparably greater pain of the martyrs * ( unless we are to understand the corporeal pain of burning or flaying or boiling in hot oil , ) how can he be so sure
that any martyr suffered mentally in the degree that Jesus suffered ? As no one was ever so emphatically the onlybegotten or well-beloved of God , so none could have felt so sensibly the temporary suspension of God ' s upholding aid ; and as no one was ever " in the bosom of the Father" in the
same sense as Jesus was , no one could have liad so clear a foresight of the precise amount of his sufferings $ no one could therefore have exhibited so perfect an instance of entire self-annihilation and devotion to God . "
Father ! if thou be willing , remove this qup from me $ nevertheless , Inot my will , but thine be done / ' Ver . 42 . From this passage the writer most logically infers , that " he did , in this one instance , for some time seek Ids own will , and not the will ofihim who sent him" !
The truth is , that the nature of this agony of Christ has totally escaped the writer's discernment : he has not even once guessed at what must be sufficiently plain to those who have
accurate views of the design of Christ '' s accurate views of the design of Christs ministry as personally affecting himself , namely , the fact that this agony was a trial : ' * a horror of great darkness fell upon him . " He was to be
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76 Christianity not Naturalism *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1821, page 76, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2497/page/12/
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