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doctrine before Christ upon this point was totally different from that which the Unitarians assert it to have been , I have shewn in my remarks on the first book of Ezra . The present publication , however , affords fuller and more decisive testimony upon the same subject . "—Pref . pp . xl . xli . '
In order to prevent all dispute , he has given in the notes a literal rendering of the passage on which he builds his argument : " Et in illii hor& invocatus est hie Filius hoininis apud Dominum spirit ; uum , ct no men ejus corani Antiquo dierum . Et antequam
creabatur sol et signa , antequam faciebantur * stellae eoeli nomen cjus invocatum est eoram Doxhino spirituum . Igitur fuifc [ or factus est ] electus et occult us , coram eo , antequam creabatur mimdus et usque ad secula seculorum "
Considering that in our Saviour ' s time the doctrine of the pre-existence of all human souls was common among tbe Jews , Csee Lightfoot on Johnix . 1 ; Wisd . viii . 1 . 9 , 20 - , Kuinoel Proleg . ad Evang . Joannis , i > . 85 , ) it will not
appear wonderful that some should have conceived of a pre-existent Messiah , although it is evident from the Scriptures that this was by no means a general opinion . This doctrine gained ground after the time of Christ , and mingled with Platonic and oriental ideas ; so that we find among the Rabbins ,
especially the doctors of the Cabbala , expressions which seem to our ears decidedly to involve the pre-existence of the Messiah . Yet even many of these , when compared with others in use among the same writers , will be found to imply much less than they seem to do . The name of the
Messiah ( for so they commonly speak ) was only one of seven things which were alike pre-existent . Septein res conditse sunt antequam mundus crearetur , et hae sunt : Lex , poenitentia ,
paradisns , in fern us , thronus rnujestatis divinae , templuin et noinen Messioe Sehotfcgeji in Matt . xxv . 34 . Now . no one supposes that the Temple and Paradise had anv other pre-existence
* Is it possible ( to borrow the words of the Edinburgh Reviewers on a similar occasion ) that the very pressmen at Oxford did not know what is the imperfect passive of facto ? Dr . L ., however , is systematic , and in his Ascensio Eraiac uses patefarifibatitr .
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thaa in the Divine Mind , and therefore what is said of the name of the Messiah must be interpreted in the same way . It will be observed , that in the first part of the quotation from the Book of Enoch , nothing more is alleged
than that his name was invoked in the presence of the Lord of Spirits , and if the reader will compare this with the Rabbinical language above , he will see how far it is from implying his actual existence . The language of the latter part of the quotation appears stronger , but if a real existence were intended
why is he said to be hidden , to be before God ? " Ye are dead , " says the apostle to the Colossians , iii . 3 , " and your life is hid with Christ in God / ' i . e . awaits in the Divine Mind the period when it shall be bestowed No act whatever is ascribed to
Messiah ; he ivS merely described as the subject of knowledge and of invocation on the part of the angels and the chosen , in the same sense as Abraham saw his day and was glad . We readily admit that this language may imply a belief in the actual pre-existeuce of
the Messiah ; that these figures of speech were very likely to be converted into matters of fact when they became current among the vulgar , as the history of Christian doctrine shews they really were , both in this case and in that of the Logos : but there is nothing in them which , if considered in
connexion with those other expressions which we have quoted above , necessarily implies it . At any rate , as an arg'umentum ad Jiomhiem , we may remark , that these passages are either reconcileable with Unitarianism or
teach Arianism ; of a Messiah who was very God of very God , not marie nor created , but begotten , equal to the Father as touching his Godhead , almighty and incomprehensible , there , is not a trace ; and if Dr . L . requires us to renounce , on this authority , our
belief in the humanity of Christ , we call upon him , in our turn , to abjure that Creed in which the Church of England curses , fourteen times in the year , all who do not keep whole aim iindefiled the Catholic fuith of Trinity
in Unity . The doctrine of E lection , too , will assume a new character ftojn wuch passages as these : " When riffhteousness shall be manifested in the presence of the righteous themselves , who mil / be elected for their go" ! l
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414 Re " view . — The Booh of Enoch the Prophet .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1821, page 414, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2502/page/34/
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