On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
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
Coram Street , Sir , Oct . 3 , 1822 . pEG to submit the following pro-I positions to the readers of the
Repository , which I intend successively to discuss . IMy object is merely to attract the public attention to the views I entertain , and shall therefore content myself with the outlines of the evidence which can be adduced in
their support . 1 . Such was the genius of Heathenism , that its votaries , as soon as they had heard of , and had reason to believe , the miracles of Christ , were unavoidably led to consider him as a God .
2 . The Pagan philosophers accounted for the miracles and resurrection of our Saviour , by the supposition that he was a supernatural being ; in other words , they adopted the doctrine of his divinity to set aside the claims of his gospel .
3 . Certain leading men in Judea and other countries , finding all open and avowed hostility to the gospel unavailing to check its progress , pretended to become its friends and teachers ; and thus formed an artful scheme to sink it in Heathenism on
one hand , and Judaism on the other , making the divinity and supernatural birth of the Saviour a fundamental principle in the new system . Their system being adapted to prejudices
both of the Jews and Gentiles , and favouring the worst passions of the human heart , mightily prevailed in direct opposition to the authority and efforts of the apostles ; and its introduction into the several churches
founded by Paul , proved the principal means in the hands of Providence to call forth the apostolic epistles . 4 . The rapid immersion of the gospel in Jewish and Pagan superstition , led Philo and Josephus to separate it from this unnatural alloy . They ,
therefore , under those names in which they had been accustomed to speak of the religion of Moses and the prophets , held forth the religion of Jesus ; ts a sublime and pure system of morcils , calculated to enlighten and
re'onii the world ; while , at the same liuie > they pass by Jesu 3 himself unnoticed on all occasions , and that with no other view than to impress on the minds of men in distant climes and m future aires , the certain con-
Untitled Article
clusion that his divinity , supernatural birth , and other doctrines connected with \ l \ % death , and represented by many as essential to Christianity , in reality formed no part of that divine system , but were altogether foreign to it .
5 . The miraculous conception is a fiction of those impostors ' who sought to sink Christianity in Heathenism , in order to bolster up the doctrine of our Lord ' s divinity , and to assimilate with more plausibility his history with the fables of Hercules , Perseus and other sons of Jupiter .
6 . Our Divine Master foresaw the prevalence of his divinity and miraculous birth as the means of corrupting his religion ; and he directed the historians of his life to record facts which , when investigated and ascertained , would infallibly prove them to be falsehoods , contradicted by himself and his apostles .
7 . A Jew , stigmatised as an impostor by Josephus , composed a gospel , called the Gospel of the Birth of Mary ; while certain Egyptian priests , his associates in iniquity , composed the Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus . From the former , about the beginning of
the second century , were taken , after certain modifications , the contents of the first two chapters ascribed to Luke . About the same time the introductory chapters in Matthew were copied from the Gospel of the Infancy . The original spurious gospels were then kept secret for above three hundred years ,
when , at length , Jerome translated and published them as the genuine compositions of Matthew . I would now proceed to the first proposition stated above ; but I will defer the discussion to my next letter ,
as 1 here wish to add what I have left unsaid in my last answer to Dr . Smith ( pp . 350—354 ) . Peter has the following passage : " Wherefore , beloved , since you look for these things earnestly , endeavour to be found by him in-peace without snots and without
blemishes ; and consider the long delay of our Lord as intended for your salvation : as our beloved brother Paul , according to the learning which is given to him , speaking in his Epistle to you , as indeed he does in all his Epistles ,
concerning these things , among which things some are hard to be understood , and these the uninformed and unstable
Untitled Article
Dr . Jones * s General Historic Flew of Christian Doctrine . 59 ?
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1822, page 597, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2517/page/13/
-