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
Reviewj ~~ JZen David ' s Reply to * £ wo Deistiail W&tiik . 4 | 7
Untitled Article
the JMtagi from the East were the first who made him manifest . But Mark eays expressly , that the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ was a voice in the wilderness . In other words , he says that
John the Baptist was the person in whom originated the first i a formation respecting Je&us as the Saviour of mankind , and this precisely agrees with the testimony of Peter , that the gospel began in Galilee after the baptism of John . "—Pp .
12—14 . Contrary to the generally-received opinion , Dr . Jones contends that Luke was aa eye-witness to the facts recorded in his Gospel .
He lias an ingenious criticism upon Luke ' s precision in defining the time of Christ's public appearance . He supposes that the first teachers of the miraculous conception and birth of
Jesus represented him as much older than he really was , wishing it to be believed that he had studied magic in Egypt , in order to account for his miracles *
" The language of Luke carries a pointed reference to the misrepresentation of the impostors , ¦ * Jesus himself was beginning to be about thirty years old . ' In English the word avroq , himself , has no meaning , and its reference to the forgers alone renders it proper and
significant . Thus , as if he had said , * The pretended historians of Jesus , who teacli his miraculous birth , represent him as an old lhan at this time , but this was a Jesus of their own fiction ; Jesus himself , the real and true Jesus , was but thirty years old . * I beg to assure my readers that I do not refine when I thus explain the
term avroq : for it has no other meaning but what is here ascribed to it , namely , emphasis , or opposition to some other object expressed or implied in the context . This pronoun occurs frequently in every writer ; and this import must be assigned to it , or it has no sense or propriety at ai } . " - ~ P . 15 .
The sum of the argument is the surprising ' fact ( we quote Dr , Jones ' s owa vyords , pp , 17 , 18 ) , < f that Luke , who is supposed to have written an account of the miraculous birth of
Jesus , does in reality contradict it as a falsehood . He asserts that he begins his gospel with the word of God which came to John the Baptist - and he defines the period of that event with unexampled precision $ he demonstrates the whole scheme to be a fiction , by shewing that Jesus was not really born till after the death of Herod * h « Great : —he asserts , in language
Untitled Article
the most positive and unequivocal , that Jesus was the son of Joseph ; ao < confirms this as a fact , b y the register of his birth , and the testimony of the people of Nazareth . " Ttie title of Chap . III . is " The Divinity of Christ suggested by
Heathenism , in order to account for his Miracles , and adopted by the Pagan Philosophers to set aside the Truth of his Gospel . " In support of this pro ^ - position , which will startle some readers , the author appeals to the discourse of Paul at Athens .
To introduce a new god at Athens was a capital crime . Three centuries before , Socrates was put to death under that very charge ; and they instantly conducted the Apostle to the Areopagus , to have him condemned for the same
offence , Paul effectually sets aside the charge , by holding forth Jesus as a man appointed of God to judges the world ; and raised from the grave by the power of the Almighty . The notion of one supreme God as the creator and governor of the universe , was not unknown to
the Athenian philosophers ; but lest the preaching of this Great Being should be made the grounds of a new accusation against the apostle , he , with admirable wisdom and presence of mind , precludes it by an appeal to their own writers , and especially to an altar erected to the
unknown God m that very city . Here we are presented with a very remarkable fact , most worthy the notice of those who believe that Paul taught the deity of our Saviour . The people of Athens ,
misled by Polytheism , charged that apostle with holding forth the divinity of Christ as an object of their acceptance . And what did this great champion of the religion of Jesus do , in consequence ? Did he meet t he charge and avow it ?
This he certainly would have done , had it been well-founded , even at the risk of his life . On the contrary , he cuts up the charge by the roots , a , 5-grounded in jiiis ^ conception : and he was accordingly discharged . Had he attempted to justify
that doctrine , he would have been , in * stantly condemned . His acquittal is an unequivocal fact that he negatived it , as a mere dictate of Heathenism . •*»*• Pp , 19 ,
20-Dr . Jones asserts that the enemies of the gospel adopted the suppoaltloa of Jesus being a pemon or Clod , to account for Ms miracles and appearance after death , without the necessity of admitting his resurrection to be a proof of a future state . There appears to us to be some obscurity in this part of the argument . The facts alleged
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1824, page 477, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2527/page/29/
-