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very great disadvantages ; so much so , that from what I have frequently heard from the pulpit and out of the pulpit , I arn almost inclined to oppose an old adage , and to say , Bonus Textuarius malus Theologus . I am sure of this , that if preachers would have the goodness now and then to see in what sense the writer uses the texts they quote , there would result a very great change in their discourses .
I shall beg leave to conclude this letter with a translation of the third verse of John , in which I appeal to the authority of the Established Version for my rendering of eyeyaro , as it is taken from repeated instances of the use of that verb in the sense in which I have taken it . ^ x Third verse : AH did come to pass through it , and without it did come to
pa £ S nothing that has come to pass . I do not give this as an elegant , but a literal version of the passage , convey * ing , as it appears to me , the true meaning of the writer . I shall be glad if it is sanctioned by the authority of Ben David , and , if otherwise ; shall be much obliged to him to shew us in what it is incorrect ;
W . FREND . N . B . I have used in my translation above , of the third verse * " did come to pass , * for sysvaro , merely to shew the distinction of tenses in syBvsro and yeyovev . To make it still more conformable to the reading of Eyevsro , in the Established Version , the verse may be read , All came to pass through it , and without it came to pass nothing that has come to pass .
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sage to that of the gospel , and we must see that they be so explained as to harmonize with one another * Let us then suppose that both the passages , in the original as well as in the English , are before the reader . In this way I shall make the Apostle his
own interpreter . In the beginning was the Word . What beginning ? Of the world or of the Gospel ? Compare the Epistle . That which was from the beginning * which we have heard , which we have seen with our eyes , which we have looked upon , and our hands have han ~ died of the word of life . As all the
succeeding circumstances here mentioned refer evidently to the evangelic history , and not to the natural world , I think we are obliged to understand the first clause of the sentence in the same connexion . If we say , that
which was from the beginning of Christianity , it makes good and coherent sense in this passage 5 but if we substitute , that which was from the beginning of creation , the sense is injured , for though the idea be gr ^ at , yet it is foreign to the matter in hand . This leads me to conclude that the
Apostle refers , in both passages , to the beginning of the Gospel , or of Christianity ; of that series of great events with which he had long been conversant as the great concern of his life . There is good confirmation of this decision in other passages of the
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722 On the Proem of John s Gospel .
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Sir , RESUME my remarks on the I proem of John ' s Gospel . Having stated in a recent number of the Repository , ( pp . 536—538 , ) the objections to which the interpretation adopted in the Improved Version is
liable , I shall now proceed to an analysis of the passage , with a view to exhibit what I conceive to be its genuine meaning . In doing this , however , let me not be thought to claim the merit of originality , as I aim at nothing more than recalling the
wandering attention of persons too fond of novelty , to opinions known and advocated long ago . No reproach of temerity belongs to me who fight under the banners of Lardner and Priestley , " par nobile fratrum ; " the one of
whom by laborious research in the neglected mines of Christian antiquity , and the other by the bold flight of reason , which pinions exercised in modern science alone could take , cleared away the accumulated rubbish which encumbered the Christian ' s
path , and set , as it were , anew polish on the ancient gem of the gospel . In connexion with John ' s Gospel , there is another book of the New Testament which we ought to consider ,
because it is evidently from the same pen , and very similar in style and sentiments : I mean his general Epistle . The proem or opening of this last appears to be a perfectly parallel pas .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1825, page 722, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2543/page/18/
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