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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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is God , is a figure of speech , the converse of that , where Christ is said to be the way , the truth , and the life , and equally natural with it .
2 . The Logos in this proem is a personification , but the advocates of the orthodox faith , overlooking the
figure , take the personified being to be a real person . This mistake was natural , though consequences flowed from it which not only divided the Christian church into hostile sects and parties in all ages , but threatened to overwhelm Christianity itself by furnishing the sceptic with arguments against its divine origin . i €
3 . The Logos is said to become flesh , " that is , to become a being with flesh and blood , or a real human being . The Gnostics denied that Christ was a real being ; they denied
also that he received bis authority and power from the Almighty . If these artful and pernicious tenets were admitted , the gospel which proclaimed the placability of God and eternal life to the penitent , sunk like
the sun behind the thickest clouds of heathenism , and it became imperiously necessary in the Evangelist to set them aside $ and how could he have done this more effectually than by representing Christ as having real
fliesh , arid endued with those attributes from the Author of nature which that Author himself employed in the creation and government of the
universe ? 4 . As the Logos of God united with the man Jesus , it was reasonable that this name should occasionally be given him . But the term
holds him forth as the delegate of God , to be the Saviour of the world : it is a title of his office ^ not of his nature . As the Logos meant an attribute and not a real being , its union with Christ is not the union of two
natures in one person , but the union of his ministry , as the promised Messiah , with the moral government of God , for the salvation of mankind . The Evangelist in attesting the incorporation of the Logos , solely attests the divinity of our Lord ' s mission , and that ,, as I have just said , in opposition to widked and artful men who
denied his commission from the Creator and Governor of the world . 5 . If the Logos be really a divine being * , its union with the man Jesus
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constitutes him God and man . If \ on the other hand the Logos , be an attribute of God , its incorporation with Jesus constitutes him the Son of God , that is , a highly-favoured
servant of God , authorized to announce to mankind the glad tidings of salvation on the terms of repentance and reformation , and enabled to work miracles and to appear again alive after death , in attestation of his divine mission . If the former conclusion be
just , it is reasonable to expect that he should appear in the execution of his office under the character and title of God ; if the latter , his highest title
during his ministry would be that of the Son of God . This is a sure criterion whereby we may ascertain which of these two conclusions is the true
one . Which tl \ en on examining the gospel shall we find to have been the fact ? The very Evangelist who asserts that the Logos became flesh , asserts also , " These things were written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ , the Son of God . "
There are two occasions in the ministry of Jesus when , in an especial manner , the Logos of God appears to have been united with him . These are his baptism and his
transfiguration . When he was baptized , the Logos , or , as it is there called , the Holy Spirit , descended upon him in the form of a dove ; and how is he then pointed out by the voice from heaven ? _ m m w a « mi 1
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ * " This is my beloved Son in wham I am well pleased . " The Evangelist on saying that tlie Logos united with the man Jesus , refers , in illustration of this union , to the scene of his transfiguration . " And the Logos became flesh , and he formed his tent
among us , full of loveliness and reality . And we beheld his brightness as the brightness of an only-begotten Son from the Father . " 6 . The Gnostics , though disguised ,
were the most malignant and depraved enemies of the gospel , and they had recourse to the divinity of the Founder merely as a specious pretext to sink it in Heathenism . The drift of their
whole system was briefly this : Christ did not derive his authority from the Creator , because being himself a God lie did his miracles by virtue of his own power . He appeared after death by virtue of his own nature , and there is , therefore , no resurrection of the
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728 Dr . J . Jones on the Proem of John s Gospel .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1825, page 728, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2543/page/24/
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