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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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Untitled Article
pnttfmtt < k jbiJjencjB **^ ftuk & dm fcs ty imt Qmiiut&e iooneludiug ; iparagvffp § iqa ® £ y&u % WatBt p& % ® % 9 ir / whtve yo \ ii so inW i ^ 0 i ^ teoily ^ ffourish y our weapon over riiedslam body of Berr David . Your words : are these : * ' I know not
whether : the author of the Letters imagined thbtittgenious attempt upon the passage , Jesus Christ is came in the flesh * to be new , and to have been reserved by his propitious stars to be essayed by him—to the confusion
of course of the orthodox , and the joy and triumph of Unitarians . If this-be the case , I must , I fear , be so cttiel as . to dispel the pleasing illusion by informing him , that the attempt h&s already been made , and that it has been attended with a failure so
signal , as might have deterred any one , not gifted with an immoderate vanity or temerity , from renewing it . Ijo the controversy between Bishop Horsley and Dr . Priestley , it was attempted by the Unitarian champion and exposed by the defender of the orthodox doctrine to the ridicule of
the merest smatterer in logic . To revive , however , exploded arguments , vvitU the same confidence as if they h # d never been questioned , and even to pretend that they have bejera drawn fettrti veins of reasoning hitherto unexplored , is no new thing with
Unitarjftnfe ; nor can the author of the Lett ^ r ^ escape the imputation of having « # msplred to support this very disingmfrouis practice , unless , indeed , he m ^ y , claim the benefit of ignorance . " The effrontery contained in this passage is equalled only !> v its folly ,
and I should be wanting in justice to the memory of Dr . Priestley as well as to myself , if J did not expose it . In p . 120 , Dr . Horsley says , "You say that this phrase of coming iu the
flesh refers naturally to the doctrine of the Gnostics . I say the very same thing . But I say that in the sense in which the Church understood it , this phrase refers to two divisions of the Gnostics , the € ) oeeta 5 and the
Cerintiuans , affirming a doctrine which is a mean between their opposite errors . The D . ucetai affirmed that Jesus was not h man ia reality , but in appear * itn <; e . only ; the Geriuthians , that he ^ sa , qier « man under the tutelage V $ ( jurist , a supemngelie being , which HW * R * * ° united to the man as to x ^ ke ^ poe peiaoii * St . John t ^ ays
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4 5 nm ^ XM ^ tymi 4 mmei 3 m atiiei { &e ^} tbiitr is ^ - iwi * theiiMf ^ EclsA di ^^^ iJ ^ jnie r ^^ taefea undenstood | dJLes&sd wdsoinn tnhui not in appearance j enHy / ad the ^ D ^ cetfe taug'h t » ii ^ t a . ' nxer . e ** n vml iis thei Ceraii 1 f
thians tauspliti ^ ufiderryfeRe ^ ts&seo ^ -. Ife superangcliE guardiaa , / but Gteisl iamU self come in the fleshy the ? w 6 rd ' o € God incarnate ^ SU John days ^ ^ tkat whoever denies * fyis complex prvjtftfi tion is of antiehrk ^ r
la commenting on tlik passage ; I wish I could give Dr * Horsley the " benefit of i $ > narance : " but the fusts misrepresented in it are so notorious and well attesfced , that the mi&repr 6-seiitin ^ of thein mus t have been w * U ful , < md the author , to screen himself
from infamy , calculated largely mi the implicit confidence likely to he reposed iu bis authority by the pubL lie . The saying that the phrase of coming in the flesh refers to two divisions of the Gnostics , is a mere trick to blind his readers * without a shadow of reason in its favour . " The com *
ing- in th « flesh / means to have a real body > and how could the words refer to the Ceriathians , Avho taught that Jesus was a mere inau , born of Joseph and Mary ? These impostors
dj ^ tinguisbed between the man Jes us and the Christ , and the Apostle , in cb . ii . 22 , levels liis language against them : " Who is the liar , but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ i" &t ^
1 he Docetae , on the other hand , allowed that Jesus was the Christ , but that he had no real body . This division John meets in chap , iv \ , and he savs in reference to them , " Every
spirit which confesseth Jesus Christ couie in the fledi is of God , " ¦ &c : Both divisions are recognized in the course of the Epistle , but they are ut a distance from each other . The Ian *
tfuage of the sacred writer is measured and appropriate in each in 1 stance . Against the Cerinthhms , who denied that the man Jesus was the Christ , he asks , " Who is the liar ,
but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ ? " Against the Docetae , who denied that Jesus Christ had flesh and blood , he inculcates that Jesus Christ did come clothed in human
flesh . What the Apostle urges against both heresies is not therefore one complex ? proposition , as Dr . Howley asserts , but two very distinct pi ^ positions , eacb calculated to eaforc ^
Untitled Article
4 rT& Let ^^^}^^^ I > kv iffiA 4 ^ 4 M n js ^>> %
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1826, page 472, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2551/page/28/
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