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Least of all , is that view of the passage admissible which represents Agrippa as saying , with a ^ stiefcr , " Thou woufdest almost persuade this assembly , to consider me in the light of a Christian ! " The Greek words , I will venture lib affirm , cannot bear such a construction , but plainly and fitly express the sense given to them in the Public Version . * Nor let it be objected that the najne Christian was a term of reproach . This it might be generally , yet not universally ; among the Greeks and Romans , yet not , I think , among the Jews , who seem to have known the disciples of Jesus Christ under the opprobrious appellation of Nazarenes . f
Bengel J thus delineates the principal actors in the scene which this chapter exhibits : " Occurrit hie , Festus , sine Christo , Paulus , Christianissimus , x \ grippas , in bivio , cum Optimo impulsu . " 2 Cor . v . 8 , " — willing rather to be absent from the body , and present with the Lord . "
The late Rev . William Gilpin made a novel application of this language an application which , I submit , does not harmonize with the verses that precede and follow . He tells us that " poorness of spirit , " which he opposes to worldly-mindedness , " is neither more nor less than that state so desirable by all Christians , which the Apostle Paul calls , being absent from the body , and present with the Lord . " §
Mr . Gilpin does not seem to have looked upon these words as expressing any thing about the condition of the dead in Christ . He affixed to them a moral , not a doctrinal , signification . Yet in this portion of the Epistle , Paul contrasts the life which now is with the life to come , a glorified with a mortal body . The passage most strictly parallel I take to be Philipp . i f 20—25 .
Heb . xiii . 8 , " Jesus Christ , the same yesterday , to day , and for ever . " There can be no reasonable doubt that by " Jesus Christ , " we are here to understand " the doctrine of Jesus Christ , " which , as it was taught by himself and by his apostles , is immutably the same . It does not follow , however , that the means by which uninspired men investigate this doctrine , are alike possessed in every age of the church ; in the thirteenth , fourteenth , and fifteenth , and sixteenth centuries , for example , and in the seventeenth , eighteenth , and nineteenth .
The late Bishop Hurd overlooked this distinction : and such a want of care made him unjust to others , and inconsistent with himself . He sneers at those who imagine that the Reformers had , substantially , fewer advantages for discerning the sense of the Scriptures than we of the present day . " || Yet , on another occasion , he tells us that the language of the Scriptures , and especially of the prophetical Scriptures , was in no degree so well understood in the time of Calvin , as it was in that of Dr . S . Clarke . " ^[ N-
quainted , as one of the Herodian family . For his character , see Mou . Repos . XXI . p . 675 . * This ^ said , in , par , t , on the authority of Grotius , in loc , and of the quotation wfyich he makes . The , i 4 jpra and usage of the Greek language admit not of the abdye em ^ Lb Vinent of the verb persuade . See the proper form in the opening sen ** teilfce Off Xtffci&phOri ' sM&rlbtahuia , &c .
f Acts . xxiv . . 5 v i'i •' ¦ " > '' ' "'•' ' % ' Gnomon , &c , in loc . § Sermons [ 1803 ] , Vol . III . p . 92 . || Sermons at LincoJn >> hih ^ 3 d ekl . ] , Vol . I . No . XIU . « JJ Sermons at the Warburtonian Lecture . No . X .
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Notes on Passages of Scripture . 669
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1828, page 669, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2565/page/13/
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