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We are quite disposed to agree with our author in the following opinion : " I do not see that the slightest mention , either figurative , or literal , or typical , or allusive , is made to Jesus in the first five verses of this Gospel /' P . 15 . And upon this we would rest our defence of this passage against those who would turn it into an argument for the doctrine that Christ was God .
We think our author has not equal reason on his side in applying the 14 th verse , " And the Word was made flesh , " to the birth of Jesus Christ . " By this I understand that the very same power and wisdom which were operative in the creation , of the world , were implanted in the infant , or rather the embryo frame of Jesus , the son of Mary ; that his whole nature and character were miraculous ; that he spake and taught with super-human wisdom , that he acted with super-human power , " &c . —P . 15 .
The period when our Saviour received his divine commission , and was pointed out as the Son of God , was the period of the baptism . Then it was that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit . And this period is , to our minds , distinctly marked by the position of the words in St . John's introduction , after the mission of John the Baptist . It has always appeared to the author of the " Letters on the Logos , " that the true scriptural theory , with respect to the office and character of
Jesus Christ , has not yet been plainly expounded . The doctrine of the independent divinity of his nature , besides the entire want of scriptural evidence in its favour , is encumbered with so many radical difficulties and unanswerable objections , that we cannot for a moment hesitate in rejecting it . Then , on the other hand , there is a large portion of the language of Scripture which " appears difficult of interpretation upon the supposition of his mere humanity , in the sense in which that phrase is commonly received . " P . 15 .
Now , no believer in the divine authority of Christ is chargeable with the opinion of the mere humanity , in the most objectionable sense ; but we shall find that our author himself receives the proper humanity , the pure humanity , as a late writer has well expressed it , and differs only from other disbelievers in our Lord ' s personal pre-existence , in the interpretation which he annexes to the passages commonly urged in support of that opinion .
" The only refuge from these two views of his character appears , at first sight , to be in the opinion , that his body was the residence of a super-angelic and pre-existent spirit . But the evidence against this supposition also , drawn from the circumstances of his birth and infancy , his recorded growth in wisdom , ( Luke ii . 52 , ) the descent of the Spirit upon him , and other considerations , accumulates to an amount not to be removed , and presses with a force not to be resisted . Difficulties like these have always been connected in my mind with these several views of our Lord's character . "—P . 15 .
The author attributes the train of reflection and research which has led to his present performance , to an accidental perusal of Lowman ' s Three Tracts upon the Shekinah and Logos . After Michaelis , he maintains that the first fourteen verses of John ' s Gospel are constructed in the form of counterpositions to opinions then prevalent ; that , in commencing the narrative of our Saviour ' s life and preaching , the Evangelist endeavours either to correct the errors of misguided friends , or to refute the false doctrines of open or secret enemies . " The brief elementary propositions which he puts forth are evidently in-
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688 Pamphlets on the Logos *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1828, page 688, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2565/page/32/
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