On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
ntfut of the next Century will be commensurate with that of the present ?" " Whether the Science of Physiognomy is sanctioned by Facts ? " " On Ocular and Mental Illusions , and on the Effects of the Imagination . " Besides these , which are the whole of the subjects
announced , evenings have been occasionally occupied with select readings from books , such as the Life and Writings of Dr . Franklin , &c . ; and a course of Lectures , on the First Principles of Mechanics , has been delivered , illustrated by the exhibition of a complete set of working models of all the mechanical powers . JOHN H . M 0 GGR 1 DGE . Woodfield , July 14 , 1829 .
Untitled Article
On the Proem of St . John ' s Gospel , in Reply to T . F . B . To the Editor .
Sir , More than two months have now elapsed since I perused a letter with the signature of T . F . B ., occasioned by an attempt of mine to explain the introductory verses of St . John ' s Gospel . During a part of this interval , I can say that I waited in respectful patience for the
thoughts of that gentleman who at first invited me , iu the number for November last , to present a statement of my interpretation in a definite form ; and 1 am , even now , not without hopes that your readers will , ere long , be instructed by his suggestions , believing that he is accustomed to form clear conceptions of the subjects to which he turns his mind , and that he has the happy art of writing upon them with perspicuity .
Your three correspondents , Sir , are alike agreed , that the proem of St . John ' s Gospel neither teaches the hypothesis of three persons in one God , nor the actual deity of the second of those persons . Your correspondent T . F . B ., whose communication has led to these remarks , farther agrees with myself in this , that
the Evangelist , by his term o Aoyot ; the Word , does not denote what we mean by a person . There appears to both of us aii entire absence of all direct evidence to shew that John is speaking of a personal agent . We differ , however , on other points , which 1 proceed to specify .
1 . I reject T . F . B . 's interpretation of o A < yyo $ t the Wordy in the sense of " wisdom and power , " because I cannot find an instance of this usage of the term in the Bible , nor has your correspondent produced one instauce . When he does
Untitled Article
I will carefully examine it , and think I shall have no difficulty in shewing that it will not suit his purpose . I am confirmed in the sense which 1 have attached to it , vizwthe word of truth , by the Apostle ' s own usage at the
commencement of las first epistle , and by the concession of your correspondent , that my remarks on that portion " appear to him just as well as perspicuous . " No other proof is wanting of your correspondent ' s candour ; bat to me it appears that satisfaction with the sense attributed to the commencement of St .
Johns Epistle , might reasonably have led to more attention to the same sense proposed to be applied to the language of the same writer , written not improbably about the same time . I am sure that your correspondent will agree with me in this , that a sounder principle of interpretation cannot be devised , than to make an author , as far as possible , his own interpreter . This I consider as a very strong point in my favour .
2 . I take leave to correct the statement of your correspondent , that I lay any claim to originality of interpretation , so far at least as the principal words are concerned . Perhaps T . F . B . was not aware that two very able writers , oue of them eminently so , I mean the learned and benevolent Dr . Jebb , in whose works are , I think , found some of the clearest and justest principles of theology , * have
given the sanction of their authority to the same sense of the principal term . With the great authority of Dr . Jebb in my favour , 1 am by no means disconcerted by the epithets " poor , frigid , and almost insignificant , " applied to the sense which I assign to St . John ' s language , for they must be equally applicable to the paraphrase which Dr . Jebb has given .-f
3 . I do not regard the idea which I have advanced respecting Osos without the article , iu the third clause of the first verse , as an essential part of my interpretation . The difficulty cannot be greater on my side than on that of T . F . B . Both of us suppose that the term ® eo <; ,
God , is applied to what is impersonal , and therefore it cannot receive the usual signification . I had said that " I do not conjecture any other reading here , but suppose 0 £ o ? to be here used adjactively , " that is , like an adjective ; the charge , therefore , of ** conjectural criticism * ' is
The other is the author of a volume of Lady Meyer ' s Lectures , Dr . Benjamin Dawson . t Works , Vol . I . p . 126 .
Untitled Article
AfiBttttanevue Correspondence . 577
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1829, page 577, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2575/page/57/
-