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tarere seen by Joshua Bad Manoah . Daciiei caKs Gabriel a man . In like manner the young men who sat at the side of the sepulchre , and the two men who appeared at the ascension , were superior beings in a human form . None of these were ever supposed to be animated by a human soul , and tbias . to hgve two souls , " ( P . 157 ) ^ This last example , however , at least , it must be recollected , is a mere gratuitous assumption ; we are nowhere
told any such thing ip Scripture , If , as I believe to have been ihe case , they were real men , it was impossible that the sacred writers shoald suppose any thing else than that they were animated by human souls , and therefore they were not at all likely to say a word about it , because it could never occur to them that their readers would entertain a doubt on the subject . As for the instances quoted from the Old Testament , it may also bear a
question , whether the angels who appeared to Abrairam and to Jacob were in reality any thing more than what they are called . It is not Scripture ; it should be observed , J > ut Nebuchadnezzar , who calls the fourth figure which he saw in the furnace , a man ; he speaks , indeed , of his form being like the son , or a son , of God ; meaning , probably , that there was something about his appearance peculiarly dignified , such as might be expected in a prophet or person deputed with an especial commission from God .
It is observable , mat in several passages of these discourses the author makes use ( inadvertently , I am persuaded J of some of those artifices of disputation by which practised controversialists often endeavour to make the worse appear the better cause . Thus , after enumerating ( pp . 196 , &c ) nearly all the passages which are usually quoted by the believers in the pre-existence , as either distinctly expressing or implying that doctrine , he adds , " jhese are a few of the texts which speak directly of the existence of Christ previously to his incarnation . " In the succeeding remarks on the
methods of interpretation adopted by Socmians and others of some of these passages , and which , of course , appear to him unnatural , far-fetched , and unsatisfactory , we read as follows : " But even this distortion of particular texts is not thought sufficient to invalidate this doctrine ; for some who deny it are farced , at the same time , to expunge the commencement of Matthew and Luke ; and this without any warrant or authority from manuscripts . " ( P . 199 . ) Whether those who reject the introductory chapters of Matthew and Luke , ( or either of . them , for there are those who receive the latter
while tbeyxeject the former , ) have sufficient grounds for so doing , is a question with which I shall not concern myself at present , because I do not see what connexion it has with the controversy about the pre-existence of Christ . Msuay who deny this doctrine admit the authenticity of these chap- * texs , and with it the astonishing fact which they are commonl y supposed to relate . But the mode of interpretation , satisfactory or otherwise , by which the Socinians ( so called ) , are accustomed to explain the Arian texts in
consistency with their doctrine , are not such as to force them to expunge the commencement of Matthew and Luke . This , therefore , is nothing better than an artifice to cast a stigma on his opponents in the estimation of his readers , as persons who will not hesitate , for the sake of an hypothesis , to expunge portions of Scripture in defiance of all authority ; thus rousing their prejudices and drawing their attention away from the real question . It is an
drgumentum ad invidicurL , which is not less unfounded than inconclusive . " We have every reason , " Dr . Bruce informs us , " to believe that the Patriarchal and Mosaic dispensations were conducted , under God , by the agency of one supereminent being , denominated the Angel of the Covenant * &c , an ^ we are expressly told that they were ordered by the ministry of
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Notes oth Dr . Bruw ' s Argument for the Pre ^ ewtitence of Christ . 776
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1829, page 775, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2578/page/31/
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