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angels ?* ( P . 199 . ) Here be takes it for granted that the persons described in this last passage by the term angels , were beings superior to nien ; the probability is , that Moses and the { prophets are the angels or messengers intended . But allowing that such beings were employed as agents in this part of the Divine administration , is it to be supposea , we are asked , that after these illustrious spirits had carried the business to this point , they
should be ail at once dismissed , and the great design consummated by a mere man ? " Is it conceivable that this grand and consistent plan should be suddenly broken off , and that these glorious ministers of the Most High should be superseded by the son of a Galilean peasant ? " Here again we have the argumentum ad invidiam : " Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ?"
In a note to one of these discourses , Dr . Bruce values himself on his readiness to take the Scriptures as he finds them , and to receive the texts on which he founds his doctrine in their natural ( that is , what appears to the modern , or to the merely English reader , their natural ) sense . He finds fault alike with the Trinitarian and the Socinian , because they lay much stress on verbal criticisms , various readings , and philological disquisitions ; and amuses himself and his readers with the trifling minutiae , as he aflfects
to represent them , which have often been brought into discussion * It is not unreasonable to expect that when verbal criticism is against a man , he will be against verbal criticism . Certainly it is easy enough to throw contempt da the minute and apparently petty details in which the critic sometimes finds it necessary to busy himself ; and the unlearned reader is readily per ~ suaded to believe that it is altogether a useless labour narrowly to examine
the opposite pretensions of various readings , or to think of settling points oi " theology by o , ij , to . But this is a mere topic of declamation , to which it fe rather surprising that a man of unquestionable learning like Dr . Bruce should have recourse . When the omission , or change , or transposition of a word , or even of a letter , produces an important change in the meaning of
a passage , though it may be a matter of minute detail , it evidently ceases to be trifling ; and whether it affects the interpretation of a text on which any disputed doctrine is supposed to depend or not , still it is surely not unreasonable—nay , rather , it is our duty , to avail ourselves of any means by which light may be thrown on the true sense of holy writ * In more instances than
one , our author has shewn himself not only sensible of the necessity of resorting to this method of determining the true sense of Scripture , but willing and abundantly competent to apply it with accuracy and success . Towards the conclusion pf this discourse , the author endeavours to remote the objection to his views derived from their supposed tendency to weaken the efficacy of the example of Christ . Much of this , it has been said , depends on our regarding it as the example of a human being , endowed with powers and capacities not naturally superior to the rest of his fellow- *
creatures , though enlightened by the especial influence of Divine grace , and filled with all the fulness of tbe Godhead . A being so completely unique as an archangel , divested of his superior attributes , and assuming for a time the human form , could not , it is said , be a suitable example to his human disciples of those qualities and affections which it is desirable that men should cultivate ; as he cannot really sustain the relations in which they are placed , so , it is thought , he cannot exemplify the conduct by which those relations should be distinguished . I cannot say the objection appears to me of any great weight ; because all the examples which are proposed for our imitation , must , as far as they are deserving of imitation at all , be those of superiors ;
Untitled Article
776 Notes on Dr . Bruce * * Argument for the Pre-e&istence of Christ *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1829, page 776, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2578/page/32/
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