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tinction has been often pointed out by learned and judicious divines . Thus Bishop Bur net : " When divine writers argue upon any point , we are always bound to believe the conclusions that their reasonings end in , as parts of divine revelation ; but we are not bound to be able to make out , or even to assent to , all the premises made use of by them in their whole extent ; unless it appears plainly that they affirm the premises expressly as they do the conclusions proved by them . "
And Paley , " In reading * the apostolic writings we should carefully distinguish between their doctrines and their arguments . Their doctrines came to them by revelation , properly so called ; yet in propounding these doctrines in their writings or discourses , they were wont to illustrate , support , and enforce them by such analogies , arguments , and considerations , as their own thoughts suggested . " Again ,
* ' St . Paul , I am apt to believe , has been sometimes accused of inconclusive reasoning , by our mistaking that for reasoning which was only intended for illustration . He is not to be read as a man whose own persuasion of the truth of what he taught always or solely depended on the views under which he represents it in his writings . Taking for granted the certainty of his doctrine as resting upon the revelation that had been imparted to him , he exhibits it frequently to the conceptions of his readers under images and allegories , in which if an analogy may be perceived , or even sometimes a poetic resemblance be found , it is all ^ perhaps , that is required . "
Now , there is no part of the New Testament where considerations such as these are so much required as in the Epistle to the Hebrews , and there is no subject which demands more caution and care , if we wish not to be greatly misled , and to pervert the authorities to which we appeal , than the use made of passages from the Old Testament . The Jews , in our Lord ' s time , considered the greatest part of their Scriptures as applicable in a secondary and mystical sense to their expected Messiah . The Christian
writers often argued with them from their own concessions , or illustrated and recommended what they taught by expressing it in the words of the Old Testament . The Epistle to the Hebrews is altogether an attempt to render the gospel interesting to Jews by an application to its truths ( much in the manner of the applications of Scripture which are now so common among most sects ) of the words of the ancient sacred books , and by finding analogies between them and the principles or ceremonies of the law .
In this light it has been considered by some of the most distinguished theologians , and thus only it appears to us that we can obtain an intelligible and rational view of its character and purpose . " Long before our Saviour ' s time , " says Dr . Hey , late Norrisian Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge , " it seems probable that the Jews
had some sort of traditions ; traditional narratives , prophecies , or modes of interpreting prophecies - f modes of arranging , construing , and applying the Psalms , and other parts of Holy Writ ; methods of allegorizing- ; all these our Saviour and his apostles seem to have so far adopted as to make use of them in reasoning with the Jews . "
Le Clerc , in his edition of Hammond ' s Paraphrase and Notes , says , ( Heb . ix . 16 , ) " All the principles of Christian doctrine which the author of this Epistle
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Dr * «/ . P . Smith ' s Scripture Testimony to the Messiah * 163
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1831, page 163, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2595/page/19/
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