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phemy with which he was charged . This course , however , he did not take . " We shall reply to this , by calling attention to the course which Jesus did take . He was unwarrantably , maliciously , and notwithstanding that his expressions might easily have been understood , accused of blasphemy , because his calling God his Father was represented as a sort of assumption of divinity . The sum of his defence is , " Judges and magistrates are called gods in Scripture , because the word of God was with them , or was addressed to them—because they had to administer justice in his name , or because he had commanded them to plead the cause of the destitute and fatherless , and to govern and protect the poor ; this would be allowed to be certainly right , for the Scriptures cannot be made void ; how , then , should he , whom the Father had selected as his chosen servant , and sent forth on a mission of grace and truth , which was proved by so many miracles , be accused of impiety for only calling himself the Son of God ?" The defence clearly shews that he had called himself no more than the Son
of God 9 and knew this expression to be the cause of offence , and it jusnfies the use of it by an eminent servant of God on the supposition of his being , like the magistrates who had been of old called Gods , a human being , in the most satisfactory manner . Since , then , his exculpation was complete , and included a disclaimer of any pretensions founded on any other grounds than having been chosen , authorized , and peculiarly employed
by God , it would be great presumption in , us to say that it ought to have been made in any terms which might seem to us more precise . It answered its purpose at the time , and if we give it our candid attention we shall not now mistake its meaning . We will notice one more attempt which our author has made to strengthen his case :
" He ( Jesus ) then appeals to his unquestionable miracles , as the attestation of his truth in again affirming the very thing- which had created the offence ; in terms different , indeed , but clearly of the same import , and most strongly expressive , not of a union of power merely , though that involved a claim of omnipotence , [ precisely as an officer who arrests a man in the king ' s name claims for himself the royal authority , ] but of a union in the very nature and manner of existence : in me is the Father and I in him . "
Dr . S . is right , that this expression is of the same import with the other , and he has himself brought forward the unanswerable and irresistible objection to his interpretation of it , in the examples of its use in other places . In that day , says our Lord , John xiv . 20 , ye shall hnow
that I am in my Father , and ye in me and I IN you . That they all may be one ; as thou , Father , art in me , and I in thee , that they also may be one in us I in them , and thou in me , that they may be completed into one * John xvii . 2 ] , 23 . By this we hnow that we abide in him , and he in us , that he hath given us of his spirit •••••• God is love ; and
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694 Z > r . •/ . /\ Smith ' s Scripture Testimony to the Messiah .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1831, page 594, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2601/page/18/
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