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and the fruit of his body,' defy their utmoft skill to distort them from their one one only obvious fenfe, viz. a lineal defcendent from David, by an human father.

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Again; thofe unambiguous expreffions, the Son of man, and the man Chrift Jefus, are fo intelligible, that a man must take infinite pains to misunderstand them. His predilection for a “κρύφιον δόγμα, to adopt the phrafe of the fhrewd and masterly author of the Confeffional,' an hidden abftrufe cabbalif tic meaning, must have taken intire poffeffion of his intellects, before he could melt down, by the fubtle chemistry of sophistry, coarfe evangelic common fenfe into refined fcholaftic nonfenfe. But, in fact, men of learning, from an accustomed attempt to folve real difficulties, contract an habit of perplexing easy truths, and, confequently, as often darken our light, as lighten our darkness. Of this we have abundant testimony in the groundless hypothefis, that the words, fan of man, and a man,' when applied to Chrift, mean merely an human creature of the male species, fupernaturally born of an human female. Your AngloChriftian friend, my Jewish friends, who

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is a plain Dayus, and no Oedipus, owns, that he cannot boat of an understanding accommodated to the, perception of the ingeo nuity and acuteness of expounding the fon of man,'to mean the fon of woman only; efpecially, as he is not authorized to adopt this expofition by the facred writings, either of the apoftles or prophets; and would have been lefs aftonished to have heard of a fect.

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of philofophifing fpirits maintaining, that that the fon of man is the fon of a man only." He is equally dull in comprehending how an human male, the offspring of an human female alone, can be called a man. In hist idea, no man can be a man, who is not begotten by a man on the body of a woman and, in fact, it is impoffible to invent a name fully expreffive of that creature of the brain, reprefented as fprung from the womb of a woman alone, uhconscious of a previous carnal knowledge of a man. Now, on the fuppofition, that fuch a being ever exifted, except in the confufed pericranium of a Chriftian Platonist, I defy every evangelift to prove, that he can be called the fon of man, and a man,' without a most unparalleled and unpardonable catachréfis,"or abuse of words, which we are not inftructed

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to look for in the exprefs and unambiguous revelation of the will of God, to man, contain ed in his merciful Gospel difpenfation adminiftered by the one mediator between God and man, the man Chrift Jefus The inevitable confequence of the establishment of fuch a catachrefis is, that language must ceafe to be the vehicle of ideas. An appeal to difpaffionate and unprejudiced right re fon will quickly decide the point, whether the fcriptural appellations, the Son of man, ‘and a man, afèribed to Jefus, the promised Mefiah, can admit any other fignification, than that he was the fon, as well of a man, as of, a woman, and a man of corruptible flesh and blood like as we are corruptible, I day, for it was entirely owing to the exertion of the power of God, in raising him from the dead, on the third day, that his body did not putrefy, plus ditis end Remo plozi edi • belih yishqoq fic dif

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Dreadily grant that Chrift was divinely infpired,, not partially, like the prophets, but univerfally, or, to ufe an evangelic expreffion, without measure, a circumstance neceffary to qualify him for preaching the Gospel of Peace; that he worked miracles, for, without the exertion of fuch divinelydelegated

gated power, he could not have proved the truth of his divine commiffion; and that, though fubject to human infirmities and paffions, and 'tempted like as we are,' he lived and died without fin. The end and intent of God's gracious Gofpel difpenfation be ing of a moral nature, or to introduce an univerfal purity and holiness among men, it is very plain that this moral end could not be fecured but by moral means, and that no moral means could be better caleulated to promote the moral perfection of man, than the illuftrious and unparalleled example of a man practifing obedience to the will of God, even unto death, and that the most lingering, excruciating, and ignominious death of the cross, the most difinterested and generous love to his fellow creatures, and spotless innocence and purity. Hence this truly good man is with the strictest propriety, ftiled the Holy One,' or the one holy man : For, though God made man,' or mankind, upright," or per fect, that is, capable of arriving by a prac tical conformity to the law imprest onhis understanding, at the moral perfection of his nature, yet no man, before Chrift, ever did attain it, and, to the more inexcufable

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reproach of his nominal disciples, no man, after him, has completely imitated the example of his literally finlefs life and death.

But that our Lord, Jefus Chrift, was a man, that he was begotten by a man on the body of a woman, in the honorable ef tate of matrimony, as we fellow creatures are, cannot furely admit a doubt, in the mind of any Christian, who, unfhackled by fyftematic prejudices, grudges not the pains to confult the numerous paffages of the New Teftament, where Chrift is expressly ftiled the son of man, and a man,' without any of those strange qualifying limitations, and perplexing explications, which Christian fophifts affix to these fimple and intelligible expreffions; expreffions, felfevident to every man, whofe head is not bewildered by the nice subtle diftinctions of the vain philofophy,' contained in the writings of the schoolmen of Alexandria, who are prefumptuously denominated fathers of the church, whereas many of them. might more aptly be termed babes in Christ.'

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