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dignity, their evidence must without hesitation be admitted. They could not be mistaken.

2. Nevertheless, when a fact is contrary to the established order of Nature, and the antecedent improbability is very great, the direct evidence must be proportionably strong. The doctrine of the pre-existence and high original powers of Christ ought not to depend upon a few obscure, mystical, and ambiguous texts.

3. In examining the validity of an argument from Scripture, the first inquiry is, whether the text be genuine; the second is, to ascertain its true import, and the correctness of its application.

4. In order to judge of the true sense of a disputed text, it is necessary to consider the connexion in which it stands; the scope and design of the writer; the customs and modes of thinking which prevailed in the age and country in which the author wrote; his own turn of mind. and peculiar phraseology, and whether he means to be understood literally or figuratively. Also, similar passages and forms of expression must be compared with each other, so that what is obscure and doubtful may be illustrated by what is clear and intelligible.

5. Impartial and sincere inquirers after truth must be particularly upon their guard against what is called the natural signification of words and phrases. The connexion between words and ideas is perfectly arbitrary; so that the natural sense of a word to any person, means nothing more than the sense in which he has been accustomed to understand it. But it is very possible that men who lived two thousand years ago might annex very different ideas to the same words and phrases; so that the sense which appears most foreign to us, might be most natural to them.

6. It ought by all means to be remembered, that profound learning and acute metaphysical subtilty are by no

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means necessary to settle the important question concerning the person of Christ. The inquiry is into a plain matter of fact, which is to be determined like any other fact by its specific evidence, the evidence of plain unequivocal testimony; for judging of which, no other qualifications are requisite than a sound understanding and an honest mind. Who can believe that the decision of the great question whether Jesus of Nazareth is the true God, and the Creator and Governor of the world, depends upon a critical knowledge of the niceties of the Greek Article? With equal reason might it be maintained, that no person can know any thing of the History of Greece, who is not perfect in the metres of the Greek dramatic writers1.

7. Inquiry to be useful must be impartial. The mind must be kept open to conviction, and ready to follow evidence whithersoever it leads; to sacrifice prejudices the most deeply rooted and the most fondly cherished, and to embrace truths the most unexpected and unwelcome. Truth must ultimately be favourable to virtue and to happiness.

The subject is divided into Two Parts. The First contains A Selection and Examination of those Passages in the New Testament which have been alleged in favour of the Pre-existence and original Dignity, Power, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. The Second Part comprehends A summary View of the various Hypotheses which have been formed concerning the Person of Christ, and of the Arguments for and against each Hypothesis respectively.

1 Whoever heard of a juryman being challenged because he was not a good grammarian? The incarnation of a God, the incarceration of the Creator of the world in the body of a helpless puling infant, is a fact, the credit of which must rest, like that of all other facts, not upon grammatical subtilties, but upon evidence direct, presumptive, or circumstantial, upon the validity of which every person of common sense is competent to decide.

PART

PART THE FIRST.

SELECTION AND EXAMINATION OF THOSE PASSAGES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, WHICH HAVE BEEN ALLEGED IN FAVOUR OF THE PRE-EXISTENCE, THE ORIGINAL DIGNITY, POWER, AND DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST.

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

THESE passages will be arranged under the following

heads.

I.

The arguments which are alleged to prove that the Jews in the time of Christ believed in the pre-existence of their expected Messiah.

II. The narratives of the miraculous conception and birth of Jesus Christ.

III. The texts which are conceived to express in the most direct and unequivocal language the pre-existence of Jesus Christ.

IV. The texts which, if they are not to be admitted as direct arguments, are nevertheless thought to be

V.

most correctly interpreted as alluding to this important fact.

Those in which attributes appear to be ascribed to Christ, which are thought to establish his preexistence, and by many even his divinity,

VI. Those passages which are understood as affirming the superiority of Christ to angels.

VII. Those

VII. Those passages which ascribe Names, Titles, and Characters to Christ, which are supposed to infer great original dignity in a pre-existent state, and by many to prove his supreme divinity.

VIII. Those which are supposed to teach that Christ is the Maker, Supporter, and Governor of all things.

IX. Those passages from which it is inferred that Christ was the Medium of the divine dispensations to mankind antecedently to his supposed incarnation, and particularly of the dispensations of divine providence to the patriarchs, and to the Jewish nation.

X. Those which express the exaltation to which Christ is advanced, and the offices with which he is now or will hereafter be invested, and which it is argued are incompatible with the supposition of his proper humanity.

XI. The passages which require or exemplify homage and worship to be offered to Christ, to which it is conceived that no creature, at least no man however exalted, can be entitled.

This part will close with

XII. A selection of passages from the New Testament to prove, if it were necessary, the inferiority and per humanity of Jesus Christ.

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SECTION

SECTION I.

THAT THE JEWS EXPECTED A PRE-EXISTENT

MESSIAH.

ONE text only is alleged with any plausibility in favour of this supposition.

John vii. 27. "We know this man whence he is: but when the Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is."

Grotius and Doddridge explain this passage as alluding to the miraculous conception of Jesus.

Dr. Whitby more justly understands it as referring to a tradition among the Jews, that the Messiah was to be conveyed from Bethlehem soon after his nativity, and to be concealed from the world till Elias came to anoint him.

It is said that some of the modern Cabalists maintain that the angel Metatron, who led the Israelites in the wilderness, will be the soul of the Messiah. But it is notorious that the ancient Jews, and indeed the Jewish nation in general, in all ages entertained no such expectation. Trypho the Jew, in his Dialogue with Justin Martyr early in the second century, represents the notion of the preexistence and incarnation of Jesus, as not only wonderful, but silly and he reproaches the Christians for their belief in the miraculous conception of Christ, which he ridicules as a fiction equally absurd with that of Jupiter and Danäe. He says, that all his nation expect the Messiah to be a man born like other men.

Justin Martyr Opp. Edit. Thirlby, p. 233-6. Dr. Priestley's Hist. of Early Opinions, vol. iii. p. 30-40. Ben Mordecai's (H. Taylor's) Lett. vol. i. p. 359–61.

SECTION

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