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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 incarna. tion, 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 proper humanity of Jesus Christ.

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 be lief 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, i, p. 359–61.

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SECTION II.

ARGUMENT FROM THE MIRACULOUS CONCEPTION OF JESUS CHRIST.

THE narrative of this event is contained in the two first chapters of the gospels of Matthew and Luke. And the miraculous birth of Christ is regarded by many as a considerable presumptive evidence of his pre-existence. But,

1. The narrative itself is of very doubtful authority. The Ebionite gospel of Matthew and the Marcionite gospel of Luke did not contain these accounts: and both those sects maintained their own to be the uncorrupted, unmutilated copies of these evangelical histories.

From Luke iii. 1, compared with ver. 23, it appears that Jesus was born fifteen years before the death of Augustus, that is at least two years after the death of Herod ; a fact which completely falsifies the whole narrative contained in the preliminary chapters of Matthew and Luke.

If the relation given of the miraculous conception were true, it is utterly unaccountable that these extraordinary events should have been wholly omitted by Mark and John, and that there should not be a single allusion to them in the New Testament; and particularly, that in John's history, Jesus should be so frequently spoken of as the son of Joseph and Mary, without any comment, or the least hint that this statement was erroneous.

The Ebionites, who were Hebrew and Unitarian Christians, and the Gnostics, who were philosophizing Gentile believers, who differed from each other in almost every other opinion concerning the person of Christ, agreed in disbelieving the miraculous conception. There was no

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thing in the peculiarities of these sects which should render them averse to this opinion. Both would naturally have been pleased with any circumstance which would have exalted the dignity of the founder of their faith: but both these sects had their origin in the apostolic age, and had probably at that time never heard the report.

Also, if the facts related in the account of our Lord's nativity were true; viz. the appearances of angels, the star in the East, the visit of the Magi, the massacre of Bethlehem, &c. they must have excited great public attention and expectation, and could not have failed to have been noticed by contemporary writers, who nevertheless observe a total silence on the subject.

2. The miraculous conception of Jesus would no more infer his pre-existence, than the miraculous formation of our first parents, or the miraculous conception of Isaac, of Sampson, of Samuel, and of John the Baptist, would prove that these persons had an existence before they came into this world, and were beings of a superior order to the rest of mankind'.

1 See upon this subject Dr. Priestley's History of Early Opinions, vol. iv. book iii. chap. 20. Also the Notes, in the Improved Version of the New Testament, on the Prefaces of Matthew and Luke.

SECTION

SECTION III.

TEXTS EXAMINED WHICH ARE CONCEIVED TO EX

PRESS IN THE MOST DIRECT AND UNEQUIVOCAL TERMS THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF JESUS CHRIST.

THE writers of the New Testament are commonly reckoned eight. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Peter, and Jude. Of these writers six, viz. Matthew, Mark, Luke, James, Peter, and Jude, are generally allowed to have advanced nothing upon the subject of the preexistence, and superior nature and dignity of Jesus Christ. At least it will be admitted that, if there be any allusions in these writers to this extraordinary fact, they are so faint and obscure that, independently of the rest of the New Testament, they would not of themselves have proved, perhaps not even suggested the idea of, the pre-existence and divinity of Christ. The credit of these facts depends wholly upon the testimony of John and Paul.

Of the six writers who make no mention of the preexistence and divinity of Jesus Christ, three are professed historians of the life, the miracles, and the doctrine of Christ; and one continues his history to upwards of thirty years after our Lord's ascension; and relates many interesting particulars of the lives, the sufferings, and the doctrine of the apostles, the subjects of their preaching, the miracles which they performed, and the success of their mission. But neither the history nor the discourses of Christ, nor those of his apostles for thirty years after his ascension, contain the least hint of his pre-existent state and dignity.

But how can this total silence be explained and account

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