Jared Sparks
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 80
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1823 edition. Excerpt: ... does it not authorize their principles? Why blame so heinously in individuals expressions which occasion no trouble when We finds them in the Scripture.? Why study to elude, by an unnatural distinction, the clear and" natural sense which exhibits itself in these passages. They ought at least to grant, that from the reflections which they make to justify these expressions of scripture, which represent Jesus Christ to us as inferior to his Father, they ought, I say, to grant, that the Unitarians are authorized in speaking as they do of Jesus Christ; they will be able to say that Jesus Christ is not omnipotent; that Jesus Christ does not know every thing; that Jesus Christ did not create the Heavens and the Earth. They will follow herein a mode of speaking approved by the orthodox; they will adopt the style of scripture; no one will have any reason to be offended with this language. One must perhaps say on this subject, something like what a famous orthodox man said with regard to the subjects of Grace; One must preach like an Arminian, and believe like a Calvinist; so here, one must speak with the Unitarians, and believe with the orthodox. Who does not see, however, whither sentiments of this kind lead! To conclude, what shows the little foundation that this distinction hath, which they employ in order to accommodate those passages which represent Jesus Christ as inferior to his Father, is, that the ancient Fathers, even the most orthodox of them, never made use of it. They took a different way to answer these passages; they owned that Jesus Christ, considered even as God, was in some respects subordinate to his Father; that as it was from him that he derived his being, in this regard he depended in some measure on his Father; in this...