"
[Footnote 101: Acts 4. 12.]
From this new statement of the proposition, which statement is
consistent with the language of divines, it will appear, that, if the
Quakers have made every thing of the spirit, and but little of Christ, I
have made, to suit the objectors, every thing of Christ, and but little
of the spirit. Now I would ask, where lies the difference between the
two statements? Which is the more accurate; or whether, when I say these
things were done by the spirit, and when I say they were done by Christ,
I do not state precisely the same proposition, or express the same
thing?
That Christ, in all the offices stated by the proposition, is neither
more nor less than the spirit of God, there can surely be no doubt. In
looking at Christ, we are generally apt to view him with carnal eyes. We
can seldom divest ourselves of the idea of a body belonging to him,
though this was confessedly human, and can seldom consider him as a pure
principle or fountain of divine life and light to men. And yet it is
obvious, that we must view him in this light in the present case; for if
he was at the creation of the world, or with Moses at the delivery of
the law, (which the proposition supposes) he could not have been there
in his carnal body; because this was not produced till centuries
afterwards by the virgin Mary.
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