mére man.

and the Perfecution on the account of it. Church Hiftory, and the earlieft writers after St. John, affure us, that Ebion and Cerinthus denied the Divinity of Chrift, and afferted that he was a Controverfy naturally carries men to fpeak exactly; and among human writers, thofe who let things fall more carelessly from their pens, when they apprehended no danger or difficulty, are more correct, both in their thoughts and expreffions, when things are difputed; therefore, if we should have no other regard to St. Jolin, but as an ordinary, cautious, and careful man, we must believe that he weighed all his words in that point which was then the matter in question; and to clear which, we have good ground to believe, both from the teftimony of ancient writers, and from the method which he purfues quite through the whole, that he wrote his Gofpel: and that, therefore, every part of it, but this beginning of it more especially, was written, and is to be understood in the sense which the words naturally import."

6. This being premifed, I would obferve upon this paffage, Firft, Here is a person spoken of, termed the Logos, or Word, verfe ift. and the only begotten of the Father, ver. 14. Secondly, This perfon is diftinguifhed from God the Father, whofe Word he is, for he is faid to be with GodThe Word was with God; and again, The fame was in the beginning with God, gos To Geor. Thirdly, He is faid to have exifted in the beginning. In the beginning was the Word-that is, as plainly appears from the third verfe, in which all things are faid to be made by him, before any creature was created, before any man or angel exifted. Fourthly, He is then faid by the Apostle to have been GoD, not a titular god, or a god by office, a governor, furely, for there was then no creature for him to govern, or with respect to whom he could bear the title, or fuftain the office of a god in that fenfe. He must therefore have been God by nature, partaking of real and proper Deity,

in union with the Father, whofe Word he was. This appears manifeftly from the Apostle's affuring us, Fifthly, That all things were made by him, and that without him was not any thing made that was made, ver. 3. and in particular, ver. 10. that the world, (viz. this world) was made by him, it being perfectly certain, and allowed on all hands, that, as the Author of the Epiftle to the Hebrews declares, he that built all things is God, properly fo, creating power being undoubtedly divine, if any power is fo: See Rom. i. 20.

7. It appears, alfo, from St. John's affirming, Sixthly, In Him was LIFE, and the LIFE was the LIGHT of men; and the light fhineth in darkness, and the darknefs comprehended it not. For this Life which was in Him, in the beginning, and was the light of men, that is, the fource of all their wisdom, holinefs, and happinefs, before their fall, and after their fall, which hineth in the darkness-that is, amidst the ignorance, fin, and mifery of their fallen ftate,-this Life, I fay, fpeaks him to be a living agent, and that agent to be divine. It appears, Seventhly, from his being termed [verfe 9.] the true Light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world: for as no particular meffenger from God hath ever appeared upon carth, whofe doc

"It is to me most incredible (fays Dr. Doddridge) that when the Jews were fo exceedingly averfe to Idolatry, and the Gentiles fo unhappily prone to it, fuch a plain writer as thie Apoftle fhould lay fo dangerous a ftumbling-block on the very threshold of his work, and reprefent it as the Christian doc trine, that in the beginning of all things there were two Gods, one fupreme, and the other fubordinate: a difficulty, which, if poffible, would be yet farther increased, by recollecting what fo many ancient writers affert, that this Gofpel was written with a particular view of opposing the Cerinthians and Ebionites, on which account a greater accuracy of expreffion must have been neceffary. On the other hand, to conceive of Chrift as a diftinct (or feparate) and co-ordinate God, would be equally inconfiftent with the most exprefs declarations of Scripture, and far more irreconcileable with reason. The order of the words in the original, (Geos no Rayos) is fuch, that fome have thought the clause might more exactly be tranflated, God was the Word.”

F3

trine

trine hath been a means of enlightening all flesh those that went before him, and had lived from the beginning, as well as thofe that were his cotemporaries, or fhould come after him; fo we muft of neceffity understand this of that internal light, which fhining upon the understanding and confcience of even the moft barbarous and brutal, and leaft civilized of mankind, enables them, in many inftances, to distinguish right from wrong, and is a check upon them in their behaviour from day to day, reftraining them from many vices, or accufing and condemning them when they commit thofe vices, and at the fame time prompting them to fome virtues. Now as the WORD, here fpoken of, is affirmed to be this light, he must be one with that Omniprefent and Eternal Being, who, through the several ages of the world, has been, and is vifiting, all the minds of all mankind, by his prefence, not leaving himfelf without witnefs in any, being, in the fulleft sense of the word, the light of the world, even of the whole world. Accordingly he declares, Rev. iii. 20. Behold, I ftand at the door, and knock, viz. at the door of every heart-If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in unto him, and will fup with him, and he with me-words, which no mere creature can poffibly fay.

8. Hence, Eighthly, St. John, in a parallel paffage in his First Epiftle, Chap. i. 1, 2. not only terms him the Word of life, (an expreffion which, however, would but ill fuit a mere external Meffenger) but the LIFE itself, yea, the ETERNAL LIFE, that was with the Father, and has been manifefted unto us; and here, ver. 14. affures us, He is full of truth and grace; and again, ver. 16. that out of his fulness they had all received grace for grace, or as χαριν αυτό χωρίς may be rendered, grace upon grace which things are certainly too much to be affirmed of any creature, however exalted. How can a creature be Life, the eternal Life, full of truth and grace himself, and a fountain of truth and grace to others? This the WORD, that was

in the beginning with God, and was God, is, ever after he has laid afide his form of God, and has taken the form of a fervant, being made in the likenefs of man, after he is made flesh and dwells among us. He is even then Life, the eternal Life, and full for all of truth and grace. Accordingly he affures us, he is the living bread that came down from heaven, the living vine, of which the holieft of men are but branches, and the head of his body the church. He complains that men will not come to him that they may have life, and Invites, faying, If any man thirft, let him come to me and drink: Let him that is a-thirst, come; and whofoever will, let him come, and take of the fountain of the water of life freely. Thefe are certainly not the words of a

mere man, or mere creature.

9. Two things more are to be obferved in this remarkable paffage. St. John tells us, ver. 10. Ninthly, That he was in the world, viz. in his preexiftent and divine nature, appearing to the Patriarchs and Prophets; and that when he came in' the flefh to the Jews, he came to his own, he having been, through all the ages of their Common-wealth, (in union with the Father) the God of Ifrael, and King of the Jews. Thefe particulars alfo, I hope to make fully appear in the further course of this work.

10. In the mean-time, as a confirmation of the fenfe in which I understand St. John, let me obferve in the words of Bp. Pearfon on the Creed ;* "This (doctrine of St. John concerning the creation of all things by the Divine Logos) was no new doctrine, but only an interpretation of those. Scriptures which told us God made all things by his word: For God faid, Let there be light and there was light. And fo, By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the hofts of them by the breath of his mouth. From whence we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. Neither was it a new interpretation: but that which was

* 5th Edit. P. 117.

moft

moft familiar to the Jews, who, in their fynagogues, by the reading of the Paraphrafe, (or the interpretation of the Hebrew text in the Chaldec language) were conftantly taught that by the Word of God was the fame with God, and by that word all things were made. Which undoubtedly was the caufe why St. John delivered fo great a mystery in fo few words, as fpeaking unto them, who at the first apprehenfion, understood him."

11. In proof of this, the Bishop_produces in his Notes divers paffages from the Paraphrafe in

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יהוהו the Word of God is ufed for מימרא דיי * which

God himself, and that especially with relation to the Creation of the world. As upon Ifa. xlv. 12. where the Hebrew text fays, I made the earth, and created man upon it. The Chaldee tranflateth it, I by my WORD made the earth, &c. In the fame manner upon Jer. xxvii. 5. and Ifa. xlviii. 13. And Gen. i. 27. where the text is, God created man -the Jerufalem Targum has it, The WORD of God created man. And Gen. iii. 8. They heard the voice of the Lord God.-the Chaldee Paraphrafe interprets it, They heard the voice of the WORD of the Lord God. Now this which the Chaldee Paraphraft called, the Helenifts, (the Jews, that ufed the Greek language) named oys as appears from Philo the Jew, who wrote before St. John, and reckons in his Divinity first walaga Tws όλων the Father of all, and then δεύτερον θεον, ος εστιν EXEIVOU hoyos, the fecond God, who is his Word, whom he calls ορθον θεον λόγον, πρωτόγονον υιον. The unerring WORD of God, and FIRST BEGOTTEN SON. Nor ought we to look on Philo Judæus in this as a Platonist, but merely as a Jew, who refers his whole doctrine of the Ayos to the firft Chapter of Genefis. And the rest of the Jews, before him, who had no fuch knowledge out of Plato's School, ufed the fame notion. For as Ifa. xlviii. 13. The hand of God is, by the Chaldee Paraphraft, tranflated WORD of God; foin the Book of Wifdom η παλοδύναμος σε χεις και κλισασα τον κοσμον (Sap. 11. 17.) Thy almighty Hand which created the world,