still be the same in genere with the Prophets, he would be something in particular more than they.

IV. By the right construction and interpretation of that much disputed passage in the Gospel of St. John : Ὁ ὀπίσω μου ἐρχόμενος ἔμπροσθέν μου γέγονεν· ὅτι πρῶτός μου ἦν Ζ. The authorized version of this text, upon the whole, is the most correct; though, if we would do entire justice to the force and emphasis of the original terms, we must alter it slightly to the following effect: He, who is coming after me, is become before me; because he was before me. It would be just as absurd to suppose that the first half of this sentence affirms priority of existence, as that the last half affirms priority of rank; for they cannot both be considered to affirm priority of the same thing, without amounting to an identical proposition, or assigning the same thing as a reason for itself. The last clause, or ρäτós μou v, ascertains the ground of the assertion, conveyed by the first, ἔμπροσθέν μου γέγονε : whence, if πρῶτός μου ἦν is rightly rendered, He was before me, or affirms priority of existence, ἔμπροσθέν μου γέγονε cannot be rightly rendered, He is before me, or affirm priority of existence also: and if ἔμπροσθέν μου γέγονεν is rightly rendered, He is become before me, or affirms priority of rank—then (though the original Greek might bear it, which, I contend, it never could) πρшτós μou cannot be rightly rendered, He was my chief, or affirm priority of rank also.

If, however, the first clause affirms precedence, or priority of rank, the second may very well affirm preexistence, or priority of being; and where the question lay between the comparative personal dignity of the Baptist, and that of Christ, it might still more reasonably assign this very priority of existence, as the sole and sufficient ground for that very priority of rank. The most superficial reader must be sensible that, by the peculiar antithesis of his language, John has it in view expressly to oppose the circumstance of Christ's being advanced before him, to the circumstance, notwith

i. 15. 27. 30.

standing, of his coming after him; a use of orlow, and μπρоEv, which is the most classical imaginable.

Γνώμης πατρῴας πάντ ̓ ὄπισθεν ἑστάναι.

To the effect of this antithesis, and to render the anomaly more complete, it is evidently necessary that Christ should be understood to have come after, in the same way, and in the same sense, in which John himself had gone before; in other words, that their personal ministry respectively should be the same, differing only in the order of succession. For, generally speaking, it is the first in a common office, and not the last-it is he who ushers in and begins a business of any importance, not he, who takes it up and prosecutes it afterwards—who may be said to have precedence, or to sustain the more dignified character of the two. But the successor of the Baptist, even in a common work, was such as by the superior lustre of his person, and by the superior authority of his teaching, could not fail to eclipse and to supersede his predecessor. For he, who was from eternity -he, who was before the Baptist-and before every other divinely-commissioned, but merely human, teacher, more ancient than the Baptist-though he might condescend to labour in the same vocation with the Baptist, and even in an order of time posterior to his, yet, by virtue of his essential preexistence, his sublime and mysterious divinity of nature, could not possibly rank, or long continue to rank, beneath him, but must be preferred before him. The same assertion, therefore, of his own subordination to his successor, and the same reason for that subordination, that John was from the earth, Christ was from heaven-John was from below, Christ was from above-are not more piously, than naturally, repeated in that other testimony of the Baptist's, which holds up the torch to the meaning of this.

Him it behoveth to encrease, but me it behoveth to decrease: he, who came from above, is above all things: he, who was from the earth, is from the earth, and speaketh from the earth; but he, who came from the heavens, is above all things, and what he hath seen, and hath heard, the same he testifietha.

And, hence, we may arrive at a right conception of that peculiar circumstance of distinction, in which the superiority of John to every prophet, who had appeared before him, must be made to consist; a superiority so great, that our Lord himself has said, Among them that were born of women, there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptistb. It was no preeminence of personal sanctity, but a certain preeminence of personal office, which was thus ascribed to him in particular. All the prophets before him had been, in some sense, the precursors of the Messias, as well as he; but none of them had been his immediate predecessor, like John: all the prophets before him had a high and a holy office to sustain, the same in one, as in another; none had been admitted to the privilege of sustaining the same office with the Messias, of being the fellow-labourer, and as it were copartner, in his proper work and ministry, of the Lord of the prophets-but John. And in the same sense, in which it might thus be said that John was superior to any prophet before himself, in the same sense might it be said, that the least in the kingdom of God, the least minister of the gospel, among those who should come after him, would be greater than John. For the office and part of one, who merely preceded to announce the approach of this kingdom, and to prepare men's minds for the future preaching of the gospel, could not, in the nature of things, be so dignified and illustrious, as the office and part of one, who should actually begin, or in any way contribute to execute, the predicted dispensation itself.

Nor ought it to be objected to this assertion, that the personal ministry of Christ himself, as being the same with the personal ministry of John, must, on this principle, have a John iii. 29-36.

b Matt. xi. II.

been inferior in dignity, or in importance, to the personal ministry of a Christian Evangelist. It is not the disparity of personal characters, but the disparity of personal functions, relatively to a common end, which we are here contrasting together. The personal dignity of Jesus Christ can bear no comparison with that of either Prophet or Apostle; and, as the Lord of the Apostles, as well as of the Prophets, by whom they also were commissioned and sent, who inspired them with the knowledge of gospel truths, and cooperated with them wheresoever they went, the sole and efficient cause of every thing brought to pass by their instrumentality, and even in their proper vocation, was still Jesus Christ. But in every regular and orderly scheme, which has a beginning and an ending-a preparation and a consummation-leading to, yet distinct from, each otherthey, who carry into effect, must be considered to do more towards the final result, than they who merely begin. And if the prenunciation of the gospel was to precede, as well as conduct to, its preaching, it is no disparagement of the personal dignity of Christ, who, in his relative place and order of time, could discharge only the former, that his personal office was preliminary, and, therefore, subordinate, to the personal office of his Apostles, who were to be appointed to the latter.

The similarity, indeed, of the personal ministry of our Saviour to that of John, before him, and yet its distinctness from that of the Apostles, after him, may be a good presumptive argument that there might be something incumbent upon him, and to be discharged by him, over and above the proper work of his ministry; something which could be done neither by John before him, nor by the Apostles after him; something equally necessary to the effect and completion of his own ministry, and to the commencement and discharge of their's; something, consequently, which must be interposed between both; after the one, but before the other: which something the event alone would prove to have been the death, and the resurrection, of our Lord, with the saving design of each; and next to this,

which was to happen at the close of his personal carcer, the collecting, ordaining, and commissioning, of Apostles, during its course who should publish these saving truths, (and, therefore, commence their ministry, as preachers of formal Christianity,) afterwards.

Lastly-the case of Apollos, who is said to have known only the baptism of John -and still more the case of the Twelve disciples at Ephesus, who had been baptized only into the baptism of John dare sufficient to prove that persons might be disciples, and, consequently, Christians in some sense or other already, who had not been fully instructed in the gospel dispensation as such-or had not received Christian baptism—who were merely believers in the divine legation of John, and had merely received baptism from John, or from some of the disciples of John. Nothing can more clearly imply the subordination of the ministry of John to the same common end with the ministry of Christ; and that common end the dispensation of the gospel, as yet ulterior to both.

These considerations, and others which, if they were necessary, might still be adduced, are sufficient to place it beyond a question that the personal ministry of John is not to be regarded as distinct from the personal ministry of our Saviour, except in the order of succession only: that both were continuous, though separate, parts of the same scheme, or dispensation, in general, which may be called, indifferently, either the Ministration of the Kingdom, or the Ministration of the Messias, as discriminated from the propagation of formal Christianity, or the Ministration of the Apostles. It may be said, however, that prophecy, both ancient and recent, had represented the ministry of John, in a different light, as the ministry of a herald, harbinger, or precursor, specifically in reference to the coming of Christ, and, therefore, distinct from the ministry of Christ. The voice of one, crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths e-Behold I do send my messenger before thy face, who shall get

c Acts xviii. 24. 25.

d xix. 1-7.

• Is. xl. 3-5.