that dwelleth in me, HE doeth the works."-Our Lord declared that he and the Father are one-one in the same sense as his disciples are one with him, not in essence, but as Milton expresses it, "in love, in communion, in agreement, in charity, in spirit, in glory." He therefore, who saw the Son, saw the Father; not by corporeal but intellectual vision; not in physical essence, but in moral beauty and perfection.

If he who has seen a picture, a statue, or medallic representation of any distinguished personage, being struck by the exact resemblance to the original, should say, in the fervour of admiration, it is he—his very self!—there would be little danger of his being misunderstood. If we should call a pupil by the name of his instructor, as a compliment to his talents or virtues, or on account of some striking mental similitude; we should scarcely be accused of the folly of identifying their minds or persons. When Pythagoras was asked, "what is a friend ?” he replied, "another I," i. e. one resembling himself in affection and understanding. We have some Luthers, many Calvins, and peradventure, John Knoxes, in our own times; but who will venture to affirm of any one of them that he is really Luther, or Calvin, or Knox? It is only when certain theolo gical systems must be supported, that men forget or distort the established usages of language, and confound SIMILITUDE with IDENTITY.

When the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews terms our Saviour, "the brightness of God's glory, and the express image* of his person, " he uses two familiar illustrations to exalt our ideas of his dignity and excellence. The one is taken from the reflected splendour of a luminons body, viz: the Shekinah; the other from the art of stamping impressions on wax or metal: Christ is to God as a parhelion, or reflection of the sun is to the sun itself; or as a beam of light to the everlasting fountain of day whence it issues; and as the likeness on a coin or medal, to the monarch whom it represents. These are illustrations which can be understood and valued, till creed-makers throw over the one the dark cloud of their comments; and tarnish and obscure both the image and the superscription of the other, with the canker of their metaphysics.

Had any Evangelist or Apostle said of Christ, what Stephen said of Moses, that he was (NOTHING TW Dew) beautiful to God, or divinely beautiful;-or what the daughter of Pharaoh, accord

Repercussus Divinæ Majestatis, qualis est solis in nube qui dicitur * Alia comparatio a sigillo annuli, cujus forma ceræ

παρήλιος.

imprimitur.-GROTIUS.

Wakefield renders the passage thus, "being a beam of his glory, and an image of his substance." He thinks "the allusion not to a metaphysical substance, but to a seal or stamp, making an impression."

ing to Josephus, said of him while yet a child, "that he was (pogon Duey) in form, divine," an expression precisely similar to that of the Apostle, who says that Christ was in the form of God, how would such expressions have been tortured to prove the identity of the Son with the Father!

2

It is written of man himself that he is formed in the image of God. But this is only a figurative mode of speaking; for even a heathen philosopher knew the nature of God too well to suppose that he could be represented by any object of sense, and that man bears a closer similitude to the Deity in his virtues than in his form,* Such was the purity-the holiness-the boundless benevolence of the Saviour's character, independently of his miraculous powers; that he might well be said to be not only the image, but the express image of him whose love fills the universe.

SECTION EIGHTH.

The beginning of John's Gospel contains no proof of the Deity of Christ.

The Evangelist, John, informs us distinctly with what view he wrote his gospel, when he says, "These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, ye might have life through his name.”—John xx. 31. Assuredly none of the evangelical writers, gives us such numerous proofs of the supremacy of the Father. Notwithstanding, the beginning of his gospel has been deemed favourable to the Trinitarian scheme. Others find in it nothing that cannot be much better explained on Unitarian principles. It informs us that "in the beginning was the word.' The word, in the opinion of Lardner, Priestley, Lindsey, Fox, and other distinguished Unitarian authors, is but another name for that reason, intelligence, or wisdom, which is an essential attribute of the Deity. They allege that it is spoken of in such a manner by the Evangelist, as fully to justify them in affirming that he imitates that well-known passage of the Book of Proverbs, in which Wisdom is so beautifully personified. "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. I was by him, as one brought up with him."-Prov. viii. 22, 23, 30. Thus John affirms that the divine principle which he calls logos, existed from the beginning-that it dwelt with Godnay, that it was virtually God himself for that all the works of creation, and all the operations of his providence were made and con

Cicero de Natura Deorum.

ducted by its agency and influence. All things were made ava by it not by him: for as Dr. Campbell, who was a Trinitarian, observes, "it is much more agreeable to the figurative style here employed to speak of the word, though really denoting a person, as a thing, agreeably to the grammatical idiom, till a direct intimation is made of its personality:-The way of rendering here adopted is agreeable to the practise of all translators except the English." But the Bishop's Bible-the Bible vulgarly known by the name of the Breeches Bible-the black letter translation with the paraphrase of Erasmus, and all other versions which preceded the common one, as far as Dr. Campbell was able to discover, uniformly employed the neuter pronoun. In French and Italian, the pronoun is feminine-in the Vulgate and in the German, neuter; corresponding respectively with the gender of the noun signifying word. "In it was life, and the life was the light of men." Thus Wisdom says, in Proverbs, he that findeth me, findeth life. The divine intelligence imparted life to mankind, and gave them a light from heaven to guide them to immortality-and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. (ov xarixaber hath not overtaken it.*) It beams brightly on mankind to dispel their ignorance and lead them to happiness and to God.

"And the word was made (ɛyevro was,) flesh." What is meant by this? If we cannot give a rational interpretation, let us abandon it as unintelligible or beyond our comprehension. But let us not apply to it, the crude heathen invention that the infinite Jehovah became incarnate. The Evangelist no where gives us ground for such an idea, or if he does, it is where he says, "if we love one another, God dwelleth in us."-1 John, iv. 12. This is just as strong a text in proof that God becomes Incarnate in every pious man, as any, in all revelation, that he was incarnate in the person of our Lord. He does not say that Jehovah the Father Almighty, the Eternal Spirit, became flesh. This would be a species of transubstantiation as difficult as it would be horrible to imagine. But he says, the word was flesh; which is a brief figurative mode of saying that the divine wisdom was manifest in a human being-it appeared in the character, the discourses, and the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, insomuch that he is justly denominated the wisdom of Godas he is also called the power of God on account of the miracles which he wrought-for, says the Apostle Paul, he "of God, is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification,

The word naraλaubara is often used of the day and night and their vicissitudes. Of this application of it there are many examples in Wetstein's note upon the place; an example of it occurs in John xii. 35. and in 1 Thes. v. 4.-There is not a more common hebraism than to express the same thing both positively and negatively. There are several examples in this very chapter.' -See Cappe's Critical Remarks.

and redemption."-1 Cor. i. 24, 30. And dwelt (sonnywos taber nacled) among us, full of grace and truth. Here is a plain allusion to the Shekinah, or visible glory by which Jehovah manifested his presence in the temple and tabernacle of the Jews, If by that appearance God was represented as dwelling among them, much more might the divine wisdom be said to dwell among us in the person of Jesus Christ, by whom it spoke, and promulgated the oracles of salvation. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father. We saw him, invested with such wisdom, and power-heard him uttering such gracious and important truths and witnessed him performing such miraculous deeds of mercy, as convinced us that he was the well-beloved Son of God, the promised Messiah.

It is objected that the Aoyos of John is not the same as the top of Solomon. But wherefore might not John choose to render the Hebrew of wisdom, Cachema, by λoyos as well as the Seventy by copias? Calmet's Dictionary, on the article "word," says, the Memra, (i. e. the logos) answers to the Cachema, or Wisdom of Solomon; and Dr. Campbell observes that "there is such a coincidence in the things attributed to each, as evidently shews that both were intended to indicate the same divine personage-(attribute) and that plausible arguments might be urged for rendering λoyos, in this passage, reason." In the words quoted from Paul, we have seen that Christ is denominated the wisdom of God, Drov copiav.Aoyos is a word of similar meaning with ropia, and signifies reason, understanding, intelligence: Aoyo sunt præcepta sapientiæ ac prudentiæ.-Schleusner. In Acts, xviii. 14. it is translated reason, and it is elsewhere. found in a great variety of significations, as doctrine, message, command, divine communication, reckoning, teacher. The lexicographer just quoted, gives doctor as one of its meanings, abstracto posito pro concreto, ex usu loquendi Hebræorum. Moyos ivros, qualis est hic doctor?-Luke, iv. 36. In our translation, what a word is this! He thinks this mode of interpretation may be applied to John, i. 1. 14.

τις

The sacred writers speak repeatedly of the Word of God as of other attributes, and describe it as the great agent of the Almighty to create and destroy-to instruct, exhort, and prohibit. It is thus sublimely personified in the Wisdom of Solomon, xviii. 15, 16. "Thine Almighty Word leaped down from heaven out of thy royal throne, as a fierce man of war into the midst of a land of destruction, and brought thy unfeigned commandment as a sharp sword, and standing up filled all things with death; and it touched the heaven, but it stood upon the earth.” Similar agencies being ascribed to the Word, as to the Wisdom of God, is it surprising that they should be considered as synonimous? Our Saviour himself appears to use the expression Wisdom of God, (Luke, xi. 49.) as tantamount to the Word of God. Shall we hence assert the distinct personal existence of

An

Wisdom, and invest her with the attributes of the Eternal? apocryphal writer would correct such folly by telling us, that "God created her, and saw her, and numbered and poured her out upon the earth.” If we would not make Wisdom a goddess to be adored, neither should we deify the Word, and seat it on the throne of heaven. We must not confound qualities with substance-attributes with person-nor the herald with his king. "The spirit of Jehovah spake by me" says David, "and his word was upon my tongue." Should any one hence infer that David was Jehovah? The spirit of Jehovah spake more fully by Christ, and the word was so richly and copiously on his tongue, that he is called, xar' ox, The Word. Does it therefore follow, that Christ is Jehovah? This conclusion is not a tittle more valid in the one case than in the other.

That the character of the word, belongs to Christ not as God but as man, is sufficiently plain from the declaration the word was flesh-and also from the commencement of John's first epistle, where he speaks of the word of life which he had seen, heard, looked upon, handled with his hands. But he tells us in the 4th c. 12 v. that no man hath seen God at Whence it is clear that he had not the most reany time. mote idea that in speaking of the word, he was speaking of the Deity. Christ, therefore, is denominated the word, because he spoke the oracles of God; and the word of life, because he taught the doctrine of immortality-and Jos, Elohim, a God, or God, in a subordinate sense-for if those to whom the word, the wisdom, or the counsel of God, was but partially communicated, bore that title; much more should it be borne by him to whom the Spirit of God was imparted without measure.— Erasmus, in his paraphrase, says well

"As holy Scripture calleth God that moste excellente minde, which minde is bothe greater and better then all thinges that can bee imagined: even so it calleth his onely Sonne, the woorde of that minde, For although the Sonne be not the same that the Father is, yet he is so very like the Father, that a man may see the one in the other.. He is called the worde beecause God, which in his own proper nature can no waies be comprehended, woulde be knowen to us by him."

The Fratres Poloni, Polonian Brethren, and some English Unitarian writers, of whom Simpson, who has written so learnedly on the language of Scripture, may be esteemed one of the most eminent, consider the Logos, not as an attribute of God, but an appellation of the man Christ Jesus; and explain the first verses of John's Gospel as descriptive of the new moral creation of which Christ was the divine instrument-beautifully and consistently-whether in exact conformity with the Evangelist's meaning, the reader, if he can, may determine for himself. They understand the words in the beginning as speaking of the commencement of the public life of Jesus, and support their opinion by numerous parallel texts, in which the same