the term as if it needed no explanation.* It was a term already in familiar use, and used, unquestionably, to designate a person. Mankind had been taught the doctrine of the Divine unity; they had also received some intimations of the doctrine of the Logos. Their knowledge on the latter subject however was extremely confused. The Evangelist has delivered concerning the Logos sublime and distinct statements, and identified the very person to whom that name appropriately belongs. The true Logos, of whom the Old Testament had given some discoveries and promises, but of whom the philosophers and rabbis had ignorantly discoursed, was, the Evangelist here affirms, Jesus Christ, the Lord and Saviour of the world.t

for God to generate in himself a certain transition-point, to make his fulness comprehensible and communicable; and this he did by producing out of himself from eternity, a Being like unto himself through whom the concealed God was manifested."-The reader will find in Smith's Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, Vol. I. pp. 548-569, third edition, a collection of the principal passages in the extant writings of Philo, concerning the subject of the Logos. Philo was a Jew of Alexandria, of a sacerdotal family, who is supposed to have been about sixty years old at the death of Christ. His expressions concerning the Logos, have excited great admiration.

* "Since it can be actually proved, that the words o dóyos tov Dɛov at that time expressed a definite doctrinal conception, and such an one, as is similar to that of John, it is altogether certain that John employed the Word in that determinate doctrinal sense which was prevalent in his time."-Tholuck.

Tholuck rejects the idea, that the Evangelist had allusion to the doctrine of the theosophists on this subject. "Since we find in the first place, that previously in the Old Testament, intimations of this doctrine of the Logos can be pointed out; and secondly, that the apostle Paul teaches the same doctrine of the Logos, Col. 1: 15. 2 Cor. 4: 4. comp. Heb. 1: 3, although he borrowed his mode of teaching neither from the orientals nor from Philo, but from Jewish theologians only; and thirdly, since in Sir. 43: 26 (28), the creative word of God, and in the book of Wisdom 18: 15, the angel which presided over the theocracy of the Old Testament, is called λóyos: it must seem to be most probable, that John did not occupy himself with the dogmas of other religions, but adhered to the Jewish doctrinal theology of his time, which was based on the Old Testament; and that in this way he made known, that the Revealer of God pointed out in the Old Testament he who directed the administration of the Old Testament theocracy, had actually appeared in Christ. In the Epistles also, 1 John 1: 1, and in the Revelation 19: 13, John calls Christ the Logos,

The propriety of giving Christ this appellation will in some measure appear, by considering that he is, as Philo in speaking on the subject of the Logos, or Word, admirably says, THE SAME TO THE SUPREME INTELLECT, THAT SPEECH IS TO THE HUMAN. All who believe in the Scriptures, admit that Christ is in some sense, the REVEALER of God. The Scriptures teach nothing more explicitly than that the Deity, except as revealed by Christ, is at this day, and forever will be, hidden out of sight, and out of thought, to the entire universe of men and angels. That God "could not make an external revelation of himself in the world, until he had become revealed within himself, that is in the Son" is affirmed (how intelligibly different persons will differently decide,) by the excellent expositor Tholuck; however this may be, it is the clear teaching of Scripture, that in point of fact, God, by Jesus Christ, has exerted all the power which he ever has exerted, out of himself, and made all the disclosures of himself to creatures which ever have been made.That whatever knowledge men have of God and divine things, they have obtained through Christ, he himself affirms: "No one hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." It is related in the Old Testament, that God was seen by Adam, Abraham, Moses, and the prophets; but they saw him only in the person of Christ; who also by his Spirit, gave to holy men of old" the lively oracles" of inspired truth. Now as speech is the medium by which knowledge is communicated among ourselves, it is manifestly proper that the source and channel of all true knowledge, should in a revelation given to man, be denominated the Logos ;-a term which signifies speech, or instruction, or the word spoken, or as in our translation, the Word. There is doubtless more of fitness and suitableness in this appellation to the person to whom it is given, than we can understand, but it is sufficiently obvious, that while there is mystery, there is also intelligible and striking. propriety, in naming our Lord the Logos.

Having seen that the term in its present use, designates a person, and that this person was Christ, let us proceed to con

and thereby intimates the important meaning of this appellation." As the Evangelist wrote as he was moved by the Holy Ghost, he was competent to make known, that the Revealer of God pointed out in the Old Testament, had appeared in Christ, without being indebted to either the Jewish theologians of his time, or the eastern theosophists.

sider the announcements concerning him, which follow; remembering that we are attending to utterances indited by omniscience.

The first is, that Christ was in existence at the birth of the creation. The phrase "In the beginning"-the same with which Moses commences the Bible, refers us to the date of the creation, there being nothing to limit or qualify it. The assertion is that the Logos was in the beginning; the question may be asked, in the beginning of what? Of the world as it now is? of the dealings of God with man? of the christian dispensation? And men may give their own answers. The Evangelist is silent. He leaves us with the unqualified affirmation, that the Logos was in the beginning an affirmation which if taken, in the absolute sense, transfers us to the instant when creation had its origin and time with it, and presents to us Christ, as then in existence.

The assertion here is, unless it should be understood with. some restriction of which the Evangelist gives no hint, that Christ was in existence at the creation of the world; that when there were no depths-when there were no fountains abounding with water-before the mountains were settled-before the hills-while as yet God had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world-when he prepared the heavens when he set a compass upon the face of the depth -when he established the clouds above-when be strengthened the fountains of the deep-when he gave to the sea his decree that the waters should not pass his commandment-when he appointed the foundations of the earth*-then existed our Saviour Jesus Christ.

There are those, however, who restrict the words before us, so as to make them mean, in the beginning of the preaching of the gospel. It is not probable that many readers of the Evangelist will adopt this gratuitous exposition. It gives a trivial sense to one of the most remarkable texts of inspiration, and

In this use of Prov. 8: 22-30, to express what we believe to be asserted by the Evangelist as an historical fact, we design not to cite it as a parallel passage. It was, however, understood by the Jews of old, and the christian church from the beginning, of a person, the substantial wisdom of God; and whatever advances have been made in the science of interpretation, we question the soundness of that criticism which takes it in a different sense. See Waterland's Eight Sermons, pp. 216-218.

The assertion stands and ever

thus dooms itself to contempt.
will stand, without limitation or addition.

But taking it thus, what is it, that it requires us to believe concerning Jesus Christ? That he is a Being in the strictest sense eternal!-If he was in existence, when the world and time commenced, he did not himself then come into existence. To make him one of the objects that then came into existence; -to say that in the beginning he began to be ;-or that among those existences which came forth out of nothing at the command of the Creator, was the Logos, is to contradict the assertion that he was already in existence, when the beginning took place. Well have the ancient Fathers said that "he who was in the beginning comprehended every beginning in himself,"t and that" as to the Being who was from the beginning, no time can be found when he was not." It is therefore the proper import of the words of the Evangelist, that the attribute of eternity, in the most perfect sense, belongs to Christ; that as the prophet Micah affirms of him, his emanations are from the beginning, from the days of eternity..

The

We are next informed, that Christ in eternity was the companion of God. This is asserted not once only, but to give it stronger impression it is repeated in the second verse. same was in the beginning with God. Eternal companying with Eternal! An unsearchable mystery, but yet a fact, to which the highest importance is attached in the Scriptures. In the statements of Scripture, concerning both creation and redemption, the proposition that God did not dwell alone in that eternity which anteceded both, that the Logos was with him there, is always implied and is often prominent. We do not give it as the assertion of the Scriptures, though a great commentator has made it, that God could not, except through the Son, have made an external revelation of himself in the world; but that in point of fact, he has not any otherwise revealed himself in the world, that before creation was entered upon, there was, to speak after the manner of men, a consultation held and an arrangement agreed upon between God and the Logos, and that both creation and redemption were the fruit not of God's agency apart from that of the Logos, but of the concurrence and intercommunion of both; and further, that but for

*Tholuck calls it the shallow Socinian explanation.

+ Augustine.

+ Theophylact.

the part agreed to be fulfilled, and in due time actually fulfilled by the Logos, there never would have been either redemption. or creation-is not only a statement, but the leading and fundamental statement of the Bible. That book does not speak concerning the origin and authorship of the universe, as too many do who profess to take it as the standard of their faith. It tells of a creating Deity, but it also tells us of one inhabiting with that Deity the eternity which preceded creation, and equally concerned in accomplishing that glorious work: "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 Then I was by him as one brought up with him; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him-rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth, and my delights were with the sons of men." The Bible teaches, that the universe was created for Christ, and with reference to a revelation of the divine. glory to be made by Christ, through the instrumentality of various redemptive and governmental agencies; and that redemption itself, except through Christ, was not achievable, without a sacrifice of the divine justice. From which clearly stated premises, the conclusion is, that had there been no Christ, no Logos, in eternity, there had been no world, no creation, no time. We are accustomed in our devout meditations, to trace our salvation to a covenant or agreement entered into, in eternity, between the Father and the Son, and to admit that but for what the Son then consented to do for us, our salvation would have been unaccomplished; but the Bible leads us to take a wider survey, and to see in the existence and agency of the Logos, the foundation of the existence and perpetuity of all creatures and worlds. The doctrine of a personal Logos, the companion of God in eternity, enters as distinctly into the biblical system of the universe, as the doctrine of a Divine existence; and the. great Lord Bacon has shown himself as sound in the faith, as he was in philosophy, in that memorable confession of his, from which we give the following extract: "That neither angels, man, nor world, would stand, or can stand one moment in God's eye, without his beholding the same IN THE FACE of a Medi

* This language is not introduced as proof, but as happily suited to express the sense intended to be conveyed by the author. That it is however applicable to Christ in the strictest sense, was the universal opinion of the ancients (themselves be it remembered orientals and therefore) perhaps the best qualified to give the true exposition.