der this name or title of the Word, by this Evangelift, in his entrance into his hiftory of the gospel.

I. We will inquire into the reafon of this name, or title of the Word, which is here given to our blefled Saviour by this Evangelift; and what might probably be the occafion why he infifts fo much upon it, and makes fo frequent mention of it. I fhall confider these two things diftinctly and feverally.

1. The reafon of this name or title of the Word here given by the Evangelift to our bleffed Saviour. And he feems to have done it in compliance with the common way of speaking among the Jews, who frequently call the Meffias by the name of the Word of the Lord. Of which I might give many inftances; but there is one very remarkable, in the Targum of Jonathan, which renders those words of the Pfalmift, which the Jews acknowledge to be spoken of the Meffias, viz. The Lord faid unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, &c.; I fay, it renders them thus: The Lord faid unto his Word, Sit thou on my right hand, &c. And fo likewife Philo the Jew calls him by whom God made the world, the Word of God, and the Son of God. And Plato probably had the fame notion from the Jews; which made Amelius the Platonist, when he read the beginning of St John's gofpel, to fay, "This barbarian agrees with Plato,

ranking the Word in the order of principles;" meaning, that he made the Word the principle or efficient cause of the world, as Plato alfo hath done.

And this title of the Word was fo famoufly known to be given to the Meffias, that even the enemies of Chriftianity took notice of it. Julian the Apostate calls. Chrift by this name; and Mahomet, in his Alcoran, gives this name of the Word to Jefus the Son of Mary. But St John had probably no reference to Plato, any otherwile than as the Gnofticks, against whom he wrote, I made use of feveral of Plato's words and notions. So that, in all probability, St John gives our bleffed Sa.viour this title with regard to the Jews more efpecially, who anciently called the Meffias by this name.

2. We will, in the next place, confider what might probably be the occafion why this Evangelift makes fo frequent mention of this title of the Word, and infifts

fo much upon it. And it feems to be this; nay I think that hardly any doubt can be made of it, fince the most ancient of the fathers, who lived nearest the time of St John, do confirm it to us.

St John, who survived all the Apoftles, lived to fee thofe herefies which fprung up in the beginnings of Chriftianity, during the lives of the Apoftles, grown up to a great height, to the great prejudice and disturbance of the Chriftian religion; I mean the herefies of Ebion and Cerinthus, and the feveral fects of the Gnofticks, which began from Simon Magus, and were continued and carried on by Valentinus and Bafilides, Carpocrates and Menander. Some of which exprefsly denied the divinity of our Saviour, afferting him to have been a mere man, and to have had no manner of existence before he was born of the bleffed Virgin; as Eufebius and Epiphanius tell us particularly concerning Ebion: which thofe who hold the fame opinion now in our days, may do well to confider from whence it had its original.

Others of them, I ftill mean the Gnofticks, had corrupted the fimplicity of the Chriftian doctrine, by mingling with it the fancies and conceits of the Jewish Cabbalifts, and of the fchools of Pythagoras and Plato, and of the Chaldean philofophy, more ancient than either; as may be feen in Eufebius de præparat. evan.; and, by jumbling all thefe together, they had framed a confused genealogy of deities, which they call by feveral glorious names, and all of them by the general name of ons or Ages, among which they reckoned zón, and Aiyos, and Moveevne and Hapμx, that is, the Life, and the Word, and the Only Begotten, and the Fulness, and many other divine powers and emanations which they fancied to be fucceffively derived from one another.

And they alfo diftinguifhed between the maker of the world, whom they called the God of the Old Teftament, and the God of the New; and between Jefus and Christ; Jefus, according to the doctrine of Cerinthus, as Irenæus tells us, being the man that was born of the virgin; and Christ, or the Meflias, being that divine power or fpirit which afterwards defcended into Jefus, and dwelt in him.

If it were poffible, yet it would be to no purpofe, to

go

go about to reconcile these wild conceits with one another, and to find out for what reason they were invented, unless it were to amuse the people with these high fwelling words of vanity, and a pretence of knowledge falfely fo called, as the Apoftle fpeaks, in allufion to the name of Gnofticks, that is to say, the men of knowledge; which they proudly affumed to themfelves, as if the knowledge of myfteries of a more fublime nature did peculiarly belong to them.

In oppofition to all thofe vain and groundless conceits, St John, in the beginning of his gofpel, chufes to fpeak of our bleffed Saviour, the hiftory of whofe life and death he was going to write, by the name or title of the Word, a term very famous among thofe fects; and fhews, that this Word of God, which was alfo the title the Jews anciently gave to the Meffias, did exift before he affumed a human nature, and even from all eternity; and that to this eternal Word did truly belong all those titles which they kept fuch a canting ftir about, and which they did with fo much fenfelefs nicety and fubtilty diftinguish from one another, as if they had been fo many feveral emanations from the Diety. And he fhews, that this Word of God was really and truly the life, and the Light, and the Fulness, and the Only Begotten of the Father ver. 4. In him was life, and the life was the light of men and, ver. 5. And the light fhineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not; and, ver. 6. 7. 8. 9. where the Evangelift, fpeaking of John the Baptift, fays of him, that he came for a witness, to bear witness of the light and that he was not that light, but was fent to bear witness of that light and that light was the true light which coming into the world enlightens every man ; and, ver. 14. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth: and, ver. 16. And of his fulness we all receive, &c. You fee here is a perpetual allufion to the glorious titles whicht they gave to their ons, as if they had been fo many feveral deities.

In fhort, the Evangelift fhews, that all this fanciful genealogy of divine emanations, with which the Gnofticks made fo great a noife, was mere conceit and imagination; and that all thefe glorious titles did really

C 3

meet

meet in the Meffias, who is the Word, and who before his incarnation was from all eternity with God, partaker of his divine nature and glory.

I have declared this the more fully and particularly, because the knowledge of it feems to me to be the only true key to the interpretation of this difcourfe of St John concerning our Saviour, under the name and title of the Word. And furely it is a quite wrong way for any man to go about, by the mere ftrength and fubtilty of his reafon and wit, though never fo great, to interpret an ancient book, without understanding and confidering the hiftorical occafion of it, which is the only thing that can give true light to it.

And this was the great and fatal mistake of Socinus, to go to interpret fcripture merely by criticizing upon words, and fearching into all the fenfes that they are poffibly capable of, till he can find one, though never fo forced and foreign, that will fave harmless the opinion which he was beforehand refolved to maintain, even against the most natural and obvious fenfe of the text which he undertakes to interpret; juft as if a man fhould interpret ancient ftatutes and records by mere critical skill in words, without regard to the true occafion upon which they were made, and without any manner of knowledge and infight into the history of the age in which they were written.

I fhall now proceed to the fecond thing which I propofed to confider, namely,

II. The description here given of the Word by this Evangelift, in his entrance into his hiftory of the gospel: In the beginning (fays he) was the Word, and the Word was with God, and Word was God. The fame was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

In which paffage of the Evangelift four things are faid of the Word, which will require a more particular explication.

1. That he was in the beginning.

2. That he was in the beginning with God.

3. That he was God.

4. That all were made by him.

1. That he was in the beginning; i àpxã, which is

the

the fame with & pyns, from the beginning, 1 John i. r. where, fpeaking of Chrift by the name of eternal life, and of the word of bife, That (fays he) which was from the beginning. Nonnus, the ancient paraphraft of St John's gofpel, by way of explication of what is meant by his being in the beginning, adds, that he was povos, without time; that is, before all time: and if so, then he was from all eternity. In the beginning was the Word; that is, when things began to be made, he was; not then be gan to be, but then already was, and did exift before any thing was made; and confequently is without beginning, for that which was never made, could have no beginning of its being. And fo the Jews ufed to defcribe eternity, before the world was, and before the foundation of the world; as alfo in feveral places of the New Testament. And fo likewife Solomon defcribes the eternity of Wifdom, Prov. viii. 22. 23. &c. The Lord (fays he) possessed. me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was fet up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When he prepared the heavens, I was there: then I was by him as one brought up with him, rejoicing always before him. And fo Juftin Martyr explains this very expreffion of St John, that he was, or had a being before all ages. So likewife Athenagoras, a moft ancient Chriftian writer : God, (fays he), who is an "invifible mind, had from the beginning the Word in "himfelf."

2. That in the beginning the Word was with God. And fo Solomon, when he would exprefs the eternity of Wifdom, fays, it was with God: and fo likewife the fon of Sirach, fpeaking of Wifdom, fays, it was rá Tou bou, with God. And fo the ancient Jews often called the Word of God," the Word which is before the Lord;" that is, with him, or in his prefence. In like manner the Evangelift fays here, that the Word was with God; that is, it was always together with him, partaking of his happinefs and glory. To which our Saviour refers in his prayer, John xvii. 3. Glorify me with thine own felf, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. this being with God the Evangelift oppofeth to his appear ing and being manifefted to the world, ver. 10. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world

And

knew