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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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same writer . 1 John ii . 7 : €€ I write no new commandment unto you , but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning . " Again , in ver . 11 th , " I write unto you , fathers , because ye have known him that is from the beginning . " Again , in ver . 24 , " Let
that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning " These citations , which might be multiplied , may suffice to shew that the phrase , in the beginnings or , from the beginning , was rather a favourite one with our Apostle , when he wished to refer to ' the commencement of the
Gospel . I shall mention one further consideration in favour of the opinion for which we contend , which appears to me of great weight . In the 4 th and 5 th verses of the Gospel we read thus : " In it ( i . e . the Word ) was
life , and the life was the light of men . And the light shineth in darkness , and the darkness did not comprehend it . " Now this indisputably refers to the light of the gospel , because John the Baptist is said immediately afterwards to have been sent to bear witness to
this light . But if we refer the three first verses to the origin of creation , the transition in the 4 th verse to the Gospel history , appears to me very awkward and abrupt . Of this every reader must iud § e for himself , but the
arguments 1 have adduced certainly prevail with me to understand the passage as referring to the beginning , not of creation , but of the evangelic history . Well , then ; er <* ravrot , let us proceed .
In the beginning of the gospel was the Word . Antecedently , that is , to all those events of which the writer is about to give the narrative , existed the Word . He is about to recount a train of surprising occurrences , but he sets himself , in the first plaoe , to
declare to us the principle or agency from which they flowed . This principle was the Word . But what was the Word , and how did it ; exist ? These inquiries the Apostle proceeds to satisfy in the verses which immediately follow . First , he say 3 , the Word was with God . He is about to
declare afterwards in what manner the Word was manifested among men , but previously to this manifestation , he wishes us to understand that the Word was with God , which he repeats again in the second verse . The full im-
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port of this expression cannot be d < s termined till we are further made acquainted with the nature of the Word , what sort of existence it is ; then only can we know in what precise sense it is said to be with God . All that
seems to be intended here is to inform us , that previous to the manifestation of the Word among men , it existed in the Divine Nature , hidden from the world , but known to the Almighty . In the parallel passage of the Epistle the same is said of life : " That
eternal life which was with the Father , and was manifested unto us " There is a cast of mystical obscurity about these expressions as well as many others of this author , which ought to
deter us from attempting too great precision of interpretation , lest we should overshoot our mark , and determine the sense more nicely than the writer himself conceived it .
We have arrived thus far . C € In the beginning of the gospel teas the Word , and the Word was with God ; it was a principle or existence inherent in the Divine Nature . The sacred writer then proceeds to another assertion : and the Word was God . The
nature of the Word is thus more fully discovered ; it is not only present , with God , and inherent in his nature , but it is , in fact , no other than a part or form of himself , inseparable from his
being , and essentially one with him-So the various faculties of pur own minds are with them and in them , and not to be distinguished from them . It has been objected to this view , that it makes the Word to be the same
being with whom it was ; but we have explained how this is to be understood , and , if I judge rightly , it has not much real difficulty , not nearly so much as there is in supposing that the Apostle should apply the name of God
to two different beings in the same verse . The name of God in Scripture may justly be regarded as a proper name , belonging to one Being and wo other ; the exceptions are too rare
to deserve consideration , and when they take place , the context is such as to leave no ambiguity . To doubt that God means God , seems as strange as to doubt that Abraham means
Abraham . I conclude , then , that when we are told that the Word was God , we are to understand it as said of that Being to whom this name us exclu-
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On the Proem of John * Gospel . 723
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1825, page 723, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2543/page/19/
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