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    " it became flesh and dwelt among us" ? And here I will reply to your correspondent ' s remark , that as both our views assume the Word to be impersonal , so they both labour under equal difficulty iu the phrase , " the Word was God . *' I am not of this opinion ; for though , on my hypothesis , no distinct and proper personality is ascribed to the Word as

    such , still as being the living agency of God his personality must inevitably be blended with it in our conceptions , and we can hardly speak of it but in a somewhat personified manner ; as our Evangelist likewise appears here to do . Is not our use of the word providence ^ somewhat analogous to this , a term not properly personal , yet having so much of personal force that we very commonly

    use it in a personal manner ? Or , to adopt the words of Watts , " Why may not God be represented as a person transacting his own diviue affairs with his word and his spirit under personal characters , since a man is often represented as transacting human affairs with his understanding , mind , will , reason , fancy , or conscience , in a personal manner ? " For these reasons I cannot

    submit to your Reviewer where he says , that on neither of our hypotheses can the terin T / ieos , God , be taken in its usual sense . On the contrary , I maintain that on Lardner ' s hypothesis , which I am advocating , it is taken precisely in its usual sense , that is , as the distinguishing appellation of the eternal Jehovah , whom the writer declares the Word to have

    been . There is nothing unexampled in this way of speaking of the Word at once as in some sense distinct from God , and yet as substantially the same with him . Is not the Spirit spoken of in the same mauner ? ' * What man knoweth the things of a man , but the spirit of man which is in him ? Even so the things

    of God knoweth no one but the spirit of God . " On the whole , I think myself entitled to conclude that the attempt of your correspondent to place the two hypotheses on a level with reference to the interpretation of the clause , " the Word was God , " has not been made on good grounds , and that I may still claim for my own a decided superiority in this

    respect . With respect to the grammatical question regarding the substitution of substantives for adjectives , I will only observe , that although such substitution may and does not unfrequently take place in respect to nouns expressive of qualities , such as pbeXvyfAa , dfActprfa ,, &c , and iu some other cases , yet it does not

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    appear admissible in a word like God , which is the distinctive appellation of a personal being . This is not , I conceive , a question affected by any peculiarities of the Greek language , but one which may be equally well tried iu our own , and which must be decided uot by critical dogmas , but by the judgment of common sense .

    The point for which I have been contending is , that what the Evangelist intended by " the Word ** was not , as your correspondent maintains , the scheme or system of revealed truth , hut a certain operative principle proceeding forth from God , and essentially the same with

    himself : and , consequently , that in the phrase , " the Word was God 9 " the term God is to be received in its highest and most proper sense . This I conceive to have been the ground chosen by Lardner and Priestley , and other eminent Unitarian divines , and for which it becomes the well-wisher of Unitarianism

    strenuously to contend . I beheve it to be the only Unitarian view of the passage which the orthodox in general have not treated with contempt , and indeed successfully ridiculed . On this , therefore , I rest , and would fain hope that the arguments which have been adduced may not appear to your readers altogether inconclusive . But supposing all this

    conceded , some questions will still arise respecting the precise sense of this passage , which are of no trifling importance . In short , were these opening verses of John intended to carry back our thoughts to the natural creation , or do they wholly relate to the Christian economy ?

    Leaving to every one his owu judgment of this nicer point , I will briefly state my reasons for embracing the latter opinion . By " the Word" then , I would understand that especial , enlightening , and life-giving power of God which wrought in Christ , that peculiar emanation or exertion of the Divine Nature which then

    became manifested on earth , the author of mighty deeds and of eternal life ; by " the beginning ** I would understand the beginning of the events of the gospel , and the following clause likewise , " all things were done by it , and without it was not any thing done that has been done , " I would refer to those same

    events . It is from the parallel passages in John ' s Epistle that I draw the chief arguments for this view of the subject * There the phrase , " that which was from the beginning , with what follows ,. plainly refers to nothing more than the gospel history : there " the word" is paraphrased by " the word of life ?* and iC the

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    Miscellaneous Correspondence . 715

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1829, page 715, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2577/page/43/