Theophilus had been already catechised or orally instructed. Probably he was a convert of Luke, but nothing is known concerning him; we may, however, conjecture that he was a Gentile, and a man of some consequence, for the epithet xgátioTos, most excellent, applied to him, does not refer to character but to rank, as it is given to the governors Felix and Festus, and answers to Excellency, Grace, Highness, Majesty, and similar honorary appellations of modern times. The use of it by Luke and Paul shows, that Christians who refuse to employ the customary complimentary phrases of their time are over scrupulous.

2. The pre-existence, divinity, incarnation, and manifestation of the glory of the Logos, or only-begotten Son of God. St. John i.

St. Mark and St. John commence with the public ministry of the Messiah, Matthew and Luke supply an account of his birth and infancy; and the latter carries the reader a few months back to that of John the Baptist, who was sent to usher in this new dispensation. Their narratives are required to prove that the Messiah was, as predicted, David's son, and to establish the important fact, that in his desire to ransom our fallen race, "He did not abhor the Virgin's womb", but was literally "born of a woman ;” being neither, as the early heretics taught, an incorporeal phantom, nor as affirmed by some in our days a mere man, like the other descendants of Adam. The importance of the tenet of his miraculous conception is evinced by its insertion in all the early Creeds; and certainly unless he had been “clearly void of sin both in his flesh and in his spirit, he could not have been the Lamb without spot, who by the sacrifice of himself once made should take away the sins of the world.” Art. XV. Thus it was necessary that he should be the Son of God even in his human nature. But we learn from Isaiah, as interpreted by Matthew, that he is also "God with us;" and the same passage in Micah which foretells his birth, declares his goings forth to have been from everlasting. The earlier

was

Evangelists lead us to infer his divinity, but it is explicitly announced in the opening of that of his beloved disciple. Yet this declaration is not introduced, as might have been expected, in connection with his incarnation, but with the testimony borne to his pre-eminence by him whom Jesus himself informs us was the greatest of those born of women, and who acknowledges that Jesus was before himself, both in existence and dignity. As this Evangelist had been a disciple of the Baptist, he seems to have partaken of his master's anxiety to exalt the Lord, whom he had been sent to proclaim. Thus after declaring the Messiah to be the light, he continues, there was a man brought into existence whose name John, to testify concerning that light. Christ afterwards appropriates the term to himself, calling the Baptist not pus light, but a burning and shining lamp xúxvos, which shone only as a light-bearer, for a short period, and in one country, and not to be confounded with him, who was the true light, that enlighteneth the world; nor even with his disciples, the least of whom was in the knowledge of divine things greater than the Baptist. To establish beyond all doubt the Messiah's superiority, the Evangelist commences with his preexistence and proper divinity, and his statement rises in dignity; for he states, first, that the Word existed in the beginning; then, that it existed with God; then, that it is God. In the beginning, that is, "before God's works of old, before ever the earth was," Prov. viii. before all things, Col. i. 17. from the days of eternity, Micah v. 2. the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In this brief yet comprehensive sentence, the inspired writer, by a simple statement of the orthodox faith, condemns the heretics of his own and future times. The Word was in the beginning, is an assertion incompatible with the creed of all who deny the pre-existence and the eternal filiation of the Son of God. The Evangelist does not say, as Moses did of the material world, that God created the Word, but that the Word was, that is, as Paul declares to the Colossians, i. 15. begotten before all creatures," begotten not made," and therefore there never

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was, as the Arians maintained, a period when he was not; but he was "light out of light," co-eternal with the Father as the stream from the spring, the ray from the sun, άлóуασμа тs 86ens, bright effluence of bright essence increate." Milton. The Word was, not as an attribute in God, but with gos God. This marks the distinction of persons in the Deity, which the Sabellians confound; and that none may divide the substance it is added, that the Word was God. And this affirmation contradicts alike the Gnostic notion of his being an inferior æon, and the modern heresy of his simple humanity; and, lest the reader should overlook the personal distinction while contemplating the Son's divinity, the inspired writer repeats, "the same was in the beginning with God." Let these words, says St. Basil, be impressed as a seal upon your memories, and confute with them the sophisms of those who maintain that Christ had no existence before he was born.

It cannot escape notice, that instead of the Son of God, the Evangelist here uses Logos, which our translators, retaining the theological language of the western Church derived from the Latin translation of the Scriptures, render Word obviously in a peculiar sense, for no one can think that the Word of God is similar to a word which among men is composed of syllables. No other language can convey the double meaning of the Greek Logos, which signifies both the λóyos évdialétos and the λoyos #gopopixòs of the Stoics; that is, reason as it exists in the mind, which is thought; or as it is embodied in sound", that is speech. Some translators, especially those who have a Socinian bias, like Leclerc, prefer the former, as more favourable to their view. The majority take it in the second, and some theological writers, objecting to any translation as inadequate,

a Eusebius, Dem. Ev. v. 5. Lactantius notices the two significations as follows. Sed melius Græci λoyo, dicunt quem nos verbum sive sermonem Xóyos enim et sermonem significat et rationem quia ille est et vox et sapientia Dei. Tertullian prefers ratio to sermo; and yet says, we ascribe to the Logos a proper spiritual existence, and that it was put forth from God by generation. Beza and Erasmus translate sermo.

retain the original. Either sense will suit the second person of the Trinity, for he is that wisdom which God "possessed in the beginning of his way," as the human soul does its thoughts; and it is not only through him that God hath in these last days spoken, but he has ever been the revealer of secrets", Dan. viii. 13. the channel through which God the Father, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man hath seen nor can see, has communicated his will to mankind from the time that the voice of Jehovah spoke to Adam in Paradise, till he assumed flesh as the Son of Mary. Since we must choose between reason and word, I prefer the latter as better suited to a person; in the thirty-six instances in which it occurs in the Gospel, it is always used in this sense; and Archbishop Laurence observes, that the corresponding word in Hebrew and Chaldee only bears this signification. Augustine says, the Son is called the Word of God, because his Father makes known his will by him in the same manner as a man makes known his mind by words; and to this interpretation the Evangelist himself leads us, when he says, that the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared or explained him, that is, both his real nature and his will. Word, the abstract, is to be taken for the concrete, by an idiom common in the New Testament, as salvation for saviour; thus the word stands for that oracle or interpreter of the divine counsels, who speaketh the words of God. John iii. 34.

d The reader, however, who turns to the Latin or English Bible, will not discern this title except in the margin of the latter. The etymology of the word Palmuni, and its close connection with that of Pelah, secret or wonderful, the title claimed by the angel that appeared to Manoah, who, it is evident from the context, was Jehovah, and ascribed by Isaiah, ix, with others of the most exalted meaning, to the Child to be born to us, seems to justify this translation, which is adopted by Calvin and other approved commentators, and supported by the Targum.

This numberer of secrets, or wonderful numberer, must mean a person of extraordinary rank, as being able to unfold those secrets which are hid from other angels, and is therefore justly supposed to mean the Son of God, the wonderful Counsellor, as being acquainted with all God's designs." Lowth.

I

Logos, in the sense in which it occurs in this introduction, is used by St. John in the opening of his first Epistle, in which he speaks of hearing, seeing, and handling the word of life, and he applies it as one of the titles of the triumphant Saviour, where he describes him as riding on a white horse, to judge, and make war in righteousness. Rev. xix. The only instance of its use in this sense in another New Testament author, may be that in the prefatory sentence of Luke's Gospel, for ministers and eye-witnesses seem more appropriate to a living person than to a spoken word. A remarkable passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews has been applied to the living Word by many commentators; and this interpretation is plausible; but our faith in it is shaken by observing, that where St. Paul, Eph. vi. 7. seems to personify the Word, by calling it the sword of the Spirit, he does not use the ambiguous logos, but rhema; and this I conceive is done on purpose to prevent that interpretation, here, in Acts x. 36. and 1 Peter i. 23. where the reader might otherwise think of the personal Logos. It is natural therefore to ask, why St. John employed and whence he derived it. Bishop Pearson tells us, "that the doctrine of the Logos was the current interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures, and that the Targums, or Chaldee Paraphrases, which were read in the synagogues, taught the Jews of Palestine that God and the Word of God were the same; which explains why John delivered so great a mystery in so few sentences, as he spoke to those who understood him. The existence, nature, and operations of the Logos were allowed; its union with the man Jesus was the only point to be established." If for Jews we substitute Gnostics, the remark will be correct. Such expressions as the Bishop cites, "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made," Psalm xxxiii. 6. the Christian knows to be true in this sense, but without a commentator it would hardly have occurred to a Jew; nor will the Targums supply this interpretation, for an examination of them will show that the word of Jah, which they substitute for Jehovah, (which partaking of the present Jewish superstition