AND WITHOUT HIM WAS NOT ANY THING MADE THAT WAS MADE. Not the lower world only, but the upper world also; not the material and visible world only, but the world of invisibles, the celestial spirits, angels and archangels, they also were made by the same Word; for there was nothing made without him f. "By him were "all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in "earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or "dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were "created by him, and for him g." So writes St. Paul, the best interpreter of what we have in St. John, as writing by the same Spirit, and with the same views, and probably against the very same men. Indeed, there is not in the whole New Testament any thing of a more sublime and exalted strain, concerning the personal dignity of our blessed Lord, than what we find in the first chapter to the Colossians, from the fifteenth to the nineteenth verse inclusive; and in the second, from verse the second to the tenth. Those passages come the nearest of any to St. John's divine proeme, and are only to be matched with it. It would be too great a digression here, to show how those so emphatical expressions of St. Paul are all particularly fitted to confront the tenets of Cerinthus, as if chosen for that very purpose, and directly pointed at them but the learned reader who is disposed to examine into the fact, may consult a very judicious foreigner, who has drawn that matter out at length, expounding what

positum: non enim a fabricatore quodam mundi, a Deo primo diverso, sed a Aoy #OSTATIx, qui et ipse verus summusque Deus sit, mundum huncce et omnia quæ in eo sunt, condita esse, verbis istis docet. Buddæi Eccles. Apostol. p. 438. Conf. Vitring. Observ. Sacr. lib. v. c. 13. s. 4. p. 155.

f In eodem commate, contra eosdem hæreticos addit, et absque eo factum est nihil. Quæ verba, qui intentionem Apostoli non attenderit, nihil aliud quam inanem raurologíav continere suspicetur. Sed nimirum hæretici isti (ut recte Grotius) alium volebant opificem eorum quæ cernimus, sive mundi hujus aspectabilis ; alios rerum invisibilium, et quæ super hunc mundum sunt, in sno quemque pleromate: nihil igitur eorum quæ facta sunt, ex operibus rou Aóyou excipit Joannes. Bull. Judic. Eccles. c. ii. p. 294.

s Colos. i, 16. See my Sermons, vol. ii. p. 34-37.

St. Paul has said in those two chapters, in a very clear and excellent manner, by the opposition which it carries in it all the way to the Cerinthian heresy h. I return to St. John.

IN HIM WAS LIFE, AND THE LIFE WAS THE LIGHT OF MEN. The same Word was life, the Aóyos and gwn, both one. There was no occasion therefore for subtilly distinguishing the Word and life into two Æons, as some

did.

AND THE LIGHT SHINETH IN DARKNESS, AND THE DARKNESS COMETH NOT UPON IT. So I render the verse, conformable to the rendering of the same Greek verb, xaтaλaußávw, by our translators, in another place of this same Gospelk. The Apostle, as I conceive, in this fifth verse of his first chapter, alludes to the prevailing error of the Gnostics, and of all that sort of men'; who had adopted the ancient Magian notion of a good God and an evil God, the first called Light, and the other Darkness: which two they supposed to be under perpetual struggles, and obstructed by each other. In opposition, probably, to those Magian principles, St. John here asserts, that the Word, the true light, was much superior to any such pretended rival power. In him was no darkness at allm: no such opposite power could come upon him, to obstruct his purposes, or defeat his good and great designs.

HE WAS IN THE WORLD, AND THE WORLD HAD

b Buddæus, Eccles. Apostolica, p. 468-487.

i Hunc ipsum Aóy, esse vitam hominis; otiosam innuens illorum subtilitatem, qui in systemate divinarum emanationum, why vitam, a Aóy distinguebant, eidemque subordinabant. Vitringa in Prolog. Evangel. Johan. Observ. Sacr. lib. v. c. 13. p. 180.

* John xii. 35. Vid. Bos. Exercitat. in Johan. p. 54, 55.

1 Vid. Vitringa, Observat. Sacr. lib. v. c. 13. p. 136. Epiphanius speaking of the Gnosticism of those times, derives it in part from the perplexity which those men were under, in the question about the origin of evil. Epiphan. Hares, xxiv. 6.

"God is light, and in him is no darkness at all," 1 John i. 5.

BEEN MADE BY HIM, BUT THE WORLD KNEW HIM

NOT. So I translate, for greater accuracy and perspicuity. HE CAME UNTO HIS OWN, AND HIS OWN RECEIVED HIM NOT. These two verses manifestly confront several of the Gnostic principles, viz. that the world was made by an inferior and evil God, an angel called Demiurgus; and that Christ came into another person's work, or province, not into his own, when he manifested himself to the world"; and that he did not so manifest himself before his incarnation. Those several errors seem to be directly pointed at, and confuted by what the Evangelist has taught in those two verses °. But of the true interpretation of those two verses, I have treated more largely elsewhere P.

AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH, became personally united with the man Jesus; AND DWELT AMONG us, resided constantly in the human nature so assumed. Very emphatical and pointed expressions, searching to the root of every heresy almost of that time, so far as concerned the person of Christ: for none of them would admit the Word made flesh, or God made man 9. Such sentiments agreed not with their vain philosophy; they

n Scilicet Cerinthi et aliorum omnium hæreticorum, qui mundi hujus conditorem a summo Deo separabant, hæc fuit notissima sententia, Christum servatorem nostrum a summa omnium principalitate in hunc mundum venisse tanquam in alienum opus; idque ut homines a dominio et servitute conditoris universi in nescio quam libertatem (licentiam rectius dixeris) vindicaret. Bull. Judic. Eccles. cap. ii. sect. 4. p. 294. Conf. Iren. lib. iii. c. 11. et lib. v. c. 18.

• Docet itaque semper illum in mundo fuisse, et a primo rerum ortu, et generis humani instauratione, se in Ecclesia, quam in mundo habuit, manifestasse, et ut lucem veram suos illuminasse; etiamsi a maxima mundi parte, et ab ipsis Judæis carnalibus agnitus non sit explodens erroneam illorum hypothesin qui Filium Dei ante suam vægárno se in mundo non manifestusse, neque illi cognitum fuisse, asserebant. Vitringa, Observ. Sacr. vol. iii. p. 180.

▸ Sermons, vol. ii. p. 28, 29, 30.

Secundum autem nullam sententiam hæreticorum, Verbum Dei caro factum est. Iran. lib. iii. c. 11. p. 189. Conf. Bull. Judic. Eccl. c. ii. sect. 4. P. 194.

deemed the thing to be incredible. The Cerinthians admitted that a celestial spirit descended occasionally upon Jesus; but they neither allowed that spirit to be personally united with Jesus, nor to be properly divine, as St. John teaches so that in two respects those words of the Apostle confute their principles s.

AND WE BEHELD HIS GLORY, THE GLORY AS OF THE ONLY BEGOTTEN OF THE FATHER, &c. Words diametrically opposite to Cerinthus's hypothesis', which inade the Logos not the only begotten of the Father, but a remove farther off, viz. the Son of the only begotten, as before observed.

AND OF HIS FULNESS HAVE ALL WE RECEIVED, AND GRACE FOR GRACE. The expression, of his fulness, [ix toũ wλnpúμatos autoũ,] is very observable. The Gnostics in general, and the Cerinthians in particular, were wont to talk much of the wλńpwμa, or fulness; by which they meant a fictitious plenitude of the Deity, in which the whole race of ons was supposed to subsist, and into which spiritual men (such as they esteemed themselves) should hereafter be received. It was the doctrine of the Valentinians, (and probably of the elder Gnostics also,) that they were themselves of the spiritual seed, had constant grace, and could not fail of being admitted into the plenitude above "; while others were in their esteem carnal, had grace but sparingly, or occasionally, and that not to bring them so high as the

Incredibile præsumpserant Deum carnem. Tertul. contr. Marcion. lib. iii. c. 8. p. 401. Conf. Just. Mart. Dial. p. 140, 204. edit. Jebb.

s Dum dicit Verbum caro factum, et habitavit inter nos; significat ipsum istum Aóyor, qui Filius Dei, simulque verus ac summus Deus, erat, quemque tam multis descripserat verbis, carnem factum, hoc est, humanam naturam, non ad certum tempus, sed perpetuo, indissolubili, et inseparabili nexu adsumsisse. Budd. Eccl. Apost. p. 440.

Indicat eundem istum Aóyo,, qui caro factus erat, etiam esse unigenitum Patris: adeoque discrimen illud quod Cerinthiani inter μovoysrñ sive unigenitum, et Aóyov sive Verbum, constituebant, explodit. Buddæus, ibid. P. 440.

" Iren. lib. i. c. 6. p. 31.

plenitude, but to an intermediate station only. But St. John here asserts, that all Christians equally and indifferently, all believers at large, have received of the plenitude, or fulness of the divine Logos; and that not sparingly, but in the largest measure, grace upon grace, accumulated grace or rather, grace following in constant succession, grace for grace; that is, new succours coming on as quick as the former should wear off or cease, or new supplies for the old ones past and gone, without failure or intermission. Our present rendering, grace for grace, is literal, and just; provided only we understand it thus, that whenever one grace ceases or expires, another comes in its place, and is given us for the former, or in lieu of the former.

I have now run through the proeme of St. John's Gospel, endeavouring all the way to show how aptly the expressions suit with the supposition which I here go upon, that it was penned with a particular view to the heresies of Cerinthus and Ebion; to say nothing of Simon Magus, or the Gnostics of those times: for though I have chiefly, or in a manner solely, made Cerinthus's heresy the subject of this article, yet I would be understood to include any other heretics of the same time, or before him, so far as they fell in with the same common errors.

Let us now pass on to St. John's First Epistle, in order to consider whether that likewise may not be naturally

* Docet denique ex hujus unigeniti et primogeniti Dei Filii #λngúμATI (qua notione Gnostici uti consueverunt) omnes accipere gratiam pro gratia, omnes omnis generis et ordinis in Christum credentes, ejusdem in hac vita participes esse gratiæ, et ad ejusdem gloriæ spem vocatos esse: neutiquam vero ita se rem habere ut Gnostici jactitabant, solos suæ sectæ homines, et suæ imbutos philosophiæ mysteriis, ad summam illam felicitatem primi pleromatis divinitatis adspirare posse, reliquorum credentium animabus inferioris et medii generis beatitudinis statum destinatum esse. Vitringa, Obs. Sacr. lib. v. c. 13. p. 155, 156.

See Bull. Harmon. Apostol. Dissert. ii. c. 11. p. 481.

Vid. Gataker. Adversar. Sacr. c. xxvii. Anonymi Fortuita Sacra, p. 80, 81, &c. Suicer. Thesaur. in xágis, p. 1497.