of the corruptors, if it were worth while, we might say much worse; and as much more as honest men are to be esteemed and caressed than others even in a worldly view, so much more are these to be despised and detested in every view: but who may be of either sort now mentioned; who rather belonging to God and Christ, who his particularly, who moderately or any how, Christ only can know; as only his know him. "I am the good Shepherd, (says he,) and know my sheep, and am known of mine." (John x. 14.) They may know him, if they know not one another and if they know not his, as well they may not in this imperfect state, they still know there are such: they know it; and if they never live to see any, they will still continue to believe it.

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LETTER III.

THE INVISIBLE WORD.

"Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him: for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”—JOHN xiv. 17.

As there are different ways of seeing things, so likewise of describing them or making them seen: for every Kal will have its Hithpahel. God sees every thing, but is only seen himself in description: and the way that he describes every thing, or makes it seen is twofold, verbal and symbolical. The verbal mode is also twofold; and the symbolical I need not say much about at present, as it belongs to another sphere.

The verbal mode in which God sees and describes every thing as well to himself as to his creatures,—or we may say more shortly, that mode of God, is susceptible again of other modes, and of two especially, of which the divine St. John proposes one very remarkably in the introduction to his gospel, and the other being more familiar is to a great extent within the reach of our own discovery and observation. His remarkable glance at the former must be ever present to your recollection: yet it will be proper, or if not proper,-from the sense that I have, my dear invisible, of your towardliness and humility being equal to your learning and discrimination, I feel that it will be allowable to repeat the same. He says

"In the beginning was the word; and the word was with God; and the word was God-The same was in the

beginning with God. All things were made by it; and

without it was not any thing made that was made.

In it

was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.......That was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

He was in the world;

and the world was made by him; and the world knew him not. He came unto his own; and his own received him not but as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of flesh and blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John i. 1, &c.)

Now the drift or paraphrase of this passage, as it would be called, is according to my idea as follows, being very fortunately in unison with, I believe, the general testimony of the church repeated through every age from its begining to the present: for there certainly was no thought of adaptation in the birth of such idea, however it may happen to suit.

In the beginning, as we say, that is, from eternity there was with God what we shall know how to regard whether as a principle or a person, when we know in which light it is just to consider Him: for that was the word, and the word was God indeed, God the Creator, the Fountain of light and life. The same word was in the beginning with God: and that, not locally, as one person may be with another; but identically, as a man must needs be with himself when he is not more absent than usual. He was not only life and light to all that is-himself only excepted, but he was also their general design or notion; in which all things or their several circum→ scriptions are included, and that eternal spirit—that life which is the light of intellectual beings, more especially; being still but one in himself, the word which was in the beginning with God, and was God: God, the word to all the world, as all the world was his ordering; the life and

the light to all the world, as in him it both lives and is apprehended.

Light of light he shone forth in darkness before the creation of light, or ere the lamps of heaven were suspended and the darkness has never been able to overtake, or comprehend it. I should observe, as there are many false lights soliciting our attention continually in the midst of the darkness with which the world is still overspread, that this was no false or partial illumination; it "was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." Neither are we to understand that the word which was with God in the beginning, and is God -with the several principles of life and light before mentioned were so many distinct persons, one as the word, another as the life, and another as the light : but that they were all of or from one person; whose name I have mentioned often enough. May he forgive me for calling him a person!

This divine BEING then, as I would say rather than Person, this ever blessed all-bountiful Being was long in the world, and the world knew him not: he graciously visited the world in these superior forms, the word by which it was created, and the life in which it exists, differently embodied-as he still does daily with his day and dew; coming only to his own, to that which he created: but his own received him not. For those who did receive him were not of the world, as he was not of the world, (John xvii. 14,) though living in it. "And as many as received him, to them gave he," &c.: being come at last, not in any near likeness, as that of angels, for example; nor involved in several-as first in that of a minor deity, and then of an angel, a saint, or what not ; but directly and immediately in a plain covering of humanity. And here we set up our rest: and here we will abide, if it please him, in spite of friend or foe. “ For though there be that are called gods, whether

in Heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many) to us there is but one God, the Father; of whom are all things, and we in him: and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him," (Cor. I. viii. 5, 6,) among the rest.

The passage which I have ventured to paraphrase or enlarge extending through as many as half a score verses has still not been found long, I trust: the sense given for it in our translation is justified, and the doctrine absolutely determined against the oppugners of our Saviour's divinity -by a seemingly minute circumstance in the text; being merely a change in the pronoun article from neuter to masculine at v. 10. For after saying " That was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” (v. 9,) the evangelist continues, "He was in the world, and the world was made by him," &c. By this change of the neuter for the masculine, or the material for the personal pronoun, the sense of the intervening verses between 1 and 10, which might otherwise have been doubtful, is fixed decidedly, and the same which " was in the beginning" continues to be the principal subject throughout. And I believe there has never been any dispute about the genuineness of the reading as far as it regards this seemingly inconsiderable expression: which also is rather remarkable.

It is said in Job by one of the interlocutors, " I will fetch my knowledge from afar :" (Job xxxvi. 3:) and some may be apt to think the observations I am now detailing on the subject of the invisible word rather far fetched; though to you it must be well known that they are deduced from the same point from which the sublime evangelist St. John deduces his history, and its principal commentator, St. Paul, his discovery-of the same: as he says, "According to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made

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