LECTURE I. OF THE WORD OR SON OF GOD. JOHN i. 1-5. WITH this declaration of our Lord's Divinity LECT. St. John the Evangelist begins his Gospel. At I. the outset he strikes this key-note: The Son of Man, Very God. There is something particularly observable in this Gospel we have just entered upon, which distinguishes it from the other three. We have fewer of our Saviour's miracles in it, and more of our Saviour's words; not so many of His doings, many more of His discourses. There is less of His human history, more of His divine teaching. It was written after the three other Gospels, by way of supplement. The writer was the Apostle John, who was also the inspired author of the three Epistles which bear his name, and of the Revelation. He was "the disciple whom Jesus loved;" who with Peter and James was most with our Lord, being admitted to the closest intimacy. He seems to have been directed in this, last and latest of the four Gospels, among other things to refute the heresies of those who, even in that early age of the Church, began to corrupt Christian doctrine, and to introduce grievous error. Some of the earliest of these false teachers were B LECT. the Gnostics, as they were styled; a name derived I. from a Greek word signifying knowledge; as though they had the monopoly of that article. Constant allusion is made to them in St. John's Epistles; his frequent and emphatic "we know" distinctly intimates whom he was reproving: and such expressions as "the word," "the light," "the life," which we meet with in these opening verses and elsewhere, have reference to the false philosophy which perverted these expressions. In opposition to these also, St. John dwells more on the subject of our Lord's Divinity, and on the Personality of the Holy Spirit, than the other Evangelists. Indeed, his main design seems to have been to convey to men just and adequate ideas of the true nature, office, and character of the Christ. We have therefore more of our Saviour's doctrines, discourses, and prayers; and the historical notices it contains are not given so much with a view to a continuous history of our Saviour's life, as to illustrate some particular feature in His complex character. Or, while the other Evangelists, as it has been said, wrote the history of our Saviour's life, St. John seems to have confined himself to a history of our Saviour's person and office. He consequently sets out, as we have said, in these opening verses with a declaration of our Lord's Divinity. He introduces Him to us under the title of " the Word." This expression St. John makes use of without attempting any explanation, as being one well known to his readers, whether Jew or Gentile. Indeed, it was in frequent use among the Jews, who understood by that title the Messiah; and T t I. the Gentiles, through the prevalence of Gnostic LECT. As this was one of the expressions made use of, Word was God. declared to us Here then we have plainly The inspired writer proceeds to inform us that it See ch. xv. 15. Heb. i. 1, 2. The Vulgate renders Aoyos Verbum; b v. 14. d Art. ii. LECT. earthly reasonings, which can but look, as "through I. a glass darkly," from "nature up to nature's God," from earth to heaven, this Gospel "the Genesis of the New Testament," as it has been happily called, glances from heaven to earth. And bearing in mind the title here applied to Christ our Lord, we shall see the beauty and recognise the application of such passages as we meet with in the Psalms and elsewhere: "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the hosts of them by the breath of his mouth'." "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, ... by whom also He made the worlds." And it is remarkable how the apostle Paul, acting immediately under Divine inspiration, directly applies to Christ expressions in the Psalms which were addressed to the supreme God; as, "Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands." From all which we are fully justified in drawing the conclusion, which indeed in the beginning of this Gospel is plainly expressed, that Christ is God'. e Dr. Wordsworth. And this we say, though St. Matthew begins BíẞAos yevéσews K.T. λ. for he is there occupied with our Lord's incarnation in time, but our Evangelist bere with His eternal generation. f Ps. xxxiii. 6. Heb. i. 1, 2. See also Col. i. 15-19. b Heb. i. 10. with Ps. cii. 24. 25. i On this grand point the following excerpta from Augustine may well find place in a note, and have a value for some readers. "Si autem omnia per ipsum facta sunt, intellige quia non est factus ipse." Ser. cxviii. 1. "De mihi," he grandly asks lower down in the same sermon, sempiternum ignem, et do tibi sempiternum splendorem." Again, Ser. cxix. 2. "Si factum esset Verbum, (non est enim factum per |