I.

We may compare with all that is here LECT said of the Word, what is said in the book of. Proverbs of the Wisdom of God; which moreover some take to be a personification of the Son of God, whose Gospel we are are now considering. This Wisdom in the book of Proverbs thus speaks: "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth; while as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was there when He set a compass upon the face of the depth; when He established the clouds above; - when He strengthened the fountains of the deep; when He gave to the sea His decree, that the waters should not pass His commandment; when He appointed the foundations of the earth: then was I by Him, as one brought up with Him; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him; rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth; and my delights were with the sons of men." "We still linger," observes an excellent writer, " on the threshold of creation. In Him was Life.' titles which our EvanLife," " the Light." He

6

Observe these two gelist next applies, "the

quod facta sunt omnia:) si factum esset Verbum, Scriptura diceret, In principio fecit Deus Verbum: quomodo dixit in Genesi, In principio fecit Deus cœlum et terram. Non ergo in principio fecit Deus Verbum: quia, In principio erat Verbum."

i Prov. viii. 22–31.

kA Plain Commentary, ad loc.

I.

LECT. is the fountain of life'. Eternal life proceeds from Him, as its original source. He has obtained and earned it for us. He gives it to all who believe in Him.

And He is the Light of men". But the light shineth in darkness. Darkness in the Scripture is put for ignorance, wickedness, and its attendant Light for divine knowledge and its

misery.
attendant joy.
have the effect put for its cause.

Here by a

Here by a common figure we
What Christ

does, that He is said to be. He is called the Light,

For "since Adam's fall, fitting words of another,

because He gives light.
our nature," to use the
"had become, as it were, without form and void,
and darkness was upon the face of it.' And it is
said, the Light of men' shone athwart that dark-
ness.... The Evangelist is hinting at the new
creation.... Take notice how the first page of the
New Testament again recals the first page of the
Old "."

Again, the world was in a state of moral dark-
ness when Christ came, "the Dayspring from on
high; to give light to them that sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into
the way of peace "."
He threw light upon the
unknown future. He lighted up for us the dark
world beyond the grave. He maketh our darkness
to be light. As the Psalmist said, embodying the
two ideas in this fourth verse, "With Thee is the
fountain of life, in Thy light shall we see light "."

1 See ch. v. 26.

" A Plain Commentary.

mch. viii. 12. ix. 5. xii. 35, 36. 1 John i. 7.

• See Is. ix. 2. with Matt. iv. 14-16. and ch. xii. 41.

P Psalm xxxvi. 9.

I.

"He calls Him," says an old Father of the Church, LECT. "He calls Him both Life and Light, for He hath given us the light which comes of knowledge, and the life which follows it."

Now these were all truths and expressions which those early false teachers denied, or perverted, or attempted to explain away; thus lamentably helping to prove the sorrowing statement with which this portion concludes as to the reception of the Divine light: "the darkness comprehended it not." The Light came, pregnant with blessings, but it received not the welcome which from men lying in darkness it should have received. The reception of the Gospel is often sadly disappointing. "Lord," said the prophet referring to this, "who hath believed our report ?" And, as Christ was compelled to say afterwards',

66

Light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." May it never be so said of us!

LECTURE II.

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.

LECT.

II.

JOHN i. 6-14.

"HAVING Spoken to us at the outset of God the Word," says an old Father of the Church", "the Evangelist, proceeding on his road, comes to the herald of the Word, his namesake John." The coming of Christ was proclaimed by John the Baptist. It had been prophesied by Malachi', that before the coming of the Messiah a second Elijah should appear; that one should arise in the spirit and power of that great prophet, to prepare the way of the Lord. In the person of John, commonly called the Baptist, was this prophecy fulfilled. He "came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe." He was a witness to Christ, and that Jesus was the Christ. The subject of his testimony was Christ the Light. The aim of it was that, through his preaching, men might betake themselves to that Light, and be led to believe in Christ. He sought not his own glory: he would not have the people give him the honour which was due to Christ only; but he taught them that He, who is emphatically "the Light," was about to visit them, and directed them to Him. He was indeed himself, as the Lord testified, "a burning and a shining

II.

light," but he was not that Light; he was not the LECT. Light. So the Evangelist, having just introduced the Baptist to us, and mentioned the object of his coming, proceeds to speak further of Christ under this figure and symbol and title, "that was the true Light."

Christ was the true or original (archetypal) Light, the source of spiritual illumination: not as John the Baptist, who, though a great and remarkable light, derived whatever light he had, whether to enjoy or to dispense, from Christ.

And Christ is, moreover, the true Light, as opposed to those false prophets and false christs who had arisen, or should afterward arise; true also as opposed to the Gnostics, and those other false teachers in the early Church, of whom we have already heard. And He is to the spiritual, what the sun is to the material world.

In the sentence rendered," which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," we must connect the latter part of it with the light of which the Evangelist is speaking, and the sense of the whole will be, "that was the true Light, which, coming into the world, enlighteneth every man." Christ shines as the sun into a world which lay in darkness. All who will may come to that Light, and enjoy its blessed and quickening beams. As old Simeon said at His presentation in the temple, "A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of His people Israel" and as our Lord Himself

"Sic intelligimus id, quod in Evangelio scriptum est: Qui illuminat omnem hominem; non quia nullus est hominum qui non illuminatur, sed quia nisi ab illo nullus illuminatur." Aug. quoted in Lampe. For the construction in the text, Grotius (in Crit. Sac.) assigns strong reasons.