and the Life was the Light of Men; and v. 6. And the Light Shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not and v. 7, 8, 9. where the Evangelift Speaking of John the Baptift, fays of him, that be came for a witnefs, to bear witness of the Light; and that he was not that Light, but was Jent to bear witness of that Light. And that Light was the true Light which coming into the World enlightens every man: And v. 14. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth : And v. 16. And of his fulness we all receive, &c. You fee here is a perpetual Allufion to the glorious Titles which they gave to their Eons, as if they had been so many several Dei

ties.

In fhort, the Evangelift fhews that all this fanciful Genealogy of Divine Emanations, with which the Gnofticks made fo great a noife, was mere conceit and imagination; and that all these glorious Titles did really

meet in the Meffias who is the Word, and who before his Incarnation was from all eternity with God, partaker of his Divine Nature and Glory.

I have declared this the more fully and particularly, because the knowledge of it seems to me to be the only true Key to the Interpretation of this Difcourfe of St. John concerning our Saviour under the Name and Title of the Word. And furely it is a quite wrong way for any Man to go about by the mere strength and fubtilty of his Reason and Wit, though never fo great, to interpret an ancient Book, without underftanding and confidering the Hiftorical occafion of it, which is the only thing that can give true light to it.

And this was the great and fatal mistake of Socinus, to go to interpret Scripture merely by Criticifing upon words, and searching into all the fenfes that they are poffibly capable of, till he can find one, though never fo forc'd and foreign, that will

fave harmless the Opinion which he was beforehand refolved to maintain even against the most natural and obvious fense of the Text which he undertakes to interpret: Juft as if a Man fhould interpret ancient Statutes and Records by mere Critical skill in words, without regard to the true Occafion upon which they were made, and without any manner of knowledge and infight into the Hiftory of the Age in which they were

written.

I fhall now proceed to the Second thing which I proposed to confider, namely,

II. The Defcription here given of the Word by this Evangelift in his entrance into the Hiftory of the Gospel. In the beginning, fays he, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word Das God: The fame was in the beginning with God: All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

1 John

I.

In which Paffage of the Evangelift four things are faid of the Word which will require a more particular Expli

cation.

Firft, That he was in the beginning.
Secondly, That he was in the begin-
ning with God.

Thirdly, That he was God.
Fourthly, That all were made by him.

ift. That he was in the beginning, vap, which is the fame with a' aps, from the beginning, where speaking of Chrift by the name of eternal. life, and of the Word of life, That, fays he, which was from the beginning. Nonnus, the ancient Paraphraft of St. John's Gofpel, by way of explication of what is meant by his being in the beginning, adds, that he was axer, without time, that is, before all time; and if fo, then he was from all eternity: In the beginning was the Word, that is, when things began to be made he was; not then began to be, but

α

then

22, 23,

then already was, and did exift before any thing was made; and confequently is without beginning, for that which was never made could have no beginning of its Being; and fo the Jews used to describe Eternity, before the world was, and before the foundation of the World, as alfo in feveral places of the New Teftament. And fo likewife Solomon defcribes the Eternity of Wisdom, The Lord, fays he, Prov. 8. possessed me in the beginning of his way, &c. before his works of old: I was fet up from everlasting, from the beginning or ever the Earth was: When he prepared the Heaven I was there; then I was with him as one brought up with him, rejoycing always before him: And so Juftin Martyr explains this very expreffion of St. John, that he was, or had a Being before all Ages: So likewife Athenagoras, a moft ancient Chriftian Writer, God, fays he, who is an invifible Mind, had from the beginning the Word in himself.