was the word") the Editor attempts to prove the eternity of the son; by the second ("the word was with God") his distinct personality; and by the third ("the word was God") his deity.

Let us first take this verse in it's literal sense and ascertain whether or not it is, in that case, intelligible. "In the beginning" i. e. in the first time;

such a sound as

was the word" i. e. existed was capable of conveying

a meaning "the word was with God" i. e. this sound existed in the Deity, since no sound can exist of itself. "The word was God" i. e. the word was the deity, or a deity, or being like other attributes of the deity, it was divine-The whole verse thus stands "from the beginning the word of God, or Revelation manifesting his will and commandments, existed with him as God himself;" and by the same word God made or established all things; as the Jewish and Mohummudan, as well as Hindoo theologians believe, on the authority of the works respectively ac-, knowledged by them, that God made and established all things by his word only. Vide Gen. I. 3. et seq. And he communicated that Revelation to the world through Jesus Christ, (as testified before hand by John the Baptist)

for the purpose of effecting the salvation of those that received and believed the authority of that Revelation. This is detailed throughout verses 2-12.* In verse 13 and 14 John expressly personifies "the word" in Jesus as the bearer and deliverer of that Revelation "the word was made flesh (or the word was flesh) and dwelt among us" &c. To explain fully this metaphorical representation, John designates Jesus by this name with the additional words of life" once in his epistle 1 John I. 1. "The word of life" and with the additional words "of God" once in Rev. XIX. 13. "His name is called the word of God" whereby he manifests that Jesus, as the deliverer of the word of God, is called by that name, and not actually identified with the word, as otherwise might have been supposed from his Gospel J. 1. John I. 1. is not the only instance in which an attribute of the deity is thus represented as one with God; for the very same writer identifies love with the deity in John IV. 8 and 16 on the ground that love is of God and is manifested in the world by him. 1 John IV. 7.

The reason for the use of the masculine gender in these verses both in the original Gospel and in the English version is obvious as the original word oyog signifying the "word" is masculine.

Secondly, I have to notice the orthodox exposition of the verse in question; they interpret the word "beginning" as signifying all eternity, and by the term "word" they understand Jesus the son of God; that is, from all eternity the son of God existed with God distinct in person, and he was also God. The interpretation is, I presume, equally unscriptural as it is revolting to the understanding, and for several reasons: First. As long as a passage can be consistently taken and understood in it's literal sense, there can be no apology for taking it in a figurative one. Here we find no authority for identifying Jesus with the "word" or designating him by that term in any of the preceding Gospels; he is only figuratively so called in Rev. by the name of "the word of God." Under these circumstances, to understand Jesus literally and so abruptly by the term "word" in John I. 1., (against the established doctrine of the Jews and the rest of the oriental nations) aud to assume this word as existent in the beginning and as instrumental in the hands of God in moral and physical creations, is entirely inadmissable. 2ndly. The Evangelist John in his Gospel uses the word "beginning" in a finite sense and generally im plying the beginning of the Christian dispensation, John XVI. 4. XV. 27. VIII. 25. 44. VI.

64. II. 1. and not once for "all eternity." Hence to understand the word "beginning" in an infinite sense is opposed to, the sense adopted throughout the whole of his Gospel. 3rdly. In the first verse of Genesis "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," we find in a similar connection the same phrase "in the beginuing." Were we to follow the orthodox interpretation and take it in an infinite seuse, (i. e. from eternity God created the earth and heavens) we should be compelled to profess the eternity of the world and become materialists. 4thly. To acknowledge the son to be the true God and to have lived with the true God from eternity destroys at once the idea of the unity of God and proves, beyond every question, the plurality of the Deity. For, if we see one real man living with another real man, though both of them are one in nature and design, are we not compelled by the ordinary course of nature to apprehend the duality of man, and to say that, there are two men? Can orthodox ingenuity prove that there are not two but one man, or prevent the comprehention of the duality of man? If not, I wish to know whe ther after admitting that the real God, the son, exists with the real God, the father, from eternity, the Editor can consistently deny the ex

istence of two real Gods? 5thly. The exposition of the Editor must render John I. 1. directly contradictory of Deut. XXXII. 39. "I am he and there is no God with me. Here Jehovah himself expressly denies having another real God with him in the universe, for he is often said to have had fictitious Gods with him, and therefore Jehovah's denial in this verse must be referred and confined to real Gods: Psalm LXXXII. 1. "God standeth in the congrega tion of the mighty, he judgeth among the Gods." He then addressed himself to those nominal Gods of Israel, among whom he stood "I said ye are Gods." (in verse 6) But we firmly believe that John, an inspired writer, could not utter any thing that might contradict the express declaration of Jehovah, though the Editor and others, from a mistaken notion ascribe this contradiction to the Evangelist. 6thly. They thus render the last sentence of the verse "the word was God" without the

indefinite article "a" before "God," while they translate Exodus VII. 1. "I have made thee (Moses) a God to Pharoah," though in the original Hebrew there stands only the word or "God" without the, indefinite article "a" before it. If regard for the divine unity induced them to add the article "a" in the verse of Exodus" a God to Pharoah," why

אלהים