IV. The general design of Saint John, in common with the rest of the evangelists, is, as he himself assures us, to prove that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that believing we may have life through his name. (xx. 31.) But, besides this, we are informed by Irenæus, and other antient writers, that there were two especial motives that induced Saint John to compose his Gospel. One was, that he might refute the heresies of Cerinthus and the Nicolaitans, who had attempted to corrupt the Christian doctrine: the other motive was, that he might supply those important events in our Saviour's life, which the other evangelists had omitted. Respecting the former of these motives, Irenæus gives us the following account.

"John being desirous to extirpate the errors sown in the minds of men by Cerinthus, and some time before by those called Nicolaitans, published his Gospel ; in which he acquaints us that there is one God, who made all things by his word; and not, as they say, one who is the Creator of the world, and another who is the Father of the Lord; one the son of the Creator, and another the Christ from the supercelestial abodes, who descended upon Jesus the Son of the Creator, but remained impassible, and afterwards fled back to his own plerōma or fulness."

This testimony of Irenæus has been opposed by Lampe, Lardner, Tittmann, Kuinöel, and adopted by Buddeus, Michaelis, Moldenhawer, Mosheim, Bishop Tomline, Dr. Owen, and other later divines. The principal objections against the declaration of Irenæus may be reduced to the two following: viz.

he says,

1. That Irenæus is at variance with himself: for in another passage "as John the disciple of our Lord assures us, saying, But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name; foreseeing these blasphemous notions that divide the Lord, so far as it is in their power."2 Now, if Irenæus here meant to say, that Saint John only foresaw the errors, which were propagated by Cerinthus and the Gnostics, it must appear very extraordinary that he should say, in the passage above quoted, that Saint John wrote against the errors which had been propagated by Cerinthus. But the contradiction is only apparent: for providens, the expression of Irenæus, does not signify "foreseeing," but guarding against. The latter passage, therefore, when properly explained, does not confute but confirm the

by supposing that our Lord suffered a guilty woman to go unpunished. But, in reply to this supposition or objection, we may remark, 1. That, according to his own declaration, he came not into the world, to condemn the world (John iii. 17. viii. 15. xii. 47. Luke xii. 14-27.), and to execute the office of a judge (and it is but reasonable to try him by his own principles, in which no inconsistency can be found); and, 2. Any exercise of judicial authority would have given a direct contradiction to that deference and subordination which he constantly showed and inculcated to the power of the civil magistrate.

1 Irenæus advers. Hæres, lib. iii. c. 11.

2 Quemadmodum Joannes Domini discipulus confirmat, dicens, "Hæc autem scripta sunt, ut credatis quoniam Jesus est filius Dei, et ut credentes, vitam æternam habeatis in nomine ejus;" providens has blasphemas regulas, quæ dividunt Dominum quantum ex ipsis attinet. Advers. Hæres, lib. iii. c. 16.

former. Besides, as Saint Paul, in his first Epistle to Timothy speaks of Gnostic errors, it is evident that they must have been propagated long before Saint John wrote his Gospel.

2. The second argument, relied upon by those learned men who dissent from the common opinion, is, that the early fathers, in their catalogues of heretics, for the most part place Cerinthus after Carpocrates, who unquestionably lived and taught in the second century. This circumstance would certainly possess considerable weight, if it appeared that the early fathers had paid due attention to the regular order of time in their enumeration of heretics: but, instead of this, we know the fact to be, that the names of heretics are set down by Irenæus, Tertullian, Clement, and others, at random, and without paying any regard to the times in which they lived. "But even if Irenæus had not asserted that Saint John wrote his Gospel against the Gnostics, and particularly against Cerinthus, the contents of the Gospel itself would lead to this conclusion. The speeches of Christ, which Saint John has recorded, are selected with a totally different view from that of the three first evangelists, who have given such as are of a moral nature, whereas those which are given by Saint John are chiefly dogmatical, and relate to Christ's divinity, the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, the supernatural assistance to be communicated to the apostles, and other subjects of a like import. In the very choice of his expressions, such as light,' life,' &c. he had in view the philosophy of the Gnostics, who used or rather abused these terms. That the fourteen first verses of Saint John's Gospel are merely historical, and contain only a short account of Christ's history before his appearance on earth, is a supposition devoid of all probability. On the contrary it is evident that they are purely doctrinal, and that they were introduced with a polemical view, in order to confute errors, which prevailed at that time respecting the person of Jesus Christ. Unless Saint John had an adversary to combat, who made particular use of the words 'light' and life,' he would not have thought it necessary after having described the Creator of all things, to add, that in him was life, and the life was the light of men, or to assert that John the Baptist was not that light. The very meaning of the word 'light' would be extremely dubious, unless it were determined by its particular application in the oriental Gnosis. For without the supposition, that Saint John had to combat with an adversary who used this word in a particular sense, it might be applied to any divine instructor, who by his doctrines enlightened mankind. Further, the positions contained in the fourteen first verses are antitheses to positions maintained by the Gnostics, who used the words λόγος, ζωή, φως, μονογένης, πλήρωμα, &c. as technical terms of their philosophy. Lastly, the speeches of Christ, which Saint John has selected, are such as confirm the positions laid down in the first chapter of his Gospel and therefore we must conclude that his principal object throughout the whole of his Gospel was to confute the errors of the Gnostics."

1 Michaelis, vol. iii. part. i.

p. 280.

In addition to the preceding arguments and proofs, there is one circumstance highly worthy of remark, which greatly strengthens the testimony of Irenæus as to the subject of Saint John in writing his Gospel; viz. that he delivered it within a century after that Gospel was written. Now, as Irenæus was a disciple of Polycarp, who was personally acquainted with the evangelists, he consequently had the best means of procuring information on this subject. The evidence of a credible writer of the second century, uncontradicted by cotemporary writers, or by those who lived in the following century, is surely preferable to the conjectures offered by critics of the eighteenth or nineteenth century. In order to understand the design and arrangement of Saint John's Gospel, it will be necessary to take a brief review of the tenets of Cerinthus, in opposition to which the evangelist purposely wrote it. This will not only reflect considerable light on particular passages, but make the whole appear a complete work, regular, clear, and conclusive.

Cerinthus was by birth a Jew, who lived at the close of the first century having studied literature and philosophy at Alexandria, he attempted at length to form a new and singular system of doctrine and discipline, by a monstrous combination of the doctrines of Jesus Christ with the opinions and errors of the Jews and Gnostics. From the latter he borrowed their Pleroma or fulness, their ons or spirits, their Demiurgus or creator of the visible world, &c. and so modified and tempered these factions as to give them an air of Judaism, which must have considerably favoured the progress of his heresy. He taught that the most high God was utterly unknown before the appearance of Christ, and dwelt in a remote heaven called ПAHPOMA (Pleroma) with the chief spirits or ons-That this supreme God first generated an only begotten SON MONOTENHE, who again begat the word, Aorox, which was inferior to the first born - That CHRIST was a still lower æon, though far superior to some others—That there were two higher æons, distinct from Christ; one called ZOH, or LIFE, and the other 22, or the LIGHT That from the æons again proceeded inferior orders of spirits, and particularly one Demiurgus, who created this visible world out of eternal matter- - That this Demiurgus was ignorant of the supreme God, and much lower than the Eons, which were wholly invisible That he was, however, the peculiar God and protector of the Israelites, and sent Moses to them; whose laws were to be of perpetual obligation That Jesus was a mere man of the most illustrious sanctity and justice, the real son of Joseph and Mary-That the Eon Christ descended upon him in the form of a dove when he was baptised, revealed to him the unknown father, and empowered him to work miracles-That the Eon, LIGHT, entered John the Baptist in the same manner, and therefore

1 Lampe, Prolegom. in Johannis Evangelium, vol. i. p. 179. et seq. Buddeus de Ecclesia Apostolica, p. 412. et seq. Mosheim's Commentaries on the Affairs of Christians, vol. i. pp. 337, 338. note. Michaelis, vol. iii. part i. pp. 278, 279. Titmanni Meletemata Sacra in Evangelium Johannis, pp. 14-24. Kuinoel, Comment, in Hist. Libros Nov. Test. vol. iii. pp. 42. et seq.

that John was in some respects preferable to Christ-That Jesus, after his union with Christ, opposed himself with vigour to the God of the Jews, at whose instigation he was seized and crucified by the Hebrew chiefs, and that when Jesus was taken captive and came to suffer, Christ ascended up on high, so that the man Jesus alone was subjected to the pains of an ignominious death-That Christ will one day return upon earth, and, renewing his former union with the man Jesus, will reign in Palestine a thousand years, during which his disciples will enjoy the most exquisite sensual delights.1

Bearing these dogmas in mind, we shall find that Saint John's Gospel is divided into three parts, viz.

PART I. contains doctrines laid down in opposition to those of Cerinthus. John i. 1-18.)

The doctrines laid down in this first part, as contra-positions to the tenets of Cerinthus, may be reduced to the following heads, in which the evangelist asserts,

1. That Christ is the Logos or Word of God.

2. That the Logos and Monogenes are not distinct beings, but one and the same person. (i. 14.)

3. That Christ or the Logos is not an inferior Eon, but God. (i. 1.)

4. That he perfectly knew the supreme God, being always with him in the Pleroma. (i. 18.)

5. That he is not to be distinguished from the Demiurgus; for he is the creator of the whole world. (i. 3. 10.)

6. That life and light are not particular and separate spirits, but the same with the Logos and Christ (i. 4. 7---9. 17.) And therefore that Christ, the Logos, life, light, the only-begotten, are not distinct Eons, but one and the same divine person.2

7. That no particular on entered into John the Baptist by the name of Light, to communicate to him a superior knowledge of the divine will (i. 8.); but that he was a mere man, and, though inspired, much inferior to Jesus, being only the forerunner of him. (i. 6. 8. 15.)

8. That the Supreme God was not entirely unknown before the time of Christ; for men had received such lights on this head, under the various dispensations through which they passed, that it was their own fault if they remained ignorant. (i. 9, 10.)

9. That the Jews were not the peculiar people of an inferior God, such as the Demiurgus; but of Christ himself, the only begotten son of God. (i. 11.) 10. That in the fulness of time the son of God took upon him human nature, and became man. (i. 14.)

11. That he abolished the Law of Moses, which was only the shadow of good things to come, and in its stead introduced the substance, or the very things signified by it. (i. 17.)

And lastly,

12. That the Jew has no more right in this divine person, and the privileges conferred through him, than the Gentile ;3 for whoever believes in him, becomes thereby a child of God, and is entitled by that adoption to a glorious inheritance. (i. 12, 13.)

These propositions being settled, the evangelist proceeds in PART II. to deliver the proofs of these doctrines in an historical manner (i. 19.-xx. 29.), as being all expressed or plainly implied in

1 Mosheim's Commentaries, vol. i. pp. 337-347. Dr. Lardner's Works, 8vo. vol. ix. pp. 325-327.; 4to. vol. iv. pp. 567-569. Dr. Owen's Observations on the Four Gospels, pp. 88-92. To this learned writer we are chiefly indebted for the preceding observations.

2 Unus et idem ostenditur Logos et Monogenes, et Zoe et Phōs, et Soter et Christus filius Dei, et hic idem incarnatus pro nobis. Iren. lib. i. c. i. § 20. 3 Origen. Philocal. c. i. p. 17. ed Spencer.

the discourses and transactions of Jesus Christ, which may conveniently be divided into eighteen sections, viz.

SECT. 1. John the Baptist himself confesses to the Jewish priests, that he is much inferior to Jesus, refers his own disciples to him, who acknowledge him to be the Messiah, and are confirmed in this faith by the miracle of water converted into wine, at Cana in Galilee. (i. 19.—ii. 11.

SECT. 2. Jesus conducts himself at Jerusalem as the lord of the temple (ii. 12-25.), reveals himself to Nicodemus as the only begotten Son of God; shews the design of his coming into the world, and the necessity of believing in him. (iii. 1—21.) SECT. 3. An additional testimony of John the Baptist to the superiority of Christ, and the excellency of his ordinances. (iii. 22-36.)

SECT. 4. Jesus visits the Samaritans, declares himself to be the Christ, and foretels the abolition of the Levitical worship. (iv. 1-42.)

SECT. 5. By a second miracle, (the cure of a nobleman's dying child) Christ demonstrates his divine mission in his own country, where it was most disputed. (iv. 43–54.)

SECT. 6. As a further proof of the future abrogation of the ceremonial law, Jesus works a miracle on the Sabbath, by healing an impotent man at the pool of Bethesda, and vindicates his conduct; declares himself to be the Son of God, and exhibits various evidences of his mission. (v. 1—47.)

SECT. 7. To shew that he was the end of the law, Jesus substitutes himself in the room of the legal sacrifices; and commands the people, who were used to feast on some of those sacrifices, to eat his flesh and drink his blood. And to convince them that he was truly the bread of life, he miraculously feeds above five thousand of them with five barley loaves. (vi. 1-71.) SECT. 8. The people being disposed by this miracle to make him a king, Jesus disclaims all temporal views; urges further the proofs of his divine mission, and promises the assistance of the Holy Spirit to all true believers. (vii. 1-53.)

SECT. 9. He declares himself to be the light of the world; reproves the Jews for rejecting him; promises immortality to his followers; and speaks of his own existence as prior to that of Abraham. (viii. 12-59.)

SECT. 10. In proof of his being the light of the world, he restores a blind man to sight,1 and warns the Jews of that judicial darkness under which they were soon to be sealed up, for perverting so basely those means of knowledge, which were graciously offered to them. (ix. 1-41.)

SECT. 11. After this he represents himself as the door of the Sheepfold, and tells the Pharisees, who called themselves the shepherds of the people, that they "who entered not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbed up some other way," whatever character they might assume, were in reality no better than thieves and robbers. A reflection which the Christians of those days could hardly avoid applying to Cerinthus and other 1 See a critical examination of this miracle, supra, Vol. I. pp. 269–271.