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they hold it unlawful to pronounce,) is only a periphrasis for God, and is in the same manner applied to man, and to say the least can in no instance be proved to designate the second person of the Trinity. In the Apocryphal book of Wisdom', however, Logos is used in the personal sense, which therefore must have been prevalent among the Jews of Alexandria before the Christian æra. The term occurs in Plato, and was probably taken from his writings by philosophizing Jews, who combined his speculations with the traditions of the East. In the numerous works of his imitator Philo, the Logos is presented to us under a variety of images; and the titles and operations assigned to it by him bear so remarkable a resemblance to those which the New Testament give to the Son of God, that some even maintain that he was a convert to Christianity; but the resemblance which appears so striking by an exhibition of insulated passages, diminishes on a closer inspection; and though the Logos of Philo has more personality than that of Plato, which seems to be no more than an attribute of Deity, it hardly appears to have a distinct and separate state of being. St. John might have perused his writings, since he was his contemporary; but there is no probability that he borrowed from him, and still less from Plato, a term, which must have been but too familiar to him from conversation with the Gnostics, who, even in his day, were

Dr. Pye Smith, in his Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, vol. i. gives the result of his examination both of the Mimra of the Targums, and the Logos of Philo. He considers the former as a substitute for an emphatic pronoun, in apposition with the noun of a person speaking this, whether it be God or man. Thus we have not only the word of Jah said to Moses," Behold, my word shall be revealed to thee in the thick cloud," Exod. xix. 9. but Solomon said by his word, "Vanity of vanities is this world," Eccles. i. 2. Pursuing the common course of language, Mimra came to be used in a secondary sense, simply for a person's self. Thus, as Pultiel, the son of Laish, did, the righteous man who fixed a sword between his word and Michal the daughter of Saul. Targ. on Ruth iii. 8. In one passage the application to the Messiah is impossible, and it can be proved in none. "Behold, my servant, the Messiah, I will draw near to him, my chosen, in whom my word hath delight." Isaiah xlii. 1.

f "Thine own Almighty word leapt from heaven a fierce warrior, bearing a sharp sword, thine undissembled commandment." Wisdom xviii. 15.

abundant in Ephesus, where he is supposed to have resided, and where he wrote his Gospel to oppose their errors. This opinion, suggested by Michaelis, and ably supported by Dr. Burton, is strengthened by the knowledge, that not only Logos, but Zoe, Alethia, Monogenes, and Pleroma, which all occur in this introduction, were terms of Gnostic theology. In borrowing the term, it must have been the object of the Evangelist to put upon it a new meaning. According to the Gnostics, the Logos was only an inferior emanation; St. John shows, that he proceeded immediately from the Deity, and was himself God; that life and truth were not other emanations, but only other names for the Logos, and that this Logos was the Creator of the world, became incarnate in Jesus the Son of Mary, and was thus the Christ. John proceeds to declare, that the Word was the agent through whom, as the instrumental cause, all things and beings were created, without a single exception. He is also the author of life and light, but this light shone in a darkness which it did not disperse. The heathen opened not their eyes to its beams as reflected from the objects which surrounded them, an attentive meditation on which would have discovered him to them as their Maker; and even when he came incarnate to his own peculiar country Israel, his own people, though they had been in various ways prepared for his advent, rejected him. Still, his advent was not without effect; there was both among Jews and Gentiles a "seed to serve him," and to as many as received him he gave the privilege of becoming the sons of God, and consequently heirs of God, and joint heirs with him. The value of this privilege appears from the declaration, that it could not be obtained for us by ourselves or others; not by the bloody sacrament of circumcision, by which Israelites were admitted into covenant; not by natural birth, nor by voluntary adoption, but by the good pleasure of our heavenly Father. He then shews, that those who rejected the Word were inexcusable, for he had the testimony of the Baptist; and his disciples, who preached him to the world, had beheld his glory visibly at his baptism, transfiguration, and ascension,

as well as in his miracles, (ii. 11.) and had additional evidence in the supernatural gifts which they had themselves received. In order to procure for believers this adoption. the Word was made flesh, and dwelt, or rather pitched his tent, (σxvwσɛ) among men, alluding to the tabernacle under the Jewish polity, in which the Deity was visibly present.

John then intimates the inferiority of Moses, through whom the law was made known to this incarnate Word, who not merely discovered, but was the author of the true grace of God, of truth as the substance of the types and rites of the ceremonial law, and of grace or favour put in opposition to the demands of the moral law. And we all, he adds, that is all Christians, have received out of his overflowing fulness, the gift of grace upon grace; that is, grace in the greatest abundance, or, as others render it, grace for grace, meaning the greater grace of the Gospel, instead of the lesser one of the Law. He tells us that he has explained to us (knyýσato, see Eph. iii.) the secrets that were hid in God, that is, his character and designs, to which he alone is competent, "for no one hath seen the Father but the Son," who is ever in his bosom, or in the most intimate familiarity with him. (xiii. 23.) The proposition with which John opens his Gospel, is supported in the discourses which follow, and he concludes with the declaration, that his object in writing was, that men might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing they might have life through his name. xx. 31.

3. The conception of Elisabeth. Luke i.

The canon of the Hebrew Scriptures closes with the declaration of Jehovah, that he will send Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord, (Malachi iv. 5, 6.); and we know from the infallible exposition of our Saviour, that his contemporaries, who understood the prediction literally, were mistaken in supposing that the Tishbite would return to life, but that it foretold, as explained by Gabriel to his future father, the coming of one in

the spirit and power of Elijah. This messenger of the Lord, this voice, as he is emphatically designated by Isaiah xl, is called the Baptist, from the emblematical rite, with which he was to make ready a people, prepared for their incarnate God. The Messiah's forerunner was to be his kinsman after the flesh, and was to descend through both parents from the sacerdotal line, though his ministry was not to be in the temple, but in the wilderness; and his birth, though not strictly miraculous, was to be contrary to the ordinary course of nature. His parents are characterized as really righteous, not as such merely in the estimation of their acquaintance, but of God, and as walking in all his commandments blameless. They had reached advanced age without issue, and the angel's address, Thy supplication is heard, seems to imply that Zachariah continued to pray for a child. It is observable, that though divorce was the common practice of his countrymen, and justified by their religious teachers, he had not married another wife.

The priests were divided into twenty-four classes, and as each consisted of several individuals, they drew lots for the respective parts of divine worship, and the burning incense upon the golden altar in the outer sanctuary at the time of the oblation, which was the most solemn part of the daily service, fell to Zachariah. During this service, which occupied half-an-hour, the congregation in the courts without was engaged in silent prayer. Zachariah had not the strong faith of his father Abraham, who was fully persuaded that what God had promised he was able also to perform; but though not only Isaac, but other eminent Israelites, as Jacob, Samson, and Samuel, had been born of women who had, like Elisabeth, been regarded as barren, he staggered at the promise through unbelief, and required a sign. The angel announces himself to be Gabriel, the same who had so clearly revealed to Daniel the time of the Messiah's coming, and who now declares that Zachariah should beget his forerunner, the second Elijah, who shall turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. The sign he asks is granted to

him, but such a sign as is a manifest rebuke, for his want of faith in the angel's word; for he was struck with a temporary loss of speech, till the promise was accomplished. The congregation was waiting for Zachariah to dismiss them with the customary blessing, but when he came forth he could only intimate what had happened by his gestures. He was, however, able to go through his allotted ministration, and at the expiration of his week return to his home in the hilly part of Judæa, which tradition has fixed at Hebron.

4. Gabriel's Salutation of the Virgin Mary. Luke i. In the sixth month of his wife's pregnancy, the same angel was sent by God to Nazareth, to Miriam, or Mary, a virgin of the house of David, betrothed, but not yet married, to Joseph, a descendant of the same illustrious progenitor, and though in the humble occupation of a carpenter, probably the heir of his throne. He salutes her as the most blessed of women, and highly favoured by the Lord, as chosen to be the mother of the Messiah; and he directs her to give the babe the significant name of Jesus, or Saviour, and assures her that he shall sit on the throne of David, and reign, not like his predecessor for a few years, but for ever, over the house of Jacob, that is, the true Israel. We should not have been surprised if a case so unprecedented as the conception of a virgin, who had never known man, should not have been credited by this young handmaid; but her reply, How shall this be? is very different from that of the aged priest, from whom belief in an easier prediction might have been anticipated. Whereby shall I know this? The latter implies doubt, the other only seeks for direction. The angel therefore informs her, that she shall conceive through the immediate energy of the Holy Spirit, and gives her unasked, as a sign, the conception of her aged and hitherto barren cousin, Elisabeth, assuring her, in the language of the Lord on a similar occasion to Sarah, Gen. xviii. 14. that with God nothing is impossible. Mary had reason to fear that her

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