"In the begin I. When he was. The text says, "He was in the beginning." ning,” in English, and ¿v åpxy in Greek, mean at "the first," at "the commencement;" and therefore that "he was before all things." For if anything began before he existed, then he was not "in the beginning." Now we have sufficient data to prove that the universe is very old. Geology shows that our world has existed for ages; and this fact is declared by Moses. "In the beginning," says he, "God created the heavens and the earth." There was no measure of time until there was a day and a night; but the earth and the heavens had existed for a long series of ages before there was that revolution of light to which Moses refers. The sacred narrative has given us no idea as to the length of time that elapsed before Jehovah uttered the words, "Let there be light, and there was light." It may have been thousands or millions of years, and therefore we have ample room for all the discoveries of science. That our globe was created in the beginning, and is therefore very old, is now placed beyond a doubt by our rocks, gravel, fossil remains, &c. Astronomy also tells us the same truth. Light travels at the rate of 192,000 miles in a second; and, from the plainest deductions of the telescope and mathematics, it is evident that there are stars visible to us, which are, nevertheless, so distant, that their light, travelling with its usual swiftness, would not have taken less than two millions of years before it reached us. Lord Rosse's telescope has shown that this distance and duration may be multiplied. Apply these facts to the text, and we find that the Lord Jesus must have existed for millions of years, for he was "in the beginning." The third verse shows that he was "at the beginning,” and ¿v άoxy would bear that rendering. "All things were made by him, and without him was not one thing made that was made." Now, if he made all things, he must have been "at the beginning;" or, have existed before there was a beginning; and, consequently, he lived in eternity. II. Where he was. "He was with God." He was Jehovah's companion, and dwelt in the Father's bosom, and shared his glory, before the world was. He was the bosom friend of the Deity, the partner of his counsels and purposes, in the beginning, or at the beginning. This is alluded to in the 8th chapter of Proverbs, where he tells us that he existed "before the deeps," ," "the waters," "the mountains," the heavens, or the earth." “Then,” says he, "I was by him, as one brought up with him; I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him." It is evident, from the whole context, that we are addressed by a person, and that the Lord Jesus is the identical individual who speaks. It is no objection that the feminine gender is used; because " 'Wisdom," in the Hebrew, as well as in Greek, Latin, French, &c., &c., is feminine; and the genius of the language required that the feminine prououn should be used. The Father, the " “ λόγος, or Word, and the Spirit,—the Three in One, and the One in Three,-dwelt together in glory before the world was, or time began; and therefore it is said, "The word was with God, in, or at the beginning." III. What he was. 1. He was the Word, or "λóyoç ;" and, 2. He was God. 1. He was the Word. The Greek calls him the "Xóyos.” To explain this term fully, would require a volume. Plato, Philo Judæus, the Old Testa ment, both Hebrew and Septuagint; the New Testament, in Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac; the Apocrypha, in Greek, &c., &c., ought to be consulted. We have great hopes that the world is yet to see a work on λóyos, which shall be more profound than Aristotle, more eloquent than Demosthenes, more poetical than Milton, and more captivating than Scott. A work which children shall read, which clowns shall study, and which scholars, philosophers, and saints shall adopt as their vade mecum. Between the simple, the beautiful, and the sublime, there is no natural antagonism; and no better evidence could be given of this than the term Logos. Of this comprehensive epithet, we shall only say here, that you have in the Redeemer, verily and substantially, the divinity and humanity, the types and the covenants, the law and the gospel, the promises and the threatenings. As Pharaoh said to the Egyptians, whatever they wanted, “Go to Joseph," so we say to every saint, and to every sinner, whatever portion of Scripture he relies upon, "Go to Jesus; he is the word." 2. "The word was God." Some, who set learning at defiance, tell us that this proposition is convertible; that is, they have turned it hind-before, and read, "God was the word." A convertible sentence can be thus altered, without detriment to the sense. It matters little whether we say, “No rebel against God is a virtuous man," or "No virtuous man is a rebel against God." We can say, "God is light;" but we cannot say, "Light is God," because light does not possess all the attributes of Deity; and whatever is God, must have all his perfections. If we read, "God was the word," it does not follow that the word is divine, any more than that light, or love, is a divine person in the sentence, "God is light," or "God is love." But if we are told that "the word was God," then it is certain that the Word possesses all the divine attributes, and is a divine person, otherwise he could not be God. Now the Greek shows that this proposition is not convertible. In that language, according to the doctrine of the Greek article, when a sentence is transmutable, the article is either placed both before the subject and the predicate, or else it is omitted before both. But when the article is prefixed to one member of a proposition, and left out before the other, the word that has the article is the subject. In the text we are examining, we have the article before λóyog, but omitted before God. It reads, “Dɛòç ÿv ò λóyoç,” which must be translated, "The word was God;" and if the word was God, he must naturally possess all the attributes of the Deity; he always was God-he is God to-day, and will be God for ever; for a person cannot be divine at one time, and a mere creature at another. The third verse, which tells us "that all things were made by him," also assures us that he is a divine person; for he who made all things cannot be made himself; otherwise there would be one being which he did not make, and therefore he could not have made all things. We have introduced this criticism for the purpose of showing, 1. That those who deny the divinity of Christ assume a little too much when they boast of being profound scholars and deep logicians. No one can reject this doctrine without trampling literature and reason under foot. 2. The commendations that have been bestowed upon the sentiments of Channing by some of our orthodox Reviews, have been calculated to lead the unlearned and the unwary astray; and therefore we shall do all we can to ground our readers in this doctrine. 3. The believer rests his soul and eternal interest on the Lord Jesus Christ, and we wish every poor sinner to feel, that in building upon him, who is the 'brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person," he builds upon "the Rock of Ages." PHYSIOLOGY AND DIVINE SUPERINTENDENCE. "If haply they might feel after him and find him, for he is not far from every one of us."-ACTS xvii. 27. Some people are always feeling their pulse, and their spirits rise and sink according to the rate of pulsations in their wrist. Not unfrequently the poor stomach has to be tortured with a dose of poisonous or filthy medicine to make it instigate the supposed lazy heart and pulse to move a little faster. Should any complaint be made by the ill-treated body, concerning this cruelty, the only answer given is, "Ye are idle, ye are idle." Multitudes have flagellated their poor frames with stimulants and physic to make their circulation move faster, until at last their hearts have become stubborn and refused to beat at all. I knew a minister, a very strong man, who was laid by from preaching by nervousness. There seemed a good deal of mystery about the affair, that one so strong should be so weak; but at last the matter was unravelled. My good friend counted his pulse every day, weighed himself two or three times a week, and took stimulants of every kind, and along with them a vast quantity of medicine. Of course he was ill, and doubtless but for the fact, that, notwithstanding his great weakness, he had an iron constitution, he would long ago have brought himself to the grave. The man worked hard to be ill. If the pulse were not up to the mark, down went his spirits; if he weighed a little the less, he was certainly going to die of consumption; if he entered a room so unfortunately papered that the pale reflection made him look pale, his life, so he thought, was drawing to a close; and with what eagerness he flew to pills, draughts, and stimuli. Not unfrequently when thus, as he supposed, on the verge of the grave, he would eat and drink twice as much as nature demanded, and that of the most indigestible articles, and thus he made a bad matter worse, by giving his digestive organs a work to perform which was out of the range of possibility. Of course another fit of dyspepsy was the result. A friend one day said to him, "You will never be well until you give up numbering your pulse, weighing yourself, and taking so much medicine. Use more exercise, spunge yourself all over every day, with cold water, and drink nothing stronger than Adam's ale, and you will preach like a Whitfield." The good man took the advice, and is now restored to his labours, is enjoying better health, and doing more good than in any former period of his life. We might have entitled this paper, "Feeling the pulse a bad thing and a good thing for nervous people." In the case given above, and in thousands that might be mentioned, it has worked badly. But there is another aspect of the matter, to which we invite particular attention. On an average, the human heart beats one hundred thousand times in twenty-four hours. This would make upwards of thirty-five millions of times in one year; three hundred and sixty-five millions in ten years; more than a thousand millions in forty years; and nearly three thousand millions of times in eighty years! The heart of Methuselah must have beaten upwards of thirty-five thousand millions of times before it rested in the sepulchre! It is supposed that there are one thousand millions of human beings on the face of the earth, and each person has a heaving pulse and beating heart; and besides mankind, there are some thousands of different species of birds, beasts, fishes, and insects; and myriads upon myriads of living beings belonging to almost every species; and to each of these there is a circulating apparatus, and, most probably, pulsation. Here, then, we have animal machinery of the most extensive and complicated description. Who has yet dared to calculate the amount of mechanical power necessary to keep the whole in perpetual motion; for the pulse of these various creatures beats day and night without cessation, and has done so from the creation until now! Only think of these innumerable hydraulic engines, all of them perpetually at work. Probably, to the ear of Deity, they all move and beat in harmony, and create as sweet music as that of the spheres. What a tremulous, palpitating thing life is; and what an untiring world ours must be! And perhaps there are myriads of other worlds in the universe as lively and active as ours,-all instinct with corporeal and mental energy. And where, we may ask, is the main-spring of all this motion? If I hear a pump going all night, I am sure that some one is working it; or, if it is moved by a machine, I am as certain as I am of my own existence, that some mind, or minds, both called into existence, and now superintend, the mechanism. And if such a simple thing as a common pump-handle cannot raise itself, then is it far more evident that the millions upon millions of hearts in the universe would cease to move, if they were not kept in motion by the energy of the Great Spirit that first called them into being. What force these facts give to the words, "The Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary." "In him we live, and move, and have our being." And the doctrine is as evangelical as it is philosophical. We are told by the Holy Spirit, that the Lord Jesus "upholds all things by the word of his power." Suns and planets are held in their orbits by him, and perform their revolutions from an impetus received from his hand. He is the vis mundi; or rather, the vis universi. There is not a heart in being but owes its constant motion to the impulses of his love. Where his throne is we cannot tell. Probably it is the centre around which all the suns of creation revolve. Its distance may be measureless, but that matters not. So long as I feel a beating heart, I feel that Christ is near, and that I am united to him by this bond of sympathy on his part, if not on mine. My moving pulse speaks in more moving strains, and with sweeter music, than David's harp. "He that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." My Christian brother or sister, my little boy or girl, or whoever you may be that read these words, if you want to feel that Christ is near, feel your pulse. If you would cure your nervousness, lay your hand upon your heart; those gentle pulsations, so active, so unobtrusive, so unwearied, and so benevolent, tell you that you have a current of warm life within, which flows fresh every moment from the heart of the Son of God. If you desire to chase sorrow and unbelief away; if at midnight, or mid-day; if at morn, or eve; if in poverty and desertion, you want some "token for good," some evidence that "the Lord is gracious," and that he "never leaves nor forsakes us;" you have, in your palpitating heart, a still small voice of love, which calls for gratitude, which can awaken faith and hope, and whisper peace, because Jesus is not far from every one of us; indeed, he is so near, that "if we feel after him," though in the darkest gloom, we "may find him." And if he so pours his love into our physical frame, that it perpetually runs through every vein and every artery, and does so in ten thousand instances, though unasked and unthanked, how much more willing is he to fill our souls with his grace, and impart unto us that divine life which shall prepare us for heaven! Our pulse tells us that God is love, and the Bible again and again reiterates the same blessed truth! "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else, and beside me there is no Saviour." "Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out." His cross is our guarantee that he has "no pleasure in the death of a sinner ;" and thus providence, physiology, and evangelical truth, alike combine to give us "joy and peace in believing." POLITICS AND THE POST OFFICE. How many thousand times have we been told that "good men have nothing to do with politics." Unprincipled rulers, who know that if good men governed the world the reign of corruption and oppression would come to an end, are loud in proclaiming this absurdity; cowards who shrink from their social duties because of the pecuniary loss, or the odium that might ensue, are delighted to reiterate it; and we verily believe that demons exult in the propagation of such a deception. “Good men nothing to do with politics!" Then we may ask, tɩ whom should this most important branch of national superintendence be com mitted? It is a king inspired by the king of kings, who has said, "He that ruleth over men must be just, "The kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the saints of the Most High" are the words of one of the holiest of men, and the most distinguished Prime Minister that ever lived. "The saints shall judge," or give laws, "to the world," as Moses did to Israel, is the expression of the devout and spirituallyminded Paul. But we will not enlarge on this topic, or else we could fill a book with texts and arguments, showing that God's world ought to be governed by God's laws and God's people, and that there will be no really good government until this is the case, and "the saints shall take the kingdom." On this point however we need not now be diffuse. Our governors, on many occasions of late, VOL. I. G |