JOHN i. 1, 2, 3.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.

WE have the same word occurring here that occurs in the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis, "In the beginning," but if possible there is even a greater depth to be ascribed to it. This beginning pushes back our ideas of Time and almost of Eternity. It was before this world, or any trace of this world existed ;-not even the elemental bodies of which it is composed, and of which we are so profoundly ignorant, that is, how they existed, how they were welded together, how the gas, and the vapour, the fire, and the water were solidified into stone, and became the solid granite of our mountains; or how that still greater mystery of fact, but also of faith, how the dust of the earth and the vapour of water were combined to form the human body. It was before these questions could arise, for they were not, that "The beginning" WAS, of which both the Evangelist here and Moses in Genesis speak. We read throughout the Bible of the works of GOD and of His dealings with men. Here,

the Word was with GOD and was GOD." It is not anywhere explained to us who GOD was or is. He is only known to us by his attributes, nor is the mind of man capable of knowing or receiving more knowledge. But by these his attributes, the Good, the All-powerful, the Omnipresent, the All-merciful, he is well known to us, and more explanation or introduction was unnecessary. Still it is important that we should observe this, and that in the very opening of history and the account of the Creation He is spoken of in the plural-Elohim—the GODS created. When man was created Elohim said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." When life was given, or when the breath of life eternal was breathed into man's nostrils and he became a living soul, we are significantly told that Jehovah Elohim, a plurality yet unity in the Godhead was the agent. These are mysteries and would be difficulties, and such, indeed, they ever must be to the comprehension of man, but succeeding history, and particularly the history of prophecy and promise, gradually lift the veil, until we read in the fulness of time that the Word who was with GOD and was GOD in the beginning, "was made flesh in the fulness of time and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of

grace and truth.” In the progress of history we read of the "Angel Jehovah," of " GOD of Israel the Saviour," leading his people forward and upward, until all culminated in Emmanuel the incarnate GOD. Him, therefore, whom perhaps many ignorantly worshipped as the almost "unknown GOD," of whom even Isaiah could say, "Verily thou art a GOD that hidest thyself, O GOD of Israel, the Saviour," St. John in this passage reveals to us. He points us back to the Creation and to the Beginning, whatever that remote and mysterious period was before the Creation, and enables us to understand what we may there read, i.e., what we read in the Book of Genesis, and again what he here says of the work and part taken by GOD the Word in the Creation. Now there are truths scattered throughout the Bible which we cannot doubt, which are facts, and yet, as far as we are concerned, they are Faith, for they are never verbally, but only incidentally revealed to us. Such is the doctrine of the Trinity, and such, again, is a still more patent fact, namely, a future life, a life of blessed immortality, which causes us to sever between the soul and body, and to recognise their separate and distinct existence, and yet their unity. These things are not delivered as doctrines. They are not taught us in words, and yet we cannot read a page

of the Bible intelligibly, or possibly understand the fully expressed and undoubted hopes of the Patriarchs without them. We rise, then, as it were, from these unquestioned truths, to the understanding and acceptance of higher and more mysterious doctrines; and the mind, thus winged for its flight, soars away into regions which it could not otherwise approach, and is lost in immortality and eternity. To carry on the image of the Apostle, "the invisible things of GOD from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead;" or, as I would have you apply it, the harder and more abstruse and difficult doctrines of Revelation may be rendered intelligible to us, and brought within the mind's comprehension, by those facts and truths which we receive, and on which we daily act as acknowledged truths and doctrines, although not formally and in direct terms revealed to us. Thus is it GOD teaches us to think, and to educate ourselves for that fuller knowledge which shall be revealed to those who seek it earnestly, it may be in this world, for such is God's blessing on piety and earnestness, or it may be in the world to come, when knowledge shall vanish away, for when that which is perfect is come, then "that

which is in part shall be done away; when we shall no longer see through a glass darkly." It is for these things the education of the powers of the soul prepares us. Thus are we lifted into those higher regions of thought, which occupy the mind in its aspirations after immortality. Our Lord has taught us if our right hand or eye offend us, to cut it off or pluck it out, that the whole body be not cast into hell. Our sense of right will tell us, and every parent acknowledges it, that he would not bear to contemplate the loss of his child's limb or eye, which after all are but parts of the body, and leave the identity of the person, of the soul, as perfect as ever. Yet the same parent will leave in darkness and night, without education or enlightenment, the soul whose being is immortal. Surely the responsibility is awful of those who thus sacrifice the soul, who defeat GOD's counsel. Better were it that all were sacrificed, that the limb, the eyes, and the hand should perish than that the soul should be thus jeopardised, nay, perhaps cast into hell through our neglect and indifference. Returning to the subject which brought us to these thoughts, let us dwell on the light which God's Word reflects. Let us think of the manner in which it educates us daily for higher and higher truths. As it looks back it