ST. John had

a

twofold object in his Gospel and his Epistles, to prove the divinity, and also the actual human nature and bodily suffering, of Jesus Christ, — that he was God and Man. The notion that the effusion of blood and water from the Saviour's side was intended to prove the real death of the sufferer originated, I believe, with some modern Germans, and seems to me ridiculous: there is, indeed, a very small quantity of water occasionally in the præcordia; but in the pleura, where wounds are not generally mortal, there is a great deal. St. John did not mean, I apprehend, to insinuate that the spear-thrust made the death, merely as such, certain or evident, but that the effusion showed the human nature. I saw it," he would say, "with my own eyes.

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It was real blood, composed of lymph and crassamentum, and not a mere celestial ichor, as the Phantasmists allege."

I think the verse of the three witnesses (1 John, v. 7.) spurious, not only because the balance of external authority is against it, as Porson seems to have shown; but also, because, in my way of looking at it, it spoils the reasoning.

St. John's logic is Oriental, and consists chiefly in position and parallel; whilst St. Paul displays all the intricacies of the Greek system.

Whatever may be thought of the genuineness or authority of any part of the book of Daniel, it makes no difference in my belief in Christianity; for Christianity is within a man, even as he is a being gifted with reason; it is associated with your mother's chair, and with the first-remembered tones of her blessed voice.

I do not believe St. Paul to be the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Luther's conjecture is very probable, that it was by Apollos, an Alexandrian Jew. The plan is too studiously regular for St. Paul. It was evidently written during the yet existing glories of the Temple. For three hundred years the church did not affix St. Paul's name to it; but its apostolical or catholic character, independently of its genuineness as to St. Paul, was never much doubted.

The first three Gospels show the history, that is, the fulfilment of the prophecies in the facts. St. John declares explicitly the doctrine, oracularly, and without comment, because, being pure reason, it can only be proved by itself. For Christianity proves itself, as the sun is seen by its own light. Its evidence is involved in its existence. St. Paul writes more particularly for the dialectic understanding; and proves those doctrines, which were capable of such proof, by common logic.

St. John used the term Aóyos technically. Philo-Judæus had so used it several years before the probable date of the composition of this Gospel; and it was commonly understood amongst the Jewish Rabbis at that time, and afterwards, of the manifested God.

Our translators, unfortunately, as I think, render the clause πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν *, “ with God;" that would be right, if the Greek were σὺν τῷ Θεῷ. By the preposition πρὸς in this place, is meant the utmost possible proximity, without confusion; likeness, without sameness. The Jewish Church understood the Messiah to be a divine person. Philo expressly cautions against any one's supposing the Logos to be a mere personification, or symbol. He says, the Logos is a substantial, self-existent Being. The Gnostics, as they were afterwards called, were a kind of Arians; and thought the Logos was an

* John, ch. i. v. 1, 2.

after-birth. They placed "Abuoσos and Ziyn (the Abyss and Silence) before him. Therefore it was that St. John said, with emphasis, ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος - “ In the beginning ó was the Word." He was begotten in the first simultaneous burst of Godhead, if such an expression may be pardoned, in speaking of eternal existence.

The Understanding suggests the materials of reasoning: the Reason decides upon them. The first can only say, - This is, or ought The last says, — It must be so.*

to be so.

*

* I have preserved this, and several other equivalent remarks, out of a dutiful wish to popularize, by all the honest means in my power, this fundamental distinction; a thorough mastery of which Mr. Coleridge considered necessary to any sound system of psychology; and in the denial or neglect of which, he delighted to point out the source of most of the vulgar errors in philosophy and religion. The distinction itself is implied throughout almost all Mr. C.'s works, whether in verse or prose; but it may be found minutely argued in the " Aids to Reflection," p. 206, &c. 2d edit. 1831. — ED."