We might extend this application to witchcraft and other fanaticisms which have at various times prevailed. But this would extend our Article beyond its intended limits. It would be improper for us to close without inquiring how far we are to credit the accounts, which have been given of animal magnetism; lest we should seem to be laboring to explain phenomena, which never had an existence, except in the wild wanderings of a deluded imagination. Without charging the magnetizers with a greater share of dishonesty than falls to the lot of almost all classes of men, it would be natural to suppose that much deception would be blended with the alleged phenomena of this pretended science. A field which promises so rich a reward to the impostor and deceiver, could not fail to find those disposed to reap its harvest. Certainly it cannot be deemed uncharitable to suppose, that animal magnetism is not free from the charge of imposture, when the very sanctuary of the Lord has been defiled by its unhallowed intrusion. But even if there were no intended deception in the practices of the magnetizers, it is not difficult to perceive, that the hypotheses which they hold, and the circumstances under which they operate, would naturally lead to deception both with regard to the causes and the nature of the phenomena produced. In order to ensure success in magnetic experiments it is required, that both the magnetizer and magnetizée should be believers in animal magnetism, and that both should will the production of the expected effects. It is moreover considered desirable and sometimes indispensable that all the spectators should be believers. M. Georget, himself a magnetizer, tells us that he once saw very dangerous symptoms produced in the magnetizée by the presence of an incredule.* The presence of an unbeliever is supposed to produce a counter current in the magnetic fluid or in some way to disturb its regular flow in the desired direction. Where all the witnesses of an experiment are believers, their very credulity may spread a veil of deception over the whole, or prevent them from detecting any fallacy that might exist. If however any one should succeed in discovering any delusion, this very fact would prove his want of faith, which would account for all the failures that might have happened in his presence. Such is the tissue of delusion, in which Georget's Physiologie du Système Nerveux.. second seRIES, VOL. 1. NO. II. 49 the magnetizers have enveloped themselves, which effectually shields them from the force of every argument whether drawn from the resources of reason and common sense or from direct experiment. We are aware that all have not carried their speculations to this degree of refinement, yet the above doctrines are held by some of the most enlightened advocates of animal magnetism. Though there is much deception and fanciful conjecture connected with animal magnetism, yet all its phenomena cannot be considered as visionary and unreal. A knowledge of the principles of our constitution prepares us to believe many of the statements with regard to this subject. But as we have already extended this Article to a sufficient length, we shall reserve for a future number the further discussion of the subject. ARTICLE VII. CHRIST PREEXISTENT ;- A HOMILETICAL EXPOSITION OF JOHN 1: 1-5. By Thomas H. Skinner, D D. Pastor of the Mercer St. Presb. Church, and Prof. Extraordinary of Sac. Rhet., N. Y. Theol. Sem., New York. “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 any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehendeth it not." THESE are surprising words. Our familiarity with them, unless it has rendered us unthinking, cannot have diminished our interest in them. There is in these words an abyss of meaning and of power too deep to be ever fathomed by human thought. Francis Junius, of whom, at his death, it was remarked by Scaliger, that the whole world lamented him as its instructor,* was recovered from atheism in a remarkable manner, by * Junius aud Joseph Scaliger were Professors at Leyden, at the same time. Scaliger had a strong aversion for Junius in his lifetime, this passage of Scripture. Persuaded by his father to read the New Testament, "at first sight," he says, "I fell unexpectedly on that august chapter of St. John, the Evangelist, In the beginning was the Word,' etc. I read part of the chapter, and was so struck with what I read, that I instantly perceived the divinity of the subject, and the authority and majesty of the Scripture, to surpass greatly all human eloquence. I shuddered in my body; my mind was confounded; and I was so strongly affected all that day, that I hardly knew who I myself was: but Thou, Lord my God, didst remember me in thy boundless mercy, and receive a lost sheep into thy flock." What is the subject of these amazing assertions? What is meant by the appellation, THE WORD, by which that subject is expressed? In the first place, does it denote a being, or an attribute; a person, or a quality? That a real person was intended, should never, we think, have been questioned. It is affirmed that this Word was with God, was God,* created all things, was testified unto by John, was made flesh, and dwelt with men, full of grace and truth. There is an irreverent freedom, to suspect nothing worse, in that criticism which ventures to inquire whether the Evangelist meant anything more than an attribute or quality, that is, no real subsistence, by what he denominates the Word in this sublime passage. He does not more explicitly affirm the personal existence and individuality of Jesus Christ, the subject of his gospel, than the perfect personality of the Word, the subject of his great declarations in this place. Next, Who was the individual intended by this appellation? We hesitate not to say that the evidence could not be more per because the latter took the liberty to contradict him sometimes in matters of chronology, and opposed his having the precedency over all the other professors. But at the death of Junius, the resentment of Scaliger gave place to the strongest feelings of respect which expressed themselves in an admirable panegyric. * “On this supposition," namely, that an attribute was intended, "the commencement of the Gospel, would be altogether tautological : 'In the beginning was the wisdom of God, this divine wisdom was with God, and God was this divine wisdom.' The Evangelist would have had no occasion to establish the identity of the Logos with God, if he had intended to denote by Logos, nothing else than a Divine attribute."-Tholuck. fect than it is, that the self-same person is here spoken of, whom the Evangelist afterwards presents in a human form, and under a human name, as the subject of his narrative. The Word here intended was our Lord Jesus Christ. To argue on this point, implies, in our view, a doubt whether the Evangelist did not mean to practice a deception on his readers. But why, thirdly, does he give Christ this mysterious appellation? That some reason for this existed, we cannot but think. None of the names given to our Lord, were given arbitrarily. They were all chosen from their being significative of him, in either his nature, or his office. What is there in the present appellation that renders it an appropriate name for our Lord Jesus Christ? We think with Clarke, that this name should have been left untranslated. The original Logos is, he justly remarks, as proper an appellative of the Saviour of the world, as either of the terms JESUS or CHRIST. And as it would be improper to say, the Deliverer, the Anointed, instead of Jesus Christ, so it is improper to say, the Word, instead of the Logos. It should be premised also, that this appellative had been used before the Evangelist wrote, with a deeply significant reference. Philosophers had used it to designate the creative power, to which in opposition to the doctrine of chance, they ascribed the origin of the Universe.* It was in use too among the Jewish teachers, who employed it to discriminate the Deity revealed, from the Deity un-revealed-a distinction which they seem to have derived from certain passages in the Old Testament; assisted, however, as Tholuck thinks, by the ancient oriental theosophy. This fact accounts for the Evangelist's using *«The Platonists make mention of the Logos in this way :—xa✪ ον αει οντα, τα γενόμενα εγενετο-by whom eternally existing all things were made."-Clarke. The passages from the Old Testament cited and commented on by Tholuck are Exod. 33: 14. 20: 23. Is. 63: 9. Mal. 3: 1. Ps. 33: 6. Prov. 8: 23 seq. These passages he shows, we think, contain the distinction; but he supposes it improbable that the Jewish teachers would have discovered it in them, but for their acquaintance with the oriental systems of religion. "In several of these systems, the idea that the highest Being is in himself incomprehensible and unapproachable, is found developed under various modifications. Man is represented as being seized with dizziness, when he attempts to comprehend this idea; and in general there is no transit from this Being to a world of created existences. Consequently it became necessary the term as if it needed no explanation.* It was a term already in familiar use, and used, unquestionably, to designate a person. Mankind had been taught the doctrine of the Divine unity; they had also received some intimations of the doctrine of the Logos. Their knowledge on the latter subject however was extremely confused. The Evangelist has delivered concerning the Logos sublime and distinct statements, and identified the very person to whom that name appropriately belongs. The true Logos, of whom the Old Testament had given some discoveries and promises, but of whom the philosophers and rabbis had ignorantly discoursed, was, the Evangelist here affirms, Jesus Christ, the Lord and Saviour of the world.† for God to generate in himself a certain transition-point, to make his fulness comprehensible and communicable; and this he did by producing out of himself from eternity, a Being like unto himself through whom the concealed God was manifested."-The reader will find in Smith's Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, Vol. I. pp. 548-569, third edition, a collection of the principal passages in the extant writings of Philo, concerning the subject of the Logos. Philo was a Jew of Alexandria, of a sacerdotal family, who is supposed to have been about sixty years old at the death of Christ. His expressions concerning the Logos, have excited great admiration. * "Since it can be actually proved, that the words ô λóyos tov Dɛoũ at that time expressed a definite doctrinal conception, and such an one, as is similar to that of John, it is altogether certain that John employed the Word in that determinate doctrinal sense which was prevalent in his time."-Tholuck. + Tholuck rejects the idea, that the Evangelist had allusion to the doctrine of the theosophists on this subject. "Since we find in the first place, that previously in the Old Testament, intimations of this doctrine of the Logos can be pointed out; and secondly, that the apostle Paul teaches the same doctrine of the Logos, Col. 1: 15. 2 Cor. 4: 4. comp. Heb. 1: 3, although he borrowed his mode of teaching neither from the orientals nor from Philo, but from Jewish theologians only; and thirdly, since in Sir. 43: 26 (28), the creative word of God, and in the book of Wisdom 18: 15, the angel which presided over the theocracy of the Old Testament, is called λóyos: it must seem to be most probable, that John did not occupy himself with the dogmas of other religions, but adhered to the Jewish doctrinal theology of his time, which was based on the Old Testament; and that in this way he made known, that the Revealer of God pointed out in the Old Testament-be who directed the administration of the Old Testament theocracy, had actually appeared in Christ. In the Epistles also, 1 John 1: 1, and in the Revelation 19: 13, John calls Christ the Logos, |