(c.) Let us turn to the Proem of St. John’s Gospel; that most venerable and beautiful of all the delineations which Scripture furnishes, of the twofold relation of Christ’s spirit, to the Father who gave it its illumination, and to the brethren who were blessed by its light. To our cold understandings, indeed, this passage must inevitably be obscure; for it deals with some of the characteristic conceptions of that lofty speculative reason, which, blending the refinements of Platonism with the imaginative license of the oriental schools, assumed in early times the intellectual empire of the church, and has kept the world ever since in deliberation on its creations. I do not mean that the Apostle was a Platonist, or a disciple of any philosophical system. But he wrote in Asia Minor, where he was surrounded by the _influences_, in constant familiarity with the _terms_, and accustomed to the _modes of thought_, peculiar to the sects of speculative religionists most prevalent in his time. At all events, it is _a fact_ that he uses language nowhere employed by the other Evangelists or Apostles; and that this language is the very same which is the common stock, and technical vocabulary of Philo, the Platonizing Jew, and several Christian writers of the same or a kindred school. Before, however, endeavouring to suggest the idea which the Apostle did mean to convey, let me call your attention to that which he did not. There cannot be a more misplaced confidence, than that with which the introductory verses of St. John’s Gospel are appealed to by the holders of the Athanasian doctrine. Whatever explanation is adopted, which does not throw contempt upon the composition of the Evangelist, is at all events subversive of their system: and I do not hesitate to say, that _this_ is the only thing which I can regard as certain respecting this passage; that _it never could have been written by an Athanasian_. In order to test this assertion, it is not necessary to look beyond the first verse; and before we read it, let us allow the Trinitarian to choose any sense he pleases of the word God, which is its leading term. Let us suppose that he accepts it as meaning here “THE FATHER,” and that the Word or Logos means GOD THE SON. With these substitutions the verse reads thus:— In the beginning was the Son; and the Son was with the Father; and the Son was the Father. This surely is to “confound the persons.” Let us then suppose the meaning different, and the whole Godhead or TRINITY to be denoted by the word GOD. The verse would then read thus:— In the beginning was the Son; and the Son was with the Trinity, and the Son was the Trinity.