Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 681

1850.

Defense of an Essay, &c.

639

teach, with respect to that wherein the oneness of the three Persons consist; or the doctrine of the two natures of Christ, by the use of the word God, as they teach it, using this word, if the word God “of itself tells us nothing of the nature of the Being represented." This was my objection to the use of the word Ti, Ruler (and the objection holds good, no matter by what adjec- tive it may be qualified), not that those, who use this term as the rendering of the word God, can not hold the orthrodox doctrine on the subject of the Trini- ty; but that they can not express it by the use of the relative term Ti, Ruler. God and man, very God and very man, Godhead and manhood, can not be expressed by the words Ruler and man, very Ruler and very man, Rulership and manhood; and the addition of the adjective "supreme" will make no diffc- rence in the character of the noun. I will here mention that my Chinese teacher, when I was making a version of the Communion Service, and the sentence "our Savior Christ, both God and man," was under consideration; upon being asked How it would answer to render "both Ti and man "" with- out my ever having said one word to him on the subject, objected to it on the ground that the word Ti did not refer to nature; and there was no antithesis between the words li ruler, and jin, man, for many men had been ti.

The character of the word God in the documents I have quoted is too clear to admit of any controversy, but Dr. Legge, seeing that their views can not be made to agree with his, may contend that this word was alike misun- derstood by the early Councils and the Protestant Reformers; let us therefore turn to the inspired writers from whom the early Fathers and the Protestant Reformers derived their views. The first verse of the Gospel of John is a locus classicus for determining the character of the word sog. "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." The word God being here the predicate of the sentence "the Word was God," this sentence affords us an admirable opportunity of testing the point at issue between Dr. L. and myself.

If Dr. Legge is correct in his position, that the word eos is a mere relative term, then the Evangelist here asserts that the Word "in the beginning' sustained a certain office, dignity, or relationship because of which he is called God; on the contrary, if I am correct, by the word God he here affirms that the Word, "in the beginning" was possessed of "the Divine nature,” “of the sum of the Divine perfections."

The apostle asserts two facts: 1st, that "in the beginning" the Word “was with God;" 2d, that at that same time "the Word was God." If then, by the phrase "in the beginning," we understand from eternity, before the world was made, the whole question as between Dr. L. and myself is settled: for first, we have a Being called God, with whom the Word was "in the begin- ning," that is before there were any creatures: this Being therefore could not have been "constituted God by the act of creation;" second, we are told “the Word was God," existed "as God," "in the beginning," i. e. from eternity. Unless then Dr. L. denies that the phrase "in the beginning" has the mean- ing we have attached to it, he must admit the incorrectness of his theory that