have I commanded." Ps. xxxiii. 6, cxxxvi. 5; Jer. x. 12, "He that made the earth by his power." Acts iv. 24, "Thou art God, who hast made heaven and earth." Chap. xiv. 15; Rev. iv. 11, "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power; for thou hast created all things." Chap. xiv. 7. Therefore Jehovah, God alone, is the Creator of the world.

3. As to the manner in which the Supreme Being performed this, it is said, that he did it by commanding them to come into being, and to have done it by his power, his spirit, his breath, his fingers, his hand, and his word. See Gen. i. 1, "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." Here light is created merely by God's commanding it to be, or at least as soon as he spake the words. Ver. 11, "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass," &c.: "and it was so." Ver. 14, "And God said, Let there be light in the firmament of heaven," &c.: "and so it was"-that is, the sun and moon made their appearance. Ver. 24, "And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after his kind," &c.: "and so it was." Here, you observe, all is done by speaking a word; he spake and created at the same instant of time. While he was speaking he was creating. Therefore, the Psalmist says, "He spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast." Ps. xxxiii. 9.

And Gen. x. 12, it is said, "He hath made the earth by his power." In Job xxvi. 13, it is said, "By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent," or milky-way in the heavens, which has been thought to be formed by the united light of many worlds. In Ps. viii. 3, "When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers." Again, it is said in Ps. xxxvi. 6, "By the word of Jehovah were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth." Ps. xcv. 5, "His hand formed the dry land."

I hope every intelligent reader sees that all these different modes of speech signify one and the same thing, namely, that Jehovah, God, and he alone, made all these things himself, by his own power or secret, invisible energy, without the assistance of any other being whatever; for his word, his hand, his fingers, his spirit, and his breath, must necessarily mean God himself, and no other being.

4. But, I suppose, some persons have heard and read so much of the logos, i. e. word, as creating the world, &c.,

and have so long considered the logos, or word, as a distinct person from God, that they cannot but continue to believe that the logos, or word, is a distinct being from our heavenly Father, whom he employed in creating the hea vens and the earth; I shall, therefore, shew, that this is an error. To effect this I shall endeavour to make it appear that the term logos, i. e. word, in John i. 1, (if that passage refers to the natural creation, as it is generally believed to do,) can signify nothing more than the power or secret energy of God, just as the commanding speech of God, and the spirit of God, and the breath of God, and the hand of God, and the fingers of God, signify the operation of God, and not another being distinct from him.

See Ps. xxxiii. 6, "By the (T λoy, the Seventy) word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth." Here the term breath, in the last clause of the verse, signifies the same as (7 Aoy) the word, in the first part of the verse, does. But the term breath cannot mean a person distinct from God; it can only signify the power of God. Again, it is said in Ps..cvii. 20, "He sent his (λoyov) word, and healed them." And Ps. cxlvii. 18, "He sendeth out his (Aoyov) word, and melteth them." What God is here said to send was not a person, but a warm and thawing gale, and a healing influence. And the Hebrew word dabor, which is translated in these passages λoyos, i. e. word, by the Seventy, signifies

no more.

In like manner the term logos, when used in the New Testament in relation to the creation of the world, signifies the power of God, and not a person. See 2 Peter iii. 5, "By (Tw λoyw) the word of God, the heavens were of old." Archbishop Newcome translates this verse as follows: "The heavens were made of old by the word of God." Here again there is an evident reference to what is said in Gen. i. 3, where God says, "Let there be light: and there was light." Again, it is said in 2 Peter iii. 7, "But the heavens and the earth, which are now, are reserved (7 avτw λoyw) by the same word." Abp. N. says, in a note on ver. 7th, By the same word, or command, of God. See ver. 5th." Thus we learn that the term logos, in the Old Testament and the New, signifies nothing more than the power of God, when it refers to the natural creation; and, therefore, if John i. 1-3, refers to the natural creation, as is generally believed, then the term logos, i. e. word, there

does not refer to our blessed Lord, but to the power of God, our heavenly Father. For if the term logos, in John i. 1, be a real person, and that passage refers to the natural creation, then there must have been two (λoyoı) words, the one a person and the other a mere power, both employed by the Almighty, and one of them a distinct person from him, in the works of creation; which is too extraordinary a circumstance to be admitted by any sober and intelligent person.

And if John i. 1 has no reference to the person of our Lord, it can afford no proof of his being the Supreme Being. It is worthy of remark here, that the apostle does not directly name our Lord until he comes to verse the fourteenth.

As to the term (oyos) word, being printed with a capital letter in its front, (as thus, Word,) which has probably conduced much to cause many to suppose that the term word here had a peculiar meaning, it is perfectly arbitrary; for, certainly, the printed Greek Testaments do not take such peculiar notice of this term here, nor do I understand that the Greek MSS. do; therefore it is of no weight at all.

The term Wisdom, in Prov. viii., has often been quoted to settle the sense of the term Word in John i. 1; but query whether it has not rather thrown a mist over the subject, for the Greek term, in Prov. viii., is not λoyos, but copia-i. e. not word, but wisdom. And there is as striking a difference in the two Hebrew terms. So great is the difference, that they are never probably used as synonymous

terms.

Dr. Drummond says, "Other attributes besides wisdom are spoken of in a similar style in the sacred writings, and particularly in John. Thus it is written, God is loveGod is truth-God is light; i. e. knowledge, omniscience. We might convert each of these propositions after the manner of John, and say, Love is God-truth is Godlight is God. But who would dream of making each of these attributes a person distinct from the great Being to whom alone they inherently belong?" See Dr. Drummond on the Trinity, p. 43, 2d ed. JOSEPH JEVANS.

THE SUNBEAM.

[From "Records of Woman: with other Poems. HEMANS."]

By FELICIA

THOU art no lingerer in monarch's hall,
A joy thou art and a wealth to all!
A bearer of hope unto land and sea-
Sunbeam! what gift hath the world like thee?
Thou art walking the billows, and ocean smiles;
Thou hast touched with glory his thousand isles ;
Thou hast lit up the ships and the feathery foam,
And gladdened the sailor like words from home.
To the solemn depths of the forest shades,
Thou art streaming on thro' their green arcades ;
And the quickly leaves that have caught thy glow,
Like fire-flies glance to the pools below.

I look'd on the mountains-a vapour lay
Folding their heights in its dark array:
Thou brakest forth, and the mist became
A crown and a mantle of living flame.
I looked on the peasant's lowly cot-
Something of sadness had wrapt the spot;
But, a gleam of thee on its lattice fell,
And it laughed into beauty at thy bright spell.
To the earth's wild places a guest thou art,
Flushing the waste like the rose's heart;
And thou scornest not from thy pomp to shed
A tender smile on the ruin's head.

Thou tak'st thro' the dim church aisle thy way,
And its pillars from twilight flash forth to day,
And its high pale tombs, with their trophies old,
Are bathed in a flood as of molten gold.

And thou turnest not from the humblest grave,
Where a flower to the sighing winds may wave;
Thou scatterest its gloom like the dreams of rest,
Thou sleepest in love on its grassy breast.
Sunbeam of summer! oh! what is like thee?
Hope of the wilderness, joy of the sea!

One thing is like thee to mortals given,

The faith touching all things with hues of Heaven!

[THE following letter was inserted in the Bristol Journal of the 30th of August; and was subsquently inserted in the Bristol Mirror, with some alterations in the introductory sentences.]

SIR,

Bristol, August 21, 1828.

To the Editor of the Bristol Journal.

In your paper of last Saturday appeared a letter signed KNOX, in defence of the Reformation Society, containing expressions calculated to throw an opprobrious stigma on many of your fellow-citizens. That your readers may hear both sides, I appeal to your justice as one of these, to insert in your next Journal a few statements which may shew to the candid Scripturalist that the stigma is unjust.

The sentence to which I have most objection is as follows: From the Infidel, the Socinian, the demagogue and the trafficker in spiritual delusion, the society expects no favour; and their very acquiescence would convey a tacit condemnation of its claims: these have ONE MIND, and shall give their power and strength to the beast; they shall make war on the Lamb; but the Lamb shall overcome them, &c.'" [I have employed capitals and italics as I find them in Knox's letter.] Were I writing in reply to Knox, in despair of convincing one whose mind is so closed by prejudice, it might be enough to say, "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? To his own master he standeth or falleth." But to those who are disposed to "judge righteous judgment," I observe first, that the class of men whom Knox describes as having one mind with the infidel and the trafficker in spiritual delusion, and as making war on the Lamb, have the satisfaction of reckoning among the avowed advocates of their doctrines LARDNER, from whose armoury all the defenders of Christianity since his time have drawn their most powerful weapons; that among those who have held the essential principles of Unitarianism, are two of the great master-minds of the human race, NEWTON and LOCKE: and that no class of Christians have written with more earnestness, and, in proportion to their numbers, in greater abundance, in defence of their common principles, and in vindication of the Scriptures as contain