But to illustrate to you as light, that it was not the recent manifestation that was meant by the above text, he tells us in the sequel, when expressly narrating this latter fact, that “the Logos was made flesh and dwelt among us”;[549] where you perceive that “dwelling among us” is made a distinct thing from, and posterior in eventuation to “coming unto His own,” as before recorded![550]
Indeed, in the delineation, it is not only the order of time, but the precision of words, that we see most rigidly characteristic. The Jews, it is certain, could not be called “His own,” except by adoption; and, I am free to allow, that from them, “as concerning the flesh, Christ came”; but by “His own”[551] are meant His real relations!—emanations from the Godhead, such as He was Himself! beings altogether separate from flesh and blood! and whose mysteriousness was perceptible most clearly to St. John, as you will perceive by the Greek words from which this is rendered, viz. τα ιδια, having been put in the neuter gender!
But suppose them, for an instant, to have been the Jews!—Then we are told that, “to as many as received Him, gave He power to become sons of God.”[552] Now, the apostles were they who did implicitly receive Him: and why does not St. John refer to those, whether living or dead, as admitted to the privilege of becoming “sons of God”? I will tell you:—it was because that they did not answer to that order of beings “which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”[553]
These were the persons to whom Christ came before—these were “His own,” because that, like Him, they also were of God.[554] These were they, who having lapsed into sin,[555] and vitiated their nature, drew down the vengeance of heaven upon them; and to the descendants of these it was that “the elect” and “the concealed one,” in mercy was made manifest, with proposals of redemption to regain their lost state!!!
“O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and how inscrutable His ways!”[556]
Seest thou not now, therefore, the propriety of St. John’s expression, when He says, “And I knew Him not, but that He should be made manifest to Israel”;[557] for when, before “He was in the world,” it was in secret and concealed—as still and always represented in the mysteries! The latter, he asserts, as a matter of revelation—for the former he appeals to the experience of his auditors, as a subject of history: and both epochs are confirmed by the “voice from heaven,” which replied to Christ’s own prayer, as thus, “I have both glorified it,” viz. at Thy former manifestation—“and will glorify it again,”[558] at this Thy present!!!
I was myself twelve years of age before ever I saw a Testament in any language. The first I was then introduced to was the Greek. Being in favour with my tutor, he took an interest in my progress, and the consequence was, to my gratitude and his praise, that no deviation from the exactness of grammatical technicality could possibly escape my observation. Soon as I arrived at the text wherein τα ιδια occurs, its irregularity, at once, flashed across my mind. I sought for an explanation, but it was in vain; my imagination set to work, but it was equally abortive. At length, in despair, I relinquished the pursuit, and never again troubled myself with it, or its solution, until recalled by its connection with the present inquiry.
But it was not alone the peculiarity of gender that excited my circumspection, the phraseology, when translated, sounded so familiar to my ear, as to appear an old acquaintance under a new form. For, though I could then tolerably well express myself in English, the train of my reflections always ran in Irish. From infancy I spoke that tongue: it was to me vernacular. I thought in Irish, I understood in Irish, and I compared in Irish. My sentiments and my conceptions were filtrated therein!
As to dialectal idioms or lingual peculiarities, I had not, of course, the most remote idea. Whether, therefore, the expression coming to “His own” were properly a Greek or an English elocution, I did not, then, know either sufficiently well to determine; but that it was Irish I was perfectly satisfied; my ear and my heart, at once, told me so.
I now positively affirm that the phrase is neither Hebrew, Greek, nor English! And if you are not disposed to admit the information which it conveys,[559] to be an immediate communication from the Omnipotent, I have another very adequate mode of accounting for St. John’s having acquired it, and expressed it too in a phraseology so essentially Oriental.