First, " From the words themselves without any wresting; for what can be signified by the whole tuorld, but all men in the world?"
Secondly, " From the opposition that is made between world and believers, all believers being comprised in the first part of the apostle's assertion, that Christ is a propitiation for our sins; and therefore by the world, opposed unto them, all others are understood." If there be any thing of moment farther excepted, we shall meet with it in our following opening of the place.
Before I come to the farther clearing of the mind of the Holy Ghost in these words, I must tell you that I might answer the ob- jection from hence very briefly, and yet so solidly as quite to cut off all the cavilling exceptions of our adversaries, — namely, that as by the world, in other places, men living in the world are denoted, so by the whole ivorld in this can nothing be understood but men living throughout the whole world, in all the parts and regions thereof (in opposition to the inhabitants of any one nation, place, or country, as such), as the redeemed of Christ are said to be. Rev. v. 9. But be- cause they much boast of this place, I shall, by God's assistance, so open the sense and meaning of it, that it shall appear to all liow Httle reason they have to place any confidence in their wrested inter- pretation thereof
To make out the sense of this place, three things are to be con- sidered:— (1.) To whom the apostle writes. (2.) What is his purpose and aim in this particular place. (3.) The meaning of these two expressions, — [1.] Christ being a "projaitiation;" [2.] "The whole world." Which having done, according to the analogy of faith, the scope of this and other parallel places, with reference to the things
OBJECTIONS AND TEXTS OF SCRIPTURE CONSIDERED. S31
and use of the words themselves, we shall easily manifest, by unde- niable reasons, that the text cannot be so understood (as by right) as it is urged and wrested for universal redemption.
(1.) A discovery of them to whom the epistle ^u as peculiarly directed will give some light into the meaning of the apostle. This is one of those things which, in the investigation of the right sense of any place, is exceeding considerable ; for although this and all other parts of divine Scripture were given for the use, benefit, and direction of the whole church, yet that many parts of it were directed to peculiar chxrches, and particular persons, and some distinct sorts of persons, and so immediately aiming at some things to be taught, reproved, removed, or established, with direct reference to those peculiar per- sons and churches, needs no labour to prove. Now, though we have nothing written expressly denominating them to whom this epistle Avas primarily directed, to make an assertion thereof infallibly true and de fide, yet, by clear and evident deduction, it may be made more than probable that it was intended to the Jews, or believers of the circumcision ; for, —
First, John was in a peculiar manner a minister and an apostle to the Jews, and therefore they were the most immediate and proper objects of his care: "James, Cephas, and John gave to Paul and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that they should go unto the heathen, and themselves unto the circumcision," Gal. ii. 9. Now, as Peter and James (for it was that James of whom Paul there speaks who wrote the epistle, the brother of John being slain before), in the prosecution of their apostleship towards them, wrote epistles unto them in theu* dispersion, James i. 1, 1 Pet. i. 1 ; as Paul did to all the chief churches among the Gentiles by him planted ; so it is more than probable that John, writing the epistle, directed it, chiefly and in the first place, unto them who, chiefly and in the first place, were the objects of his care and apostleship.
Secondly, He frequently intimates that those to whom he wrote were of them who heard of and received the word from the begin- ning; so twice together in this chapter, verse 7, " I write an old com- mandment, which ye had from the beginning, .... which j^e heard from the beginning." Now, that the promulgation of the gospel had its beginning among the Jews, and its first entrance with them, before the conversion of any of the Gentiles, — which was a mystery for a season, — is apparent from the story of the Acts of the Apostles, chap. i.-v., X., xi. " To the Jew first, and also to the Greek," was the order divinely appointed, Rom. i. 16.
Thirdly, The opposition that the apostle makes between w.s and the ivorld in this very place is sufficient to manifest unto whom he wrote. As a Jew, he reckoneth himself with and among the believ- ing Jews to whom he wrote, and sets himself with them in opposition
332 THE DEATH OF DEATH. [BOOK IV.
to the residue of believers in the world; and this is usual with this apostle, wherein how he is to be understood, he declares in his Gospel, chap. xi. 51, 52.
Fourthly, The frequent mention and cautions that he makes and gives oi false teachers, seducers, antichrists (which in those first days were, if not all of them, yet for the greatest part, of the Circum- cision, as is manifest from Scri23ture and ecclesiastical story ; of whom the apostle said that "they went out from them," ] John ii. 19), evi- dently declare that to them in especial was this epistle directed, who lay more open, and were more obnoxious to, the seducements of their countrymen than others.