Therefore St. John, when he names the Person in the Trinity (1 John v. 7),* chooses rather to call Him Word than Son ; for word is a phrase more communicable than son. Son hath only reference to the Father that begot Him; but word may refer to him that conceives it; to him that speaks it; to that which is spoken by it; to the voice that it is clad in; and to the effects it raises in him that hears it. So Christ, as He is the Word, not only refers to His Father that begot Him, and from whom He comes forth, but to all the creatures that were made by Him; to the flesh that He took to clothe Him; and to the doctrine He brought and taught, and which lives yet in the hearts of all them that obediently do hear it. He it is that is this Word ; and any other, prophet or preacher, he is but a voice (Luke iii. 4). Word is an inward conception of the mind ; and woicet is but a sign of intention. St. John was but a sign, a voice ; not worthy to untie the shoe-latchet of this Word. Christ is the inner conception ‘in the bosom of His Father ;’ and that is properly the Word. And yet the Word is the inten- tion uttered forth, as well as conceived within; for Christ was no less the Word in the womb of the Virgin, or in the cradle of the manger, or on the altar of the cross, than he was in the be- ginning, ‘in the bosom of His Father.’ For as the intention departs not from the mind when the word is uttered, so Christ, proceeding from the Father by eternal generation, and after here by birth and incarnation, remains still in Him and with Him in essence; as the intention, which is conceived and born in the mind, remains still with it and in it, though the word be spoken. He is therefore rightly called the Word, both by His coming from, and yet remaining still in, the Father.”
And the Word. A repetition of the great subject, with sol- emn emphasis.
Was with God (iv mpos rov Ocov). Anglo-Saxon vers., med Gode. Wyc., at God. With (mpés) does not convey the full
* Of course not anticipating the criticism which has eliminated this passage from the text. + Austin used the Latin vox, and of course has in mind the secondary mean- ing as a word or saying. Vou. I1.—3