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NEW YORK, > « -; +» SCRIBNER AND WELFORD. HATRACE DECCAR ATION ORPSERUST: MARCH 1, 1862. I, WILLIAM BINNY WEBSTER, late Surgeon in the H.E.I.C.S., presently residing in Edin- burgh,—Considering that I feel deeply interested in the success of the Free Church College, Edinburgh, and am desirous of advancing the Theological Literature of Scotland, and for this end to establish a Lectureship similar to those of a like kind connected with the Church of England and the Congregational body in England, and that I have made over to the General Trustees of the Free Church of Scotland the sum of £2000 sterling, in trust, for the purpose of founding a Lectureship in memory of the late Reverend William Cunningham, D.D., Principal of the Free Church College, Edinburgh, and Professor of Divinity and Church History therein, and under the following conditions, namely,—First, The Lectureship shall bear the name, and be called, ‘ The Cunningham Lectureship.’ Second, The Lecturer shall be a Minister or Professor of the Free Church of Scotland, and shall hold the appointment for not less than two years, nor more than three years, and be entitled for the period of his holding the appointment to the income of the endowment as declared by the General Trustees, it being understood that the Council after referred to may occasionally appoint a Minister or Professor from other denominations, provided this be approved of by not fewer than Eight Members of the Council, and it being further understood that the Council are to regulate the terms of payment of the Lecturer. Zhird, The Lecturer shall be at liberty to choose his own subject within the range of Apologetical, Doctrinal, Controversial, Exegetical, Pastoral, or Historical Theology, including what bears on Missions, Home and Foreign, subject to the consent of the Council. Fourth, The Lecturer shall be bound to deliver publicly at Edinburgh a Course of Lectures on the subjects thus chosen at some time immediately preceding the expiry of his appointment, and during the Session of the New College, Edinburgh ; the Lectures to be not fewer than six in number, and to be delivered in presence of the Professors and Students under such arrangements as the Council may appoint ; the Lecturer shall be bound also to print and publish, at his own risk, not fewer than 750 copies of the Lectures within a year after their delivery, and to deposit three copies of the same in the Library of the New College; the form of the publication shall be regulated by the Council. Fifth, A Council shall be constituted, consisting of (first) Two Members of their own body, to be chosen annually in the month of March, by the Senatus of the New College, other than the Principal; (second) Five Members to be chosen annually by the General Assembly, in addition to the Moderator of the said Free Church of Scotland ; together with (third) the Principal of the said New College for the time being, the Moderator of the said General Assembly for the time being, the Procu- rator or Law Adviser of the Church, and myself the said William Binny Webster, or such person as I may nominate to be my successor: the Principal of the said College to be. Convener of the Council, and any Five Members duly convened to be entitled to act notwithstanding the non-election of others. Sixth, The duties of the Council shall be the following :—(first), To appoint the Lecturer and determine the period of his holding - the appointment, the appointment to be made before the close of the Session of College immediately preceding the termination of the previous Lecturer’s engagement; (second), To arrange details as to the delivery of the Lectures, and to take charge of any additional income and expenditure of an incidental kind that may be connected therewith, it being understood that the obligation upon the Lecturer is simply to deliver the Course of Lectures free of expense to himself. Seventh, The Council shall be at liberty, on the expiry of five years, to make any alteration that experience may suggest as desirable in the details of this plan, provided such alterations shall be approved of by not fewer than Eight Members of the Council. 4 > ees Ni LAF > e a ‘ > / A , 6 ovv evpov Kal Exwv ev EavT@ TOV erovpaviov Tov TIvetpatos Oncavpov, tacay Oukaocvvnv évToA@v, Kal Tacay épyaciav apeTov, > , \ n > , / 5 /, \ % dpdpws Kat Kalapos év TtovTw Katepydlerat, aBidotws Aourov Kat > / / > N e a ‘\ , \ > / evkoAws. ILapaxarteowpev oby Kat wets TOV Ocov, Kat exlyTHowuev amNY a > Pr eh \ \ a , > a “4 kat denbdpev adrodr, va tov Oncavpov Tov IIvevpatos atrod xapionrar yyiv.—Macarius, Homil. xvitt. § 2. PREFACE. FOUND it necessary in the preparation of this Course of Lectures to travel over a field of vast extent. The subject has on this account taken shape in my hands as a survey of Theology from the view-point of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. To this course I was shut up by the fact that attention could not be limited to one or two departments of the subject, and because a selection could not well be attempted. I have endeavoured, therefore, to take a survey of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit from the various points of view commended to our attention by the testimony of Scrip- ture on the one hand, and by the results of theological discussion, as well as by the history of the doctrine, on the other. This has given a threefold division to the work. To bring out these three aspects of the topic, it seemed necessary, IN A FIRST DIVISION, to survey the Biblical testi- mony in the Old and New Testament, or to furnish such a sketch as would show that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit was exhibited and apprehended from the first dawn of Revela- tion, though fully displayed only on the day of Pentecost. Then follows, IN A SECOND DIVISION, a brief outline or sketch of the positive truth accepted by the Church, or the form in which the Church dogmatically holds the doctrine. This is contained in the six Lectures which required to be formally | 1X x PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. prepared. As this was still felt to be incomplete without a Historical survey of the discussions connected with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, I have subjoined, IN A THIRD DIVISION, a condensed history of the doctrine from the Apostolic age to the present time. May the Holy Spirit, whose personality and work this treatise is intended to exhibit, condescend to accept and bless it to the glory of a Three-One God. GEORGE SMEATON. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. RESPOND with pleasure to the call for a Second Edition of this Volume. The additions interspersed here and there, with a view to make it more full on overs points, leave the great body of the work as it was. One of the most hopeful signs of the times is the growing interest in the doctrine and work of the Holy Spirit. This is evinced by the religious conferences, by the concerts for prayer, and by the desire for further statements and expositions on the great theme. If this new edition shall in any measure tend, by God’s blessing, to satisfy the interest and guide the inquiries of many Christian minds, I shall be very thankful. EDINBURGH, February 1889, CONTENTS. FIRST DIVISION. THE DocrRINE oF THE TriInITY — INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION, BRIEFLY SETTING FORTH THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY IN THE OLD AND New TESTAMENT, ; ; 4 : : : SECOND DIVISION. Lecture I.—THE PERSONALITY AND PROCESSION OF THE Hoty SPIRIT, : : : ; é : Lecture IJ.—THr Worx oF THE SPIRIT IN THE ANOINTING OF CHRIST, : ; : ; ; , LecrvrE III.—Tue Work oF THE SprRiT IN CONNECTION WITH REVELATION AND INSPIRATION, ; LecturE IV.—TuHeE Sprrit’s REGENERATING WorK on THE INDI- VIDUAL, ; ; : ? . ; LecrurE V.—ON THE Sprrir oF HoLinEss, . : : : Lecture VI.—TuHEe Work oF THE Hoty Sprrir IN THE CHURCH, THIRD DIVISION. HisToRIcAL SURVEY OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE Hoty Sprrir From THE APOSTOLIC AGE, : : ; : ea PAGE 100 122 ‘ | ners an aL b- ae Sout anh "i i Ce tant Uae, ear crag: WORE oa : ‘+ + aka: e yaks A ae a TS epee Hs, THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. BERS DSDDVRESLOw: HE topic on which we enter is by no means superfluous at this time. We may safely affirm that the doctrine. of the Spirit is almost entirely ignored. The representatives of modern theology, it is well known, have almost wholly abandoned it. Many of them deny the Spirit’s personality in the most open and undisguised manner. Some affirm that a dogma on this topic is not essential either to religion or theology, and that we may altogether dispense with it. On the contrary, wherever Christianity has become a living power, the doctrine of the Holy Spit has uniformly been regarded, equally with the atonement and justification by faith, as the article of a standing or falling Church. The distinctive feature of Christianity, as it addresses itself to man’s experience, is the work of the Spirit, which not only elevates it far above all philosophical speculation, but also above every other form of religion. In this day it is impossible to divest the mind of the impression that, among those who take religion in earnest, a disposition exists, in no small measure, to pass over the super- natural agency of the Holy Spirit, and to speak and write upon religious truth as if the gracious intervention of the Son of God came more impressively home to men’s business and bosom when disencumbered of any reference to another Person as the great Applier of redemption. In many cases A y, THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. that tendency may rather be called a sentiment than a formal dogma; with others it is a system. But in either case it betrays the most defective views of the relations of the Trinity. By maintaining silence on this doctrine, one of the grand provisions of the gospel for meeting the wants of mankind is omitted. But it may be asked, not without reason, can any man in the nineteenth century from the entrance of Christianity be in any doubt as to the Personality, Deity, and work of the Holy Ghost? Does not the Church declare her belief in it as an elementary and fundamental truth in every administration of the ordinance of baptism? Is it not inserted in all the Church-creeds ? Have not theologians discussed and vindi- cated it from Patristic times and since the Reformation so copiously, that many pages might be filled with a mere enumeration of the writers’ names, and with the titles of their works ? The answer is: Unsettled opinion and doubt prevail upon this point, to a surprising degree, abroad and at home, even among those who profess to accept as authoritative the words of prophets and apostles, and the sayings of our Lord. One explains them in one way, and another explains them in a different way, in order to exclude this doctrine. No one, it is true, has attempted, in reference to the doctrine of the Spirit, to show that the Lord’s own teaching differed, in essential points, from that of His apostles. The harmony is so unquestionable and so obvious, that it gives to all a sufficient ground of confidence. Moreover, less is said than formerly of accommodation; for reverent minds are ready to admit that deception, however subtle and refined, is still deception; and that this is an element which is not to be endured in a divine revelation. Theological opinion has taken a forward step in this respect, though not much is really gained, while the language of Scripture—which a natural interpretation would make conclusive as to the personality and work of the Spirit—is explained away as THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 3 figurative, or as a mere personification, by many modern divines, To set forth the doctrine of the Spirit EXEGETICALLY, ac- cording to the programme which I have sketched, is not an unnecessary task in the present state of theology; and, in carrying out this undertaking, my object is truth, and truth alone, without the bondage of any artificial system, past or present. So far as the outline of Scripture testimony is concerned, I shall largely content myself with the results of investigation, and often hold the statement of the process in abeyance. And where the word is silent, I shall accept its silence as well as its declarations without hesitation or reserve. The Jewish Church was formed by a special education to receive Christianity when it should come. It was the issue of a long development, meant to lead them to comprehend the import of Christ’s instruction. As we come in contact, in the course of this discussion, with the doctrine of the Trinity at every point, it may be fitting to refer to that great theme at the outset, so far at least as concerns the relation which essentially belongs to the Holy Spirit. This will pave the way for the consideration of the other doctrines which we have to discuss, Though every attempt to comprehend or to unfold the mystery of the Trinity has failed, and must fail, from the ineffable nature of the subject, we may affirm that in the five following proposi- tions the faith of the Church is satisfactorily exhibited, viz. :— 1. That there is one God or divine essence, 2, That the same numerical divine essence is common to three truly divine Persons, who are designated Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 3. That between these three divine Persons there obtains a natural order of subsistence and operation: that the first Person hath life in Himself (John v. 26) ; and that the second and third Persons subsist and act from the first. 4 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 4. That this order of the divine Persons belongs to the divine essence prior to, and irrespective of, the covenant of grace. 5. That this natural order of subsistence and action is the ground and reason of the several names, Father, Son, and Spirit; the Son being begotten of the Father, and the Spirit by spiration proceeding from both. And as to the divine works, the Father is the source FROM WHICH every operation emanates (€€ od), the Son is the medium THROUGH WHICH (6.’ ov) it is performed, and the Holy Ghost is the EXECUTIVE BY WHICH (év @) it is carried into effect. The Christian Church, from the beginning, believed in the doctrine of the Trinity with unhesitating faith. It was not a conclusion formed gradually in the consciousness of the Christian community, partly by reflection, partly by Biblical inquiry. The Church found in the baptismal formula an emphatic allusion to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and simply accepted it as her doctrine of the Trinity. It was- brought within the scope of every Christian mind, learned and unlearned, as the fundamental and the primary truth, of which no Christian disciple could plead ignorance. The substance of the doctrine is, that God is one, and that the Persons are distinet ; and after all the investigations that have confounded and fatigued the acutest understanding, we only return to the same simple formula of baptism, which is level to the capacity of the humblesi. The doctrine of the Trinity is not so much a point among many as the very essence and compendium of Christianity itself, It not only presents a lofty subject of contemplation to the intellect, but furnishes a repose and peace which satis- fies the heart and conscience. 'o explain this mystery is not our province. All true theologians, who have trained their minds in the right school, whether in expounding positive truth or in combating erroneous views, have uniformly accepted it as their highest function simply TO CONSERVE THE MYSTERY, THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 5 and to leave it where they found it, in its inscrutable sublimity, or, as the poet expresses it, “ dark though excessive bright.” Leibnitz happily said, If we could bring it within the terms of any humanly constructed definition, it would be a mystery no longer. The zeal and erudition of the Fathers, accordingly, were mainly employed to retain and preserve the mystery. And when we look at the doctrine from the practical point of view, a belief of this great truth is absolutely essential to the Christian man and to the Christian Church. Without it, Christianity would at once collapse. As this doctrine is believed on the one hand, or challenged on the other, Christian life is found to be affected at its roots and over all its extent. Every doctrine is run up to it; every privilege and duty hang on it. It cannot escape observa- tion that scarcely a heresy ever appeared which did not, when carried out to its logical results, come into collision with the doctrine of the Trinity at some point. Through the whole history of opinion, the ever-recurring fact presented to us is, that however a man may begin his career of error, the general issue is that the doctrine of the Trinity, proving an unexpected check or insurmountable obstacle in the carrying out of his opinions, has, to a large extent, to be modified or pushed aside; and he comes to be against the Trinity because he has found that the doctrine of the Trinity was against him. The attacks on the Trinity, menacing though they might be for a time, have commonly been the occasion of real benefit to the Church. The Church might have been less on the alert than was found to be imperatively necessary when asked, for instance, by the Sabellian to allow within her pale a mere modal distinction in the Trinity, or when asked by the Arian to give a certain amount of liberty to such as questioned or denied the supreme Deity of the second or third person of the Trinity. By varied discipline and experience, she has been schooled to apprehend the doctrine of the tri-personal God, or the threefold personality in unity, as the most funda- 6 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. mental, vital, and practical of doctrines; that it forms the ultimate ground of every truth; that it is absolutely intertwined with the essential provisions of the gospel ; and that the plan of salvation cannot be left standing entire, if this great doctrine, the keystone of the arch, is either loosened or displaced. The Church, accordingly, has always posted herself here as in the Thermopyle, where her last stand is to be made. She knew that, without this doctrine, the Creed would have no coherence, nor her members have any solid peace. The: enlightened Christian in this field neither expects nor wishes to find that which will not baffle his comprehension by its vastness, nor dazzle him by its splendour. Nay, the appeal to the ADORING WonDER of the finite mind becomes more powerful when its limited capacity fails to comprehend the theme in all its magnitude. We cease to comprehend and begin to adore. The Christian Church, feeling that she has to believe what God has condescended to declare, is alive to the fact that there is no loyalty greater than the loyalty of the intellect ; and she calls for the submission of the finite reason. Hence every one feels the force of these beautiful words of Gregory Nazianzen in reference to the Trinity. In his sermon on Baptism he says: od dOdve 7d &v vofcat xal Tots Tplol TepiAdurromar ov dOdve Ta tpia dierely, Kal eis TO év avadépowat. “T cannot think of the ons but I am imme- diately surrounded with the splendour of the THREE; nor can I clearly discover the three, but I am suddenly carried back to the One.” ) The objection to the Trinity on the ground of the un- fathomable mystery, has been repeated in every successive age. And it may not be out of place to say that if there had been no mystery, an opposite objection might not improb- ably have emanated from the very same parties. Had there been no inscrutable doctrines beyond the sounding line of man’s reason, no profound mysteries in the revealed account of God’s Being, purposes, and works,—if such a thing were THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 7 conceivable in a_ revelation communicated from God to man, — the objectors might have decried and depreciated it from a wholly different point of view as a stale, flat, and unprofitable message, which had nothing in it worthy of the claims which it made on men’s minds, because it had nothing beyond the discovery of the human understanding. When we reach the manhood of our being, we may understand what we cannot now fathom. Addison and Swift both conjectured, not unwarrantably, in connection with these very mysteries, that new faculties might be given in the life to come to apprehend what is now incomprehen- sible and unknown. I shall endeavour to bring out the testimony of Scripture to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as contained in the Old and New Testaments. As my object in this division is to set forth the place which the doctrine of the Spirit occupies in contrast with the modern Sabellianism, I shall rather state the cumulative import of the Scripture testimony, than launch into a full or exhaustive exegesis of all the passages. And in fulfilling this task it will be my aim, except where some elucidation is necessary, to mix with it as little of my own as possible, lest foreign elements should invalidate the evi- dence which is so conclusively furnished by the harmonious testimony of the Scripture itself from first to last. I shall try to evolve what the Scriptures say; and for that end transplant myself into the circumstances in which the writers of the different ages were placed. To penetrate, as far as possible, into the teaching of inspired prophets before the coming of Christ, and of inspired apostles subsequent to His resurrection, it will be necessary to bring out, in a condensed outline, their scope and harmony. That the Scripture testimony about to be adduced in refer- ence to the Holy Spirit may also be readily applied to the refutation of modern errors, it may not be out of place to mention the Sabellian postulate, and the deduction from it to 8 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. which Schleiermacher has given expression in this century. According to the view stated by Schleiermacher in his own ingenious way, all that is intimated by the names Son OF Gop and Spirir oF Gop did not exist before the work of redemption, and before the founding of the Christian Church respectively. It was held by him that God is Father as He creates, Son as He redeems, and Holy Spirit as He unites Himself to the Christian Church, but without the personality which the Church doctrine ascribes to each of them. Sabel- lianism. was always at a loss to explain the Biblical truth that all things were created by God through the Son and the Holy Spirit; for the divine Persons must manifestly have existed before they could act. That was the argument which of old the Patristic writers adduced with invincible force against the Sabellian theory; and neither Sabellius in former days, nor the Schleiermacher-school in recent times, have done anything to meet or answer it. The Jewish Church, though carefully trained, failed at the decisive moment, from this same Unitarian bias which had come to predominate in it. And many have, in all ages, been engulfed by opinions which impugned the Spirit’s personality on the one hand, or ques- tioned His supreme Deity on the other. Of those who deviate from Church-doctrine in our day, the majority are led by a strong Sabellian bias, which, while it admits that predicates of Deity are undoubtedly ascribed to the Spirit, interprets these allusions as descriptive of a mere influence or energy, or as attributes and manifestations of Deity without the personal distinction in any form. ‘This Sabellian view is at present a theological current of immensely greater force and wider diffusion than is commonly suspected by theological readers in this country. We shall endeavour in the present dissertation, introductory to the six dogmatic lectures afterwards given in proper form, to give an outline of the Biblical testimony to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. This will supply an exegetical foundation. THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 9 INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. We shall first keep the Old Testament doctrine of the Spirit full in view; and in tracing the stream of history, we shall consider (1) the testimony to the spirit of prophecy in the Books of Moses and Job; (2) in the time from Moses to David; (3) in the period from David to the Exile; (4) from the Exile to the close of the Old Testament. But underneath this mere chronological division, we shall have occasion to notice the Spirit’s operations in nature and in grace; in the supernatural gifts conferred upon gifted men, and in the prophecies relating to the Messiah prior to the Pentecostal economy. THE Books oF MOSES AND JOB. “The Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters” (Gen. 1,2). The term Spirit (Ruach) denotes a BREATH, a WIND, and also an intelligent thinking Being. The designation “the Spirit of God,” denotes two persons—God and the Spirit of God, like the analogous title “ the Son of God.” ‘It implies distinct personality, and indicates that He is from God, or of God. The action here ascribed to Him, in connection with the creation of all things, seems to be a metaphor taken from the incubation of a bird, and sets forth how the Spirit, dove- like, sat brooding o’er the dark abyss, and made it pregnant.’ “ By His Spirit He garnished the heavens” (Job xxvi. 13). He is called God’s Spirit (“His Spirit”) to show that He is cf the same essence with God and from Him. When it is said that He who garnished the heavens is the Spirit of God, we are not warranted to interpret the words in any other way than as a declaration that the personal Spirit —elsewhere called the finger of God and the power of God ~ —adorned the heavens, and framed them to display the divine glory. 1 Milton, i. 21 and vii. 233. 10 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. “The Spirit of God made me,” says Elihu, “and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life” (Job xxxiii. 4). The reference to a personal agent standing in a unique relation to God—that is, from God, but personally distinct—is too express to be evaded by any subterfuge, “Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created; and Thou renewest the face of the earth” (Ps. civ. 30). There the Psalmist speaks of God’s manifold works according to their order. He shows that God gives the animals their food ; that He hides His face and they are troubled; that He takes away their breath and they die; that He sends forth His Spirit, and a fresh succession or race of animated beings is created. The title “Thy Spirit” distinguishes between the uncreated and the finite Spirit, and proves that the Spirit of God is the fountain of life; and that creation, amid all its necessary changes, receives from Him its renovating or rejuvenating power. The blossom and decay of vegetation ; the succession of races on the earth’s surface; the bias impressed on various minds; the skill in arts; the manifold gifts which hold society together,—are all the workmanship of the Spirit. MAN MADE TO BE THE TEMPLE OF THE HOLY GHOST, We come to the indwelling of the Spirit in primeval man, which may be called the deep ground-thought of all right anthropology, as appears from these words: “The Lord God Sormed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen. ii. 7). When God breathed into man the breath of Lrg (or Lives, for it is plural), we must understand life in the Holy Spirit as well as animal and intellectual life. Calvin, and the mass of commentators since his day, have interpreted the words of the physical life, as if they intimated nothing more than the animation of the clay figure. The Patristic writers, Athanasius, Basil, Ambrose, THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 11 and Cyril, refer the words to the occasion when God com- municated the Spirit, the breath of the Almighty, the giver of the HIGHER as well as of the lower form of life. If further proof of the correctness of this interpretation were necessary, it is furnished by the contrast of DEATH threatened in the penalty, which certainly cannot be limited to natural death. Adam had the Spirit in the state of integrity, not only for himself, but for his seed; and he walked after the Spirit as long as he stood in his integrity. I must here refer a little more fully to the Spirit’s work in connection with the first Adam. From the narrative of creation, brief but suggestive, which is given in Genesis, the great thought is derived that, accord- ing to the constitution which God was pleased to give to the first man among the creatures of His hand, not only was a federal unity assigned to him as the head of the race, but a relation to the whole Trinity which comes to light, in his being made in the image of God. That he not only bore a likeness to God’s perfections in his mental, moral, and reli- gious constitution, but that he was placed in a peculiarly CLOSE RELATION TO ALL THE PERSONS OF THE TRINITY,—nay, in a conscious personal relation to all the divine Persons,— is clearly intimated in the words: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. i. 26). The use of the plural number in the pronoun Us is not to be reduced, according to the evacuating principle of Rationalism, to a mere mannerism in style. Dr. Owen has well remarked that God, having manifested by other parts of creation His existence, nature, and perfections, designed in the creation of man to manifest Himself in a trinity of persons; a remark setting forth a momentous truth only too little pondered. For the right interpretation of many passages of Scripture in their co- herence and meaning, it is necessary to take this thought along with us. The question now raised in theological circles in reference Ca 12 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. to man is: Did he, as God’s creature, realize in any measure His idea? And was he the object of divine complacency not only as the partaker of a pure nature, but as a Son who was then replenished, just as redeemed men are again replenished, with the Holy Spirit ? Or, on the contrary, was he, according to the Rationalistic theory, formed in a low and rude con- dition, though capable of advancing in an ascending scale, and necessarily requiring even in his creation-state some further intervention to make him correspond to His idea ? On exegetical grounds as well- as on the ground of analogy, we must hold that man as he was formed not only cor- responded to His idea as a Son within the sphere of creaturehood, but was the temple of the Holy Ghost. This is a view so essential to all right conceptions of our primeval relationship, that without it no sound anthropology can be maintained. The deep ground-thought presupposed by Christianity is, that Adam had the divine image and life from the Spirit of Life. It follows, accordingly, ‘that the elements were already deposited in him by which he was in a position to reach the full perfection of his being, as he was. He needed only to have further developed that which was already in him, and to abide the probation under which he was placed. The advocates of the Rationalistic conception of man— however variously it may be modified, and however imposing some aspects of it may at first sight appear—describe man’s original state as commencing with a low grade or type, and rising to a higher. But of all the forms in which this baseless theory has been presented, by far the most attractive is the novel theory supported, in our day, by many able men, that an incarnation would have entered to complete the idea of man even though no sin had ever entered to disturb the harmony of the universe. ‘This favourite speculation’ of modern German theologians has no Biblical * See Dorner’s Doctrine of the Person of Christ ; Liebner, Martensen, Ebrard. THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 13 ground, but has a tendency to introduce a wholly different conception of man’s original state. It gives a false idea of his original integrity or perfection. According to this theory, they postulate the necessity of an incarnation to make man correspond to His idea; and what does that supposition involve? It necessarily implies imperfection in his very constitution, and in the adaptation of the means to the end designed. It reflects on the perfection of that nature in which our race was made. Assuming that man was formed by the Creator in an imperfect and rude state,— that is, without the elements that would have unfolded themselves in the full efflorescence of his being,—it takes for granted that the ideal of creation, without a new inter- vention from above, must have remained unrealized; that with all his natural powers exerted to the utmost, and with all the aids provided for him in his original sphere, he could not have completed his destiny without an intervention wholly new and supplementary. If there still remained a further extraordinary interposition to carry forward to com- pleteness the act of creation which, by the supposition, was left imperfect—or, at least, unfinished—in kind as well as in degree; if nature required no mere development within its assigned sphere into the perfection of its capacities, but was left defective in its structure or mental conformation from the first~—then everything most confidently accepted by inspired and uninspired men from the beginning is seen in a cross light and through a distorting medium. If imper- fection, at least in the sense of incompleteness, attached in such a degree to creation in its normal state, in other words, if it did not correspond to its idea,—reason would be staggered. The moral problem of responsibility—arduous enough as it is—would in that case be insoluble. We could not speak of all as “very good” in its primordial state, nor could we vindicate the ways of God to men. On the contrary, the representations of man from a Biblical point 14 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. of view are to the effect that he had, from the first, realized and formed within him the divine idea to such an extent that he needed nothing more than the required probation in order to his being confirmed, and then exalted to an immensely higher degree, according to the promised reward. We naturally ask whether the first Adam had the Holy Spirit at his creation. This must be affirmed whether we look at the exegetical grounds, which we hold to be con- clusive (Gen. ii. 7), or at the analogy of the Second Adam. This has not been denied in any quarter entitled to respect, Patristic or Protestant. Bishop Bull has proved in his ser- mons, by quotations from the Fathers, that they believed firmly on the warrant of Scripture, that Adam along with the principle of natural life received also the grace of the Holy Spirit. This is a point that has never been taken up in earnest by any divine of note, with the single exception of Howe, whose Living Temple proceeds upon it as a postulate. The explanation of that omission, from which not only anthropology but the doctrines of grace have suffered not a little, may be the following. In a treatise which long passed under the name of Augustin, there was a formal denial of the position that Adam in his state of integrity was in the possession of the Spirit. The great infiuence of Augustin’s name, thus supposed to have pronounced a different judgment, seems mainly to have had the effect of repressing due inquiry, and of blunting statements which might other- wise have been at once clearer, ampler, and less reserved in the direction to which I have referred. That treatise, - ascribed to Augustin,” contains, however, so many gross mistakes and errors on many different points, and even on the doctrines of grace, on which the views of Augustin were the most pronounced, that any man might have detected the injury done to him by attributing such an unworthy composition to his pen. It is now with a general concurrence 1 Vid, Quest. ex utroque Testamento, Quest. 123. THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 15 of opinion rejected as spurious, and replete with views which Augustin did not hold. The arguments from analogy which go to prove that Adam had the Spirit are conclusive. The doctrine that man was originally, though mutably, replenished with the Spirit, may be termed the deep funda- mental thought of the Scripture-doctrine of man. If the first and second Adam are so related that the first man was the analogue or figure of the second, as all admit on the autho- rity of Scripture (tos tod péAXovtos, Rom. v. 12-14), it is clear that, unless the first man possessed the Spirit, the last man, the Healer or Restorer of the forfeited inheritance, would not have been the medium of giving the Spirit, who was withdrawn on account of sin, and who could be restored only on account of the everlasting righteousness which Christ brought in (Rom. viii. 10). Sin separated between the soul and God; and, according to the tenor of God’s just and holy moral government, the Spirit was of necessity withdrawn at the moment when Adam lent an ear to the tempter’s glozing words. And the privation to which man’s nature was sub- jected, as the term FLESH clearly shows (Gen. vi. 3), implies that he had forfeited that fulness of the Spirit which he once possessed, and which, but for sin, would have descended as an inheritance to his posterity. The arguments against the view that Adam had the Spinit are wholly destitute of Biblical ground, and have no validity or weight. One ill-understood text has been adduced to prove that Adam was not replenished with the Spirit, viz.: “the first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening Spirit” (1 Cor. xv. 45). That is the main argument in the spurious treatise ascribed to Augustin. But that passage, when closely examined, is no absolute antithesis; for the apostle aims to show that there is a natural body and a spiritual body, the one before the other; the one inherited from the first man, the other received from Him who is the quickening Spirit. But the apostle says 16 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. nothing against Adam being replenished with the Spirit— nothing in favour of the notion which it was adduced to prove. On the contrary, it is clear that man must have realized his idea, for God pronounced all very good; and he had only to undergo the necessary probation, which implied that his nature, from the first, was so perfect that it might certainly have come out tnhurt. Why, in fact, was there any probation at all, if man at his creation was left without the Spirit to guide and animate him? and how could he be tried if he did not answer his idea, as one supplied with all that was requisite for the trial, the successful issue of which would have placed him amid the glory and incorruption of the resurrection state ? There are two conclusions to which we must come: (1) Man as a creature, but with a certain standing as a son in the beloved Son, was the object of the divine complacency, though mutable; (2) His soul was inwardly irradiated with the supernatural presence of the Holy Spirit, which might have been retained. That man stood at first related to all the persons of the Trinity, and bore the image of God, though mutably, upon his soul; that the Spirit of Life filled him for a service of holy love, may be accepted as a postulate in all our investigations —a postulate which Christianity, as a restorative or remedial economy, will not permit us to ignore, although it has never received the place to which it is entitled in any system of anthropology—Patristic or Pro- testant. But it may be affirmed, on the ground of the analogy between the two Adams, that Christ would not have been the medium of giving the Spirit, if the first man had not possessed the Spirit. The Spirit departed from the human family when Adam gave ear to the tempter’s seducing words ; and the restoration by the second man implies the possession of the Spirit by the first. No one, in fact, can read the action of Christ on the first evening after His resurrection, and consider the symbolic breathing on the disciples, and the THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY, ive words which fell from Him in conveying a new gift of the Spirit, without an impression that these two acts were counter- parts—the one the original gift, the other the restoration of what was lost. THE HOLY SPIRIT LOST BY THE FALL. The Fall involved three things which must be regarded as presuppositions to the whole doctrine of the Spirit which we are now discussing :— (1.) The withdrawal of the Holy Spirit from the human heart as one of the penal consequences of sin. Man, destitute of the Spirit, is now called flesh (Gen. vi. 3); and they who live the life of sinful nature are designated “ earthly, sensual, having not the Spirit” (Jude 19). The Holy Spirit, in conse- quence of the Fall, departed from the human heart, which was once His temple, and the frame of which sufficiently proves that it was at first a fit habitation for the divine presence. Only the ruins can now be traced. (2.) The Fall involved our captivity to Satan, which he maintained by right of conquest. The evil spirit entered the heart when the Holy Spirit withdrew, and continues to lead men captive, working in the children of disobedience (Eph. ii): (3.) The image of God, in which Adam was created, was replaced by the entire corruption of man’s nature (John iii. 6). His understanding had been furnished with a true and saving knowledge of his Creator and of spiritual things; his heart and will had been upright; all his affections had been pure; and the whole man holy: but, revolting from God by the temptation of the devil, the opposite of all that image of God became his doleful heritage; and his posterity derive cor- ruption from their progenitor, not by imitation, but by the 1 See Basil on the breathing upon Adam and upon the apostles (Against Hunomius, vy. 119). B 18 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. propagation of a vicious nature, which is incapable of any saving good. It is prone to evil, and dead in sin. It is not denied that there still linger in man since the Fall some glim- merings of natural light, some knowledge of God and of the difference between good and evil, and some regard for virtue and good order in society. But it is all too evident that, WITHOUT THE REGENERATING GRACE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, men are neither able nor willing to return to God, or to reform their natural corruption.’ THE RESTORATION OF THE SPIRIT BY A REMEDIAL ECONOMY, In view of the Fall a covenant or. method of restoration had been formed, according to which we find the persons of the Godhead acting their proper part on man’s behalf; for no covenant could have been directly formed between God and fallen sinners. The agreement, pact, or covenant was, that the Father, holding in His hands the rights of God, should send the Son as the one Mediator between God and men; that the incarnate Son, as the second Adam, should fulfil the law and bear our sins in His own body; and that the Holy Ghost should then return with a plenitude of grace and of power to be forfeited no more. No sooner had sin entered than we find the Mediator carry- ing out by His Spirit the provisions of the remedial plan by announcing the gospel, viz. that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head, and putting enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. There THE WORD AND THE SPIRIT are already in conjunction—the one filling the mind with truth, the other filling it with spiritual life. From the first we have brought before us the ruin and the remedy; then the two opposite families; then a marked revival in the days of Enos; then as marked a declen- sion. We hold it as antagonistic to all Biblical doctrine to 1 See Articles of Dort. THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 19 represent the first man, as the Rationalistic theory uniformly represents him, as originally made on a lower platform, and as always mounting higher. “My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh” (Gen. vi. 3).—With whatever shade of meaning the word rendered strive may be connected, the general import unquestionably is, that the forbearance long exercised was about to close, that the antediluvians had rejected the testi- mony of the Spirit, addressed to them by inspired or Spirit- filled men, and despised every call to repentance and faith. He who thus speaks of His Spirit 1s undoubtedly Christ. This we learn from Peter, the inspired commentator on the words in Genesis, who says that Christ by the Spirit went and preached to these antediluvians or spirits in prison, who were alive when Noah preached to them, but were spirits in prison or hell when Peter wrote his Epistle (1 Pet. iii 19). The Spirit of Christ speaking by Enoch and Noah was about to leave that corrupt generation to its doom. The Messiah, having received the Spirit by anticipation for the purposes of His kingdom, on the ground of the coming atonement, preached the gospel to them by the mouth of Noah, and the message was impiously rejected. The Spirit of Christ, who filled and animated all the prophets, not only summoned them to repentance, but testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow (1 Pet. i. 11). THE COVENANT MADE WITH ABRAHAM, We come next to Abraham, who was called to leave his country and kindred. The God of glory appeared to him (Acts vii. 2), and vouchsafed to him no fewer than eight theophanies or manifestations of Himself. After the days of Noah we find no new revelations till it pleased God by the call of Abraham to work a new thing in the earth, to separate a single family from the rest of the nations, and 20 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. thus in reality to institute a Church, which should serve God apart. This call was accompanied with another great procla- mation of the gospel, similar to what had been given to our first parents in the garden. The first promise by which multitudes had been saved was that the woman’s seed should bruise the serpent’s head. The word now announced was that in Abraham’s seed all the families of the earth should be blessed (Gen. xviii. 18, xxii. 18). Momentous and suggestive as this promise was, we cannot discuss all its elements. The point that demands attention in connection with our theme is that the blessing of Abraham, according to the interpretation of the Apostle Paul, includes in it THE PROMISE OF THE Spirit (Gal. iii. 14). To make this plain, we have only to notice that when God gives a blessing, it is given in free and unmerited grace to sinful men (Rom. iv. 5). The apostle, by divine inspiration, reads into that ancient promise the two things undoubtedly contained in it when the blessing was announced, viz. that faith on the promised seed was counted for righteousness, and that he should receive the promise of the Spirit by faith. Through faith on the promised seed of Abraham, who came in the fulness of time, the Gentiles also are justified by faith as Abraham was, and receive the promised Spirit in all the amplitude of His gifts and grace. All this was in the promise given to Abraham, according to the apostle’s authoritative interpretation, and not a jot has failed of its accomplishment. It may be added that Abraham was called a prophet, and therefore he had the Spirit (Gen. xx. 6). The three patriarchs, indeed, who are called the first-fruit and root of the covenant people (Rom. xi. 16), evinced in many ways, and especially at the close of life, the Spirit of prophecy. In Joseph we see the same gift continued, and it was made the means of preserving the Old Testament Church; for the language of Pharaoh in reference to him was plainly borrowed from Joseph himself, when he said: “Can we find such a THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. OL man as this—-a man in whom the Spirit of God is?” (Gen. xli. 38), THE LAW OF MOSES. It seems hard to find the doctrine of the Spirit when we turn our thoughts to an Economy where we meet at the very threshold more of law than promise, more of the letter and of the shadow than of grace. The line between the Abrahamic Covenant and the Mosaic Economy, it must be owned, has not always been well or rightly drawn. Nay, the widest difference of opinion has prevailed both among Churches and individual divines. But we may put all these divergences on one side, and content ourselves with Biblical ideas. We find, according to the Pauline description of this difference, that the promise made to Abraham was irrevocable ; that the legal Economy could not disannul it; and that it entered only as an intervening and temporary dispensation, the scope of which was to convince men of sin, and make them repair to the great promised Seed of Abraham (Gal. iii, 15-19). The underlying covenant with Abraham, on which it rested, supported the whole. The blessing of Abraham and the promise of the Spirit were never awanting to them that believed. The Spirit, indeed, was more sparingly imparted ; and there were elements of law before every mind, and a covering veil over all. In reference to Moses, we find explicit statements that he was raised up and qualified by the Spirit of God for his great commission. When the Lord, to relieve his heavy burden, associated seventy elders to bear rule along with him, He said : “T will take of the Spirit that is upon thee, and put it upon them” (Num. xi, 17). We see from that memorable narra- tive that the Spirit rested upon them as the spirit of prophecy, a fact which accredited their commission. The incident con- nected with Eldad and Medad made that donation of the Spirit all the more remarkable. Moses was directed to take 22 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. Joshua, a man in whom was the Spirit, and to lay his hand on him (Num. xxvii, 18; Deut. xxxiv. 9). Many passages in like manner speak of the Spirit of God coming upon men in a supernatural way, that they might be equipped for official service. The Spirit’s work in this period is seen in many spiritually-minded men, as well as in the supernaturally gifted few. The miraculous gifts which at times were copiously given were but a sign, and might be withdrawn, while the Spirit of Life remained. The same spirit of faith and the same new nature were always found in a remnant forming the true Church of God, in reference to which God said by Jeremiah : “T remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness ” (Jer. ii. 2). The presence of the Spirit appeared in the drops from heaven accompanying the Sinai Covenant, which, with all its sternness and shadows, was a mode of administering the covenant of grace (Ps. lxviii. 8). The Spirit is seen also in inspiring Moses to commit to writing the word of God, the great outward means for pro- moting the spiritual good of the children of men. We see the Spirit’s work, moreover, in all the theophanies and audible voices, in all the prophecies and types outwardly given; but we see it also in that spiritual illumination of multitudes of true believers, which is far different from the inner con- sciousness of which our modern divines are fond of speaking. There are two noteworthy passages which refer to the com- forting power of the Spirit during the wilderness sojourn, and which apply to the Church at large, and not to the super- naturally gifted few: (1) “Thou gavest also Thy good Spirit to instruct them, and withheldest not Thy manna” (Neh, ix. 20); (2) “ Where is He that put His Holy Spirit within him?” (Isa. lxiiii 11); “As a beast goeth down to the valley, the Spirit of the Lord caused him to rest” (ver. 14). THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 23 FrRoM THE TIME OF MOSES TO DAVID. The Spirit of God is not mentioned in the whole Book of Joshua. Joshua himself, indeed, was full of the spirit of wisdom (Deut. xxxiv. 9). After the elders who outlived Joshua had passed away, we find the indications of a great change. In the Book of Judges, which ushers us into a period of declension, repeated allusion is made to the fact that the Spirit of God came upon men supernaturally gifted, and who were raised up for the deliverance of Israel. The people from time to time did evil in the sight of the Lord; they were delivered into the hand of some of the neighbouring nations ; they repented and cried to the Lord—an alternating state of things which we find pervading the entire book; and then a bold leader was raised up by the Spirit of God to deliver them. Thus the Spirit of the Lord came upon Othniel, and he judged Israel (Judg. iii. 10); upon Gideon (vi. 34); upon Jephthah (xi. 29) ; and upon Samson, a very nixed character, with strong faith, but with equally great personal defects all too marked (xiv. 19). Then war was waged successfully on the nations which had oppressed them. The Spirit of God, the author of all those gifts which they received, intellectual as well as spiritual, kindled in them intrepid valour; for God was King of the Theocracy, and it redounded to His glory to break the yoke of the oppressor, when the purposes of dis- cipline were served. One hero after another, endowed with extraordinary courage, patriotism, and zeal, was raised up by the Spirit of God to deliver Israel. After the unquiet times of the judges, a period of marked revival appears in the days of Samuel, the last of the judges. Next to Moses, Samuel, who walked with a reformatory zeal and power in the steps of the former, may be regarded as the greatest benefactor of the nation, which, in the interval between the two, had forgotten the law, lost true conceptions of God, sensualized His worship, and become enfeebled 24 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. by irreligion and vice. In a higher sense than could be affirmed of any other of the judges, Samuel was a deliverer of the nation; for he delivered it from irreligion, ignorance, and vice. This was a transition-period to the flourishing times of the Israelitish kingdom. When the Spirit came upon Samuel at that time, God imparted to him one theophany after another, and a new state of things was introduced. The spirit of prophecy filled Samuel in a peculiar way (1 Sam. x. 20); and from his time downwards an order or school of prophets arose. A whole line of prophets, not in lineal suc- cession like the priesthood, but in a succession of a higher order, appeared to guide the future history of Israel. We are thus supplied with a true idea of the nature of prophecy, on which we can cast only a passing glance, because a full description of this remarkable institution would demand a far more many-sided inquiry than either our aim or our limits will permit. The prophet required for the duties of his function the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Ghost. He personally represented the cause of God, and viewed historical events of every class, as they occurred, in relation to Jehovah and His law. Hence his message was largely the proclamation of warnings and menaces, or the burden of the Lord, which the ungodly often turned into ridicule. He was the organ of the Holy Spirit; and it was the impulse imparted by the Spirit of God that animated and enlightened him. The Lord Jesus by the Spirit, whom He dispensed by anticipation for the purposes of His kingdom, on the ground of the future atone- ment, revealed Himself to their spirit, moving them to speak and act, and also to write when an addition was to be made to the Old Testament canon. It was not according to their will that they either spoke or continued silent. Like a musical instrument which gives out its tones only as it is struck, they simply obeyed as the Spirit acted on each pro- phetic mind at His pleasure, using all those peculiar gifts or THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 25 aptitudes with which He had endowed the different indi- viduals for the end He had in view, and which were called into activity only so far as they were moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Pet. 1. 21); and hence they acted as God's ser- vants, or as His mouth, whenever they spoke the words of God (Ex. iv. 16; 2 Kings ix. 7). The prophet, accordingly, is described as a man of the Spirit, who felt himself appre- hended by the Spirit (Hos. ix. 7); and a discretionary commission was never entrusted to him. God never deposited the gracious supplies of His Spirit in Churches, ministry, or ordinances, to be dispensed at man’s discretion or caprice. Nor did it run counter to this undoubted truth when Elisha asked and obtained a double portion of Elijah’s spirit. The request amounted to nothing more than this: that the same Spint that dwelt in the departing prophet might by the dispensation of God’s free gift dwell in a large measure also in him: much like the arrangement according to which the first-born got a double portion of the inheritance. The influence wielded by these Spirit-filled men was great. They were watchmen and shepherds (Isa. xxi. 11; Zech. xi. 5). As contrasted with what was merely political, they represented the spiritual elements of the kingdom of God; and as contrasted with the frequently secularized priests, with their outward forms and sacrifices, they laid emphasis on the fear of God and the spiritual elements of true religion (Isa. i. 11-15; 1 Sam. xv. 22). Again, as compared with the kings, who often leant on an arm of flesh, the prophets, men of the Spirit, uniformly counselled trust, not in confederacies, but in the God of Israel (Isa. viii. 12). Into the mode of giving them the gift of prophecy it is needless to inquire; for it was simply miraculous, and there- fore inscrutable. They who received this gift had an intimation of the divine will, and therefore received some- thing that they had not before. They performed what was competent only to those who were inspired, and therefore _— - 26 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, announced something not directly communicated to the rest of the people. No prophet alleged that he obtained from God the gift or the aptitude of intimating the divine will, or of foretelling future events at his discretion. That power or capacity was never given to them. Thus Jeremiah expressly said that he knew not that they had devised devices against him (Jer. x1. 18). Daniel denied that he knew the dream or the interpretation by any wisdom of his own; and it was in answer to prayer that the secret, which no wise man or astrologer could ever have discovered, was made known to him (Dan. ii. 19, 30). It is clear that the prophets never wished it to be understood that they gave forth their predictions as the result of their own wisdom. On the contrary, they declared that God alone knew future and contingent events; and that He claimed this knowledge as His absolute prerogative (Isa. xlii, 9). The word of the Lord, moreover, came only at certain times. The prophets never supposed, nor did the Israelites believe, that the power of prophecy was possessed by any man as a constant or uninterrupted gift. This sufficiently shows that the writers of the Old Testament understood that the Spirit of God was a personal agent, that He was very God. When we put all these facts together, it is clear that the Spirit of God is something distinct from the prophet’s mind, and apart from any natural capacity with which he was endowed. We nowhere read that God first revealed some- thing to the Holy Spirit as if He were not consubstantial with God Himself, and then charged Him to convey the communication to the prophet. On the contrary, while there is a certain order of subsistence and operation in the God- head, the Spirit of God is always spoken of as possessing divine intelligence, omnipotence, and omnipresence; and all the prophecies are uniformly spoken of as the immediate act of God Himself. The personal Holy Spirit, or the Prophetic Spirit, is called “The Spirit of God” in the Books of Samuel. THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. o7 The result of our investigation up to this point demon- strates that the Spirit of God is not, as the modern thought alleges, a virtue or excellency of the human spirit which is to be sought and obtained from God. That theory of the modern theology’ is utterly baseless. In the very oldest books of Scripture, and in all the stream of history down- wards, THE SPIRIT OF GOD is always introduced as the Personal Creative Spirit of God. } FRoM THE RISE OF DAVID TO THE EXILE. The number of sacred books which appeared during this period is large. They include the Psalms in good measure, the writings of Solomon, Hosea, Joel, Micah, Isaiah, in all which we have express allusions to the Holy Spirit. And in tracing out the doctrine in these books, we shall not permit ourselves to be swayed by that evacuating criticism which either breaks up the books into parts and fragments, or takes no account of the light reflected on the record as a whole by the supplementary and authoritative teaching of Christ and His apostles. When David was anointed by Samuel to be king, we read: “The Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day for- ward” (1 Sam. xvi. 13). His soul was so filled with the consciousness of his high destiny, and with the animating power and presence of the Spirit of God, that he became a different man. He was not only filled with the office-gifts necessary for rule, but was faithful to the principles which devolved on him as the subordinate or under-king of a divine Theocracy. The same Spirit that ennobled and guided him abandoned Saul. 1 By a perversion of all sound exegesis, D1EHI,, in the Jaarboeken voor Weten- schappelijke Theologie, 1850, and KLEINERT, in the Jahrbiicher fiir Deutsche Theologie, 1867, in this Sabellian way explain away all these texts. So also do VON COLLN, STEUDEL, etc., in treating of Old Testament theology. 28 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. Nor must we forget the inspiration given to him. “Zhe Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and His word was in my tongue” (2 Sam. xxiii. 2). He received divine communica- tions, intelligible enough to him as a prophet (Acts 1. 30), as to the birth and sufferings, the death, the resurrection, and glory of his greater seed, or offspring,—all which are wrought into the Psalms. He refers in that closing utter- ance to the prophetic Spirit which had rested on him, and he virtually announces: “All my Psalms were composed by the inspiration and guidance of the Spirit of the Lord.” But while these allusions to the Spirit are of a more public and official character, there are others in which we trace the Spirit’s operations upon himself as a regenerate and sanctified man : “ Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?” (Ps. cxxxix. 7). In this psalm, which may have been prepared before he ascended the throne, the omnipresence and omniscience which are affirmed of God are also declared to be equally the attributes of the Spirit of God. The psalm sets forth a gracious and beneficent omni- presence. It is only learned trifling, all too plainly betray- ing an unchristian bias, when it is expounded as meaning: “Whither shall I go from Thy stormy wind.” The allusion is to the personal Spirit—“ Thy Spirit ”—graciously omni- present in all the universe to the believing mind. This is not a flight of imagination.) In the 51st Psalm also David prays: “ Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me” (Ps. li. 11). David had grievously sinned, and in that psalm, which contains the expression of his repentance, he penitently prays that the Holy Spirit may not be taken from him. Previous to his fall he must have tasted the joy of God’s salvation, and possessed that free Spirit, when he pleads with such a vehement desire for the Spirit’s restoration. Here, for the first time, we have the epithet HoLy connected with the Spirit of God. He is not THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 29 only the Spirit of wisdom and the Spirit of power, but the Holy Spirit. And in another psalm He is designated the Goop Spirit. “Thy Spirit is good: lead me,” or “let Thy good Spirit lead me into the land of uprightness” (Ps. exliii. 10). He prayed that the same good Spirit that had always led him might lead him still. We cannot depart from the usual meaning of the ex- pression “ THy Spirit,” as alluding to the personal Holy Ghost. The unction and fragrance of the Spirit with which the Psalms are replete lead me to notice, before leaving this portion of our survey, that it is an utter misconception to represent the Old Testament religion as more fed by mundane hopes than by the influence of the Holy Spirit. It is to lose sight of all the numerous expressions of joy, rapture, and praise with which the Psalms abound from the first to the last, and to pervert the plainest evidence, to affirm, as Cocceius and his school affirmed, that there was neither sonship nor the spirit of adoption in the Old Testament Church. That is to ignore the Abrahamic Covenant, and Christ’s divine presence with His Church, and merely to fix all attention upon the intermediate and transitory Sinai Covenant. But the Psalms to which we are adverting, when considered as the actual expression of praise for the Israelitish Church, as well as a legacy handed down to us in the Christian Church, sufficiently refute that view. No book of a similar kind was prepared for the New Testament Church. The Holy Spirit, replenishing the sweet singers of Israel with spiritual truth and holy love, anticipated in this way much of the necessity that should be felt in Christian times. I am not here discussing the important, though still debated point as to the use of psalms in the Christian public worship. My object is to show the spirituality of the Israelitish Church as evinced by its inspired and invaluable psalms. They describe the eternity and omnipresence, the majesty and condescension, the justice and mercy of God in a strain of 30 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. the most fervid devotion. They sing of repentance and faith, of joy in God and delight in God’s law, with an ardour beyond which it is impossible to go. They depict Christ’s royal reign and His union with His Church; the anointing with the oil of gladness (Ps. xlv. 7); the receiving of gifts for men (Ps. Ixviii. 18); and the supreme dominion with which Christ was to be invested by the Father with a tenderness, unction, and joy to which no other words are equal. And those psalms which are called “new songs ” anticipate the full millennial glory. To reason back from effect to cause, the power and presence of the Spirit in ample fulness must have been graciously conferred to produce these psalms, and to use them fitly when prepared. We trace the power of God’s Spirit in turning the captivity of Israel, and in filling them with penitence. Not only so: the apostle, when adducing the quotation from the Psalms, “ I believed, therefore have I spoken,” prefixes, “ We having the same spirit of faith—we also believe and therefore speak” (2 Cor. iv. 13; Ps. exvi. 10). The language of the apostle affirms that he and the Church had the same faith and the possession of the same Spirit. From this fact, and from the whole series of quota- tions made from these Psalms, it is evident that the experi- ence of the Church was the same in both economies, though complexional varieties attached to each. But these varieties, as Calvin * well remarks, describe the Church more in its CORPORATE character than in the experience of the individual members. The true Church in the Old Testament, whatever might be the character of the nominal adherents, cannot be said to be unspiritual when we trace a faith and a knowledge of God, a fidelity and courage, an endurance and self-denial in all that great cloud of witnesses that fill us with astonish- ment, and leave us conscious that we are practically far behind (Heb. xi. 1-40). 1 See Calvin’s admirable remarks on Gal. iy. 1, etc. THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. Si When we peruse the sacred writings which came from the hand of Solomon, we find not only evidence of the Spirit’s illumination, but the most express reference to the Spirit in connection with the preacher’s words: “Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my Spirit unto you” (Prov. i. 23). He means the graces of the indwelling Spirit, which were enjoyed then as well as now. THE TESTIMONY IN THE PROPHETS. We come now to the writings of the Propurrs expressly so called. And in these we find many allusions to the Spirit of God. If we classify them, we may say, (1) that some of them refer to the time then present, and to the way in which the Spirit helped the prophets to fulfil their office ; (2) that some refer to the great effusion, when the Spirit should be poured upon the Church from on high; (3) that some refer to the unction awaiting the Messiah, which was the great central thought of the Jewish religion, as it is of all revealed religion. Hose, the oldest writing prophet perhaps, and placed at the head of the minor prophets, speaks of “the man of the Spirit ” (Hos. ix. 7). Whether, with many expositors, we refer the words to the boastful language of the false prophets, or refer them to the perplexity of the true prophets in a time of apostasy, such as Hosea encountered among the ten tribes, they bring out the general notion entertained in regard to the prophets, that they were men of the Spirit. JOEL, sent about the same time to Judah, gives the predic- tion respecting the great outpouring of the Spirit which was reserved for the last days: “and it shall come to pass after- ward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh” (Joel ii. 28). The Spirit, called by the divine speaker “ my Spirit,” is the Holy Spirit promised in connection with Messianic times. According to the New Testament quotation (Acts il.), oo THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. there is a shade of meaning not to be lost in the words © “of my Spirit” (d7o), distinguishing between the measure vouchsafed to men and the inexhaustible fulness in the resources of the fountain. The expression: “ J will pour out,” can refer only to the Lord, from whom the Spirit proceeds, and by whom He is sent. The Lord God, who dwelt in the midst of His Church, promised that He would amply com- pensate it for the reproach of barrenness by imparting the copious supply of His Spirit. There is one party who sends and another who is poured out, personally distinct, but not different in essence. And this gracious promise as to the outpouring of the Spirit, when read in the full light of New Testament times, must be regarded as historically fulfilled at Pentecost; and the blessing must be viewed as dispensed by the MEssIAu, the Son of God. This is to be ascribed to the incarnate Son, in whom all fulness dwells; and the effusion itself consisted in the communication of the Holy Spint by His gracious presence and operation. Plainly we are to understand the ordinary as well as the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit. The effects flowing from that effusion of the Spirit were prophetic gifts to be con- ferred on the New Testament Church as well as on its several members; one and the same Spirit distributing to every one severally, according to His will. Joel divides the gifts into three classes—prophecy, dreams, and visions. There are various interpretations of these three promised gifts; but the allusion is to different forms of revelation. As to PROPHECY, it is either taken more generally for an intimation of the divine will, or more strictly for the prediction of future events by the aid of the Holy Spirit. As to DREAMS, they were certain images presented to the mind in sleep, and understood by the Spirit’s interpretation in such a way that no doubt was entertained either as to their import or their origin. As to VISIONS, they were appearances submitted to the eye or to the cognitive THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY, 33 faculty, and must be understood as immediate revelations while the seer was asleep or awake. But neither are we to exclude the ordinary and sanctifying gifts of the Spirit. This appears, beyond dispute, from the fact that, according to the intention of the supreme Dispenser of them, that shower of heavenly gifts, which filled the mind of those to whom they were promised, was meant to lead them to a true invocation derived from faith, or to “call on the name of the Lord.” They were converting and sanctifying gifts, such as faith, hope, love, and invocation. They were also ministerial gifts for awakening and edifying the mind of others. We need specially to consider what is intimated by the ALL FLESH, on whom this gracious effusion of the Spirit was to be conferred. When we ask what was meant by Joel’s prophecy that the Spirit was to be poured upon ALL FLESH, the allusion cannot be, as Grotius held, to worthy Israelites. Nor can it be limited, as Origen limits it, to Churches gathered from the Gentiles. Another interpretation is that the term ALL is sometimes used in Scripture to denote classes; and hence Chrysostom, Luther, Gerhard, refer it to classes of individuals, but they restrict it to the display of SUPERNATURAL gifts at the commencement day of the New Testament Church. In this sense it will mean that men of every sort were replenished at Pentecost with the extra- ordinary gifts of the Spirit, viz., every age, sex, and con- dition. But the promise CANNOT BE LIMITED TO THAT DAY, nor to the miraculous gifts then communicated. This appears from the Apostle Peter’s commentary when he said: “ Repent and be baptized every one of you, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts ii. 38),—where the reference is plainly to the sanctifying gifts of the Spirit and to His gracious inhabitation. And the apostle added that the promise was to them, and to their children, and to all that were afar off. Others, as Glassius, make it men of every class in all nations. While the mrracunovus GIFTS, specially C 34 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. given to organize and found the Church, must be regarded as, in part, the accomplishment of J oel’s prophecy, THE SAVING AND SANCTIFYING GIFTS must also be included down to the latest times. The phrase “upon all flesh” implies all nations, without distinction: for God was to pour out His Spirit on all nations, without distinction of Jew and Gentile, the partition-wall being taken down. No distinction was to be made, either in SOCIAL CONDITION or in NATIONALITY, as was intimated by the promise that the gifts should descend on old men and young, on sons and daughters, on servants and handmaids. A question here arises: Are we to conclude that Joel’s prophecy was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, or was that outpouring of the Spirit but the symbol and dawn of another fulfilment yet to come? ‘That it was fulfilled on Pentecost, ought not be doubtful to any one who reads Peter's sermon at the descent of the Spirit. “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts ii, 16): and there is no indication here or elsewhere that this Dispensation shall ever be replaced by another. It was the opening of the river of the water of life which will flow on for ever. Where should we find a proof of Christ's Messiahship, or of the Christian Church,—as contrasted with the Israelitish community still adhering to the covenant at Sinai,—if the fulfilment of Joel’s prophecy did not take place, as Peter declared it did, on that Pentecost immediately following the Lord’s ascension? That was not A MERE TRANSITORY EVENT or TYPE OF ANOTHER FULFIL- MENT: For neither Joel nor any other prophet speaks of any more definite fulfilment. Besides, Peter expressly pointed to this as the fulfilment. But the fulfilment is A GERMINANT FULFILMENT, which takes in all subsequent times. The effusion was not an abruptly terminated fact. It was not a type: for shadows and types have ceased. It is the issuing forth of the river of the water of life, which will flow on till it cover and fertilize all lands (Ezek. xlvii. 1). THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. DO IsataAH and Micau, contemporary prophets in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, refer, in various passages, very emphatically to the Spirit of God. I adduce Micah first in order. He had to combat the false prophets who made the people err, and who cried peace (iii. 5); for false prophets appeared among the people, and were permitted, for holy ends, to try the faithfulness of Israel in the course of God’s moral government (2 Pet. ii. 1). And the princes, as well as the people, were swayed by their flattering words. Hence the princes sometimes enjoined silence on the true prophet, saying, Prophesy not (Mic. ii. 6). When it is said: “Js the Spurit of the Lord straitened ?” (Mic. ii. 7), that was the prophet’s stern answer to those who would silence him. He intimates: Is the Spirit of the Lord so weakened and straitened that He dare not reprove you, or does He fail of resources to make His voice and authority felt? Will the _ divine Spirit yield to your presumptuous will? And when he says: “I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might, to declare to Jacob his transgressions ” (Mic. iii. 8), that is an announcement in the same tone. The prophet, with power and courage derived from the Spirit of the Lord, declares to the nation its sin; and though the nation resents the reproof, and would avoid, if possible, the summons to hear the stern tenor of his message, it must be compelled to hear it. The prophet, moved by the Spirit of the Lord, compels attention to his words. The Spirit and power are conjoined as cause and effect, but distinguished. The prophet was also full of judgment by the same Spirit, that is, with the capacity of discerning the evil and the good in human actions, full of might or resolute perseverance also by the same Spirit. IsatAH has scattered throughout. his prophecies allusions to the Spirit so manifold and various, in express descriptions and in brief turns of phrase, that it might not be difticult to put together, from his words, the complete doctrine of the 36 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. Spirit. I shall briefly glance at the outline which he elves. (a) He speaks of the Holy Spirit more generally. In the past history of Israel which he gives, the prophet shows that the nation in their wilderness -life was graciously supplied with the Spirit, and that He dwelt among them and gave them rest (Isa. lxiii, 11 and 14); but they rebelled against Him, and vexed His Holy Spirit (ver. 10). Events occurring in the moral government of God—such as the gathering of the vultures to their prey—are also ascribed to the Spirit as the executive of all the divine purposes: “ My mouth it hath commanded, and His Sprrir it hath gathered them” (Isa. xxxiv. 16), The purging of Jerusalem from defilement and blood is also ascribed to the Spirit of judgment and burning ; that is, to the Spirit of God acting as the author and cause of all these effects, which are not penal, but gracious (Isa. iv. 4). Sinners taking counsel, but not of God, that they may take their own way, are said to cover with a covering—or to shelter themselves under a shelter and protection—which is not of Gon’s Spirit; that is, they ran counter to the dissuasives and warnings which the prophet addressed to them (Isa. xxx. 1). (b) Isaiah’s allusions to the Spirit's work as the anointer of the Messiah with the necessary unction for His office are particularly noteworthy. He introduces the Servant of the Lord saying: “And now the Lord God has sent me and His Spirit” (Isa. xlviiii 16). This is a much preferable translation to that of the Authorized Version, which is here faulty. The rendering we have accepted is preferable, and has been followed by some of the best exegetes, such as Cocceius, Vitringa, and Lampe. One conclusive argument which may be adduced against the Authorized Version is, that the mission of Christ is never ascribed to the Spirit; and that the Persons of the Trinity, who are all referred to in the passage, invariably act according to their order of subsistence THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 37 in the Godhead. The Spirit is here said to be sent along with the Son, and indissolubly conjoined with the Son from the moment of the incarnation. In pre-Christian times the same order prevails by anticipation. There are several passages in Isaiah which vividly set forth the large measure of the Spirit, which was to be shed upon the Christ from the time of His coming in the flesh. This was prefigured by various anointings introduced into the typical economy. And it appears especially in the name MESSIAH, THE ANOINTED, given to the promised One who should come into the world. “The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord” (Isa. xi. 2). “ Behold my Servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my Spirit upon Him” (Isa. Maree ss “The Spirit of the Lord Ged is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek,” ete. (Isa. lxi. 1). I have put these three passages together because they refer to the unction with which the Lord Jesus was to be anointed for His threefold office as Mediator between God and man; and though couched in the words of prophecy, no clearer language could possibly have been used to delineate the accomplished fact. The gift of the Spirit to replenish Christ’s humanity was not to supersede the necessity of His higher or divine nature, for these supplies of the Spirit flowed from the hypostatic union. The Spirit Himself was to REST upon Him, which implies something far greater than a temporary visit, or a mere creature’s privilege. Then follows a vivid description of the effects of that unction in six definite predicates, or three pairs,—the Spirit of wisdom and under- standing, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of under- standing and fear of the Lord; graces of which the Spirit of 38 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. God is the sole author, and which are found only in their perfection and ample fulness in the Messiah. The graces of the Spirit there enumerated are siz: but the general designa- tion, “the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,” with which the promise commences, is the common name for the SPIRIT OF PROPHECY, as appears from the seventy elders, who received the spirit that was on Moses, and also from other instances. We may be warranted to number, then, the spirit of prophecy first, and say that the number SEVEN is preserved. Lampe, in commenting on this passage, gives perhaps undue rein to his fancy when he supposes that the first pair was given at the nativity, the second at His baptism, the third at His exalta- tion; and he thinks that the Spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord must be regarded as poured out upon His Church. He appears to have adopted this ingenious but unnatural view of the last pair, from the groundless idea that the fear of the Lord could not fitly be ascribed to the Lord Christ. These three passages which we have put together delineate and foretell that unction of the Holy Spirit with which the Messiah was to be equipped for all His offices. The second passage is applied to Christ by Matthew (chap. xii. 18). The third is quoted and applied by Christ Himself (Luke iv. 17). The three passages, by a memorable variety of expression, set forth that the Spirit should rest wpon Him, should be put upon Him, should be wpon Him as the anointing oil. The human future of Christ was thus to be anointed with the plenary supply of the Holy Spirit for the discharge of the mediatorial function: for it was predicted as the necessary unction of the Servant of the Lord. (c) Another class of passages in Isaiah refers to the gift of the Spirit to the Church. How far the prophet was able to trace the connection between the gift of the Spirit to the personal Messiah and the gift of the Spirit to the Church, or to follow the order of events by which the one paved the way for the other, we do not presume to decide. THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 39 But the more we compare the prophetic testimony with the apostolic testimony, we are the more disposed to hold that it was sufficiently known to the Old Testament Church, that the Messiah should not only be anointed with the Spirit, but also BESTOW the Spirit. But that the Spirit was to be plenteously conferred on the Church in Messianic days, is repeatedly and explicitly affirmed by the prophet. Thus the pouring out of water and the pouring out of the Spirit are synonymous: “I will pour water on him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring” (Isa. xliv. 3). Two other passages may here be quoted,—one showing how the Spirit resists the enemy, the other how he abides with the redeemed Church. (1) “ When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him” (Isa. lix. 19). (2) “My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words that I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever” (Isa. lix. 21). FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE EXILE TO THE END OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON. To this period belong not a few books which are of a his- torical and prophetic character,—viz. Ezekiel, Daniel, Haggai, and Zechariah, the Books of Chronicles, and Nehemiah. In these we find many allusions to the Holy Spirit. There are two prophets, indeed, in this period, where the expression “Spirit of God” does not occur,—viz. Jeremiah and Daniel. JEREMIAH, as a man, is described as sanctified from the womb; and, as a prophet, he received some of the most definite revelations ever communicated, particularly the revelation of the New Covenant, with all its spiritual pro- 40 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. visions and blessings (Jer. xxxi. 31). Yet we do not find in him the precise phrase which we have here been making it our object to trace out. The same thing holds true of DANIEL. Though we cannot fail to perceive the Spirit’s agency in all his interpretations of dreams, in all his visions of the future, and in all the allusions found in him to the anointing of Christ the Most Holy (Dan. ix. 24), yet the phrase “ Spirit of God” is not found in him. In the writings of EZEKIEL, the expression, “the Spirit,” “the Spirit of God,” or “my Spirit,’ very frequently occurs. Thus the prophet says: “The Spirit entered into me” (ii. 2) ; “The Spirit entered into me, and set me upon my feet, and spake with me” (ii. 24); “The Spirit lifted me up, and took me away” (11.14); “The Spirit brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem” (viii. 3) ; “ Afterwards the Spirit took me up, and brought me in a vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea, to them of the captivity” (xi. 24). And all the great promises announced by Ezekiel have very express refer- ence to the converting and sanctifying grace of the Spirit promised to Israel in connection with their restoration to the divine favour. Whether all is still future, or whether the promise to put the Spirit within them was fulfilled on their return from Babylon, has long been a point on which conflict- ing views prevail: “JZ will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and anew spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them” (Ezek. xxxvi, 25-27). Grotius, Greenhill, and others incline to the opinion which connects the fulfilment of the prophecy with the simple restoration of the remnant who came back from their seventy years’ exile in Babylon; others absolutely connect the prophecy with the future. Perhaps it may best THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 41 be regarded as a germinant prediction, having a partial or incipient accomplishment, and a full and complete accom- plishment. It certainly sets forth the justification or cleansing of their persons, and the Renovation of the Holy Ghost. As a consequence of the cleansing which should be given, and of the Spirit which should be put within the Israelitish Church and nation, it depicts a remarkable change of disposition, character, and manners which should be produced. The promised sprinkling with clean water is the reality of what was typified by the water mingled with the ashes of the heifer, and sprinkled upon persons and things to purify those who were defiled, and to render them clean and holy in the eye of the law (Num, xix. 2). The inward renewing of the people from moral and spiritual defects, indissolubly connected with the former, though distinguished from it, is emphatically ascribed to the irresistible grace of the Spirit of God. The agency used in taking away the insensibility of the stony heart, and making it a heart of flesh, susceptible and tender, is expressly ascribed to the Holy Spirit, called “my Spirit,” within them. Two other memorable prophecies denote the same thing, though couched in highly figurative language, and given in the form of vision.—the reanimation of the dry bones in the valley of vision, when the prophet was commanded to prophesy to the Spirit (Ezek. xxxvii. 1); and the rapid outflow of waters, swelling into a river, from under the threshold of the house of God (chap. xlvii. 1), which seems elsewhere to be called the river of the water of life (Rev. xxii. 1). AFTER THE BABYLONIAN EXILE. The prophecy of HaGaat announced, for the comfort of the Israelitish Church, that though the external glory of the second temple should be inconsiderable as compared with the first temple, they were to entertain no fear, because THE 492 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. Sprrit should remain among them, a help in their infirmities, as well as the source of grace, of light, of comfort, and of holiness (Hag. 11. 5). In the prophet ZECHARIAH we find two explicit allusions to the Spirit’s agency,—one for the time of the prophet, another for the remote future of the chosen people. Amid discouragements which might otherwise have depressed Zerub- babel the ruler, the prophet was commissioned to show— (1) that the maintenance of the Church was not dependent on the resources of worldly kingdoms, but on God’s Spirit: “ Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts” (Zech. iv. 6). And this assurance was fortified by the significant and suggestive vision of the candlestick and of the two olive trees. (2) Another promise of the Spirit was in connection with the memorable prophecy of Israel's repentance, unexampled mourning, and return to the crucified Messiah. The titles given to the Spirit in this passage are full of significance. He is called THE SprriT OF GRACE, which implies that He is not only given to us in the exercise of the free love of God, but that He is the cause of all the grace by which we are at once accepted in the Beloved and regenerated at the time of our first conversion, as well as the author of the assurance or certainty that we have found grace in God’s sight. He is also called tHE SPIRIT OF SUPPLICATION, because He is the author of all the prayer which individual Believers and the Church pour out before the Father through the merits of the crucified Saviour. The promise in the prophet was to the effect that He should be the Spirit of grace and sup- plication to the house of David in the latter days, and effect the national conversion of the people amid the deepest ex- pressions of sorrow and mourning (Zech, xii. 10). We only further notice the allusions to the Holy Spirit in NEHEMIAH and in the Book of Curonictes. In Nehemiah it is said, with special reference to the way in which the Jewish nation vexed the Spirit during their day of merciful THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 43 visitation: “ Many years didst Thou forbear them, and testifiedst aguinst them BY Tuy SPIRIT in the prophets” (Neh. ix. 30). The passage means that the Holy Spirit moved the prophets, and spoke by them as organs whom He conde- scended to employ in the revelation of His mind and will. The allusions to the Holy Spirit in the Book of Chronicles record two historical occasions when the Spirit, coming on the prophets Jahaziel and Zechariah, prompted them to declare the mind of God. The one was a great crisis, when Jahaziel awakened the people’s courage and confidence in God in the immediate prospect of a great battle (2 Chron. xx. 14). The other was an equally great crisis, when the prophet Zecha- riah, filled with the Spirit, was commissioned to reprove the people for their sins, but fell a victim to their fierce and fiery resentment (2 Chron. xxiv. 20). All these memorable instances in the history of Israel which we have surveyed, disclose to us the Holy Spirit in the work of imparting the superhuman gift of prophecy to a few, and the comforting power of the Spirit to the many. The Old Testament Church was in many respects different from the New Testament Church; the former being more occupied with externals, the latter being privileged to have a worship which may be described as more in Spirit and in truth. But the divine personality of the Spirit, as we have clearly seen, was not less known and not less recognised in the one economy than in the other. He who spoke by holy men from the beginning was in every age recognised as a DIVINE PERSON. THE TESTIMONY TO THE SPIRIT IN THE GOSPELS AND Book or ACTS. A long pause ensued from the last of the prophets to the time when the Spirit of God again spoke by revelation. After an interval of nearly four hundred years the long-expected time of fulfilment arrived, and we no sooner take up the 44 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. evangelist’s narrative of the incarnation than we find, as was to be expected, the same important place occupied by the Holy Spirit. We shall endeavour here again to give an out- line of the Scripture testimony in the same historical. way. It will be found, on examination, that the Holy Spirit is referred to more or less copiously by every New Testament writer. Not only so; there is not a single New Testament book drawn up as a public document for the Church which does not contain a marked, though often brief, allusion to the Holy Spirit, and very frequently, if not always, in connection with the main design or scope which the writer had in view. The only exceptions are found in the three small Epistles of a more private nature,—the Epistle to Philemon, and the Second and Third Epistles of John. In every book more specially prepared for public and ecclesiastical use, the allusion to the Spirit is most explicit. It will be my object, without attempting a commentary on all these passages, which would carry us over too vast a field, to put together the cumulative evidence which they supply. Except in some passages which cannot be passed over without fuller elucidation, a few words of comment will for the most part suffice. All the evangelists refer to the Holy Spirit in connection with the birth, baptism, and temptation of our Lord. Of all the New Testament writers, next to Paul, Luke most fre- ' quently reverts to it. We should be disappointed, however, if we sought in him a fuil explanation of the nature and pro- perties of the Spirit, when his principal object was to sketch the supernatural and miraculous works of the Spirit in the first founding of Christianity. There was no denial and no dispute at that time as to the divine personality of the Holy Spirit. We find that the doctrine of the Spirit taught by the Baptist, by Christ, and by the apostles, was in every respect the same as that with which the Old Testament Church was familiar, We nowhere find that their Jewish hearers on any THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 45 occasion took exception to it. The teaching of our Lord and His apostles on this topic never called forth a question or an opposition from any quarter,—a plain proof that on this subject nothing was taught by them which came into collision with the sentiments and opinions which up to that time had been accepted and still continued to be current among the Jews. The fundamental idea connected with the Messiah, that He SHOULD BE ANOINTED WITH THE SPIRIT, was still an undoubted doctrine; nor were the apostles ever compelled to meet doubts or to disarm opposition in the Jewish mind on this point. The title CHRIstT or MESSIAH was given to the Redeemer from the peculiar unction of the Spirit conferred on Him, which was unique in nature and in degree. The different servants of God who were filled with the Spirit, but in a far other way, illustrate this remark by contrast. To begin with, the promise which the angel Gabriel gave respecting the Baptist. He was to be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother’s womb, and go before the Lord Jesus in the Spirit and power of Elias (Luke i. 15-17). The words mean that he should be FILLED and immediately directed by the Spirit in the discharge of his prophetic function, and that though he did not work miracles like Elijah, for obvious reasons, he was supplied with gifts of wisdom and courage, holiness, zeal, and power, for the purpose of proclaiming the law and gospel to a corrupt and self-righteous generation. Of Elizabeth, Zacharias, and Simeon, we read that they were FILLED with the Holy Ghost, and gave forth inspired announcements of the divine will (Luke i. 42, 67, 11, 25). But with Christ it was wholly different. The infinite fulness of the Spirit which was given to Him was constant and uninterrupted, and the result of the hypostatic union—that is, was the effect of humanity being assumed into personal union by the only-begotten Son. The Baptist, going before Him in the Spirit and power of Elijah, combined the two thoughts when he announced a Person 46 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. pre-existent and divine, who was before him (John i. 15), and one not merely receiving the absolute fulness of the Spirit, but DISPENSING THE Spirit. The Messiah, according to the Baptist, was to baptize with the Spirit and with fire (Matt. iii, 11), which places Him in a different category from the Old Testament judges and prophets. That authority to give the Spirit was the culminating point of Christ’s exaltation. It has been alleged by Schmid‘ that this prediction of the Baptist was a thought unknown to the Old Testament prophets, and that it wholly transcended their range of view. It might have been difficult for any one to find this truth in the language of the prophets, apart from the light reflected upon them by the New Testament statements. But we may affirm that it was there, to the satisfaction of those who could see it or should use aright the key when it should afterwards be given to them; for the Messiah was to receive gifts for men (Ps, Ixvili. 10), and to be anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows (Ps. xlv. 7); nay, that He should pour out the Spirit of grace and supplication (Zech. xii. 10). And that this could be none other than the Messiah is evident from the addition: “And they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn.” The baptism with the Spirit and with fire, which John contrasts with his own baptism, implies that the Spirit should be dispensed by the hand of the Messiah, and that He who had this power must be an accepted Mediator'as well as a divine Person. But it also intimates an abundant communication of the Spirit’s extraordinary and sanctifying gifts. THE SAYINGS OF OUR LORD ON THE SPIRIT. We come next to THE SAYINGS OF JESUS on the doctrine of the Spirit, and it is worthy of notice that on several points, and especially on the inscrutable relations of the Trinity, we 1 See C. F. Schmid’s Biblische Theologie des N. T. p. 164, Stuttgart 1859. THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 47 find, as was to be expected, disclosures from His lips more definite and ample than are expressed by any of His servants, whether prophets or apostles. In His last discourses, spoken in the midst of His disciples (John xiv.—xvi.), He set forth for their comfort and for the Church’s instruction the essential as well as economical relations in which the Holy Spirit stood to Him, and also the mission of the Spirit. for the guidance of apostles and the application of redemption, in a manner more full and ample than we find in any other part of Scripture. He shows (1) that the Father should send the Holy Spirit IN HIS NAME (xiv. 26), a statement which implies that the Spirit, previously forfeited and withdrawn from mankind in consequence of sin, should, on the ground of His merits and intercession as the Mediator, be sent by the Father for all the purposes of His redemption. He shows (2) that the Spirit should be dispensed or given by His hand. This He repeatedly announced, and much more explicitly than was ever done by the Baptist. We dind that there are two principal divisions of our Lord’s sayings on the subject of the Spirit,—those which describe the Spirit’s work in conversion, and those which describe the Spirit’s work on the mind of apostles and of the Church in general, Those sayings which describe the Spirit’s work in conversion, will be most fitly adduced afterwards (Lect. IV.). Christ also promised the Holy Spirit to His believing “disciples .as rivers of living water: “Jf any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should recewe: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given ; because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John vii. 37-39). We have to notice first Christ’s saying, and then the apostolic commentary appended to it. While water is in certain passages the. element of cleansing, it is introduced here and 48 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. elsewhere (Isa. lv. 1) as the element of quenching thirst. They who are said in a religious sense to thirst have a painful feeling of want, and desire relief in the only way in which they can attain it. Two things are included in the invitation. They are desired TO COME, which simply means to believe, as is evident from the alternated expression employed in another passage (John vi. 35), implying a misery from which they escape, and a fountain, that is, the Saviour, to which they are invited to repair; and they are desired to DRINK, for in no case can the sense of thirst be removed by merely looking at the fountain. The terms thus conjoined, COME and DRINK, mean faith, but are no mere tautology. They are the incipient, and the enlarged or continued exercise of the same erace of faith. And it is promised that from the heart of this believing disciple there should well up or flow out rivers of living water, which intimate precisely the same thing as Christ said to the woman of Samaria (John iv. 14). The meaning is not that the Spirit flows from one disciple to another,—for none can so give the Spirit,—but that the Spirit as a flowing river quenches the thirst and satisfies the desires, so that the soul no longer thirsts for any other object. The promise is not to apostles alone, for that ulterior promise following faith in Christ is made definite: He that believeth on me. But this by no means presupposes that the believing disciple has, by his own self-determining power, produced this faith without the teaching of the Father (John vi. 45), the drawing of the Son (xii. 32), of the life-giving power of the Spirit (vi. 63). The terms of the apostolic commentary subjoined are very significant. They show that Christ meant’ the Spirit, and that all the inward satisfaction, rest, peace, joy, and assurance ~ flowing into the soul and quenching its thirst, are the result of the Spirit’s operation. When John says that Christ spoke of the Spirit which believers should receive, he explains why Jesus used the future tense and not the past: rivers of living THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 49 water shall flow. But the apostle adds that “the Spirit was not yet,” because Christ’s glorification had not yet arrived, He does not mean that the Spirit did not yet exist,—for all Scripture attests His eternal pre-existence,—nor_that His regenerating efficacy was still unkndéwn,—for countless millions had been regenerated by His power since the first promise in Eden,—but that these operations of the Spirit had been but an anticipation of the atoning death of Christ rather than a GIvING. The apostle speaks comparatively, not absolutely, as is always done when the old and new economy are contrasted. Christ’s testimony to the Spirit contained special reference to the Comforter (John xiv. 16-xvi. 7). As further allusion will be made to these promises, it may here suffice to enumerate the passages and give their scope. For wise reasons, the Lord reserved His special teaching on the Holy Spirit to His last evening on the earth, that the donation of the Spirit might be connected in the mind of the disciples with His vicarious sacrifice, and that He might be expected as Christ’s Deputy. We are reminded of this antecedent and consequent when He speaks of sending the Spirit (John xv. 26), of giving the Spirit (vii. 39), of pouring out the Spirit (Joel ii. 28), of kindling a fire on the earth (Luke xu. 49). The culminating point of Christ’s exultation was to have the authority or power of baptizing with the Holy Ghost, as foretold by John the Baptist and announced by the Lord Himself (Acts i. 5). The authority to give the Spirit was assigned to the Son as the reward of His finished work. That no one might suppose that the Spirit’s dependence on the Father is removed, Christ says: “Whom I will send to you from the Father” (John xv. 26). And to show that this was done at Christ’s intercession and request, He says: will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Com- forter” (John xiv. 16); that is, to compensate them for their great loss in losing the visible presence of their Lord. D 50 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. To be convinced of the importance which Christ attached to the mission of the Spirit, we have only to recall the terms in which He four times refers to the Paraclete or Comforter. Whether we render the word TEACHER with some, or HELPER with others, or ADVOCATE and Patron with others, or abide by the translation ComrorTer, with which we are most familiar, the tenor of the promise implies that He was to be sent at Christ’s intercession, and to act as His Deputy. A brief summary of the different operations of the Com- forter may be set forth as follows. He was, after Christ's departure from the world, to take the Saviour’s place, and in all cases of official duty or emergency to impart the necessary aid. He was to remind the apostles what Christ had taught them; He was to give them clearer and more extensive communications in referenee to the doctrine of Jesus; He was to unfold to them what they did not com- prehend when the Lord was with them. They were to be under the perpetual direction and superintendence of the Spirit, and supported by Him in the proclamation of the gospel wherever they should be sent,— promises which imparted to them the greatest calmness, and gave rise to the most joyful state of mind. Such a close union is repre- sented as existing between the Son and the Spirit, that it almost seems from the passages which describe the indwelling of the Spirit as if they were identical. But that is only in appearance. For Scripture represents Christ as sending the Spirit to giorify Him,—to supply His place,—to lead the disciples into all truth, and to imbue the minds of the apostles with an immediate revelation of the divine will. : The Lord Jesus, in the evening of the first resurrection day, first began to GIVE THE HoLy Spirit to the apostles assembled in one place. And to make the occasion sig- nificant, He breathed on them, and said: “ Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” It has often been affirmed by expositors that THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 51 this was but a pledge or promise accompanied with a sym- bolic action, and awaiting its accomplishment on the day of Pentecost. The words, however, must be accepted as they stand, and in their full significance. They intimate an actual donation of the Holy Ghost, not an allusion to the gift con- ferred fifty days afterwards. The atonement was already a completed fact, and accepted by the Father; the ever- lasting righteousness was actually brought in; every barrier to the communication of the Spirit was now removed; and the Lord did not deal in empty symbols or mere terms. He bestowed what the words imply when He said: “ Receive ye the Holy Ghost” (John xx. 22). This interpretation enables us to dispose of two misleading opinions which have obtained greater currency than could have been supposed. (1) It is held by not a few, such as Stier, Wardlaw, and others, that the apostles acted with undue precipitance in filling up the vacant apostleship, because the promised effusion of the Spirit was not received. The doubts raised by Stier against the steps taken to supply the place from which Judas by transgression fell, carry more serious consequences than the propounders of that inter- pretation imagine. It is of no avail to say, If the Spirit came in the room of Christ, it would have been more natural for Him to nominate the new apostle. The answer is, The Spirit was actually doing so through the Church. When it is said, Is it not possible that the apostles, with all their intellectual knowledge and childlike confidence, might err? the answer is, That the Lord, in breathing upon them and imparting the Spirit, intimated that what they remitted or retained would be ratified in heaven; and as for the comparison between Matthias and Paul, whom Stier refers to as alone filling the vacant place, it is sufficient to say that Paul calls himself “one born out of due time.” The whole college of apostles, to whom the Lord said: “ Receive ye the Holy Ghost,” cannot be supposed to have erred in 59 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. their interpretation of the psalm (Ps. cix. 8), or in the further step of publicly filling up the vacant office. (2) Another error is the modern notion propounded by the Plymouth Brethren, that believers are not to pray for the Holy Spirit, because He was once for all given on the day of Pentecost, and that the Christian body may not pray for what is already possessed. That rash and presumptuous position, by whomsoever it is held, is discredited by the fact that the apostles who had received the Holy Ghost on the first resurrection day continued with one accord in prayer and supplication for the promise of the Father (Acts i. 14). They prayed for the Spirit though they had received the Spirit. They waited for more of the Spirit that they had, in compliance with their Lord’s command. This is the true attitude of the Christian Church in every age. And the history of the apostles shows that not once, but on many occasions, they were made partakers of the baptism of the Spirit and fire. THE EFFUSION OF THE SPIRIT ON PENTECOST. The importance of the Book of Acts as the historic narrative of the public effusion of the Spirit cannot be over-estimated. It shows how the first disciples received the ascension gifts, and went forth equipped with them to found the Christian Church. We learn that the little company, obedient to the Lord’s command, tarried in Jerusalem, not forming plans how they should appear in public, but wrestling in prayer till they were endued with power from on high. At length all that was comprehended in Christ’s farewell discourses found its wonderful accomplishment when the day of Pente- cost was fully come. The significance of the Pentecost may be noticed .in connection with the Passover, the one referring to the Redemption, the other to the New Covenant, as in the THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 53 history of Israel. Pentecost, the fiftieth day from the Pass- over, and from the exodus out of Egypt, was the feast of First-fruits, and also, according to Jewish belief, the day when the Law was proclaimed from Sinai. Both facts have their proper import. Regarded as the feast of First-fruits, the Pentecost furnished the first-fruits of the world’s con- version at the outpouring of the Spirit. Regarded as the commemoration day of the Sinai Covenant, which made the Jews a kingdom of priests, it was a fitting occasion for the removal of the old economy and the erection of the new, and to be the espousals-day of the Christian Church. | A new revelation from God to man must needs be inaugu- rated with supernatural signs and miracles. As the Sinaitic Covenant was set up in a miraculous way, it is obvious that when the time arrived for its abrogation the new economy that superseded it must be ushered in by similar miracles. As God came down on the mount in a supernatural way, so did He bear witness to the apostles by signs and wonders and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost (Heb. ii. 4) ; or, as some will have it, the glory of the Lord, the Shechinah or fiery pillar, again appeared. The greatest event in all history, next to the incarnation and atonement, was the mission of the Comforter; for it will continue, while the world lasts, to diffuse among men the stream of the divine life. The Pentecost was the great day of the Holy Ghost, the opening of the river of the water of life. As Goodwin’ says: “ He must have a coming in state, in a solemn and visible manner, accompanied with visible effects as well as Christ had, and whereof all the Jews should be, and were witnesses.” Not only so; there must be a Church which at its commencement should give the clearest indica- tions of its heavenly origin. That was the great birthday of the Christian Church. 1 Goodwin’s Works, vol. vi. p. 8. 54 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. The Christian economy was inaugurated amid supernatural manifestations which could not be questioned. When the reality came, the shadow passed away. The Jewish economy gave place before that which was to comprehend all nations. Now the New Covenant founded on better promises began (Jer, xxxi. 31; Ezek. xxxvi. 25). The noise as of a rush- ing mighty wind intimating that the Spirit is the divine breath of life, and reminding them of the strong wind in Ezekiel’s vision that made the dry bones live; the flame of fire probably reminding them of the Shechinah; and the cloven tongues like as of fire, significant of an inexplicable and miraculous power of speaking in every language, and of filling men’s hearts with the glow of divine love, constituted the solemn and public consecration of Christ’s ambassadors for the founding of a Church which should fill the whole earth, and into which all nations should flow. The fire from heaven testifying the acceptance of Aaron’s and Elijah’s sacrifice was even in the Old Testament an emblem of the Holy Spirit. God was well pleased with all that had been done. Thus the Pentecost was openly signalized as the day of the mission of the Comforter. The apostles had some experience of the nature of their calling from the mission on which Christ had sent them while yet with them ; but now they came forth with a public testimony, not only to Christ’s Messiahship, but to the great salvation purchased by His death. The Holy Spirit, as the promised Paraclete, took the place of Christ’s corporeal presence, They were led by the Spirit into all truth, and the tongues were a conclusive proof that the persons to whom such gifts were imparted spoke by divine inspiration, and that it was not so much they as the Spirit that spoke the words. The great effusion on the day of Pentecost did not mean a religious mood of mind or a pious enthusiasm, but that THEY WERE FILLED with the personal Holy Ghost. Though some THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 55 have a difficulty in accepting the literal meaning of these terms, because they seem to imply a local limitation which, of course, cannot be applied to the omnipresent Spirit, it may be proper to remark that they have no more difficulty than that the Spirit made, preserves, and governs the soul of ~ man. The meaning is, that they received a rich measure of the Spirit to fill the human faculties, and such communica- tions, gifts, and operations as were needed to prepare them for their work. They were filled according to their capacity and mental conformation, but in such a way that there was not only ample variety, but room for increase and enlargement of the earthen vessel. Nor does the expression refer only to extraordinary communications. The ordinary sanctifying gifts are not to be excluded. One thing they all had to perform— to confess the truth; and courage was supplied by the Spirit. The transforming power of the Spirit so filled them that the timid became bold, the selfish self-denied, the arrogant humble ; the ambitious aspirants after distinction ceased to seek great things for themselves. They felt that all gifts were from the Lord and for the Church’s welfare; and jealousy and envy vanished. . } The effusion of the Spirit made a great change on all the powers of the apostles, whether we look at their heart or at their understanding. They received a knowledge such as they never had before of the great work which Jesus had finished for man’s salvation, and betrayed no longer the per- verse idea that the Messiah’s kingdom was to be of a worldly nature. They perceived in His whole earthly obedience the grand ransom necessary to procure a spiritual redemption. And they were in full accord with the Lord’s instructions on all the principal topics of religion. But special reference must be made to those extraordinary gifts conferred by the sovereign gift of Christ on the day of Pentecost, which continued all through the apostolic age, and _which were not only very various, but wholly distinct from 56 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. the ordinary sanctifying or ministerial gifts which continue in the Church through all her history. The supernatural or extraordinary gifts were temporary, and intended to disappear when the Church should be founded and the inspired canon of Scripture closed; for they were an external proof of an internal inspiration. In describing them we shall follow the enumeration given by Paul (1 Cor. xii, 8-11). Of all the miraculous gifts the chief and highest was THE GIFT OF PROPHECY, which was intended—whether we look at the Old Testament or the New—to be more of an official than personal nature, for revealing the divine counsels for the edification and comfort of the Church. The gift of prophecy and the field it covered —whether we look at it simply as prediction, or as the revelation of the divine will in general—forms so vast a theme, that we can do no more than refer to it. What manifold and various communications were made by the prophets previous to the completion of the canon, how they revealed the present and future counsels of God, and how they spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, are points known only to the Lord, who gave them their commission and message. Another supernatural gift was THE GIFT OF TONGUES, the power of speaking in foreign languages which had never been acquired ;—a great work of the Holy Ghost, which gave a sort of visibility to the inward inspiration by which their mind was guided and controlled. ‘Peter unaided could only speak his Galilean dialect, which easily betrayed him, as we see in Pilate’s judgment hall; but now he could, in company with his colleagues, command without difficulty the attention of educated hearers, who heard them speak in their own tongue the wonderful works of God. Many, interpreting the narrative of Acts in the light of the peculiar allusions to the gift of tongues referred to in the Epistles to the Corinthians, put another construction on the phrase. They interpret the THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 57 expression in the latter case as a speaking in ecstasy. That is the modern German speculation, devised to escape the full admission of the extraordinary miracle. But it is a mis- interpretation, and a violence to the terms used in all the passages. ‘The gift was wholly miraculous. The apostles at the moment of inspiration received the extraordinary endowment which qualified them to utter new words, wholly unknown before, and to express by means of them sentiments and doctrines which arrested, convinced, and enlightened the mind of those whom the Holy Ghost was leading to the Saviour. Whatever difficulties we in this age may have in understand- ing the mode by which the operation was accomplished, there can be no doubt that amid a conflux of people from remote lands, no more appropriate or powerful means could be employed to extend the gospel than that use of foreign languages,—intimating as it did that the gospel, unlike the limitations of Judaism, was not for one people, but for all people. It filled the hearers with amazement and admiration. To speak a new language by the sudden influence of the Spirit exceeded all the powers of nature, and afforded. a sure testimony to the presence and omnipotence of the Holy Ghost. But in the Church it had comparatively little value; for tongues were for a sign not to them that believed, but to them that believed not (1 Cor. xiv. 22). The apostle, therefore, when he heard that this gift was coveted for the mere purpose of ostentatious display, took occasion to reprove the Corinthians for that perversion (1 Cor. xii. 20-32). An allied gift was the INTERPRETATION OF TONGUES, differing from the former only in this, that these interpreters, not having the gift of tongues, were enabled by the same Spirit to understand and explain the languages which were used. They thus possessed in interpretation what they wanted in utterance. In certain cases these related gifts were conjoined ip Gor, xiv 5), The WORD OF WISDOM, the first named among the gifts, 58 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. must not be reckoned an ordinary gift (1 Cor. xii. 8). With- out accepting the ingenious definitions which have been pro- pounded, it may be affirmed that as wisdom, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, is that mental endowment by which one regulates his life and plans most surely to gain the ultimate end; so wisdom, as an extraordinary gift, differed from the former only in this, that it was bestowed on the cifted persons by the immediate effusion of the Holy Spirit. But as the apostle calls it not only wisdom, but THE WORD OF WISDOM, we must understand a singular faculty of pointing out the way of wisdom, both by their counsels and their life, to those who were of weaker judgment and capacity. And the same thing holds true of those who are in the same verse repre- sented as endowed with the WORD OF KNOWLEDGE by the same Spirit. As the apostles, from the nature of their office, could not long reside within the bounds of any single city or congre- gation, and as they deemed it enough to lay the foundations of Christian doctrine as to repentance, faith, and the lke (Heb. vi. 1), an extraordinary gift of illumination was given to certain members of the Church, in order that the new- born babes, as they are termed by Peter, might grow and increase in knowledge. Next to these the apostle enumerates the GIFT OF FAITH. We need scarcely remark that by that expression we are not to understand saving faith, the like precious faith common to all believers, but the extraordinary faith, or faith of miracles, relating to those displays of divine power which tended to the glory of God. It may be considered also as a display ot confidence or world-overcoming faith in the presence of dangers peculiar to themselves or to others. There seems also to have been a certain counteracting or repelling power which, in imminent perils from demons, noxious animals, or the elements of nature, deprived them of the power to injure (Mark xvi. 18 ; Acts xxviii. 5). Faith was often needed to confront dangers with a confident mind. THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 59 Allusion is next made to GIFTS OF HEALING and working of MIRACLES by the same Spirit (ver. 9). The apostle distributes his classification of the extraordinary gifts in this way, because they were not all in the hand of any one man, but divided according to the Spirit’s sovereign pleasure. Though the apostles seem to have possessed all the supernatural gifts, it does not follow that this held true of other disciples. As to the working of miracles by a power far transcending man’s energy or skill, we need not make a special enumeration of the many operations of that nature. They are said to be by the same Spirit,—one and the same Spirit distributing these miraculous operations to each man severally as he pleased. They were sometimes called wonders (répata), from the effect of those astonishing interventions, and signs (onpeta), because they indicated an efficient cause which was alone adequate to work such prodigies and to lead men to God their Creator. Another supernatural gift was the power of DISCERNING SPIRITS, which, for wise reasons, was conferred on many in the primitive Church to unmask Satan’s devices (ver. 10). ‘The adversary, incessantly active in sowing tares, never failed to send the blighting influence of false teachers, who ceased not to deceive others, and might themselves be deceived. Great evils, as the Scriptures everywhere testify, resulted from this to the Church. To obviate these perils, the Spirit im- parted to certain members of the Church the gift of discern- ing spirits; in consequence of which these gifted disciples, in a way far transcending human wisdom, were enabled to warn the Church. Such were the supernatural gifts of the Holy Ghost with which the disciples were amply supplied and adorned. And as is clearly indicated by Paul’s exhortations to Timothy, they might be either stirred up and increased, or neglected (1 Tim. iv. 14; 2 Tim. i. 6). They were not possessed by all, but distributed among those who possessed them by a sovereign disposal, and probably according to the mental conformation 60 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. which each one had received by nature. Nor were they invariably confined to true disciples; for we find undoubted allusions to the fact that these extraordinary gifts were some- times wielded by temporary disciples, such as Judas, to whom at last the Lord shall say: “I never knew you” (Matt. vii. 23). - The power of the Spirit is seen in that agency that acted on the day of Pentecost. We trace the action of the Holy Spirit in uniting a company of disciples in prayer and supplication, and in animating them to continue waiting for the promise of the Father. And the action of the disciples in all times and countries is analogous. Not only so; the instruments by whom the Spirit works are prepared for service in an analogous way, that is, with the sole exception of the supernatural and extraordinary accom- paniments. They are Christians first, then called to labour. This is brought under our notice in the most impressive manner, when we consider how the first disciples were prepared for service. Their gifts were there so far as these were natural endowments; but they knew them not them- selves; and they were required to wait for the Spirit in the attitude of humble suppliants till they were endued with power from on high; a preparation so necessary, that had they precipitately proceeded to work without that power, they would have accomplished nothing. To evince the ereatness of the change to be wrought upon them, we have only to recall the ignorance and darkness which covered their minds, notwithstanding the instructions which they had received. The Book of Acts narrates the operations of the Spirit. When persecution at length broke out, the disciples, pour- ing out their united prayers, were all filled with the Holy Ghost (iv. 31). The terrible discipline displayed on Ananias and Sapphira for an act of attempted deception, which pro- ceeded on the supposition that they could overreach the omniscient Spirit that dwelt in the apostles and spoke in THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 61 them, filled the whole community with awe, and vindicated the honour due to the Holy Ghost. And we see the Church after a time of persecution walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost (ix. 31). Without tracing the history of the Spirit’s operations, let me succinctly state the general scope of the Book of Acts. It sketches the movements of the kingdom of God; it Sea men full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom (vi. 3, xi. 24); narrates the appointment of the labourers, and the disposal ‘ their services. It shows, as Luther happily remarks, that the Holy Spirit was given, not by the law, but by the hearing of ° the gospel. We trace how men were summoned to serve God, and were owned as well as guided and controlled in the prosecution of their work. The sovereign Spirit, as a personal agent, directed the Church at Antioch to send forth Barnabas and Saul, saying: “Separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereto I have called them.” We see the Spirit prompting Philip to join himself to the eunuch’s chariot, and directing Cornelius to send for Peter, as well as directing Peter to go and receive the first Gentile into the Church. We see the Spirit prompting at one time and hindering at another (Acts xvi. 6). THE TESTIMONY TO THE SPIRIT IN THE APOSTOLICAL EPISTLES. The apostolic testimony to the Holy Spirit was given according to a fivefold type—that of Paul, of Peter, of James, of Jude, and of John. The allusions in the Epistles, and especially in the whole compass of Paul’s teaching, are so numerous that they must rather be put Pee than ex- pounded at length. One preliminary remark may be made. The apostles take for granted, with full consent, the general corruption of man’s nature, and refer to the Spirit as the originator and source of all the saving, sanctifying, and comforting influences which ~ 62 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. Christians experience (Eph. iii. 16; Rom. xv. 13). How the renewing of the Holy Ghost is harmonized with the freedom of the will, they stopped not to inquire, as if these points were no part of their concern. But the fact of men’s responsibility along with the proclamation of converting grace and the renewing of the Spirit, is set forth with a solemnity and urgency to which the solution of these questions, if it were possible to solve them, could add no further weight. THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL. In none of the apostles do we find so many allusions as in the Epistles of Paul to the Spirit’s work in the full extent of His saving and sanctifying operations. Besides other reasons which might be mentioned, this may be ascribed to the fact that Paul had not known Christ after the flesh (2 Cor. v. 16), and received his revelations more in the * way of inward communication by the Spirit than by outward intercourse with his Lord, though he also received.the latter. And accordingly,in the memorable passage where he says: “ Now the Lord is that Spirit ” (2 Cor. iii. 17), the close con- nection in which he places Christ and the Spirit shows how fully he apprehended their joint mission, and how emphati- cally he intimates that Christ is never to be conceived of apart from the Spirit, nor the Spirit conceived of apart from Him. To the impartial inquirer who only seeks the truth, the Apostle Paul conveys, with sufficient evidence, a testimony to the divine dignity of the Spirit, when we find him saying in the Book of Acts, that the Holy Ghost spoke by the prophet Isaiah (Acts xxviii. 25); that the Spirit testified from city to city, that bonds and imprisonment awaited him (xx. 23); when he declares that the Holy Ghost sustained him in his ministry (Rom. xv. 19); when he appeals to the Holy Ghost, and calls Him to witness (Rom. ix. 1); when THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 63 he uses the same expression, SENT FORTH (é£améorevAev), to describe the mission of the Spirit that he employed to describe the mission of the Son (Gal. iv. 4-6). But we shall find, as we proceed, other proofs even more express. When we survey the names or titles of the Spirit in Paul’s Epistles, they are numerous. Thus He is called the Spirit of God (Rom. viii. 9), the Spirit of His Son (Gal. iv. 6), the Spirit of Christ (Rom. viii. 9), the Spirit of Him that raised up Christ from the dead (Rom. viii. 11). If we look at the economy in virtue of which the Spirit is sent, He is said to be shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour (Tit. ii. 6). If we survey His titles as derived from the benefits and blessings which He confers, and of which He is the immediate author, He is called the Spirit that dwelleth in us (Rom. viii. 11), the Spirit of grace (Heb. x, 29), the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus (Eph. i. 17), the Spirit of adoption (Rom. viii. 15), the Spirit of life (Rom. viii. 2), the Spirit of meekness (Gal. vi. 1), the Spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind (2 Tim. i. 7), The commencement of the Christian life, as contrasted with the previous sinful life, is uniformly ascribed by the apostle to the Holy Ghost. Thus he says: “No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost ” (1 Cor. xil. 3); and again: “He saved us by the washing [laver] of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Tit. iii. 5), Whether we refer this expression: the laver of regeneration, to baptism or not, certainly the last term, the renewing of the Holy Ghost, must be construed as referring to the active operation of the Spirit at the commencement of the Christian life. As it is the shedding or pouring out of the Spirit (éfexeev) to which salvation is traced, this cannot be referred to mere doctrine. The personal Spirit is mentioned as the producing cause. If it is asked in what sense can men be said to be saved by the renewing of the Holy Ghost, when the salvation is in Christ, the answer is obvious. There is a 64 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. series of truths of which no link can be awanting. We are saved by the divine purpose, for God hath chosen us _ to salvation ; we are saved by the atonement as the meritorious cround of all; we are saved by faith as the bond of union to Christ ; we are saved by grace as contrasted with works done ; we are saved by the truth as conveying God’s testimony ; and we are saved, as it is here expressed, by the renewing of the Holy Ghost, as producing faith in the heart. The special work of the Spirit in conversion is thus proved to be as essentially necessary and indispensable as any other link in the chain. The apostle further speaks of saving blessings which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, revealed to us by the Spirit (1 Cor. 11. 10); and he adds that we receive not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we may know the things that are freely given to us of God (1 Cor. ii. 12). When the Spirit is called “the Spirit of faith,” that is, the AUTHOR or producing cause of faith (2 Cor. iv. 13), according to the uniform meaning of that formula, there can be no more conclusive proof that the commence- ment of the new life must be ascribed to the Holy Spirit. There are three Pauline Epistles which are very full and definite in the elucidation of the doctrine of the Spirit,—viz. the Epistles to the Corinthians, to the Galatians, and to the Romans. I shall first refer to their testimony, but by no means in a minute or exhaustive way, in the above-mentioned order. ) One principal topic found in the EPISTLES To CoRINTH has reference to the personality and work of the Holy Ghost. It was particularly necessary to call the attention of the Corinthian Christians to the personality and presence, the influence and operations, of the Spirit, because they were counteracting his work by attaching undue importance to human wisdom, and pluming themselves on the possession of various supernatural gifts which they owed absolutely to the Spirit, but which were given for a different purpose than display. | THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 65 They dishonoured the Spirit, partly by self-complacency, emu- lation, and contentious partisanship ; partly by their readiness to think lightly of the old licentious tendencies and feelings for which Corinth had only been too notorious, and which all too plainly threatened to return. By the Holy Spirit the apostle did not mean, as some have thought, a mere title of God or of Christ. He meant and taught the personal Holy Ghost, distinct from the Father and ° the Son, but partaker of the same numerical divine nature. He referred to the Spirit sent forth on His mission as the guide and teacher of the Christian Church, whose fellowship as a divine person was invoked in the apostolic benediction (2 Cor. xiii. 14) as the great gift of the Christian Church. He reminded the Corinthians, who were so favoured with a supply of supernatural endowments as to come behind in no gift, that they were the temple of God and inhabited by the Spirit (1 Cor. iii. 16), and then subjoins a warning against defiling it (ver. 17). In the most conclusive way, but without formal proof, the apostle introduces the PERSONALITY AND OMNISCIENCE of the Holy Ghost when He says: “The Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God” (1 Cor. ii, 10). He is thus referred to as personally distinct from God; for He searches the deep things of God. And He who can fathom the plans, the purposes, and deep things of God, must be distinct in person, yet divine in essence. The same divine personality is brought out in connection with the rich profusion of extra- ordinary gifts with which the Christian Church was endowed (1 Cor. xii, 4-6): “Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit: and there are differences of administrations (or ministries), but the same Lord: and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God who worketh all in all.” The Spirit, the producer of the gifts, is thus distinguished from the gifts. But He is also distinct from God, the author of the operations, and from the Lord J esus, the author of the E 66 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. ministries. The import is to the same effect as that which the apostle elsewhere expresses, when he speaks of one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ, and one Spirit who unites Christians in the closest bond of union (1 Cor. vill. 6 ; Eph. iv. 4-6). A personal will is ascribed to Him; for He divides His gifts to every one severally as He will (ver. 11). To the subject of spiritual or miraculous gifts, which occupies a most important place in these Epistles, I need not refer, after the elucidation already given, except to say that they illustrate the peculiar economy of the Holy Spirit. Other passages not less clearly teach the special action of the Spirit in the whole application of redemption. To some of these we shall now allude. (a) “Such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. vi. 11). The three verbs: WASHED, SANCTIFIED, and JUSTIFIED, have such an affinity to each other that they must all be put in one category, as referring to the absolution, sacrificial acceptance, and judicial justification of the Corinthians, compared with their former state as one of guilt, exclusion from God’s presence, and just condemnation. One and the same thing, says Calvin, is expressed by different terms. How far these Christians corresponded individually to their high calling we forbear to inquire. But what we desire to place prominently before our mind is that these saving blessings are referred, first, to the name or merits of Christ as the procuring cause, and then to the Spirit of our God, who made the Corinthians partakers of them by His own effectual application. Plainly this operation of the Spirit is distinguished from the preaching of the gospel. The latter may be, and probably is, included in the phrase: “the name of the Lord Jesus,’ which certainly intimates His merits, and may take in the further thought of the preaching of His merits. But manifestly something more than moral suasion is intimated as to the application of OO THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY, 67 redemption. A power immeasurably greater—that is, the Spirit of our God—is referred to as enlightening their mind and leading them to embrace the great salvation, and to be assured that they were washed, sanctified, and justified. (0) “ The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned ” (1 Cor. ii, 14). Here the apostle, after noticing the unsearchable glory of revelation, and tracing it up to the Spirit of God, sets forth, in the subsequent part of the chapter, that the spiritual discernment and saving reception of it are not less from the Spirit of God than the revelation itself, Ag to the title NATURAL MAN, it is not difficult to apprehend its meaning, if we are content to interpret Scripture by Scripture, without being encum- bered by the language of philosophy. They who are so called are simply those having the animal and _ rational elements of man without the Spirit (Jude 19). The point of the expression, whether we Suppose extreme depravity or not (Jas. iii. 15), is the privation or absence of the Spirit ; and where this is, men do not receive the things of the Spirit,—that is, the atonement and all the saving provisions of the gospel,—and they cannot know them. TI shall not efface the angles of this expression to make it lesg emphatic, nor apologize for the expression being used; for I am only an interpreter ; and with that my duty ends. The natural man is he who is not occupied by the supernatural power of the Spirit. The phrase: “to receive the things” of the Spirit of God, as applied to the word of truth, is a common New Testament expression,—meaning that through grace the word is not only viewed as true, but assented to as good (Acts xvil. 11; 2 Cor. xi. 4; 1 Thess, i. 6). That word the natural man does not receive. But when it is added: “neither can he know them,” expositors and divines in general, of the modern type, transmute the words into will not know them. Heumann and others adduce as corroborative proof q 68 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. for this sense: “He could there do no mighty work because of their unbelief” (Mark vi. 5, 6). But it is a mistaken interpretation. The unbelief of Christ's townsmen at Nazareth was such that they neither brought their dis- eased and helpless friends to receive His miracles, nor came themselves to hear His wisdom; thus limiting or curtailing His opportunity of conferring benefits. Or if we refer the words to the moral obstruction interposed by the unbelief itself, and suppose that Jesus, from a regard to the declarative glory of God, would not proceed to work miracles which were only to be met with scorn and rejection, there is as little warrant for transmuting the apostle’s cannot know into will not know. Why the natural man neither receives nor knows the things of the Spirit of God is next subjoined. The way of salvation by the cross, described as “the things of the Spirit of God,” appears to him absurd; for they are foolishness to him. Though the propositions, as such, in which the doctrines are expressed can be sufficiently apprehended by the natural understanding, he receives them not, neither can he know them, without a supernatural discernment, taste, or relish for them imparted by the Spirit of God. The apostle makes no concealment of the malady, and draws a broad distinction between one who has the Spirit and one who has not the Spirit. . (c) This leads me to notice some of those significant expressions scattered over the Epistles where the Spirit receives express titles from the work which He performs in the application of redemption, especially this title: the Spinit of faith. “We having the same Spirit of faith, according as wt is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak” (2 Cor. iv. 13). The title Sprrir OF FAITH intimates that the Holy Ghost is the author of faith; for all men have not faith; that is, it is not given THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 69 to all, and does not belong to all (2 Thess. iii. 2). The designation means that the producing cause of faith is the Holy Spirit, who produces this effect by that invincible call and invitation which accompanies, according to the good pleasure of His will, the external proclamation of the gospel. The faith, therefore, of which He is the author, is not effected by the hearer’s own strength or by the hearer’s own effectual will (John vi. 44,45; Eph. 11.8; Phil. i.29). But it is also a fruit of Christ’s merits; for, apart from the merits of the Saviour, no benefit can be conferred or can actually take effect upon condemned men (Eph. i. 8). And though the mode in which the Spirit produces faith cannot, in all its outlines, be fully comprehended by believers in this life, of one thing there can be no doubt: He takes out of the heart every hindrance and obstruction, pleasantly persuades the judgment, and gently binds the will—nay, works in us both to will and to do; or, to put it into the words of Jesus, “ Every one, therefore, that hath HEARD AND LEARNED of the Father cometh unto me” (John vi. 45). The word of truth , and the regenerating work of the Spirit are fully distinct, but always concurrent. The special operation of the Spirit inclines the sinner, previously disinclined, to receive the invitations of the gospel; for it is He alone, acting as the , Spirit of faith, that removes the enmity of the carnal mind to those doctrines of the cross which, but for this, would seem to him unnecessary, or foolish and offensive. The apostle, in a profound passage in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, delineates the difference between the Jewish and Christian economy as two different modes of administer- ing one and the same covenant of grace. He contrasts the two in the great points of antithesis between them. But what we have to consider here is their relation to the gift of the Holy Spirit. One important topic bearing on the difference of the two economies, is the supply of the Spirit in the New Testament as contrasted with the Old. This is fully eluci- 70 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. dated by the apostle (2 Cor. iii, 6-18). The New Covenant contrasted with that of Sinai is called THE MINISTRATION OF THE SprriT (2 Cor, iii. 8), because it was a formally different economy. The New Covenant is called THE Spirit, not the letter, because accompanied with the mission of the Comforter and with the powerful operations of the Spirit in a measure and manner unknown before. Among its distinctive privi- leges, the supplies of the Holy Spirit, which were of old promised by the prophets, are conferred in a wholly new way, and with a copiousness not conferred before. The antithesis between the Old and New Covenant is expressed in the striking proposition, which is not without its difficulty: “the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life ” (ver. 6). This may be taken as a general proposition; and when so taken, it will be akin to the words: “It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing” (John vi. 63). If, on the other hand, it refers to the difference of the economies, which seems clearly to be the design of the apostle, the meaning must be, that the former, as a legal and national covenant, largely left men without the quickening Spirit; or that the Spirit of life was not dispensed by that economy. When it is said, with special reference to the New Covenant: “the Spirit giveth life,” the import is that the Spirit of life is now communicated in full and abundant measure; that is, that Christ’s words are spirit and life (John vi. 63), as compared with that shadowy dispensation which has passed away. A brief explanation will serve to remove the difficulty which expositors have found in the passage. Some have thought that the Sinaitic Covenant was simply a covenant of works, wholly different in character from the covenant of grace. That supposition cannot be accepted, for the law is not against the promise of God (Gal. iii 17). The apostle very often speaks of a matter in a certain respect ; that is, not absolutely, but in a certain respect (secundum THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 71 quid), and the statement here made must be so understood. The Sinaitic Covenant, so far as founded on the law of rites and apart from the covenant of grace, which involved the promise of the Holy Spirit, was A KILLING LETTER, not only diverse from the New Covenant, but leaving men in a state of bondage and death, and imparting no relief. A twofold view may be taken of the Sinaitic Covenant. It may be taken more largely or more strictly,—a distinction to be applied as a key to solve many difficulties in the Pauline Epistles. Taken more largely, the Sinaitic Covenant, or the Old Testament type of religion, contains the patriarchal gospel, or the Abrahamic Covenant, based upon Abraham’s seed, in whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed, and thus as comprehending the promise. Taken more strictly, the Sinai Covenant—a subsequent dispensation of which the patriarchs knew nothing—was a national transaction between God and Israel, and conditional in its character. The im- mutable moral law, which existed before its promulgation and exists since its abrogation, was its core. The nation was specially bound to the law of a carnal commandment, to a shadowy priesthood, to innumerable rites and ceremonies, which were but the letter, without any supply of the Spirit, and which were enforced with strictness and severity. The whole design looked to the end of the shadow in the atoning work of Messiah. Strictly taken, the Sinai Covenant is letter and shadow,—national, transitory, conditional, and burdensome in the whole character of its arrangements. Such was the distinction between the two. But it is necessary to add that it presupposes the Abrahamic Covenant, because God could make no covenant with sinful man but in a relation of grace. He could not have made a covenant at Sinai unless with a certain respect to grace, and having the covenant of grace as its basis and support. When it is called “a killing letter,” and contrasted with the Spirit which giveth life, the meaning is, that the Sinai Cove- 72 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. nant, strictly taken, or used as the mere letter, did not give the Spirit of life. But the apostle’s words do not imply that there was no Holy Ghost operating on the saints of the Old Economy, or that there were not millions of saved men under it trained to eminent holiness and wisdom. There were countless numbers of regenerate men in the Old Economy distinguished for a faith and wisdom, a holiness and self- denial, a courage and zeal, redounding to the declarative glory of God, such as far surpasses all modern examples. But it must be noted that none of them received the regenerating grace and the Spirit of life which they possessed from the Mosaic law, or from the letter sundered from the promise. All who had the Spirit of life received it by faith upon the promise of a Saviour, and not from the Sinai Covenant. For under all economies, salvation and the supply of the Spirit were by faith. The measure of the Spirit, under the Old Testament, was comparatively limited, like the first-fruits ; and it was given by anticipation. In comparison with the numbers composing the Old Testament Church, only a few were made partakers of the gift of the Spirit, while the vast multitude had no eye to see nor ear to understand. On these grounds the apostle calls the one economy the letter, and the other the Spirit. | In the Second Epistle to the CortnrHtans, the apostle gives expression to Christian experience in many particulars. The Spirit is adduced as a pledge of salvation, and as giving an assurance of the participation of God’s love. “Now He who establisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts” (2 Cor. i. 21). That the efficacy of the Spirit is something distinct from the preaching of the gospel, is clearly indicated in this and in similar passages. The theory which identifies them finds no coun- tenance from these words; for there is an influence of the Spirit on the heart of Christians, apart from the mere moral ———————————— THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 73 influence of the word. The apostle, as the founder of the Corinthian Church, speaks of being united with them in Christ, and of their being anointed as a royal priesthood to make a common confession of Christianity. The previous allusion to Christ as the Anointed One, seems to have led him to describe THEM AS ANOINTED, which implies something more than mere instruction through the word.: It is unction for. priestly service. He adds, “ who hath also sealed us,” imply- ing that they bore A SEAL or impress from God, by which they not only were themselves assured, but marked as belong- ing to God, who put a seal on them as His property. Not only so: God gave them the earnest of the Spirit in their hearts. The term EARNEST (appaS8ov), three times applied in the New Testament to the Holy Spirit, denotes a certain sum 7 in hand, as a pledge of something further to be conferred ; and it was a security that they should not be put to shame. Paul speaks of the Holy Spirit as producing these effects on the heart. For we cannot expound the term EARNEST merely of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, which accompanied the first proclamation of the gospel as a proof of its divine origin. “Ye are declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God” (2 Cor. iii. 3). The Church of Corinth, a large flourishing community, was an emphatic proof of Paul’s apostleship, and of the success with which his zealous efforts had been crowned in spreading the gospel. They were an epistle, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God,—where we cannot fail to notice two persons,—the living God and His Spirit, by whom he acted at first, and continued to act, on the heart of these Corinthians. By the Spirit we cannot there understand revelation, or the divine origin of Christianity ; for comments of that nature only betray an adverse bias, and are not worthy of serious refutation, Plainly, the apostle distin- guishes his ministry from the writing of the Spirit. He refers to the efficacious effect of his ministry, and ascribes it to the ~ 74 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. Holy Spirit. Nor does he appeal to miraculous gifts, but to the Spirit’s influence in effecting the spiritual renovation of the heart, as contrasted with the Old Covenant, which was written on tables of stone. “ He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing ts God, who hath also given us the earnest of the Spirit” (2 Cor. v. 5). The Spirit is here again called “the earnest ;” and the longing for the heavenly glory is connected with His operation. In the Epistle to the GALATIANS, the apostle’s doctrine on the entire economy of the Spirit is peculiarly full. This was due to circumstances which made it necessary. The gospel, as preached by Paul among the Galatians, had found a ready acceptance, and had been accompanied with the miraculous ministration of the Spirit, and with the most arresting displays of His power (Gal. iii. 5). The Galatians, it is said, had begun in the Spirit (iii. 3). Before much time elapsed, the recently-formed churches were sub- jected to the test of false teachers. Emissaries from the Pharisaic party demanded that Christians from the ranks of the Gentiles should observe the Jewish rites as neces- sary to justification before God. In a word, these cere- monies, along with the doctrine of Christ, were to be retained as essentially necessary. The apostle, in writing this Epistle, assails that fundamental error with all his energy, refuting it from central truth and from their own experience in the past. He shows that they had not received the Spirit by the works of the law, but by the message or preaching (dxom) of faith (iil. 3). This is the Holy Spirit, with all His gifts, as pro- mised by the prophets to the Church. ‘The ordinary saving gifts of regeneration and holiness, as well as the super- natural gifts, are here included. These were not received by the performance of any actions of the ceremonial or moral law, which could only have filled their mind with a THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 75 knowledge of sin and a fear of wrath. On the contrary, they had received the Spirit by the message of salvation or grace received by faith. We are next taught that the promised Spirit was procured by nothing less than the vicarious death of Christ. This argument completely exploded the legalism of the false teachers. The donation of the Spirit is thus connected with the atonement: “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a@ curse for us, that (iva) the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (iii. 14). The meaning of these words is: the death of Christ was the meritorious cause or purchase of this great gift—the promised Spirit. The final particle (tva) leans on the words which describe the sacrifice of Christ. It is the connection of merit and reward, of cause and consequence. To show, moreover, that works of law are wholly excluded, and that the great donation of the Holy Spirit, which was given to the Galatians at the founding of the Church among them, was not to be traced to doing on the part of man, but to simple reliance on the merits of Christ, the apostle adds, “That we might receive the promise of the Spirit (or the promised Spirit) through faith.” The Spirit of the Son— in other words, the Spirit of adoption—is further described by Paul as given only to those who are sons by faith, and partakers of the atonement (iv. 6). The proof is thus com- plete, that the Holy Spirit was not received by the works of the law. The last part of the Epistle displays the work of the Spirit in another light. The former allusions were made more to the Christian’s privileges. The two closing chapters set forth the graces of the Holy Spirit and the Christian’s fruitfulness. The same apostle who was solicitous in the first part of this Epistle to assert the liberty of the Christian, and who bids us stand fast in it, is not less solicitous to set 76 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPiRIT. forth in the second part the Spirit’s renewing and sanctifying influence. Thus, with respect to Christian HOPE or patience, he puts it in causal connection with the Spirit’s operation in these terms: we through the Spirit wait for the HOPE of righteousness by faith (v. 5). The distinction between flesh and spirit, nature and grace, is next described in such a way as proves the momentous importance of drawing a strict line between the two, of apprehending it in the Christian’s con- sciousness, and following it out in the Christian’s walk: “I say then, walk in (by) the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh” (v. 16,17). He adduces it as a proof of their liberty from the curse of the law, that the Christian is led by the Spirit (v. 18). Then, after enumerating the works of the flesh, he specifies as the fruit of the Spirit—“ love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meek- ness, temperance” (v. 22). He calls these the fruit of the Spirit, as if they grew on a living, fruitful tree; and he adds that against such persons—for the allusion is to persons (kata TOV ToLlovrwy)—there is no law (v. 23). From living by the Spirit he argues the duty of walking by the Spirit (v. 25), and he concludes these duties by referring to the duty of sowing to the Spirit (vi. 8). The Epistle to the RoMANS gives an outline of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in an experimental, not in a controversial way. This Epistle was meant not so much to smooth differ- ences or unite parties, as to confirm the Church in true doctrine. On the subject which engages our attention, the Epistle to the Romans contains very marked allusions which distinguish the Holy Spirit’s work from the operation of Providence on the one hand, and from the objective presenta- tion of truth on the other. The Epistle shows another influence distinct from the word though connected with it, in producing faith, and in leading Christians in whom faith already exists. To this I refer the more readily, because the celebrated Griesbach in two University-programmes laboured vv——— ee ——— THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. yeti to prove that the term Spirit in the eighth chapter means nothing more than Christian character and disposition; and because many others, paralysed by these objections, have been in the habit of affirming that there are few passages where the sense of the word “Spirit” is more difficult. We shall find that it does not occur in more senses than one, and that it neither means influence nor Christian disposition, but the _ Holy Spirit. This appears beyond dispute when it is said that the Gentiles were made obedient by word and deed, through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God (Rom. xv. 19). That the miracles wrought by Paul are there attributed to the Spirit, is beyond dispute. The agent and the power which the agent puts forth are both mentioned in alluding to these miracles. The conversion of the Gentiles, in like manner, or the offering up of the converted Gentiles as an acceptable sacrifice, is ascribed to the Holy Ghost (xv. 16). On the economy of the Spirit, in connection with Christ’s Sonship, there is a noteworthy passage, though on almost all sides it 1s incorrectly referred to the divine nature of our Lord: “Concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh ; and de- clared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Rom. i. 3, 4). Plainly the apostle does not allude to the two natures of our Lord, as commentators generally expound it, but to THE Two STATES OF humiliation and exaltation. And the expression: “Spirit of holiness,’ does not refer to the divine nature, but to the dispensation of the Spirit after His resurrection, which supplied the most conclusive evidence of our Lord’s divine Sonship. The effusion of the Spirit on the apostles and on the Church terminated the controversy whether He was the Son of God. The communication of the Holy Spirit—a gift competent to no created being— proved Him to be the 78 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. Messiah and the Son of God, according to His own claim (John v. 19). “The love of God is shed abroad upon our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us” (Rom. v. 5). These words intimate that the Holy Ghost as a divine agent does a certain work; that He is given according to a divine economy ; and that through His aid the redeeming love in God’s heart is shed abroad in our hearts; that is, is tasted and enjoyed, not only in the first stages of the Christian’s experience, but ever afterwards. Plainly this is distinct from miraculous gifts and from the proclamation of the gospel. It intimates that the Holy Ghost sheds abroad God’s boundless, free, unchang- ing love in our hearts, and that He is given to believers as a perpetually indwelling guest——reminding the Christian of reconciliation, supplying the constant experience of the divine love, and assuring him of its perpetuity as a gift never to be forfeited. It is in the eighth chapter, however, that we find the doctrine of the Holy Spirit most fully developed, from different points of view. The apostle’s object is to prove the certainty of the believers’ salvation from the fact that they are led by the Spirit of God. He demonstrates that they enjoy the effectual operation of the Spirit as a blessing which has its ground in the surety-obedience of Christ its procuring cause (2-4). The argument is, that they who are occupied by the Spirit and who walk after the Spirit are exempt from condemnation. In other words, he argues that they who are free from the service of sin through the Spirit of life are by that fact proved also to be free from condemnation. The apostle had set in a clear light the inseparable connection between justification and sanctification on the ground of Christ’s merit or purchase (vi. 1-13). He here shows that the spiritual life is secured by the effectual operation of the Holy Spirit. The entire section exhibits the Christian in the highest stages of the divine life, and supplies a rule by THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 79 which the Christian teacher is to regulate his thinking and phraseology. The apostle begins his discussion on the Spirit with these memorable words: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. viii. 2). The two laws—that of sin and death, already referred to in the seventh chapter (vii. 23), and a : counterpart law of life in Christ—are again put in direct antithesis—that is, into the contrast of flesh and spirit, which » we find pervading the whole Pauline theology. But why, it may be asked, is the Spirit called the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus? The entire expression is equivalent to this : the Spirit of life residing in Christ and dispensed by Christ is a law of irresistible power counteracting the law of sin and death. It is the law written on the heart, by which the regenerate man is step by step enabled to resist the power of sin and to follow holiness. It is the law of the life-giving Spirit in the fellowship of Christ Jesus. The apostle next adverts to several operations of the Spirit which deserve the most attentive consideration singly and collectively, 1. The first thing to be noticed is the sequence of operations as described in the Christian’s experience. There are three distinct expressions, which are introduced in this order: (1) They walk after the Spirit (viii. 4); (2) they are spiritually- minded (viii. 6); (3) they are in the Spirit (viii. 9). In the order of sequence the last-named, however, comes first, as follows :—They are in the Spirit by the act of regenerating grace; they are spiritually-minded—that is, they mind the things of the Spirit when they are inwardly disposed, moved, and animated according to the mind of the Spirit; they walk after the Spirit, which refers more to their inward and outward practical life. The sequence is such as proves that it is not sufficient to perform good works which challenge the attention of spectators, unless there be the inner change of 80 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. character and disposition, which naturally weans the heart from the objects to which natural bias disposes it. 2. The second thing mentioned in the passage is, that the Spirit DWELLS in the Christian (vill. 9). A running contrast between the flesh and Spirit is carried out through the entire section. And the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ is adduced as a conclusive proof that we are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit; for Christ, the second Adam, received the Spirit as a reward for the performance of His work of suretyship, that He might impart the Spirit to all believers. When the apostle subjoins: “if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His” (ver. 9), it shows that the participation of the Holy Spirit is not universal; and that only they who were from eternity given to Christ and redeemed by Him, enjoy the inhabitation of the Spirit in the Biblical acceptation of the term. In them He dwells, as in His habitation or abode, for ever. It is this inhabitation which imparts the spiritual mind, the mark by which the true disciple is distinguished ; for Christ and His people are anointed with the same Spirit. 3. The Spirit is LIFE because of righteousness (v. 10). Though the body is dead because of sin, this death is not regarded as a punishment or anything properly penal, but only as a consequence, still permitted to run its course, after Christ has fully satisfied divine justice. But the Spirit is life on the ground of Christ’s imputed righteousness. As He gave life to all creatures at first, so does He give life immortal, in- corruptible, and unfading to the new creature—that is, to all the redeemed of the Lord. 4, They who have the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body (ver. 13). They are debtors, not to the flesh, but to the Spirit. The flesh, or the deeds of the body, they mortify, because they are the cause of death. They cannot so kill it, indeed, that it shall stir no more; but they, by the Spirit, weaken it and lop off its branches one by one. 5. They are led by the Spirit of God, and are thus evinced —————EE— THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 81 to be the children of God (ver. 14). The expression: “led by the Spirit,” refers to an inward prompting, impulse, and inclination, which so rules and guides them that they cannot omit duty or neglect privilege. It implies the helplessness of a child which cannot stand alone, but needs a strong sup- porting hand; for it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps (Jer. x. 23). The saints of God, to whom the expres- sion applies, are not only ignorant of the way, but when they know it, their liability to stumble too readily betrays itself ; and their natural reluctance must constantly be overcome. This LEADING is attributed to the Spirit of God, the master of the inclinations, of the will, and of the affections by which men are moved and animated, so that in due time they desire to do nothing but what they are prompted to undertake by the illumination from on high. They are on this ground evinced to be the CHILDREN OF Gop; and this leads the apostle to describe the Holy Spirit as the author of adoption, and as prompting the believer to realize the privileges connected with this filial relationship. Philippi seems to me mistaken! in denying that the phrase SPIRIT OF ADOPTION can mean the Spirit who effects the Son- ship or transplants us into the relationship of sons, The analogy of all the phrases of this description—such as the Spirit of love, the Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of power, the Spirit of revelation, and the like —implies that He is the author or producing cause of the term following in the genitive. This is no exception to the uniform usage. The same Spirit produces the bondage to fear, and effects the adoption. On this great central blessing which is put in our possession by the Spirit, I shall not now enlarge, as it after- wards engages our attention in the dogmatic part of this treatise. The other effects of the Spirit mentioned in this chapter 1 He says, incorrectly : ‘‘ Das rvedue viodeofes kann nun nicht sein der Geist welcher die Kindschaft wirkt” (Rom. viii. 15), F 82 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. are these: “Christians have the first-fruits of the Spirit,” and the Spirit helps them in prayer. 6. With regard to the FIRST-FRUITS, the apostle says: “We ourselves also who have the first-fruits of the Spirit” (ver. 23). Speaking of the groaning universe waiting for deliver- ance, he adds, that Christians also who have the first-fruits of the Spirit groan. Some, with Grotius, incorrectly limit these terms to the apostles. James, indeed, speaks of the early Christians as the first-fruits (Jas. i. 18). But the Apostle Paul is not speaking OF PERSONS, but oF GIFTS; and there is only one tolerable interpretation—viz. that which refers the first-fruits to the commencement of the communications of the Spirit which are enjoyed in this life, but which are after all but a foretaste or first-fruits of what awaits us, in all its amplitude and fulness in eternity. 7. The other benefit is the Spirit’s HELP IN PRAYER (ver. 26). When Christians know not what to ask, the Spirit helps their infirmities, interceding IN THEM with unutterable eroanings, while Christ intercedes FOR THEM. The only other passage which I shall adduce from this Epistle is the prayer of Paul, that the Roman Christians might be filled with faith and hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. He ascribes both the origin and growth of these graces to the Holy Spirit (xv. 13). The Epistle to the EPHESIANS, amid the deep truths opened up to a congregation which was specially prepared to take them in, interweaves the doctrine of the Spirit in a way which makes the train of the argument in the highest degree practical. The economy in virtue of which the Holy Spirit is dis- pensed is thus exhibited in the prayer for the congregation : “Making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may grant unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him” (Eph. i.17). He asks the Spirit on their behalf from the THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY, 83 God of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, the dis- penser of the Spirit, on the ground of Christ’s merits as the procuring cause. The import of the words: “The Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus,” , comprehends a full discovery of what was planned and effected by God in the work of man’s redemption. We have here a numerous and varied class of blessings of which the Holy Ghost is the author or producing cause. It is what philolo- gists call the genitive of the author. It must be added that “The Spirit of revelation in the knowledge of Christ” is a memorable title of the Spirit from the work which He per- forms upon the human mind (Eph. i. 17), in illuminating the eyes of the heart, as it is here expressed, to behold a beauty in divine things of which it had previously no conception. Notwithstanding the lingering remains of the image of God in reason, conscience, and the longing after immortality, there was not before this in man one spark from which the illumination of the understanding could arise—only darkness and enmity (1 Cor. ii, 14; Rom. viii. 7). The Spirit enlightens the understanding, which was previously alienated from the life of God (Eph. iv. 18), to perceive the truth of the gospel, as worthy of God and divinely adapted to human wants, and especially to receive the truth relating to Christ’s atonement. Not that the natural man could not with sufficient correctness grasp the thought in a speculative way ; but it was much in the same way in which a blind-born man thinks or speaks of colours. When the eyes of the heart are opened, a glory is beheld in Christ’s person and work unknown before; and a light is conveyed to the mind which produces a transforming change on all its powers. Another passage in this Epistle not less emphatic is: “Through Him (Christ) we both have access by [in] one Spirct unto the Father” (Eph, ii. 17). The apostle, speaking in the person of the Church composed of Jews and Gentiles, says: “We BOTH have access, or introduction, to the Father,’ and “ 84 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. he mentions the Mediator through whose merits that intro- duction is effected. He adds that it is IN ONE Spirit, whom we possess as a Spirit of faith and love, infusing confidence on the ground of Christ’s priesthood. The one Spirit can only mean the one Holy Ghost, which men of all nationali- ties, without distinction, now enjoy; and the force of the preposition: “IN one Spirit,” is by no means to be stripped of its significance, as has too often been done by commen- tators. The intention of the apostle was to bring out with precision the difference of the relation in which Christ and the Spirit stand to the Church,—the one as the meritorious Surety, the other as the life-giving agent who puts us in possession of the whole redemption. In the use of a favourite expression, the apostle again calls the Spirit a SEAL and EARNEST. “ After that ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, who is the earnest of our inheritance” (i. 13). To the same effect the apostle warns them not to grieve the Holy Spirit by whom they were sealed (iv. 30). As to the order in which this sealing stands, it comes after believing—that is, next after faith; and as to the SEAL itself, too much ingenuity has often been used in elucidating it. Without appealing to classical or Hebrew examples, it may suffice to say that the impress of a seal implies a relation to the owner of the seal, and is a sure token of something belonging to him. From the three passages where the term 'SEAL is expressly used, we gather that believers are God’s inviolable property, and known to be so by the Spirit dwelling in them. The sealing implies that the image engraven on the seal is impressed on the thing, or on the person sealed. In this case it is the image of God impressed on the heart by the enlightening, regenerating, and sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit. By that seal believers are declared to be the inviolable property of God (2 Tim. ii. 19); and they are sealed to the day of redemption as some- thing which is known to be inviolably secure as God’s property —_—— THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 85 (Eph. iv. 30). Not only so: there is a subjective assurance which they acquire as to their own gracious state and final glory; for the Spirit is also called an EARNEST (46pa86v) as well as a seal—that is, a foretaste which is equivalent to the first-fruits of the Spirit, which are elsewhere mentioned (Eph. iv. 14). The apostle prays in a second memorable prayer for the Ephesians, that they might be strengthened with might BY THE SprrIt in the inner man, that Christ might dwell in their hearts by faith (iii. 16). The Spirit strengthens the believer by giving him a share in all the benefits and blessings which Christ procured, as well as by confirming faith and love, that the conscious indwelling of Christ may be realized; the in- dwelling of Christ answering to the strengthening or confirma- tion of the Spirit. When the apostle refers to the Church, he calls it an habitation of God in the Spirit (Eph. ii. 22), and, by another figure, one body and one Spirit (iv. 4). Nor does he stop at doctrine: while enforcing Christian duty, he introduces the Holy Spirit in many connections. When he warns the Ephesians against indulging angry passions and unworthy practices, he says: “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God,” implying that such things on the part of Christians grieve the Spirit’ (iv. 30). When he exhorts them to prayer, he bids them pray with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit (vi. 18). When he warns them against intemperance, he immediately subjoins an exhortation, calculated in its exercise to exclude all tendency to the habit of intemperance by the spiritual joy and satisfaction which take possession of the Christian ; but be filled with the Spirit (v. 18); for the enjoy- ment of that fulness of the Spirit satisfies the soul, and leaves 1 See the beautiful remarks of Rev. Robert Hall on this passage: ‘‘ Vindictive passions surround the soul with a sort of turbulent atmosphere, than which nothing can be conceived more opposite to that calm and holy light in which the blessed Spirit loves to dwell” (vol. i, p. 410). 86 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. it no longer a prey to intemperance or any such desires. But in what sense can the Christian be EXHORTED to be “filled with the Spirit,’ when we call to mind that it is God alone by whom the Spirit is bestowed? The answer is easy. It is of God’s gracious gift when the Spirit replenishes any soul. But it is also a subject of exhortation. This is of the same nature with the exhortations in the Epistle to the Galatians: “walk in the Spirit” (Gal. v. 16, 25). The Father, in the covenant of grace, provided for the restoration of the Spirit; the Son procured the Spirit by His satisfaction, and lives to confer the gift; and we have only to receive and make room for Him daily, neither resisting nor grieving Him away from the heart, which is designed to be again the temple of the Holy Ghost. In the Epistle to the PHILIPPIANS several allusions to the Holy Spirit are found, having reference partly to Paul’s own condition and partly to theirs. Errorists had not as yet troubled the Church from within, but marked intimations and warnings are given respecting them to this congregation, of whom the apostle always speaks with the deepest affection. After noticing the mixed motives of some who preached the gospel of contention, not sincerely, the apostle adds: “I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and THE SUPPLY OF THE SPIRIT of Jesus Christ” (Phil. i. 19). According to his own declaration elsewhere, he was persuaded that all this would work together for good. Their prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Christ are not put together as co-ordinate. He means that all would redound to the victory of Christ’s cause, and to his own highest advantage, through the supply (émeyopnyia) of the Spirit, while their prayer would be no unimportant sub- ordinate link in the chain. As to the words here used, the Holy Spirit is called “the Spirit of Jesus Christ,’ not only because He is from the Son as well as from the Father, according to the eternal procession from both, but because the THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 87 gift of the Spirit is derived from Christ’s merits. He procured by His obedience and satisfaction not only the restoration of the divine favour, but the gift of the Holy Ghost, who is thus rightly called the Spirit of Jesus Christ. The more copious effusion of the Spirit is referred to the action of Christ no less than to the action of the Father, who, according to the covenant of grace, gave to the Son the power of sending the Spirit, and of conferring all the benefits which were acquired by His death (Zech. xii. 10), The apostle expresses his confidence that the cause of the gospel would be promoted by the aid of the Spirit of Christ, who would not only cause the truth to triumph over false- hood, but nerve him with necessary courage to seal, if need be, his testimony with his blood. But that no one might imagine that these results would be given to the indolent or lukewarm, the apostle links the supply (évyopnyla) of the Spirit with the PRAYERS of believing men in the Church, to which he was writing; for he constantly asked prayer as a means of spreading Christian truth. Such is the weakness of human efforts, that we accomplish nothing unless the Holy Ghost is the guide and ruler of all our actions, and unless He is invocated, as it is here intimated that He should be invo- cated, by the Church, as alone able to bring help. To ward off the danger of disunion and mutual alienation, of which there was no little fear (iv. 2), the apostle bids them stand fast in ONE SPIRIT (i. 27); and at the commencement of the second chapter, he bases one of his arguments for unity, love, and concord on the fact that they had received the communication (not fellowship) of the Spirit; for this communication evinces itself in unity and love. Another passage referring to the worship of God in the Spirit is: “We are the circumcision who worsHip GoD IN THE SPIRIT, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no con- fidence in the flesh” (iii, 3); the contrast being between worship in the Spirit and ritualistic tendencies. The apostle 88 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. depreciates circumcision: he speaks of it as nothing better now than concision, and by contrast he says we are the cir- cumcision, the spiritual Church. The next clause is: who worship God in the Spirit, as the result of regeneration, and as deduced from it. It is not to be resolved into the vague idea of spiritual worship, as commentators too commonly expound it, but to be viewed as worship in the power of the Spirit ; the term Spirit being plainly the echo of the promise : “T will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.” The reference is not so much to sanctification—though that, too, is comprehended —as to the adoption of sons; nor does the apostle stop there, for another equally important point is, that this worship of God in the Spirit discovers itself in the exercise of rejoicing in Christ Jesus—that is, as not leading away from Christ, but to Christ, and inducing a reliance on Christ’s merits and offices, and His whole mediatorial work. And in that propor- tion men abandon or forego all confidence in the flesh. The whole is an anticlimax, the first clause in the natural order being “ we have no confidence in the flesh.” ; The Pauline Epistles, which yet remain to be noticed, contain only a few additional allusions, and our survey of them may be brief. The Epistle to the COLOSSIANS, written to anchor the Church in sound doctrine against erroneous views, contains but one express allusion to the doctrine of the Spirit, though the whole Epistle implies it. The apostle, referring to Epaphras, says: “Who also declared to us your love in the Spirit” (i. 8). The Greek exegetes, followed by not a few Protestants, throw this into the vague phrase: “ spiritual love,” as contrasted with ordinary love in the relations of life. The love was to be exercised toward Paul, who was absent, and not personally known to the Colossians; and hence he calls it “ your love in the Spirit,” because the Spirit was its producing cause or author. The love to the Saints was a fruit of the Spirit, as is elsewhere described. THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 89 The Epistles to the THESSALONIANS contain the following allusions to the doctrine of the Spirit. When the apostle recalls their first reception of the gospel, he says: “Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and much assurance” (1 Thess. i, 5). Various interpretations have been given of these words, but they offer, really, little difficulty. The ‘obvious meaning suggested by the antithesis is, that the gospel was accom- panied with converting power; and when it is added, “and in the Holy Ghost,” Calvin makes the expression refer merely to THE AUTHOR of the previously mentioned power. Others refer the words to the gifts of the Spirit, especially the super- natural gifts conferred upon believers in the apostolic age to confirm the truth (Gal. iii. 2). Whether we accept the one view or the other, there was a full certainty (zwAnpodopia), a complete and perfect satisfaction, from which all dubiety was removed. According to this interpretation, the terms do not refer to the power with which Paul preached, as many suppose, but to the experience of the Thessalonians who received the Spirit. There are allusions also to the sin of despising the Spirit and of quenching the Spirit. As to the first, it is said: “He that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given to us His Holy Spirit” (1 Thess. iv. 8). This language seems to refer to the INSPIRATION and supernatural guidance given to the apostles in revealing divine truth. As to quench- ing the Spirit (1 Thess. v. 19), the allusion must either be to the supernatural gifts, as many interpret the passage, or to the testimony of the Spirit, which may be quenched through sinful practices, indifference, or neglect. It is best to under- stand it of the supernatural operation of the Spirit, as the following verse, containing a warning not to despise prophecy, seems to imply. “God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation ) THROUGH SANCTIFICATION OF THE SPIRIT and belief of the truth” ¥ 90 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. (2 Thess. ii. 13). The believing reception of the gospel was effected by the Spirit changing their hearts. The apostle, by the phrase “ the sanctification of the Spirit,” means the cause by which their effectual calling was begun and carried out. The Spirit produced a full separation in heart and tone of mind from an ungodly world, thus setting apart all who were included in God’s gracious purpose or decree. He works faith in them as the Spirit of sanctification. When we examine the two EpristLes To Timoruy, only two allusions to the doctrine of the Spirit call for special mention. In the first Epistle, He who was manifest in the flesh is said to be justified in the Spirit (1 Tim. iii. 6). Of all the explana- tions that have been attempted of this expression, only two deserve attention. The one is, that Christ had proclaimed Himself the Son of God, and been put to death as a blas- phemer, and that He was now raised up by His own divine nature, and justified in all that claim. ‘The other interpreta- tion, which I prefer, is, that He was put to death as a public person, as the second Adam, under the charge of our imputed guilt, and that as our Surety He was justified by the Holy Spirit when He rose. The Sreconp Epistte To TimoTHy repeats the frequent expression: “the Holy Ghost that dwelleth in us” (2 Tim. i. 14), which may be taken indeed as the brief formula of all living Christianity. The charge to Timothy to keep the gospel doctrine committed to him, was to be carried out only by dependence on the Spirit, and in believing prayer for His influences: “Keep through the Hoty Guost which dwelleth in us.” The EpisTLE To THE HEBREWS, which, with the Greek Church, I accept as of Pauline origin, brings out several points in the doctrine of the Spirit. As to the person of Christ, it sets forth how the Redeemer, through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God (Heb. ix. 14), and how God anointed Him with the Holy Ghost as the oil of THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 91 gladness above His fellows as His reward (i. 9). The testi- mony to the work of the Spirit in the inspiration of Scripture is very emphatic, eg.: the Holy Ghost says (Heb. iii. 7); the Holy Ghost signifying this (ix. 8); whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us (x. 15). The vast array of miracles and supernatural gifts with which the preaching of the gospel or the New Economy was ushered in is described as the accompanying testimony of God, with signs and wonders, and divers miracles and Girrs or THE Hoty Guosr according to Mis own will (ii. 4). The two difficult passages which in- volve the apostasy of some professing Christians after being made partakers of the Holy Ghost (vi. 4), and where the parties have done despite to the Spirit of grace (x. 29), are instances of men receiving only the supernatural gifts, not true grace, | THE TESTIMONY OF JAMES, The Epistle of James, directed against a nominal Chris- tianity, or dead faith which had begun to prevail in his time, draws a line between nature and grace through all life. James contrasts spiritual religion with that forgetful hearing which, under the empty form, neither keeps itself unspotted from the world, nor exhibits the honour, the love, the benevolence which the law written on the heart prompts. He described that hollow profession by the licence given to the tongue, and by the vain boast of wisdom on which it plumed itself. Though he only once mentions the Spirit, the entire Epistle takes for granted the necessity of the Spirit’s renewing grace. He bids those who lack wisdom ask it of God by believing prayer (Jas. i. 5). He implies the Spirit’s agency when he 1 So Klinkenberg puts it ; compare Matt. vii. 22, If we take this view, which is every way preferable, we need not labour, as Owen and others have done, to meet the arguments of those who contend against the perseverance of the saints from this text. 92 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. says that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above (i. 17). He assumes the Spirit’s work of regeneration by the word of truth as the foundation of all (i. 18). The tenor of the Epistle implies that the Holy Spirit, the author of faith, first enters the Christian heart as His habitation, and then makes it a temple worthy of Himself. In the only passage where he definitely names the Spirit, he emphatically expresses this, viz.: “Do ye think that the Spirit saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?” This confessedly difti- cult passage is better translated: “Do you think that the Spirit speaketh in vain? Doth the spirit that dwelleth in us lust to envy?”’ If we compare these words with the com- mon style of the apostles, who speak of the Spirit as the great Inhabitant of the Christian heart, no doubt can exist that the allusion is to the Holy Spirit (Rom. vii. 9; 2 Tim. i. 14; 1 John iii. 34), who dwells in believers, and instructs, com- forts, and sanctifies them. One of the most comprehensive descriptions of a Christian is that he is a man in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. The pointed inquiry of the Apostle James to the envious and contentious men to whom he addressed himself is: Can the Holy Spirit have His habi- tation in a heart replete with envy? And the emphatic answer, tacitly implied, is: No. But (that is, on the contrary, 6é) He giveth more grace. The meaning is: the Holy Spirit makes the man in whom He dwells to cherish no envy at another’s welfare, but rather to wish their blessings augmented ; and the same Spirit gives more grace to him who is thus minded, or makes him the recipient of more grace. On that man he confers richer communications of grace. As to the interpretation of the passage, it is not without its difficulties, as the quotation is not found in so many words in Scripture. Some refer it to the antediluvians (Gen. vi. 3), others to the Book of Proverbs (Prov. iii. 34). Not to mention far-fetched 1See an admirable dissertation by Witsius, de Spiritu concupiscente (Jas. iv. 5, 6). THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 93 interpretations, it seems rather to refer to Moses’ conduct in the matter of Eldad and Medad, when Joshua, from a desire for the honour of Moses, would have forbidden them to prophesy. But Moses said: “ Enviest thou Jor my sake?” (Num. xi. 29). THE TESTIMONY OF PETER, On the day of Pentecost Peter expounded and applied the prophecy of Joel as to the pouring out of the Spirit in the last days, pointing to the stupendous display of supernatural phenomena and of spiritual cifts, and declaring: “This ig that which was spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts ii. 16). On another occasion he represented Jesus as anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power (x. 38). And as to the giving of the Spirit to the Gentiles, irrespective of all national distinc- tions, he answered expressly that God gave them the Holy Ghost, and put no difference between the Jews and them (xv. 8). But let us more narrowly examine the Petrine Epistles. When we examine what titles Peter applies to the Spirit, we find the following: “the Spirit of Christ ” (1 Pet. i. 11); the Spirit of God, intimating God and the Spirit who proceeds from God (iv. 14); “the Spirit of glory,” resting like the Shechinah on the persecuted Christian (iv..14). As to the ancient prophets, he says THAT THE SprriT or CHRIST which was in them testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow G2 hy shina word, announced the cross and crown of the Redeemer. That passage furnished a convincing proof that Christ had a divine pre-existence, and that His Spirit, prior to the incarnation, guided the inspired writers in all their predictions, Attempts have been made, indeed, to explain this away ; and modern divines, such as Weiss, who deny Christ’s pre-existence, put this construc- tion on the statement: that the Messiah-Spirit, before He 94 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. came, was working in the prophets. For such an evacuating comment there exists no ground; it is but a foregone Sabellian conclusion. Nor are we to explain the expression which is applied to Christ: “Put to death in the flesh, but quickened by THE Spirit,” in any other way than as an allusion to the Holy Ghost. It is neither Christ’s human spirit simply, nor the divine nature of our Lord, though both interpretations have found almost equal favour with recent commentators. It appears from the following verse that we must rather think of the Holy Spirit in which, it is said, Christ went and preached to the spirits in prison—that is, by Noah as a preacher of righteousness. And we have only to compare this text with the passage previously expounded (1 Pet.i. 11), to be fully convinced that the reference is to the Spirit of Christ which was in the prophets. That the Redeemer was QUICKENED and raised up by the Holy Spirit is here affirmed by Peter, and is not obscurely intimated by the Apostle Paul (Rom. viii. 11). The same Spirit that formed Christ’s human body and gave it life in His mother’s womb, gave to Him the restored life when He rose from the dead. He who raised up Christ from the dead, indeed, is frequently mentioned as one of the Father’s most memorable titles or designations; and to prove that it was the Spirit who performed this work, we have only to recall the fact that the Holy Ghost is the executive in every divine operation (Rom. iv. 24, vi. 4), To the Spirit also is ascribed the Christian’s sanctification : “ Elect, IN (€v) sanctification of the Spirit, To obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Christ” (1 Pet. i. 2). The Holy Spirit, by the gospel, separates Christians, or sets them apart, in a peculiar way, from the common mass of men; and the blessings enjoyed are the fruit of the Spirit’s sanctify- ing power. As the prophets had the Spirit, so, Peter adds, the apostles, in like manner, preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven (i. 12). In the second Epistle it a” a — ee awe, THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 95 must be noticed that the only allusion to the Spirit is in connection with the inspiration of the prophets, who are said to have spoken as they were moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Pet, i. 21). THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLE JUDE. The EpIsTLE or JUDE was directed against a body of licentious errorists who had crept into the Church, and were corrupting it by their doctrines and practice. These were evil men, and there was no room to entertain doubts respecting their character. The apostle accordingly appeals, by way of warning, to some terrible instances of judgment recorded in Scripture — to the Israelites who were destroyed in their unbelief after coming out of Egypt (ver. 5); to the angels who kept not their first estate (ver. 6); to Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbouring cities (ver. 7). Two references are made to the Holy Spirit within the compass of this small Epistle,— the one alluding to the errorists, the other to the Christians whom he exhorts. 1. “These are they who separate themselves, sensual (uxixot), having not the Spirit” (ver. 19). The adjective rendered senswal here and in the Epistle of James (iii. 15) is elsewhere rendered natural, or the natural man (1 Cor. ii.14). The expression means simply one in a state of nature, or unregenerate, and without the Spirit. This cannot be doubtful to any one who considers the antithesis in which it is placed by three apostles. Expositors have brought more superfluous learning to the elucidation of the term (auycxo/) than was necessary. What a natural man denotes is easily discerned by the antithesis in which it stands to the spiritual man, who is one that has received the Spirit. The natural man is one who has merely natural reason, not the Spirit,— that is, is the animal man, as Melanchthon expounds it,—one living according to reason, like Zeno or Saul, though not 96 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. necessarily in gross vices. As to the next phrase: having not the Spirit, it conveys the idea that the natural man has not the Spirit, and is the antithesis to what is said, that the true Christian Has the Spirit. On the contrary, he who has not the Spirit is not Christ’s (Rom. vill. 9). We must understand the Holy Spirit, and the apostle pronounces it an indisputable truth that natural men, whether addicted to the grosser vices, like those errorists, or practically exempt from them, have not the Spirit—that is, do not possess the Holy Spirit, who, as a divine inhabitant, occupies the heart of all believers, and sanctifies and renews them after the divine image. 2. The second reference to the Spirit in this Epistle, interwoven with other essential elements of the spiritual life, is: “But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, PRAYING IN THE Hoty Guost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life” (vers. 20, 21). This implies a life in the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, a life of prayer resulting from that fellowship. The Christians to whom the apostle wrote are exhorted to build themselves up on their faith, which implies all the objects of faith as a foundation. They are taught that they are not simply to be passive, but to some extent active in the process, and especially taught to pray in the Holy Ghost, who prompts the matter of all true prayer,—opening men’s eyes to discover their poverty, and showing them the value of spiritual things,—exciting true faith—and imbuing them with right affections. All true prayer is shown to be prayer in the Holy Ghost as well as in the name of Christ (John xiv. 13). THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLE JOHN, On the subject of the Holy Spirit we find comparatively little in the Epistles of John—less, in fact, than every one expects to find when he comes to the examination of it. at el ate ie THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 97 The reason might be that the Gospel of John had set forth in the Lord’s own words the most full and exhaustive delineation of the doctrine of the Spirit, and we are supposed to carry those disclosures of His Gospel with us in the perusal of the Epistle and Apocalypse. Though the Epistle alludes more to the Spirit’s work than to the personal relations of the Trinity, there are passages which show Him personally distinct from the F ather and the Son, As often as the apostle speaks of the Spirit, he speaks of Him as communicated (1 John ii, 20), and as given to us (1 John iii. 24); and he plainly shows that he regards the communication as imparted to us by the Son. As to the names or titles given to Him, He is called the Spirit of God (1 John iv. 2), sent forth from God (€« tod Ocov, 1 John iy. 3); the Spirit of truth, because He opens the mind to truth, and teaches it to distinguish truth from error (1 Johniv. 6). He is called the unction from the Holy One, who anoints the followers of Christ as He anointed Christ Himself (1 John ii. 20, 27). It is said, the Spirit is truth (1 John v. 6); the meaning of which, in that connection, seems to be that one may securely rely on the testimony of the Spirit as an infallible witness, because He is the truth itself. We have specially to inquire in what sense THE SPIRIT is said TO BEAR WITNESS in the much canvassed passage which refers to the THREE WITNESSES on earth (1 John y. 6, 8). Without subjecting all the opinions to examination, it may suffice to say that the WATER and BLOop first named cannot naturally be referred to the two sacraments, or to the blood and water which flowed from the pierced side of our Lord, though both opinions are maintained by eminent expositors. We rather understand by the first witness, Christ’s baptism and the miraculous events connected with it, which clearly ? All text-critics and exegetes now let go 1 John v. 7 as no longer tenable, It was probably a mere note on the margin inserted in the text by a subsequent transcriber, G 98 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. attested His Messianic commission. We must understand by THE BLOOD, His departure to the Father, or the termination of His earthly task by the atoning sacrifice, which was accompanied by the most striking miracles (Matt. xxvii. 51). The THIRD WITNESS, that of THE SPIRIT, is none other than the effusion of the Spirit, first given on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit that spoke by the mouth of all the apostles, who preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven—the Spirit who accompanied their oral testimony with stupendous miracles, and who moved them in their writings. The apostle’s words were accompanied with signs and wonders and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost (Heb. ii. 4). But it was not all objective. The Spirit’s testimony was also internal—that is, He made all internally efficacious and available to the elect. The apostle refers also to Christian assurance when he says: “ We know that He abideth in us by the Spirit which He hath given us” (1 John iii, 24 and iv. 13). As Paul calls the Spirit the EARNEST, so John declares that the Holy Spirit given to Christians gives them a knowledge and an assurance of divine love. I have now briefly to refer to THE APOCALYPSE, the only remaining work of the Apostle John. The salutation with which the book opens contains an allusion to the Spirit, but in a way peculiar to John. Paul’s manner in invocating blessings on the several Churches to whom he writes was to ask “grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ;” and he does not name the Spirit, because the Spirit was implied in the blessings which were com- municated. They were imparted by the agency of the Holy Ghost, who applies redemption. John, according to his peculiar manner, invocates grace and peace from the whole Trinity,—from the Father, called “Him who is, and who was, and who is to come;” FROM THE SPIRIT, represented as the seven Spirits which are before the throne; and from THE BIBLICAL TESTIMONY. 99 Jesus Christ (Rev. i. 4). The seven Spirits in the plural indicate the manifold and various operations of the Holy Ghost in the application of grace, with a reference to the seven gifts mentioned in Isaiah (xi, 2), or with an allusion to the seven Churches, Throughout the Apocalypse this style of description is repeatedly used to represent the Spirit as resting on Christ for the great ends which were involved in the execution of the Covenant. Thus, in the third chapter, we read: “These things saith He that hath the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars ” (Rev. iii. 1). In the fourth chapter the apostle describes a door opened in heaven, while the writer says: “Immediately I was in the Spirit” (iv. 2) ; and he adds: “There were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God” (iv. 5.) In the fifth chapter, the apostle describes what he beheld in connection with the book written within and without, and sealed with seven seals, which no man in heaven or in earth could open: “I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb, as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are THE SEVEN SpIRITs of God sent forth into all the earth.” The design of these passages was to set forth the communication of the Holy Spirit in the infinite supplies which Christ imparts, as the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord (Isa. xi. 2), and as all resting on Christ. The apostle says at the beginning: “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day” (i. 10). When Christ sends the seven Epistles to the seven Churches, He bids them hear what the Spirit speaketh to the Churches (ii. 7); for it is the personal Holy Ghost that speaks in and by the gospel, and that speaks in all the word of truth. And the book closes with the call: “ THE SprriT and the Bride say, Come ”—that is, the Church moved by the Spirit says, “ Come.” SECOND DIVISION. PECAD Rew THE PERSONALITY AND PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. PURPOSE to discuss to-day the DIVINE PERSONALITY of the Holy Spirit. This is a point on which few doubts may be entertained by the vast majority of believing men among us. But it must not be passed over. Nor must attention be absorbed with the work of the Spirit so as to forget Huser. All history proves, for instance, that to give exclusive prominence to the work of Christ while the personal Redeemer is left in the background, ends, for the most part, in placing a mere dogma where Christ Himself should be. The divine dignity of the Spirit demands, in like manner, that no obscuring influence shall come between the soul and the \ agency of the living person ; and in the whole investigation on which it is necessary to enter, we must be upon our ouard | against being swayed either by the sound of words, which | decide nothing, or by those refining speculations which are | | more shadowy than solid. As to the divine personality of the Spirit, there are two modes by which we prove it. We prove it a priori, from the | fact of the eternal procession, as we prove 2 the divine er sonality of the Son from the fact of the eternal generation ; for these immanent acts of God underlie respectively the per- conal distinctions in the Godhead. Or we prove it a posteriori 100 Jy PERSONALITY AND PROCESSION OF THE SPIRIT. 101 from the unquestionable evidences of divine personality which are given in the sacred Scriptures in connection with His works. We shall begin with the latter, and proceed step by step, taking up in order first the PERSONALITY, and then the PROcESSION of the Spirit. It is clear to every mind that, after His personality is established, no further proof can reasonably be demanded to show that such a Person must be God. If He is not an in- fluence or energy, but a personal agent, it follows on grounds the most conclusive that He is not lower than Supreme God. Hence the objections adduced in opposition to the doctrine of the Spirit mainly turn at present against the proof of His personality. For to no created being can the actions which are ascribed to Him be fitly or competently applied. My object is to show that the Spirit of God is as truly a | Person as the Father or the Son,—a Person in whom mind resides, and to whom men perform actions which are either culpable or acceptable. The divine personality is asserted against two currents of opinion which agitated the Church in early times,—the Sabellian and Arian heresies, which reci- procally evoked each other, and are ever ready to captivate minds which miss the safe middle way. The former is the negation of the Spirit’s personality, the latter the denial of | His Deity. All who deviate in our day from the Church- doctrine are led by a strong Sabellian bias to consider the Holy Spirit as a mere influence or divine energy without per- | sonality,—a theory called the indwelling scheme by some, but only a form of Unitarianism. The Arian or Macedonian opinion, which described the Spirit as a creature, is little favoured at present, but may at any moment reappear, accord- ing to the strange vitality which is the accompaniment of error. At present Sabellianism is the error on the Trinity— an error of wide diffusion and power; and it is adopted by many who come under the spell of German theology. These theologians evade the force of the Scripture proof by treating 102 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. the passages as rhetorical personifications or figures of speech, even while they dilate on the advantages of using only the grammatico-historical method of interpretation. They speak not of the Holy Spirit, but of the COMMON SPIRIT OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, which, in fact, means nothing more than an esprit de corps, and detaches itself from all obligation to accept the doctrine of the personal Holy Ghost. How far modern theology is alienated from this entire domain of doctrine is known only to those whose special studies have led them to institute inquiries as to the German current of theological thought, and as to the multitudes in every land who have come under its influence. The personality of the Holy Ghost is treated by these divines as a dogma, for the acceptance of which no sufficient ground is found either in Scripture or experience.’ | When Scripture alludes to the Holy Spirit, the personal | terms conveying the idea of MIND, WILL, and SPONTANEOUS ACTION are so numerous that they may be regarded, not as the occasional, but as the general, nay, uniform and unvaried usage; and it is a usage observed by all the sacred writers, without a single exception. It is observed by the Old Testa- ment writers and by the New Testament writers alike. It is retained as the natural expression of their thoughts, even in passages where the writers, without the slightest trace of emotion or elevation in their style, write and speak as simple narrators of historic facts (Acts ii. 15), or convey plain and practical instruction (Eph. iv. 30). To deny that there is any | allusion to a person in such references to the Spirit, betrays \ either deep-seated bias and prejudice, or lack of exegetical / aptitude and capacity. ee 1 Dr. Kahnis says, in the preface to his work, die Lehre vom Heiligen Geiste, 1847, of which only a first part was published: ‘‘ was die newere Theologie betrift, so sagt Baumgarten-Crusius (compendium der Dogmen Geschichte, ii. p- 189, Anm. 4), dass der neuere Protestantismus die Persinlichkeit des Heiligen Geistes aufgegeben hat. Das wenigstens ist wahr dass die strengkirchliche Dog- matik diese Lehre ziemlich unvermittelt hinstellt, die Vermittelnde Theologie der man Kirchlichen Grund und Boden nicht streitig machen kann, meist negativ dazu steht.” PERSONALITY AND PROCESSION OF THE SPIRIT. 103 To evade or explain away these proofs of personality, two modes have been adopted, having not even the semblance of probability. The one evasion is, that the expressions mean nothing more than AN ABSTRACT QUALITY; and the other is, that they are instances of TROPICAL LANGUAGE. It may suffice to reply, that few examples of rhetorical personification occur in any history written in simple prose, and that this holds true pre-eminently of the New Testament, where the writers of set purpose make use of a natural, popular style. In these perspicuous narratives, there was neither occasion nor scope in any of the allusions to the Holy Spirit for a highly figurative diction; and when a personal agent is referred to, it is out of keeping with the nature of their composition to understand the terms of a quality or influence. We must understand one in whom intelligence and will reside. It would be the most violent and far-fetched of all conceivable modes of interpretation, to lay it down as a rule—as this theory must do—that whenever the speakers or writers, either in the Old or New Testament, turned their mind toward the doctrine of the Spirit, they instantly abandoned all the plain and easy style familiar to them, and resorted to rhetorical personification, prosopopea, and the most high-wrought figures which language can sustain, when their object was to be understood in the language which they used. To suppose such a thing is a sufficient refutation of that whole mode of interpretation. If Jesus and His apostles uniformly repre- | sented the Holy Spirit as a Person when He is not a Person, TT it would be the boldest personification ever found in any literature upon any subject. Not only so; the apostles lived at a time when their assailants, the Gnostics, transmuted divine operations into, emanations and persons, We may therefore, with Michaelis, \ ‘pronounce it impossible—a thing, certainly, not to be believed \ —that the apostles should so frequently resort to rhetorical /\ personification in reference to the Holy Ghost, and thus give | 104 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. occasion to regard Him as a Person, if, in the use of such \s terms, they did not think of Him as possessed of a divine — personality. It is not denied that there are passages where impersonal things are so described that at first sight they might seem to be taken as personal qualities. The two instances most frequently adduced are these: “The wind bloweth where it. listeth,” and “The blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel” (Heb. xii, 24). No man of ordinary capacity, however willing to weigh the force of the words, will for a moment doubt that these are figurative expressions, personifications which no man can mistake. The delineation of charity is so given (1 Cor. xiii. 1-8) that we may call it another instance of this personification. Every one sees that it 1s a vivid way of depicting the various activities of love in the whole conduct of a living Christian. But it is a wholly different case when we can show, in reference to the doctrine of the Spirit, that this mode of speaking is general, unvaried, uniform ; that it is adopted by all the sacred writers with one consent ; and that it is retained even in the simplest passages where they narrate facts or give plain instruction. It is common among modern theologians, swayed by a Sabellian bias, to allege that the name “ Spirit of God” means no more than God Himself, without reference to a personal | distinction which, indeed, they do not believe; that Scripture | contains such anthropomorphisms as the face of God, the name of God, the soul of God, as metaphors for God Himself ; and that the expression “Spirit of God” is therefore of similar import. To meet this misapprehension, it is not enough to show that the Spirit is possessed of divine pro- perties, but that He is also personally distinct from the | Father and the Son. The fact that the Spirit is named as occupying a co-ordinate rank with the other persons of the Godhead, supplies a valid argument against which no objection can be advanced. PERSONALITY AND PROCESSION OF THE SPIRIT. 105 It is also urged that the term PERSON is not Biblical, and is capable of being much perverted. But every thoughtful inquirer perceives that the term “person” is only used for convenience’ sake; that it is an ecclesiastical usage, like the words Trinity, Sacrament, and the lke; and that it became current in the Oriental as well as Western Church, simply because a generic term was found necessary to point out the three subsistents in the Godhead. It has at the same time been always admitted that the use of this particular term was adopted only to avoid circumlocution; and that if a better term could be substituted for it with a general consent, no one would contend for it as indispensable. But with the doctrine underlying the expression the case is wholly different. That cannot be surrendered. Only remove from the use of the term every notion involving imperfection, as we do without difficulty when eyes, ears, or fingers are applied to God, from the mere lack of vocables to express the fit idea, and it must be admitted that in human language no term can be found better fitted to express the Church’s meaning than the term PERSON. Because we must use intelligible language, no diffi- culty should be felt in calling the Holy Spirit a Person. The evidence for the personality of the Holy Spirit, it may’ be remarked, though often indirect, is not less convincing. For the Scriptures were not written in such a way as to overbear those who challenge every statement till they are subdued by evidence, and who commonly find or make the stumbling - blocks which they wish to meet, but for true inquirers,—for receptive minds and honest hearts, which feel the need of redemption, and can be satisfied with a sufficient amount of evidence. The evidence consists in the uniform teaching of Scripture, and in the fact that no counter state- ments refute it. It amounts to this: (1) That the Spirit is not the Father or the Son, but distinct from both; (2) that \\ He is an agent possessed of intelligence and will, power and | wisdom, which come to light in deeds performed with a on i t 106 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. design; (3) that the masculine pronouns applied to Him, and the nature of the mission on which He is sent, attest a Person, | The Scriptures distinctly recognise the Spirit as a Person. We have only to recall the language used in reference to THE ComForTER to be convinced of this. To compensate for the Father, He promised that He would send another Comforter, who should take His place as their immediate Teacher, | Helper, and Protector, and thus supply the want of His own \ presence, the anticipated loss of which filled them with | trouble and dismay. When we look at the Persons referred — to in that promise, it would be a perversion of language to suppose that a mere quality or influence is meant in any of the personal allusions. The sender is certainly different from | the person who is sent: for we do not speak of sending a; quality on an errand. Nor does ANY ONE SEND HIMSELF FROM | HIMSELF, as the Sabellian? must put it when he interprets the | words: “ When THE CoMFORTER is come, whom I WILL send to you FroM the Father” (John xv. 26). Whether we accept © one rendering or another of the word Comforter, whether we make it TEACHER with Ernesti, or HELPER, or ADVOCATE, or PATRON with others, it is obvious to every mind that He who was to compensate the disciples and the Church, of which they were the first-fruits, for the loss of Christ’s visible presence, was certainly a Person. The refusal to accept the Spirit’s personality in that text compels the interpreter, if consistent with himself, TO DENY THE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST in whose room He came. That is the alternative before him | which no ingenuity can evade. And the absurdity is not less | obvious of identifying the title Comforter or Paraclete with the impersonal gifts which the apostles subsequently received, That such a comment is untenable, is clear from the explicit. ! } ——— ™See e.g. Dr. Weiss’ Lehrbuch der Biblischen Theologie, 1868; Grimm’s Wilke’s Lexicon, 1868,—both in a Sabellian tendency. PERSONALITY AND PROCESSION OF THE SPIRIT. 107 / nnouncements that the Spirit should teach them all things \ (John xiv. 26); guide them into all truth (xvi. 13); bring all things to their remembrance (xiv. 26); glorify Christ by receiving of His and showing it to His disciples (xvi. 14). It is not possible more explicitly to distinguish a person from the works which he performs. Nor ought we to omit a note- worthy peculiarity in the THREE passages which refer to the Comforter. A change of gender in the use of the masculine demonstrative pronoun (éxetvos) forestalls the possibility of putting any other sense than a personal reference upon the words. Thus it is said: “The Comforter, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He (éxeivos) shall teach you all things” (John xiv. 26); “ When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceedeth from the Father, He (éxeivos) shall testify of me;” “ Howbeit, when He (éxeivos), the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of [better: from] Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak, and He will show you things to come. He (éxe@vos) shall glorify me” (xvi. 13, 14). The unbiassed sense of unlettered men, who are beyond the influence of the theological currents, is alive to the fact that the meaning of many passages is lost, unless we think of the Holy Ghost as a Person, and not as a mere influence or energy. To lie to the Holy Ghost (Acts v. 3), to grieve the Holy Spirit of God (Eph. iv. 30), are expressions which, as every reflecting mind perceives, imply a Person who is pleased | or displeased; and they cannot, with any propriety or fitness, be referred to what is impersonal. The Book of Acts, specially prepared, as we have seen, to éxhibit historically the Spirit’s operations in the Church after the Lord’s ascension, contains allusions to the personal leading of the Spirit on the mind of all Christ’s servants, and in the formation of the various Churches. Thus He said to Philip, 108 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. who had been directed to the way along which the chamber- lain of the Ethiopian Queen was returning home: “ Go near | and join thyself to this chariot” (viii. 29); and after that. mission was successfully accomplished, the Spirit of the Lord | caught away Philip (viii. 39). To Peter, when the deputation | from Cornelius arrived at Joppa, the Spirit said: “ Behold, three men seek thee ” (x. 19). When Saul of Tarsus was set apart — to his great Gentile commission, which made him ina peculiar sense the apostle of the Gentiles, the Holy Ghost said to the prophets and teachers who were ministering to the Lord in- the Church at Antioch : “Separate to me Barnabas and Saul for \ the work whereunto I have called them” (xiii. 2). When Paul — and Timothy attempted to go into Bithynia, the Spirit suffered them not (xvi. 7). When the members constituting the — council at Jerusalem gave forth the result of their delibera- tions for the guidance of the Churches in reference to the | observance of the Jewish rites, they said: “It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us” (xv. 28)—language which could | not have been used if the Holy Spirit were nothing but an \ influence. When He commissioned the apostles, and either directed or forbade them to do this or that according to His will, the language attests a free and sovereign agent, unless we are prepared to abandon the literal sense of words and the style of historic narrative. Fritzsche, in his learned treatise on the Spirit,’ correctly maintains—though the treatise is unsatisfactory as a statement of ecclesiastical doctrine—that it is clear as noon-day that Scripture speaks of a Person or subsistence, not of a divine influence or energy; and the Christian Church from the beginning, notwithstanding the deflections of individuals, may be said to have asserted the Spirit’s personality, and to have based it on the Scriptures. Collecting the evidence supplied by the survey of Scripture, we may put the arguments for the personality of the Spirit under the six following heads :— 1 Dr. Christ. Fried. Fritzsche, Nova Opuscula Academica, 1846. PERSONALITY AND PROCESSION OF THE SPIRIT. 109 1. The personal actions ascribed to Him abundantly prove it (John xiv. 26; 1 Cor. xii. 11). | 2. His distinction from the Father and the Son, and His mission from both, prove it (John xv. 26). 3. The co-ordinate rank and power which belong to Him equally with the Father and the Son prove it (Matt. Sve ies 2 Corexin. 14), 4, His appearance under a visible form at the baptism of Christ and on the day of Pentecost proves it. 5. The sin against the Holy Ghost implying a Person proves it. 6. The way in which He is distinguished from His gifts proves it (1 Cor. xii. 11). The glorification of the Holy Ghost in connection with the Church is still future. Passage after passage might be adduced to show that He occupies a co-ordinate rank with the other Persons. But the completion of the Church opens a vista into the future. The appearance of Christ among men ushered in a full historical revelation of the Son in word and deed; and the abasement to which He stooped was followed by an equally conspicuous exaltation. With the Holy Ghost it is not so as yet. He dwells in redeemed hearts bought with a price. He occupies a co-ordinate rank. But His work is still unseen. The personality and Deity of the Spirit are, however, one day to be displayed in con- spicuous glory in connection with His work upon the Church, when He shall have completed the marvellous transformation. The final issue in the glory reflected from every redeemed and perfected saint, and from the entire body of Christ now scattered over every country, and visited from hour to hour with new communications of wisdom, grace, and power, but then seen to be united to their glorious Head, will be worthy of the divine workman who is carrying on His transforming work, and raising up a temple in which the Godhead shall dwell for ever. At present the divine personality of the 110 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. Spirit is less perceptible, because it is not beheld in connec- tion with the accomplished work. The redeemed are not yet perfect; the Church is not yet complete. There is still another stage of revelation, when the Spirit shall be glorified in connection with the work which He shall have finished and brought to its destined completeness.’ ON THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. The words of Christ on which this discussion largely turns are these: “When the Comforter is come, whom I will send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who pro- ceedeth from the Father” (John xv. 26). These three things challenge our attention: (1) The mission of the Spirit by Christ from the Father; (2) the essential relation prior to that mission, and on which that mission rests: “who proceedeth from the Father” (6 mapa tod matpos éxtropeverat) ; the words “from the Father” corresponding to what is said of the generation of the Son, the Only-begotten “from the Father” (wapa matpos); (3) the present tense, “ proceedeth,” intimates an immanent ever-during present. ~ Some hold that the name Hoty Sprnrir refers exclusively to His office in man’s salvation. But it is necessary to distin- cuish when truth and error are confusedly put together. The designation Spirit oF Gop is the distinctive name of the third person of the Godhead, denoting a divine subsistent, with intelligence and will, proceeding from another. The epithet HOLY, frequently conjoined with the term SPIRIT, gives us a nearer view of the Spirit’s SPECIAL WORK in connection with man’s salvation, and suggests an antithesis to every unholy spirit, whether human or Satanic. The procession of the Spirit is spoken of by our Lord in connection with a refer- ence to the covenant of grace,? and doubtless the reason is 1 This is well brought out in Schmid’s Biblische Theologie, p. 167. 2 See Lampe’s Latin Disputations on the Spirit (vol. ii. p. 151 ff.). PERSONALITY AND PROCESSION OF THE SPIRIT. 111 to show that the natural order in the Godhead is also the order in the execution of the covenant of grace. Had we no other word of Scripture through which to think on this matter, the single title “THE Spirir or Gop” shows the rela- tion of two Persons, the one proceeding from the other, just as the title “the Son of God” proves the eternal Sonship. He is called—(1) the Spirit of the Lord (Isa. xi. 2); (2) the Spirit of God (Rom. viii. 9); (3) the Spirit that proceedeth from the Father (John xv. 26) ; (4) the Spirit of His Son (Gal. iv. 6); and we should grievously err if we believed that these phrases have no significance. We ascribe no such procession to Him as is in any way associated with the idea of imperfec- tion. We acknowledge, however, something fitly represented by the analogy of respiration, for it would be irreverence to imagine that there is no analogy in the terms employed. The more the matter is discussed, the more is Scripture found to warrant the position that, in the scheme of grace, the acts of the Persons of the Trinity are found to be accord- ing to their order of subsistence in the Godhead, and are but the visible manifestation of that order in the divine essence. The Spirit could not be called the Spirit of the Father, or the Spirit of Him who raised up Christ from the dead (Rom. viii. 11), unless He proceeded from the Father. He could not be called the Spirit of His Son (Gal. iv. 6), or the Spirit of Christ (Rom. viii. 9), because He replenished the humanity of Jesus. Nor does it appear how the Spirit could be sent by Him except upon the footing of that procession by which He is the Spirit of the Son as well as the Spirit of the Father, and which is eternally continued, without a past and without a future. The question is important in every respect, because it lies at the foundation of the MISSION OF THE Comrorter. And as to its practical results, Church history informs us that it is in the last degree calamitous to ignore it. ' See an excellent paper referring to the practical importance of this question, in Rudelbach’s Zeitschrift fiir Lutherische Theologie, 1849, p. 45. 112 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. Some divines, in other respects orthodox, have recently taken exception to the eternal procession, as they also do to the eternal Sonship. Thus the author of an excellent work on the Spirit, while soundly Trinitarian as to the action of the three divine Persons in the covenant of grace, unhappily says: “The spiration, procession, or promanation of the Spirit from the Father, or from the Father and the Son, are phrases occupying no mean place in the theology of the early ages. Now, we humbly submit—whatever reverence may be due to holy synods and to learned men—that such explanations are founded on an erroneous principle, for they are analyses of human thoughts or words, not developments of divine realities” (p. 82).’ They whose sentiments are thus re- echoed (viz. Roellius of Holland, Dr. Wardlaw, Prof. Moses Stuart, and the like) dismiss the subject of the procession with summary marks of impatience. But by so doing they cut themselves off from the Patristic literature, as well as from the Reformation, Puritan, and Anglican theology. The Scripture evidence in support of the procession 1s conclusive; and it is set forth in a mass of solid litera- ture, from the earliest times to the present day. The question of the procession, analogous as it is in all respects to the question of the eternal Sonship, deserves and rewards a full investigation. They who err in this article depart from the confession of a doctrine which the entire Church of God has taught and enforced from the days of the apostles. And the denial of this truth carries with it the most perilous consequences. (1) If there be no generation or procession, and if the names Farner, Son, AND Sprrit have respect merely to the covenant of grace, it would follow that these names are but official names, and have no essential relation underlying them. (2) It would follow that the Father could act in an isolated way without the Son and Holy Spirit, and that 1 The Work of the Spirit, By William Hendry Stowell. London 1849. PERSONALITY AND PROCESSION OF THE SPIRIT. BES they, again, could act from themselves apart from the Father without any natural and necessary relation of the one to the other. (3) It would follow that the bond of unity between the Persons was really subverted or overthrown. These perilous consequences, especially the last two, may be repudiated; and far be it from me to burden any man or class of men with consequences which they do not themselves accept and avow. But the consequences which are admitted are one thing, and the consequences which follow logically from an opinion are another thing. The consequences may be of potent infiuence though neither suspected nor acknowledged. The point to which we have adverted is at the foundation of the unity and distinction in the Godhead. The three Persons have a natural relation to each other, both in subsistence and action. They are one in essence and in operation. The Biblical foundation of the doctrine that the Spirit is FROM THE SON as well as from the Father is explicit. Thus it is said: “He shall glorify me: for He shall receive of mine, and show it unto you” (John xvi. 14). The import is: HE SHALL, in the sphere of divine truth and revelation, DELIVER ONLY WHAT I HAVE TAUGHT, and by go doing, GLORIFY ME as a divine teacher; for it redounds to Christ’s glory that no other doctrine should be taught but that which was derived from Him. Christ had declared of His own doctrine that it was not His, but the Father’s who sent Him, and that He taught nothing but what He had heard of His Father—that is, the Son received all Jrom His Father in the eternal generation (John xv. 15); and the Spirit receives all by procession from the Son in the same way as the Spirit of the Son. The same thing is elsewhere set forth as follows: “For He shall not speak of Himself [better: from Himself] (ap €avTov) ; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak ” (John xvi. 13). As the Son said regarding Himself: “ What H 114 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. I hear, I speak,” referring to His ineffable immanence in the Father, so the declaration that the Spirit should NOT SPEAK rrom HIMsELF, implies that He spoke nothing but what the Father and Son spoke by Him. There is a certain order, but no isolation of the one Person from the other; and the twice- repeated statement: “He shall receive of mine,”—united as it is with the declaration that the Son has the essence, attri- butes, and perfections that the Father has,—enables us to understand what is involved in this procession—viz. that the Holy Ghost receives the same numerical divine essence with the Father and the Son. Such has been the belief of the Church from the first as set forth in all the creeds. It must be accepted AS ESSENTIAL {0 THE PERFECTION OF THE DIVINE NATURE that the Father have a Son, and that there should be a Spirit proceeding from them both. The phrase: who proceedeth from the Father, in the present tense (éx7opeveras), intimates an immanent, in- ternal, ever-during act according to the unchangeable essence of the Deity. THE DEITY OF THE HoLy SPIRIT BASED ON THE PROCESSION. The SUPREME DEITY OF THE Spirit is clearly established by the procession of the Spirit. The expression through which we think, whenever we direct attention to this doctrine, is the designation Tue Sririr or Gop. Like the analogous designation “the Son of God,” it sets forth a unique relation, or a personal distinction, before any work was done. And as we say that the only Son is supreme God, not although He is the Son, but because He was begotten of _ the Father; so we say that the Spirit is supreme God, not although, but because He proceedeth from the Father and the Son. The following fivefold line of proof, when carried out to its legitimate consequences, and all taking for granted the PERSONALITY AND PROCESSION OF THE SPIRIT, 115 procession from the Father and the Son, furnishes conclusive proof of the supreme Deity of the Holy Spirit :— 1, The incommunicable acts of creation and providence ascribed to the Spirit. 2. Divine attributes ascribed to Him. 3. Divine honours and worship paid to Him. 4. The co-ordinate rank in which He is placed with the Father and the Son. 5. The name of God indirectly given to Him. 1. The creation and conservation of all things are attri- buted to the Spirit of God (Gem iis6 Pssoxxxtiien6 si Job xxvi. 13), He who summoned the world into being, with its countless laws, adjustments, and concurrent adaptations, is Supreme God. The conservation of the stupendous fabric by what is tantamount to a sustained creation, the knowledge necessary for a task beyond finite comprehension, the power that never faints, and the vigilance that never slumbers, argue the ever-present activity of supreme God. But all that creative energy which evoked the universe out of nothing, and all the conserving Providence which sustains it, are ascribed to the Spirit of God. To speak of delegation, as the Arians have done, is a hypothesis which needs but to be uttered to be repudiated. For to whom could such activity be delegated ? Who could wield the perfections which such a task implies, but He to whom these divine perfections naturally belong ? The prophet Isaiah, as if to laugh to scorn the notion of a delegated activity in such a sphere, thus exclaims: “ Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or, being His counsellor, hath taught Him?” A consideration of the universe with the light which modern science has shed upon its laws, adjusted as they are with the finest adaptation over all the realms of 116 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. nature, affords such a view of the wisdom necessary to plan, and of the power necessary to uphold them, that none but a divine hand was equal to the task. But that hand was the Spirit's. And the same argument applies to the great work of the Spirit in the RESURRECTION of our mortal bodies by His omnipotent power (Rom. viii. 11), and, in a word, to all the other omnipotent acts of the Spirit. 9. As to the DIVINE ATTRIBUTES ascribed to the Spirit, we may choose out of the great supply of materials furnished to our hand a few of ‘the properties of supreme Godhead which He is said to possess, such as omniscience, omnipresence, and eternity. We find oMNISCIENCE affirmed of the Spirit when it is said: “God hath revealed them to us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. ii 10, 11). The apostle says that he was in a position to unfold the purposes of God, because God revealed them to him by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. This is elucidated in the following verse by an illus- tration of a man knowing the things of a man by the spirit of man which is in him. The term SEARCH, by analogy, transferred from man to God, does not mean that the Spirit inquires to learn, but that He intimately knows. The language announces His perfect knowledge of the hidden counsels of God, and that the Spirit stands in the same relation to God that the soul of man does to man. The knowledge which the soul has of man’s hidden purposes and resolutions is compared with the Spirit’s knowledge of the secret purposes of God. For He is said (1) to know all things ; (2) to know the deep things of God; (3) to have an intuitive knowledge with the precision and accuracy which the term search conveys; (4) to know them with the PERSONALITY AND PROCESSION OF THE SPIRIT. 117 intimate knowledge with which a man knows his own counsels. With regard to the attribute of OMNIPRESENCE or immensity ascribed to the Holy Spirit, we find a vivid description of it in the psalm specially prepared to guide the Church’s worship on this point: “Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?” (Ps. cxxxix. 1). The remark of the anonymous writer in the Greek CATENA on this. psalm, that His Spirit intimates the Holy Spirit, and His face the only-begottten Son, is not without probability.’ But the evidence of the Spirit’s omnipresence is put beyond all doubt. And when we trace the Spirit’s presence as the inhabitant and guide of the believing soul, and of the Christian Church in all lands at one and the same moment, it is evident that He is as truly omnipresent in essence as He is omniscient in knowledge. For a mere creature cannot be in two places at once, or act, at the same moment, in a great variety of ways in many lands. The attempt of the Socinians to blunt the force of this consideration by referring to Satan plucking away the seed sown in the heart of many hearers of the gospel, is not analogous, because it involves a multitude of evil spirits, and successive, not simultaneous action. To the other attributes we need not advert. 3. As to DIVINE WORSHIP paid to the Spirit, it is found in various religious exercises. It is the more necessary to put this matter in the proper light, because Arminian writers, with the concession too readily evinced by them, were in the habit of asserting, along with those who denied the doctrine of the Spirit, that we have neither example nor command in Scripture for the worship of the Spirit. That statement is groundless. Why it is not more frequently mentioned may, without difficulty, be ascertained. One reason why the Spirit is not more directly, as well as more frequently He uses the words: cd avtiua adrod Qnol rd dyiov rvevua, mpocwmrev Ob roy ovoryeyn viov, 118 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. addressed in prayer, is, that He is THE PROMPTER OF PRAYER, and because no one can pray without the surrender of the heart to Him, and without full dependence on His help (Rom. viii. 26), who moulds within us the prayer which the Son presents. But it is not true, in point of fact, that there is no example of prayer to the Spirit. Of the texts which fully evince it, let me adduce THE ORDINANCE OF BAPTISM per- formed in the name of the Holy Ghost. We have only to consider the nature of the ordinance to perceive in it a solemn act of worship, an expression of faith, a testimony that He in whose name it is performed is our God, with a heartfelt surrender to Him in an act of new obedience. That all this is involved in it is clear from the words: “ Were ye baptized in the name of Paul?” (1 Cor. i.13). That these three Persons cannot be put in any other category than entire equality, is obvious from the fact that if any one of them were not God, two irreconcilable opposites would equally be the object of our faith, which is impossible. Another proof of the same thing is THE INVOCATION OF GRACE from the Spirit, as well as from the Father and from Christ (Rev. i. 4). The words used are: “the seven Spirits which are before His throne;” but the allusion is not to created spirits, but to the one Spirit of God, described in the plural by the number SEVEN, to show the perfection of the gifts, or to point out their sufficiency for the Church’s necessity and duties. That the reference is to the Spirit is clear, because Christ is said to “have the seven Spirits of God” (Rev. iii. 1); and there is no subordination in point of essential glory when He is equally invoked as the fountain of divine communications. Another consideration evincing the DIVINE HONOUR to be paid to Him is derived from the declaration that THE SIN AGAINST THE HoLy Guosr can never be forgiven. On the one hand, that could not be affirmed if He were not God; and, on the other hand, it by no means implies a superiority PERSONALITY AND PROCESSION OF THE SPIRIT. 119 to the other Persons from whom He is sent. It is to be explained by the nature of the sin which rejects the testimony, or quenches the operations of the Spirit, by which alone men can be saved. The Holy Spirit is never represented as a worshipper, but always as the object of divine worship. 4, THE CO-ORDINATE RANK in which the Spirit is placed with the Father and the Son, is brought out in not a few descriptive passages. We find the three Persons holding a co-ordinate rank when we look at Christ’s baptism (Matt. lu. 16), or at the Pentecostal effusion of the Spirit (Acts ll. 33), or at the Baptismal formula in the Christian Church, or at the fact which the Apostle Paul so emphatically adduces, that by Christ we have access in one Spirit to the Father (Eph. ii. 18). Without expounding all these passages, and others in this connection, let me adduce the apostolic benedic- tion: “ THE GRACE of the Lord Jesus Christ, and THE LOVE OF GOD, AND THE COMMUNION [communication] oF THE HoLy Guost be with you all” (2 Cor. xiii. 14) ; words containing an invocation to all the persons of the Godhead, and in point of import tantamount to saying: “O Lord Jesus Christ, let Thy grace; O Father, let Thy love; O Holy Ghost, let the communication of Thyself be with them all.” 5. The name of Gop is indirectly given to the Spirit. In the early centuries, the opponents of the doctrine of the Spirit were wont to challenge the orthodox Church, asking, Where is the Spirit designated God? Dr. Samuel Clarke was in the habit of affirming, according to his Arian bias, that the Holy Ghost is never spoken of as God either in the Old or New Testament. The language they desiderate may not be found in the express form which they desire. But we find an ample use of divine names applied to the Holy Spirit; and when we compare one passage with another, and with the connections of the context in which they stand, no possible doubt can remain on an unbiassed mind that the Spirit is supreme God, having a divine personality of the same kind 120 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. with that of the Father and the Son, with whom He is named as of equal rank. It is happily remarked by Lampe: “ It is befitting that He who speaks by all the prophets and apostles, as His scribes and amanuenses, showld speak less of Himself, when the work abundantly commends the author;” a just and happy observation, by no means to be neglected. But there are express instances where He who is called THE HOLY GHOST in one clause is called Gop in another. The narrative of Ananias and Sapphira is of such a character (Acts v. 3, 4). If Ananias lied to the Holy Ghost, and his culpability lay in the fact that he lied not to man, but to God, it is very evident that in Peter’s account the Holy Ghost is God. (Compare similiar interchangeable phraseology in Ps. xcv. 7 and Heb. ili. 7.) 6. The predicates of supreme Deity, such as eternity and the authority of a divine director, are ascribed to Him. He is called the Eternal Spirit (Heb. ix. 14): “ How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through THE ETERNAL SPIRIT offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” The language intimates the absolute eternity of the Spirit of God ; that is, that Jehovah never was or could be without the Spirit of God. As to His authority and wisdom as a divine director, it is said (Isa, xl. 13): “Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord ? with whom took He counsel?” The words emphatically set forth that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are His. | It would be superfluous to pursue the proof of the supreme Deity of the Spirit at greater length. For having established the Personality of the Spirit, and proved that the Holy Scrip- tures uniformly describe the Spirit as a person, His Deity at once becomes manifest from all the actions which He is said to perform. It is always HE, not Ir—a person, not an influence, and a person obviously divine. On this point, before I pass from it, I cannot but advert to PERSONALITY AND PROCESSION OF THE SPIRIT. 121 the excellences and defects of the Anglican theology. The Church of England has done more than any other Protestant Church to assert the great doctrine of the Trinity ; and every other Church in this land and in other lands has received an invigorating impulse from her unhesitating testimony to the truth of this essential article. The literature produced by her great divines, and the peculiar form of her Church-services, have all acted in the most favourable manner to vindicate and uphold a trinitarian tone among the English-speaking race. There the great writers of the English Church, such as Barrow, South, Burnet, Jackson, and others, stop short. But there is another division of the subject, viz. the office and work of the Holy Spirit, on which the Church of England has, for two centuries, bestowed far less study and attention than were due to such a theme. I cannot better describe the two parts of the subject than in the words of the Heidelberg Catechism (53rd question): “What dost thou believe con- cerning the Holy Spirit ?—A. “ First, that He is true and co-eternal God with the Father and the Son; seeondly, that He is also given to me, to make me by a true faith partaker of Christ and all His benefits, that He may comfort me and abide with me for ever.” The Anglican writers are very full on the first branch, but not so on the other. The reason of this one-sidedness in the Church of England, which I cannot but lament, must be traced to the Arminian theology, and to the ritualistic elements which found a large place within her pale, and turned away the mind from the Spirit’s inward work. LECTURE II. THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT IN THE ANOINTING OF CHRIST, ACCORDING TO THE COVENANT OF GRACE, TRINITY of persons in the Godhead, and a covenant of grace according to which they act in all the plan and exercise of grace, are brought before us in the ANOINTING of our Lord by the Holy Spirit. The term MessrAH, the Anointed One, carries with it the idea of the Trinity, inasmuch as it implies THE ANOINTER and THE ANOINTED, or THE CHRIST and THE HOoLy Spirit, the oil or the unction with which He was anointed. The term implies, too, a covenant of grace in which the different persons act their part, according to a paction or agreement, for man’s redemption. The Father and the Son come before us as two contracting parties, the sender and the sent; while the Holy Spirit is a concurring party in the entire provisions of the covenant. The task assigned to the Spirit, and carried out by Him in all respects, was to anoint and equip the Mediator for all the duties of that servant’s place which He was abased to fill; then to be sent as the Spirit of the Father and of the Son on the errand of revealing the redemption to be purchased by the Son; of announcing its historical fulfilment; and of actually applying the redemption to the souls of men. The Lord Jesus disclosed the nature of this covenant when He spoke of Himself as receiving the Father’s command (John. x. 18); and of the Spirit as not speaking of Himself, but speaking whatsoever He should hear (John xvi. 13); of glorifying Christ; of taking of His and showing it to the disciples (John xvi. 14). 122 WORK OF THE SPIRIT IN THE ANOINTING OF CHRIST. 123 Parties indeed there are in our day, the represeutatives of modern thought, who take exception to every phase of federal theology. But that is only to be expected from a class disposed to accept the wide-spread Sabellian opinion which admits no Trinity in any sense. It is enough to remark that the supposition of a covenant, pact, or agreement among the persons of the Godhead involves no greater difficulty than the supposition of a Trinity. There is beyond all question but one divine essence but three persons in the Godhead; and Owen happily remarks : “ The distinct acting of the will of the Father and of the will of the Son with regard to each other is more than a decree, and hath the proper nature of a covenant or compact.” * Two great thoughts confront us in reference to Christ throughout the Old and New Testament—(1) that He is a DIVINE PERSON, and (2) that He is THE ANOINTED SERVANT OF THE Lorp. On the one hand, the child born is designated the Wonderful, Counsellor, THE MIGHTY Gop (Isa. ix. 6); and, on the other hand, our attention is turned to Him as THE SERVANT OF THE LorRD upon whom the Spirit has been put (Isa. xlii. 1). And these two thoughts are never disjoined in Biblical theology. A twofold line of thought might here be pursued by us to show the constant agency of the Spirit on Christ’s humanity. (1) The idea of man implies it (Gen. ii. 7); and (2) the great fact of the Incarnation takes for granted that Christ’s manhood was immediately filled and led by the Spirit.. Many modern writers who deal with Christology, and venture to write Lives of Jesus, are wont to describe the Redeemer in glowing language as a man replenished with an absolute fulness of the Spirit,—whatever meaning they may attach to that term,— but maintain for the most part an ominous silence on His higher nature and on His divine pre-existence as the second Person of the Trinity. But both thoughts must be combined. 1 See Owen’s Works, Edin. ed., vol. xii. 496. 124 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. The passages which refer to the Spirit as anointing Christ are chiefly given historically. The teaching of the Baptist on the anointing of the Messiah is full of significance. It gives conclusive evidence that the Baptist by no means taught, according to the views largely adopted by the uninspired writers of the Life of Jesus, that it was the absolute fulness and presence of the Spirit which constituted all the higher element that was in Christ, or that this was all that is involved in what is called His Incarnation. It is worthy of notice that, prior to the mission of the Comforter to act with convincing power on the world, Scrip- ture speaks of a mission of the Spirit conjoined with that of the Son. The Messiah is introduced by the prophet Isaiah saying: “ And now the Lord God has sent me and His Spirit” (Isa. xlviii. 16); for, as Cocceius, Vitringa, and Lampe have conclusively proved, the words should be so translated. They bring before us a twofold or conjunct mission, which was appointed to take place together. They set forth that the Spirit of God had a part to act in and with the incarnation on the Person of the Messiah and in the whole performance of His mediatorial work." We need not refer again to the remarkable testimony of Isaiah to the anointing of Messiah by the Spirit, already noticed by us in connection with that prophet. With regard to the Incarnation, it was a conjunct act of the Trinity, in which the Spirit is represented as preparing the body which the Son assumed, by making it His own in a sense not to be affirmed of the other Persons of the God- head. Here I would make one preliminary remark. The Incarnation was among the category of MEANS to a given result, and introduced by occasion of sin, which it was 1 In the Symbolum fidei Concilii Toletani XI. a. 675, the Council adopts the wrong translation of Jerome or the Vulgate, and argues: ‘‘ missus tamen Filius non solum a Patre sed ab Spiritu Sancto missus credendus est in eo quod ipse per Prophetam dicit : et nunc Dominus misit me et Spiritus Sanctus.” | WORK OF THE SPIRIT IN THE ANOINTING OF CHRIST. 125 intended to put away. Several writers among the scholastics represented the ultimate design of the Incarnation as the self- manifestation of the Son of God, thus making it an object for Christ Himself, and something sought for its own sake. But it is to think unworthily of God to make it AN END. Such a notion destroys the grace of the Incarnation, and too readily leads to the conclusion that it is of the nature of God to become incarnate. Not less active in the same direction is the modern theory of Dorner! and others, that the Incarnation was included in the eternal idea of the world, irrespective of a fall. We cannot affirm that either the creation or Incarnation was necessary, or that they were anything beyond a free result of God’s will. No inner want was involved; it was only a self-moved act of divine love. That the Incarnation is but a MEANS to an end, not an ultimate object in itself, is a position which must be held, if we would not open the way for that style of speculation to which we have just adverted. Such a theory is subversive of the deep foundation on which the atonement rests. Nothing short of such means—for the Incarnation was but a means, costly as it was—could suffice to bring about the end designed. The problem was, How could a guilty creature appear not guilty, and the partition-wall erected by sin on the one side and justice on the other, be abolished, that unimpeded love might flow forth, and man again be the temple of the Holy Ghost ? The end contemplated was, how every attribute of God could be magnified, all the persons of the Trinity equally honoured, and man’s wants so fully met, that from the broken fragments of the first vessel another should be fashioned with still larger capacities of happiness and glory. For all His office the Lord Jesus received THE UNCTION OF THE SPIRIT: and here a question has been raised: Are we to refer this unction to the humanity of Christ or to the Person ? Theodoret, who too much betrays a Nestorian bias, limited * Dorner’s Entwicklungsyeschichte der Lehre von der Person Christi, 1845, 126 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. — the unction to the humanity alone.’ On the other hand, Justin Martyr and Ambrose, not to mention others, refer the expression UNCTION to the Deity of our Lord. Others, whom Petavius adduces, refer it to both natures. Unquestionably, wherever allusion is made to this unction, it must be under- stood as referring to the Person. The opinion that limits the unction to His humanity originated from the circumstance that the propounders of that view concluded—as was by no means unnatural—that the-expression could have no further allusion than to the sanctification of our Lord’s humanity at His nativity and baptism; and they did not duly attend to the wider acceptation of the phrase in Scripture. The mode in which the Redeemer subsequently to His exaltation received the promise of the Holy Ghost, together with the power of dispensing such a gift to others, is of such a nature, however, as conclusively proves that the unction is competent to Him only as God-man *—that is, in both natures. As the humanity was assumed into the hypostatic union, we may fitly say, on the one hand, that THE PERSON OF CHRIST was anointed, so far as THE CALL TO OFFICE was concerned; while we bear in mind, on the other hand, that it is the humanity that is anointed in as far as we contemplate the actual sup- plies of gifts and graces, aids and endowments, necessary for the execution of His office. The unction to which we have referred did not preclude, but presuppose the knowledge of divine things involved in Christ's pre-existence, and His divine fellowship with the Father before the world was. That. was not an ideal, but a real pre-exist- ence, and included an immediate intuitive knowledge of divine things. The Lord Jesus affirmed of Himself such things as are not competent to any finite being when He said: “No 1 tnepichn 2% ving ws Osos AAR’ ws cvbpuros (Epitom. div. Decret. ch. 11). See Petavius, Theol. Dog. de Incarnat. lib, xi. ¢. 8. 2 Maestricht puts it happily thus: ‘‘Proinde unctus est quoad utramque naturam, quatenus unctio designat vocationem ; sed quoad humanam tantum, quatenus notat qualificationem” (Theor, Pract. Theol. p. 426). WORK OF THE SPIRIT IN THE ANOINTING OF CHRIST. 127 man hath ascended up to heaven but He that came down from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven” (John iui. 13). As our Lord existed from eternity, and as an intimate relation obtained between Him and the Father before the foundation of the world, His knowledge of divine things was intuitive and absolutely perfect to such an extent that He could say: “We speak what we know, and testify what we have seen” (John iii, 11). He refers to Himself ag participant of the divine counsels, and as being in heaven before He came down to earth, And the additional clause: “the Son of man who is in heaven,”—which is not only genuine,’ but essential to the sense,—describes, in contrast with the clause: “no man ascended up to heaven,” the sense in which He affirmed that He testified what He had seen. With the omnipresence of the divine nature He was in heaven while He spoke these words on the earth; for we must by no means translate the words (0 @v) “ who WAS in heaven,” but “who 18 in heaven.” The remark of Owen is worthy of deep consideration, “The only singular immediate act,” says he,’ “of the Person of the Son on the human nature, was the assumption of it into subsistence with Himself.” That mode of contemplating the Person of Christ is Biblical. But that we may not be ingulfed in one-sidedness, it must be also added that the Spirit, according to the order of the Trinity, interposes His power only to execute the will of the Son? And so far is this from interfering with the glory of the Son, that it rather reveals Him more conspicuously, that in the work of redemp- tion the operations of the Spirit are next in order to those of the Son. The two natures of our Lord Activety concurrEp in every mediatorial act. If He assumed human nature in the true and proper sense of the term into union with His divine person, 1 See Dean Burgon’s Revision Revised, p. 133. Lond. 1883. * Owen, vol. iii. p. 160, Edin. ed. ° Vid, Lampe’s excellent Disputationes Philol. Theol. de Spiritu Sancto, vol. ii, 128 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. that position must be maintained. The Socinian objection, that there could be no further need for the Spirit’s agency, and, in fact, no room for it,—if the divine nature of our Lord was itself active in the whole range of Christ’s mediation,—is meant to perplex the question, because these men deny the existence of any divine nature in Christ’s Person. That style of reasoning is futile ; for the question simply is, What do the Scriptures teach? Do they affirm that Christ was anointed by the Spirit ? (Acts x. 38), that He was led out into the wilder- ness by the Spirit ? that He returned in the power of the Spirit to begin His public ministry? that He performed His miracles by the Spirit? and that, previously to His ascension, He gave commandments by the Spirit to the disciples whom He had chosen? (Acts i. 2). No warrant exists for anything akin to that Kenotic or depotentiation-theory which denudes Him of essential attributes of the Godhead, and puts His humanity on a mere level with that of other men. And as little warrant exists for denying the Spirit’s work on Christ’s humanity in every mediatorial act which He performed on earth or performs in heaven. The unction of the Spirit must be traced in all His personal and official gifts. In Christ the Person and office coincided. In His divine Person He was the substance of all the offices to which He was appointed ; and these He was fitted by the Holy Spirit to discharge: The offices would be nothing apart from Himself, and could have neither coherence nor validity without the underlying Person. But He was also anointed with the Spirit, nay, the absolute receiver of the Spirit, poured on Him in such a plenitude that it was not by measure (John ili. 34). As to the UNCTION of the Lord Jesus by the Spirit, it was different according to the THREE GRADES successively imparted. The first grade was at the Incarnation; the second coincided with His baptism; the third and highest grade was at the ascension, when He sat down on His mediatorial throne and WORK OF THE SPIRIT IN THE ANOINTING OF CHRIST. 129 received from the Father the gift of the Holy Ghost to bestow upon His Church in abundant measure. I, The FIRST GRADE of this anointing with the Spirit took place at the Incarnation or nativity. The words, as given by Luke, contain a brief description of the supernatural concep- tion: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: wherefore that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke i. 35). And they show that the Lord’s humanity was sinless, and that it never was in Adam’s covenant. The second clause describes more fully what was said in the first clause, according to the exegetical rule, that in corresponding members of this sort the darker is to be explained by the clearer. The import of both clauses is, that the Holy Spirit was the former of Christ’s human nature; and that the Son by assuming it into personal union, made it His own by a right peculiar to Himself—that is, by a union personal and incommunicable to the other Persons of the Godhead2 And these words are important as serving to refute the ancient and recent Errorists, who disliked the idea that our Lord’s flesh was formed by the Spirit from Mary’s substance, and fancied to themselves a certain heavenly flesh brought with Him from above. Another point demanding notice is the statement that the holy thing born of Mary should be called the Son or Gop. In construing this clause, we must make “the holy thing born ' Dr. M‘Crie well remarks, in his sermon on the love of the Spirit: ‘‘In the glorious person of the Redeemer, next to the GRACE oF UNION, which is the effect of the assumption of human nature by the Son of God, THE GRACE OF UNCTION is the most wonderful object of contemplation” (vol. iv. p. 362). ? It was united to Him in such a sense that it also (xa#i) is the Son of God. That holy thing began to be at the conception by the Spirit. The words of thee (tx ov), deleted by many in the phrase, should probably be retained in the text, for they are found in such a number of Fathers (Justin, Irenzeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Athanasius, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Jerome) that the balance of authority from this source alone goes far to counterbalance the evidence of faulty manuscripts against them, ’ I 130 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. of thee ” the nominative of the sentence, and “ shall be called Son of God” the predicate. They’ who put the adjective HOLY as the predicate thus: “that which is to be born shall be called holy,” not only misapprehend the grammatical con- struction, but eliminate the truth which the clause was in- tended to convey. The true meaning is: the holy thing born of thee shall, in virtue of the hypostatic union, be also called the Son of God, thus asserting the unity of the Person. The words ovo xaé intimate that there is both an eternal generation and a holy thing begotten, created when assumed, and assumed when created, and that the result is not two Persons, but one; for the holy thing to which Mary gave birth is ALSO called the Son of God. This explanation meets the argument of the Unitarians, whose plea, derived from this verse, is, that the future tense, “ shall be called,” implies that Christ was not the Son of God by eternal pre-existence, and that He only began to be the Son of God when He took the flesh; thus confounding the differ- ence between His eternal Sonship and His being called so in the knowledge and confession of the Church—that is, the differ- ence between being and manifestation. The nativity by the Holy Spirit from the Virgin could not make humanity the Son of God. As the humanity, however, was assumed into personal union by the Son, it also is called the Son of God. Everything included in the Spirit’s work on Christ’s humanity is of the last importance. Thus it is abundantly evident from Scripture— unless we give an arbitrary meaning to the phrase: “ The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee” (Luke i. 35) — that the Lord’s humanity was produced by the Holy Ghost in a supernatural way, which at once obviated the possibility of contracting guilt from Adam, or of deriving any transmitted corruption, and which, by an act of infinite wisdom and power, put Him within the human family as a kinsman-Redeemer, and yet exempted Him from 1 So Bornemann and the Revised Version incorrectly, * a WORK OF THE SPIRIT IN THE ANOINTING OF CHRIST. Por being in Adam’s covenant ; for He was the second Adam, the Son of man. Nor did the: mother need an immaculate nature. The question, How could pure humanity be derived from a defiled source which uniformly entails corruption on others? is a difficulty which has staggered many—the Valentinians, the Anabaptists, the Quakers, and some modern Plymouthists on the one side, and the entire Church of Rome on the other, The sects above named attempted to meet the difficulty by repre- senting Mary as but a pipe or channel (c@Anv) through which a heavenly body or flesh, immediately created by the Holy Ghost, but not formed from her substance, was introduced into the world. But on that principle the Lord Jesus would belong to another order of beings, and would not be our brother, born into our family (Heb. ii. 14). And redemption was only possible when effected by a GoEL. or kinsman- Redeemer. As to the way in which the Romish Church met the difficulty in the Bull which affirmed the immaculate con- ception of the Virgin Mary and her exemption from all taint of original sin before she was born,’ the presupposition (or, as theologians express it, the Tp@tov w~reddos) can be no other than the repetition of the exaggerated theory of Flacius on the subject of original sin, from which the entire Protestant Church, Lutheran and Reformed, recoiled with equal horror— viz. that sin had become the very essence of man. The divines who confuted Flacius at once saw that on such a Supposition an incarnation would have been impossible, and replied that human nature, corrupted as it was by the sin of Adam, was still, as a work of God, good, and capable of redemption; that we can distinguish in idea between the good work of God and the Vitiating taint superinduced upon it, though we cannot Separate these elements; and that God can do both—redeem His creature, and separate the sin. On the ground of this distinction, which is presupposed in the * See the definition of 10th Dec. 1854, 132 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, whole redeeming and regenerating grace of God, nature could be made available as the substance out of which, by the miraculous intervention of the Holy Ghost, the sinless humanity of our Lord could be produced. The theory of Rome makes a sinless mother indispensable ; and it is as faulty as that of the above-named sects, which resorted in their perplexity to the conclusion that Mary was but a medium of transmission. If both these tendencies egregiously fail by regarding original sin as an insuperable difficulty to the sup- position that our Lord derived His flesh from a fallen mother, Schleiermacher and his school, from antagonism to the super- natural in miracle, place themselves on a Pelagian view otf humanity, and concede that there was nothing more than the ordinary generation. As to the theory of Menken and Irving, that our Lord took fallen humanity, it wholly mistakes the great end of the supernatural conception. According to the first promise given in Genesis (iil. 15), and announced by Isaiah a second time, the Saviour was to be born of a virgin (Isa. vii. 14). The Holy Spirit was upon Him, accordingly, from the moment of His conception, displaying His power in supplying Him with the endowments, capacities, and gifts— physical, intellectual, and spiritual—which were necessary for His high work. As sanctification belongs to the Spirit's operations, there can be no doubt that everything required for the sanctification of the Lord’s humanity was plentifully supplied by the agency of the Holy Spirit, who warded off every taint from whatever quarter it could possibly approach Him. Not only so; the soul of Christ, from the first moment of conscious existence, was filled with actual communications of the Spirit for such exercises of trust, and love, and holy affections as were necessary in the experience of Him who came as the second Adam, with the image of God restored in all its fulness (Ps. xxii. 10), He who made man a temple of God at first, and who was restoring. it in the Incarnate Son, was incessantly active in conferring every conceivable gift, WORK OF THE SPIRIT IN THE ANOINTING OF CHRIST. 133 and in signally augmenting these gifts in ever-increasing measure at successive stages for the great work to be per- formed. All this was for His private life. “ And the child grew and waxed strong in Spirit (rvetpate’), filled with wisdom” (Luke ii. 40). This passage proves that we must ascribe to the Spirit all the progress in Christ’s mental and spiritual development, and all His advancement in knowledge and holiness. He went through the successive stages of acquirement in a manner absolutely unique, because His humanity had its existence in the personal union. He was filled by the Spirit with a wisdom which replenished all the powers of His rational nature. Though the increase, at first sight, seems incompatible with His being the Son of God, yet perfection is compatible with progress in a created nature, and He must needs be made like to His brethren. He knew as a boy what He had not acquired as a child; and as all the gifts were supplied to Him by the Spirit, we can trace the progress in the following stages which come to light in our Lord’s history. The Spirit was given to Him, in consequence of the personal union, in a measure which no mere man could possess, constituting THE LINK between the Deity and humanity, perpetually wmparting the full consciousness of His personality, and making Him inwardly aware of His divine Sonship at all times (Luke ii. 49). Thus the Spirit at the incarnation became the great guiding principle of all Christ’s early history,’ according to the order of operation that belongs to the Trinity. It was the Holy Spirit that formed His human nature and directed the tenor of His earthly life. His human nature had no distinct per- sonality, nor any self-directing principle (76 ryepovsxdv), apart from the personal union; and as He was not less perfect, but 1 This reading has a preponderance of authority in its favour. 2 On this point see the remarks of OWEN in his Discourse on the Holy Spirit (vol. iii. Edin. ed.) ; of Hurr1on On the Divinity of the Holy Spirit ; and of GuysE On the Holy Spirit, a Divine Person. 134 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. more perfect than any other of the family of man on this account, it must be carefully remembered that THE FULL CON- SCIOUSNESS that He was the only Son of God, who came from God and went to God (John xiii. 3), flowed perpetually from the Spirit. Zhe communication* from the one nature to the other was by the Spirit, the EXECUTIVE of all the works of God, Hence He never spoke or acted but at the proper time (John vii. 6). He had His hour for everything that He per- formed, and a full consciousness derived from the Spirit that He was the Son of God, The Godhead dwelling in Him made all DUE COMMUNICATIONS TO His MANHOOD BY THE HOLy Guost. All the evangelists, but especially the Gospel of John, show that the Spirit prompted all His actions, and gave * The following quotation from Bishop Horsley’s sermons will serve to elucidate the position which we have here affirmed: ‘Neither of the two natures was absorbed in the other, but both remained in themselves perfect, notwithstanding the union of the two in one person. The Divine Word, to which the humanity was united, was not, as some ancient heretics imagined, instead of a soul to inform the body of the man; for this could not have been without a diminution of the divinity, which upon this supposition must have become obnoxious to all the perturbations of the human soul,—to the passions of grief, fear, anger, pity, joy, hope, and disappointment,—to all which our Lord without sin was liable. The human nature in our Lord was complete in both its parts, consisting of a body and a rational soul. The rational soul of our Lord’s human nature was a distinct thing from the principle of divinity to which it was united; and being so distinct, like the souls of other men, it owed the right use of its faculties, in the exercise of them upon religious subjects, and its uncorrupted rectitude of will, to the influence of the Holy Spirit of God. Jesus indeed ‘was anointed with this holy oil above His fellows,’ inasmuch as the intercourse was uninterrupted,—the illumination by infinite degrees more full, and the consent and submission, on the part of the man, more perfect than in any of the sons of Adam; insomuch that He alone of all the human race, by the strength and light imparted from above, was exempt from sin, and rendered superior to temptation, To Him the Spirit was given not by measure. The unmeasured infusion of the Spirit into the Redeemer’s soul was NOT THE MEANS, BUT THE EFFECT, of its union to the second person of the Godhead.