CHAPTER IX.

OPINIONS CONCERNING THE SPIRIT.

I HAVE now given a view of the different opinions that have been held concerning that person, by whom the remedy offered in the gospel was brought to the world. But there is also revealed to us another person by whom that remedy is applied, who is known in Scripture by the name of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost; and whom our Lord, in different places of that long discourse which John has recorded in chaps. xiv. xv. and xvi. of his gospel, calls παρακλητος. When you read John xv. 26, you cannot avoid considering ὁ παρακλητος as the same with το πνεύμα, and as a person distinct from the Father and the Son. Παρακλητος is derived from παρακαλεω, the precise meaning of which is, "standing by the side of a person I call upon him to do something," and which is commonly translated, “ I comfort or encourage." Hence the word ragazλntos is rendered in our Bibles the Comforter; but if you attend to the analogy of the Greek language, you will perceive that the manner in which it is formed from the verb, suggests as the more literal interpretation of the noun advocatus, advocate, "one who, being called in, stands by the side of others to assist them."

Of the offices of this person I shall have to speak, when I proceed in the progress of my plan to the application of the remedy. At present I have only to state the information which the Scriptures afford, and the different opinions to which that information has given rise, concerning the character of this person. The subject lies within a much narrower compass than that which I have just finished.

Dr. Clarke has collected, in his Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, all the passages of the New Testament in which the Spirit is mentioned. They are very numerous; they have been differently interpreted; and corresponding to this difference of interpretation is the variety of opinions which have been held concerning this person. The simplest method in which I can state the progress of these opinions, is to begin with directing your attention to the form of baptism taught by our Lord, Matt. xxviii. 19. Baptism, or washing, is found in the religious ceremonies of all nations. Among the heathen, the initiated after having been instructed in certain hidden doctrines and awful rites were baptized into these mysteries. The Israelites are said by the Apostle Paul, 1 Cor. x. 2, to have been baptized into Moses, at the time when they followed him as the servant of God, sent to lead them through the Red Sea.

Proselytes to the law of Moses from other nations were received by

baptism; and all the people who went out to hear John, the forerunner of Jesus, were baptized by him into the baptism of repentance. In accommodation to this general practice, Jesus, having employed his apostles to baptize those who came to him during his ministry, sent them forth, after his ascension, to make disciples of all nations by baptizing them. But, in order to render baptism a distinguishing tite, by which his followers might be separated from the followers of any other teacher who chose to baptize, he added these words," into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

The earliest Christian writers inform us that this solemn form of expression was uniformly employed from the beginning of the Christian church. It is true, indeed, that the Apostle Peter said to those who were converted on the day of Pentecost, Acts ii. 38," Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ ;" and that, in different places of the book of Acts, it is said that persons were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus: and from hence those, who deny the argument which I am about to draw from the form of baptism, have inferred that, in the days of the apostles, this form was not rigorously observed. But a little attention will satisfy you that the inference does not follow, because there is internal evidence from the New Testament itself, that when the historian says, persons were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, he means they were baptized according to the form prescribed by Jesus. Thus the question put by Paul, Acts xix. 2, 3, shows that he did not suppose it possible for any person who administered Christian baptism to omit the mention of the Holy Ghost; and even after this question, the historian, when he informs us that the disciples were baptized, is not solicitous to repeat the whole form, but says in his usual manner, Acts xix. 5, "when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus." There is another question put by the Apostle Paul, 1 Cor. i. 13, which shows us in what light he viewed the form of baptism. The question implies his considering the form of baptism as so sacred, that the introducing the name of a teacher into it was the same thing as introducing a new master into the kingdom of Christ.

There is nothing, then, in the New Testament contrary to the clear information which we derive from the succession of Christian writers, who agree in declaring that the form of baptism originally prescribed by Jesus was from the beginning observed upon every occasion. At a time when Christianity was not the established religion of the state, but was spreading rapidly through the Roman empire, many were daily baptized who had been educated in the knowledge and belief of other religions, and baptism was their initiation into the faith of Christ. In order to prepare them for this solemn act, they received instruction for many days in the principal articles of the Christian faith, particularly in the knowledge of the three Persons into whose name they were to be baptized, and they were required at their baptism to declare that they believed what they had been taught. The practice of connecting instruction with the administration of baptism rests upon apostolical authority ;* and upon this was probably founded the following practice, which we learn from early writers to

Acts viii. 35-38. Rom. x. 10. 1 Pet. iii. 21.

have been universal. Those who were to be baptized underwent a preparation, during which they were called, in the Greek church, κατηχούμενοι ; in the Latin church, competentes. Κατηχούμενοι is derived from xatnew, a compound of xata and new, sono, which implies that they were instructed viva voce by catechists, whose business it was to deliver to them in the most familiar manner the rudiments of the doctrine of Christ: Competentes, competitors, or candidates, implies that they were seeking together the honour of being initiated into Christianity. When the catechumens or competentes were judged to have attained a sufficient measure of knowledge, they were brought to the baptismal font, and immediately before their baptism two things were required of them. The one was called απόταξις του Σατανά, segregatio a Satana ; the other, συνταξις προς Χριστον, aggregatio ad Christum. By the one they renounced, in a form of words that was prescribed to them, the devil, his works, his worship, and all his pomp, i. e. they professed their resolution to forsake both vice and idolatry by the other, they declared their faith in those articles in which they had been instructed. The most ancient method of declaring this faith was taken from the form of baptism. The person to be baptized said, "I believe in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." By these words, he professed that his faith embraced that whole name into which he was to be baptized; and the creeds, which came to be used in different churches, appear to have been only enlargements of this original declaration, the substance of which was retained in all of them, but was extended or explained by insertions which were meant to oppose errors in doctrine as they sprang up, and which consequently varied in every church according to the nature of the errors that prevailed there, and the light in which these errors were viewed. Every church required its catechumens to repeat its own creed before they were baptized, so that the repetition of the creed was a declaration on the part of the catechumens, that their faith in the name into which they were to be baptized was the same with that of the church from which they were to receive baptism.

It appears by this deduction, that faith in the Holy Ghost was a branch of the rudiments of Christianity, derived from that form by which our Lord appointed disciples to be initiated into his religion; and in this form you will observe that the Holy Ghost is conjoined with the Father and the Son, in such a manner as obviously to imply that he is a person of equal rank with them. When you recollect the exalted conceptions which the gospel gives of the Father, and the full revelation which it has made of the dignity of the Son; when you recollect that there is authority in the New Testament for worshipping the Son as the Father; and when you consider further that the persons who professed their faith in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, did at the very same time renounce the worship of idols, you will acknowledge that there is an unaccountable ambiguity in the expression prescribed by our Lord; nay, that the form used upon his authority has a necessary tendency to lead Christians into the practice of idolatry which they then renounced, unless the Holy Ghost be, with the Father and the Son, an object of worship. This clear inference from the form of baptism was probably confirmed in the

earliest ages by its being observed, that, besides all those places of the New Testament which teach us to reverence the Spirit, there is one passage where the Apostle Paul has joined the three persons together in such a manner as seems intended to convey to his readers a conception of the equality of their rank." "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all."

Upon these authorities the Christian church, from the very beginning, worshipped the Holy Ghost. There is clear evidence of this fact, in a passage from Justin Martyr,t whom we are accustomed to quote as the best voucher of the opinions and the practices of early times. The succession of Christian writers from Justin say the same thing, and the Spirit is conjoined with the Father and the Son in the most ancient doxologies. But it was a principle with the first Christians, τον Θεον μόνον δει προσκυνειν. The worship of any creature was in their eyes idolatry; and therefore their worshipping the Holy Ghost was expressing by their practice the same inference which they draw in their writings from the form of baptisin, viz. that the Holy Ghost is a person of the same rank with the Father and the Son.

If this uniform testimony of the Christian writers could be supposed to require any support, we might quote a dialogue entitled Philopatris, commonly ascribed to Lucian, and certainly written either by him, or by some contemporary of his, about the middle of the second century. The author means to give a ludicrous representation of the manner in which the catechumens were instructed, and amongst other circumstances, he introduces the following. The scholar asks by whom he should swear, and the christian instructor answers in words which imply that the Christians, in the days of Lucian, were accustomed to swear by all the three Persons mentioned. But as swearing by a Person is one of those honours which are most properly called divine, Lucian infers, from this part of the practice of the Christians, that in their estimation every one of the three Persons was Zɛvs xα Oɛ05; and thus his testimony comes to be a voucher of both the opinions and the practice of the great body of Christians with regard to the Holy Ghost.

During the first three centuries, there was not any particular controversy upon this subject, except that which was occasioned by the system of the Gnostics. The numerous sects that come under this description, who corrupted the simplicity of the gospel by a mixture of the tenets of oriental philosophy, held both Christ and the Spirit to be Æons, emanations from the Supreme Mind. But as they denied the divine original of the books of Moses, they said that the Spirit, which had inspired him and the prophets, was not that exalted Eon whom God sent forth after the ascension of Christ, but an Æon

† Αλλ' εκείνον τε (πατέρας) και τον παρ' αυτου υίον ελθόντα, και διδάξαντα ήμας ταυτα και τον των αλλων ἑπομένων και εξομοιούμενων αγαθών αγγελων στρατον, πνευμα τε το προφητικον σεβόμεθα και προσκυνοῦμεν, λόγῳ και αληθεια τιμωντες. See Bull, Def. 70. See Bull, Def. F. N. 73, and Jud. 32.

very much inferior, and removed at a great distance from the Supreme Being. It was, on the other hand, the general belief of the Christian church, that the same Spirit who was afterwards sent to the apostles had operated in the saints from the beginning; and the character uniformly given of the Spirit by Justin Martyr, Irenæus, and the other primitive writers, was in such words as these: to xgUPNTIZOV πνευμα το δια των προφητών κεκηρυχος τας οικονομίας Θεόν. In order, therefore, to oppose the errors of the Gnostics, there came to be introduced into the creed of the church of Jerusalem, which was honoured throughout the east as the mother of all the churches, in addition to the original words, “ I believe εις το άγιον πνευμα,” the following, “ το παρακλητον, To rahŋoav dia twv rgoontwr." We know that Cyril, who was Bishop of Jerusalem in the fourth century, wrote an exposition of the creed of which these words are a part; and we learn from his writings, that this creed was explained to the catechumens in the church of Jerusalem, and that they were required to repeat it before they received baptism.

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Here the matter rested till after the time of the Arian controversy. As Arius held the Son to be the most excellent creature of God, by whom all others were created, the Spirit was necessarily ranked by him amongst the productions of the Son: and accordingly the ancient writers who have left an account of the heresy of Arius, say that he made the Spirit Toμa xvioμazos, the creature of a creature. But as his attacks were chiefly directed against the divinity of the Son, and as his opinions concerning the Spirit were only an inference from the leading principles of his system, they did not draw any particular attention in the council of Nice. This first general council, which met A. D. 325, published the creed, which is known by the name of the Nicene creed, in direct opposition to the errors of Arius. Accordingly, they are added in this creed to the second article of the ancient creeds, that concerning the Son, several clauses which were meant to declare the dignity of his person, and his consubstantiality with the Father; but the third article, that concerning the Spirit, is continued in the same simple mode of expression which had been originally suggested by the form of baptism, και εις το πνεύμα το άγιον.

In the course of the fourth century, Macedonius, who held a particular modification of the Arian system concerning the Son, following out the principles of that system, openly denied the divinity of the Spirit, and was the founder of a sect, known in those times by the name Пvεvuarouazo. Macedonius is said by some to have denied that the Holy Ghost is a person distinct from the Father, and to have considered what the Scriptures call the Spirit, as only a divine energy diffused throughout creation. According to others, he held the Spirit to be a creature, the servant of the Most High God. We are not acquainted with the detail of his opinions. We only know in general that he did not admit, what in his time had been generally received in the Christian church, that the Holy Spirit is a person of the same divine nature with the Father and the Son; and we have the clearest evidence that the opinion of Macedonius appeared to the church to be an innovation in the ancient faith. For as the first general council, the council of Nice, had, A. D. 325, condemned the opinions of Arius with regard to the Son, so the second general council, the