19. Prayer after "brief Exhortation." “Give Thy Holy Spirit to this infant, that he may be born again” 20. Thanksgiving after Baptism. “We yield Thee hearty thanks that it hath pleased Thee to regenerate this infant with Thy Holy Spirit." In these passages the operation of the Holy Spirit is plainly connected with the Sacramental regeneration and sanctification of the child; and "give" in the prayer can only be taken to mean the same as the expression used in the thanksgiving. But it is curious to observe that in another Office for Baptism, compiled after the Church had been so terribly unsettled by the Puritanism of Cromwell's days, the tone is vastly changed. There, in the Exhortation the people are assured, that GOD will "bestow the HOLY GHOST" upon the baptized repenting and believing; and in the Thanksgiving after Baptism, the same prayer is used which in all the older forms precedes the act,-"Give Thy Holy Spirit to these persons, that being now born again. they may continue Thy servants and attain Thy promises" This alteration was either made inadvertently-perhaps by some who were not very deeply read in Liturgical formularies,-or else it was made by those who had been more or less leavened with Puritan theology, which disconnected the sanctification of the Spirit from the act of Baptism with water. In the Confirmation Service, the Bishop prays, 21. "Strengthen them . . . . with the HOLY GHOST the Comforter, and daily increase in them Thy manifold gifts of grace. 22. "That he may daily increase in Thy Holy Spirit more and more,' 23. "Let Thy Fatherly hand ever be over them; let Thy Holy Spirit ever be with them; and so lead them in the knowledge and obedience of Thy Word that" In the Visitation of the sick, words exactly similar to those above are used in the prayer after Confession and Absolution. 24. "Strengthen him with Thy blessed Spirit :" and if we add the statement in the Catechism in answer to the question on the Creed, we shall have taken every expression in the Prayer Book which at all bears upon the subject. 25. "GOD the HOLY GHOST, Who sanctifieth me, and all the elect people of Gon." There remain the Articles and Homilies. In the former we read of "works done before the grace of CHRIST, and the inspiration of His Spirit;" (Art. xiii.) and that, "After we have received the HOLY GHOST, we may depart from grace given, (Art. xvi.) both which expressions may doubtless be referred to Holy Baptism. In the Article on Baptism (xxvii.) we read also of "our adoption to be the Sons of GOD by the HOLY GHOST," which comes under the same class. In that on Predestination (xvii.) those are spoken of who "be called according to God's purpose by His Spirit work ing in due season:" of "such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of CHRIST:" of "curious and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of CHRIST." And in the Article on General Councils (xxi.) that "all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God." Of the incidental suggestions bearing upon our subject contained in these two latter Articles, we should imagine few divines will now be disposed to avail themselves. If they should, we can only beg to decline all argument respecting them, especially as to the " rious and carnal persons," lest we should incur the pain of being "number-ninetied" by some high authority. cu The language of the Homilies is very unequal; in some definite and precise, in others of such a character that it is difficult to say how far a literal and how far a metaphorical interpretation of it is to be adopted. This is very much the case with the Homily for Whitsunday, with the 'first part' of which only we are concerned, as the second part is a quite Warburtonian philippic against the Pope; and does not, of course, throw any great light on our subject. The greater portion of this first part' is taken up with an exposition of such Scriptures as prove the GODHEAD of the HOLY GHOST, and with a statement of His Influence and Operation by means of the Sacrament of Baptism. In the two concluding paragraphs, there are other statements which do not seem so closely to coincide with the reserve of the Prayer Book, as with the teaching of the Puritans. The following for instance: "Neither doth He think it sufficient inwardly to work the spiritual and new birth of man, unless He do also dwell and abide in him." But after quoting several Scriptural texts in proof, this statement seems much explained away by the declaration that a good life-the fruits of the Spirit as summed up by S. Paul-is a proof of the Spirit's Indwelling; as if that were the language of Holy Scripture, which it is not. Nor again is it very clear what a writer means who uses such antithesis as this, "Here is now that glass, wherein thou must behold thyself, and discern whether thou have the HOLY GHOST within thee, or the spirit of the flesh" "Shall we say that he had GOD's Holy Spirit within him, and not rather the spirit of the devil?" The antithesis is here plainly an abstraction on one side, can it mean GOD Himself on the other? On the other hand, the statements in the former paragraphs of this Homily with reference to the work of the HOLY GHOST in Baptism, and in another concerning His operation in the Holy Communion, are remarkably definite, (as we shall have occasion to show hereafter;) so plain that the others look like a forced argument, a special pleading, by their side. Having extracted all the passages then, which contain statements concerning the work of GOD the HOLY GHOST in our salvation, can it be said that the teaching of the Prayer Book is in accordance with the general drift of private judgment on this subject, as evidenced by the press and the pulpit? It is granted indeed, that much of what is preached and printed is exceedingly indefinite. When a high authority requires us to pray that GOD will "Relieve the sick and wounded with the consolations of His Blessed SPIRIT," we are not quite sure how the prayer might be stated, if it were required that we should put it into theological language or whether indeed it means more or less than the prayer that He will "endue us with a spirit of piety and devotion, of justice and temperance, of humility and charity, as becomes our Christian profession," in which "spirit" appears to be a sort of synonym for "disposition." But whether the writers of such things have, or have not, any definite meaning in what they write; there cannot be a doubt that a very definite impression is derived from their writings on this subject; which impression is "that the HOLY SPIRIT can have direct access to the human heart, and there produce new life"-convert and sanctify the soul"without any visible means." The question how far this doctrine, or a modification of it, is warranted by the teaching of Holy Scripture we shall enter upon presently: all we say now amounts to this,-Is it the teaching of the Church of England? Here is our Prayer Book, a document of many pages, in which doctrine is stated directly and indirectly, affirmed and inferred; and yet how small a portion of that work is occupied by any statements respecting the work of GOD the HOLY GHOST in our souls; how small a residuum of that small portion is there in which there is the slightest indication that the Church believes Him to have any intercourse with the soul independent of the means of grace,-that is, the two holy Sacraments and other Sacramental Rites. And this becomes the more striking when we compare the Prayer Book on this subject, with the same Prayer Book on another, the Incarnation of our LORD. The way in which this concerns us for our salvation is set before us in every manner that can be imagined in such a document. The Creeds are chiefly taken up with statements respecting it, so that they cannot be expounded in any detail at all, without this subjective relation being drawn out of every article of them. The Sacramental Offices, in which the work of GOD the HOLY GHOST is mentioned only four times, teem with allusions to our LORD JESUS CHRIST: and our union with Himeffected indeed by the HOLY GHOST-is set forth as the great vital principle of religion. So also the Collects, and Prayers, and Litany, wherein there is but the most rare mention of the HOLY SPIRIT'S operation, abound with invocations of the blessings which are to be derived through CHRIST. In short, while a few lines of ill-defined and sometimes rhetorical phraseology, will contain every reference to the subjective relation of the Third Person in the Blessed Trinity; that of the Second may be said to fill the Prayer Book, in the form of plain and unmistakeable statements, from one end to the other. Whence then is it that the living voice of the Church has adopted a different harmony from that laid down in the documentary exposition of her doctrine? Is it that the Prayer Book keeps back a matter of so great importance to Christian Faith and Practice? Is it that in her collective capacity the Church has, forgotten the Apostolic rule, “ εἴτε προφητείαν, κατὰ τὴν ἀναλογίαν τῆς πίστεως,” and that the ἀναλογία is to be sought only in the individual teaching of her separate ministers? The answer to these questions will be best given by making some such investigation with regard to the New Testament, the standard of our faith in this matter, as we have previously undertaken in the case of the Book of Common Prayer. And though we cannot doubt that we may overlook some passages in doing so, which are calculated to throw light upon the subject; it may be that those which have come under our notice, and which it is proposed now to lay before our readers, will be sufficient to do that which we at first proposed as our object; viz. draw towards the investigation of the doctrine in question the attention of those who are better able to undertake it than ourselves. There are, we believe, somewhere about fifty passages in all, in the New Testament, which express in some form or other the idea of GOD abiding with Christians in the sense of indwelling. It will perhaps be more convenient to the reader to have the ipsissima verba of these passages before him at one view, than to find them out for himself by references, the plan we at first intended to adopt. The only classification we shall use will be to separate under different heads the texts which relate respectively to each of the Three Persons in the Blessed TRINITY. I. TEXTS RELATING TO GOD THE FATHER, OR TO THE WHOLE BLESSED TRINITY. ἐν αὐτῷ γὰρ ζῶμεν, καὶ κινούμεθα, κ.τ.λ. . καὶ ἡμεῖς εἰς αὐτόν. (The parallel passages Isa. xlv. 14; Zech. viii. 23.) 4. 2 Cor. vi. 16. ἐνοικήσω ἐν αὐτοῖς καὶ ἐμπεριπατήσω. (Parallel passages, Exod. xxix. 45 and Lev. xxvi. 12, seem to fix the sense of the preposition in this place.) 5. Ephes. iv, 6. εἷς Θεός 6. 1 Thess. i. 1. 7. 1 S. John ii. 24. 8. iv. 4. ἐν πᾶσιν ὑμῖν. τῇ ἐκκ. Θεσσαλ. ἐν Θεῷ Πατρὶ, ὑμεῖς ἐν τῷ Υἱῷ καὶ ἐν τῷ Πατρὶ μενεῖτε. (Does not this mean an antithesis between the Church and 9. 1 S. John iv. 12. ὁ Θεὸς ἐν ἡμῖν μένει. 13. ἐν αὐτῷ μένομεν, καὶ αὐτὸς ἐν ἡμῖν, 11. 1 S. John iv. 15. ὁ Θεὸς ἐν αὐτῷ μένει, καὶ αὐτὸς ἐν τῷ Θεῷ, 16. ἐν τῷ Θεῷ μένει, καὶ ὁ Θεὸς ἐν αὐτῷ. 12. It will be observed that of these passages there are only two, the last, and the one preceding the last, which connect the Indwelling of GOD with a singular pronoun; and that there are some of the others in which the preposition is evidently to be rendered “among” in English. We proceed to the second class. II. TEXTS RELATING TO GOD THE SON. 31. 7. 32. 10. 33. 1 S. John ii. 5. 34. 35. 6. 24. ὁ Λόγος . . ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν. εἰ δὲ Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν. εἴτις ἐν Χριστῷ, καινὴ κτίσις. ἄχρις οὗ μορφωθῇ Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν. ἐξελέξατο ἡμᾶς ἐν αὐτῷ. κατοικῆσαι τὸν Χριστὸν . . . ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ὑμῶν. εὑρεθῶ ἐν αὐτῷ. ὅς ἐστι Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν. τὸν Χριστὸν . . ἐν αὐτῷ περιπατεῖτε. ἐποικοδομούμενοι ἐν αὐτῷ. ἐν αὐτῷ πεπληρωμένοι. ἐν τούτῳ γινώσκομεν ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ ἐσμεν. ὑμεῖς οὖν ὃ ἠκούσατε ἀπ' ἀρχῆς, ἐν ὑμῖν μενέτω. |