The threefold grace of the Holy Trinity

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THREEFOLD GRACE

THE HOLY TRINITY.

JOHN H. EGAR, B.D.,

RECTOR OF ST. PETER'S CHURCH, PITTSBURG, PA.

PHILADELPHIA:

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.

1870.

£3

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the

Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

^

PREFACE.

The sole ambition of this book is to restate
in the simplest manner, and with such illustra-
tion and reasoning as may show their systematic
coherence, those practical truths relating to Di-
vine grace which the author believes the Holy
Scriptures teach and the Church has always
held. Ever since he became familiar with theo-
logical studies he has felt that the two extremes
of thought allowed in the communion to which
he belongs have, in a manner, divided these
truths between them, and that the antagonism
developed by their divergence arises from over-
looking the fact that the principles of the oppo-
site schools are but the other halves, respectively,
of the doctrine which each holds. The one side
insists, not a whit too strongly, upon the practi-
cal bearings of the Incarnation, and its relation
to the Christian Sacraments ; but it does seem to
give too little place in its system to the extra-
sacramental grace of the Holy Spirit, and so to
obscure " the witness of the Spirit with our spirit
that we are the children of God." The other

(iii)

iv Preface.

side, dwelling with equal truth on the extra-
sacramental grace of the Holy Spirit, given to
every man and indwelling in the true believer,
does not sufficiently insist upon the grace of the
Incarnate Son, and His personal presence with
His Redeemed; and so learns to depreciate the
Sacraments, which are the Divinely-appointed
instruments of sealing and exhibiting that pres-
ence to the faithful soul ; and so, further, over-
looks the blessedness of the Church as a body
separate from the world, in sacramental commu-
nion with its Divine, incarnate Head.

The author does not flatter himself that his
effort will be immediately successful in reconcil-
ing the differences which have sprung up from
these one-sided views ; but he believes that the
system of the Church Catholic not only includes
the positive teaching of both parties, but com-
bines them in the unity of Truth ; and he has
endeavored to point the way in which abler minds
than his will labor successfully to bring harmony
out of the apparent discord.

Another object which he has had in view,
has been to show the relation of the doctrine
of the Trinity not only to speculative belief,
but to the Christian life. He has felt that the
argument for the doctrine, however powerfully
and logically put, has failed in energetic influ-
ence upon many minds, because it has not been
carried forward so as to unfold the experimental

Preface. v

communion of the faithful soul with the Divine
Persons of the Holy Trinity. Many sincerely
religious people do not feel the necessity of faith
in Christ as the eternal Son of God, because their
apprehension of Christian doctrine does not assign
Him a part in the work of grace commensurate
with His Divinity. The view given them is some-
thing like this : that the Father, being angry with
the human race on account of sin, the Son came
to earth and made an atonement by dying on
the cross ; after which He went to heaven, and
the Holy Spirit was sent to exert a Divine in-
fluence upon their hearts for their conversion.
True as every word of this statement is, it does
not impress them with an adequate sense of the
magnitude of Christ's work, because it is only
partial truth. They are able to persuade them-
selves that God, being a loving Father, can for-
give sin without an atonement ; and in this way,
having eliminated the work of the Son from the
scheme of Redemption, they can remove His
Person from the Trinity, and then, assuming
Divine grace to be the Father's influence upon
the hearts of His children, the result is either
avowed Unitarianism, or the feeling that the
doctrine of the Trinity is only of speculative
importance, and not at all of practical value,
and therefore not a necessary article of Christian
faith.

The remedy for this error consists in demon-

vi Preface.

strating the personal presence of our Lord with
His people, bringing, by sacramental union, the
saving virtue of the Atonement into personal con-
tact with their experience, — the Holy Spirit, as
the agent of the union, first preparing the heart
by conversion and sanctification, and then graft-
ing the Christian into Christ, as the branch into
the vine. If Christian doctrine is presented in
this way, the omnipresence, and therefore the
Divinity of our blessed Lord, is brought home
to the apprehension of Christian faith; the Atone-
ment is given its true value, as a propitiation
offered to the Father ; the three Persons are
shown in intimate relation to the soul ; and the
doctrine of the Trinity is demonstrated as it
never can be by mere argument upon texts of
Holy Scripture.

This book is but a mere outline of the great
subject of which it treats. It is sent forth with
the earnest prayer that the Head of the Church
will bless it to the furtherance of the Truth.

St. Peter's Church,

Pittsburg, Whitsuntide, 1870.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
The Mystery of the Holy Trinity ..... 9

CHAPTER II.
The Grace of God the Father ...... 43

CHAPTER III.
The Grace of the Son 82

CHAPTER IV.
The Grace of the Holy Spirit . . . . . .184

CHAPTER V.

The Place of the Sacraments in the System of Grace . . 238

(vii)

THE THREEFOLD GRACE

THE HOLY TRINITY

CHAPTER I.

THE MYSTERY OF THE HOLY TRINITY.

"\ 1[ 7"E are baptized, by the command of our Lord,
"in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost ;"a and therefore every one who is
admitted by baptism into the Church of Christ is bound
to belief in the Most Holy Trinity. For a minister to
baptize a reflecting convert upon any other understand-
ing— to act in the name — that is, by the power and
authority — of a Being in whom that convert was not
understood to profess belief, would be to sap his au-
thority at the foundation, and to degrade the most
solemn function of his office to be considered a fiction.
For the convert to be met, at his entrance into the
Church, with a ceremony which he is at liberty to con-

* Matt, xxviii. 19.

2 (9)

io Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity.

sider unmeaning, would be fatal to the strength of any
of his religious convictions, and would lead him to
disregard all his religious obligations. Neither the
minister nor the convert could thus tamper with the
Sacrament. So long, therefore, as baptism is admin-
istered according to the form prescribed by our Lord
Jesus Christ, it will pledge the administrator to require
and the convert to hold the faith in the divine name
then pronounced, whether in the baptismal office the
Apostles' creed have been formally recited or not.
The bowing of the head to receive the water adminis-
tered in that name is full and sufficient confession.

It cannot be otherwise than that such an initiation
into the Church was prescribed in order to make the
confession of faith in the Holy Trinity essential to her
existence, and necessary to the salvation of her mem-
bers. The truth contained in the baptismal formula is,
by the appointment of that formula, separated from
other truths which are not contained therein; it is
laid at the foundation, and declared to be the chief
truth of all. The formula itself, by being pronounced
at the beginning of the professedly Christian life, must
be recognized as intended by the founder of the Church
to assert that faith in the Holy Trinity lies at the foun-
dation of all our religious beliefs. The following pages
are written to show that this faith is also the foundation
of all practical knowledge of the Gospel; for the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost, of whom it teaches, are
each personally in the closest relation with us, if we be
true Christians, each operative in the work of our salva-
tion through the threefold grace of the Triune God.

The mystery of the Being of God, to faith in which

Mystery of the Holy Trinity. n

we are thus pledged, is revealed in the Holy Scriptures.
Their authority is the ground of its reception. Their
doctrine is clearly, that the Lord our God is One ; but
that in the Divine Unity there are three Persons — the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The mystery
of this doctrine consists in this, that God is not only
essentially, but numerically, One, and yet the Persons
in the Godhead are three. In the language of the
Athanasian Creed, " The Father is God ; and the Son,
God ; and the Holy Ghost, God ; and yet there are
not three Gods, but one God." Nevertheless, the
Father is not the Son ; nor the Son, the Father ;
neither the Father, nor the Son, is the Holy Ghost.
That this Triune existence is incomprehensible to our
understandings, there is no need to confess; but it would
be easy to show that it is no more incomprehensible
than some proposition in any possible doctrine of the
Infinite and Eternal ; and therefore it is not to be
objected to on this ground.

The connection of the doctrine of the Trinity with
our religious duty and experience is that which origi-
nates the necessity of our receiving it. The Father
enters into relation with us, through the Gospel, as God
the Father; the Son, in like manner, enters into re-
lation with us as God the Son; the Holy Ghost the
same, as God the Holy Ghost. We must know this re-
lation and act according to it, to do our duty aright,
and to have a well-grounded hope of salvation.

Our first labor, then, is a collation of those passages
of Scripture in which the truth of the Holy Trinity is
taught.

i. God is One. There would be little need to offer

v

1 2 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

scriptural proof of the Unity of God, since all who be-
lieve in the existence of a God acknowledge a supreme
unity, were there not a possible misconception of the
doctrine of the Trinity which would degrade it into
Tritheism.a Indeed, there would be no need at all of
this chapter, were it not that this book will fall into
the hands of some who have not access to the theo-
logical treasures of past ages of the Church, nor leisure
to read more voluminous writers. For their sakes are
here presented the outlines of the arguments by which
the Catholic faith is proved to be the truth of the
Divine Revelation.

The first commandment of the Decalogue, pro-
claimed amidst the clouds and thunderings of Mount
Sinai, is so peremptory as to shut out all thoughts
that there are other Gods than One, were there no
other passage of the same tenor in Scripture: "I am
the Lord thy God ; thou shalt have none other Gods
but me."b The Decalogue is of universal authority;
its mandates are as binding upon all mankind as upon
the Israelites.

At the second giving of the Law, Moses relates as
follows, the reason for all the wonders which God had
displayed before His people, during their forty years in
the wilderness : "Unto thee it was showed, that thou
mightest know that the Lord He is God ; there is none
else beside Him."c For which reason he counsels the

a This is a misconception which even so learned a man as
Adam Clarke fell into — a proof of the uselessness of learning
without judgment, in theology.

b Exodus, xx. 2, 3. • Dent. iv. 35.

Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 1 3

people thus: "Know therefore this day, and consider
it in thy heart, that the Lord He is God in Heaven
above, and upon the earth beneath : there is none else."*
In another place his language is: "Hear, O Israel: the
Lord our God is one Lord ; and thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy might. "b And in the close of
that sublime song which he sang under divine inspira-
tion, just before he went into Mount Nebo to die, the
mortal instrument disappears, and the Divine Inspirer,
in His own person, utters the words: "See, now, that
I, even I, am He, and there is no God with me : I kill
and I make alive ; I wound and I heal ; neither is
there any that can deliver out of my hand."0

In Solomon's prayer, at the dedication of the Tem-
ple, he ascribes to the one God alone the Divine attri-
bute of Omniscience: "Thou only knowest the hearts
of the children of men."

The writer of the eighteenth Psalm, in the fervor
of his inspired song, throws his denial of any other
Deity besides the Lord into that form which, above all
others, gives it force and energy — an interrogation :
"Who is God, but the Lord? or who is a rock [i.e.
of safety], save our God?"d And in the sixty-second
Psalm the Psalmist confesses his trust in one only God :
" He only is my Rock and my salvation."6

The evangelical prophet, Isaiah, rises to the most
sublime heights, when he is brought into contact with
heathen idolatry and Persian dualism, in emphatic re-

a Deut. iv. 39. b Deut. vi. 4, 5. c Deut. xxxii. 39.

d Ps. xviii. 31. e Ps. lxii. 6.

14 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

pudiation of all partners in God's glory. Between the
fortieth and fiftieth chapters, especially, the passages
are very numerous, as thus :

"I am the Lord, that is my name, and my glory
will I not give to another. "a "Thus saith the Lord,
the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of
Hosts, I am the first, and I am the last, and beside Me
there is no God."b " Is there a God beside Me? yea,
there is no God, I know not any."c "lam the Lord,
and there is none else, there is no God beside Me, that
they may know from the rising of the sun, and from
the West, that there is none beside Me. I am the
Lord, and there is none else."d " Thus saith the Lord
that created the Heavens; God Himself that formed
the earth and made it. He hath established it, He
hath created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhab-
ited; I am the Lord, and there is none else."0 " Tell
ye, and bring them near; yea, let them [i.e. idolaters]
take counsel together. Who hath declared this from
ancient times? Who hath told it from that time?
Have not I, the Lord ? and there is no God else beside
Me ; a just God and a Saviour ; there is none beside
Me. Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of
the earth; for I am God, and there is none else."f
" Hearken unto Me, O Jacob and Israel, my called ; I
am He, I am the first, I also am the last."g

The New Testament, of course, has the same doc-
trine. When the devil tempted the Saviour, and

Is. xJii. 8. c Ch. xliv. 8. ■ Ch. xlv. 18.

Ch. xliv. 6. d Ch. xlv. 5, 6. f Ch. xlv. 21, 22.

« Ch. xlviii. 12.

Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 15

sought to allure Him to sin against the first command-
ment, the Lord rebuked him by a quotation from the
Old Testament: "It is written, Thou shalt worship
the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. "a
In His sacrificial prayer, the Saviour thus worships the
Father: "This is life eternal, that they might know
Thee, the only True God."b "We know," says St.
Paul, "that an idol is nothing in the world, and that
there is none other God but one."c And, "To us
there is but one God, the Father. "d

These passages abundantly declare that no teaching
supposed to be derived from Holy Scripture may be
accepted as militating against the truth of the absolute
and simple unity of the Divine Being. They show
that the doctrine of the Trinity cannot be that of
"three persons in one Godhead," as if the three were
one merely in council and association \ but that it is the
doctrine of the Litany: "Holy, blessed, and glorious
Trinity, three persons and one God."

The last text cited introduces the second point in
the Christian knowledge of God — that He is a Father.
The one God, of whom alone the Scriptures speak as
the true and living God, and whom alone we worship,
is everlastingly a Father. It is the assertion of our
faith that God's relation as a Father is coeternal with
His existence as God. He cannot be God and not be
a Father. The name does not spring from a merely
temporal relationship; it was not assumed by God
simply because He has created a universe over which

a Matt. iv. 10. c I. Cor. viii. 4.

b John, xvii. 3. d I. Cor. viii. 6.

1 6 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

He exercises providential care. It has a deeper ground
than the creation or preservation of temporal things.
God was the Father before the existence of the uni-
verse, or anything it contains; as always God, so
always Father. Everlastingly existing, He never was
when He was not a Father ; because he is from ever-
lasting to everlasting the Father of the Son, into whose
name we are baptized. The Son of God, by begetting
whom He takes to Himself His name of Father, is an
eternal Son ; and therefore He is an eternal Father.
From this paternal relation spring all the acts of God
to the temporal creation, as the Father of created '
beings. Hence we shall best reach the Scripture
declarations of the greater truth, through the door and
vestibule of the less — tracing, after the manner of our
masters in theology, the lower relations of God's tem-
poral paternity, and so ascending, step by step, to the
eternal.*

The first sense in which God is called the Father
arises from His relation to all things as their Creator,
through that figurative mode of expression by which
the creation of inanimate and irrational matter is
called a generation. "These," said Moses, "are the
generations of the heavens and the earth, when they
were created in the day that the Lord God made the
heavens and the earth. "b Hence the book of Job
represents God as asking Job, among other questions,

a The learned reader will see that these pages are but an
epitome of Bishop Pearson's statements in his " Exposition of the
Creed."

h Gen. ii. I.

Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 1 7

"Hath the rain a Father? or who hath begotten the
drops of dew?"a So St. James calls God "the Father
of lights. "b And St. Paul, though implying the eter-
nal as well as the temporal relation, "To us there is
but one God, the Father, of whom are all things."0

A nearer approach to a realization of true paternity,
and a higher sense in which the name Father is used,
is when it is employed to denote God's relation to intel-
ligent and moral beings, who, as possessed of freedom
and intelligence, are said to be "made in the image
of God."d For it is the true notion of paternity
that it produces an offspring like the parent. Hence
St. Luke, tracing back the genealogy of our Lord,
carries it up to "Adam, who was the Son of God."e
This was a truth of which the heathen were conscious,
as St. Paul argued at Athens, quoting, from the Greek
poet, the line, "For we are also His offspring."
Hence, with the greatest propriety, in the Epistle to
the Hebrews, God is called "The Father of Spirits ;"f
for He is a Spirit, and in creating finite Spirits, He has
produced an offspring like Himself. So, by the prophet
Malachi, we are taught just dealing one towards an-
other, on the motive of a common brotherhood, en-
forced by this argument : " Have we not all one
Father? Hath not one God created us?"g

God is also called a Father, because of His paternal
care in the preservation of the beings He has created :
"A Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of the widows,

a Job, xxxviii. 28. c I. Cor. viii. 6. e Luke, iii. 38.

b James, i. 17. d Gen. i. 27. f Heb. xii. 9.

z Mai. ii. 10.

1 8 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

is God in His holy habitation, "a says the Psalmist.
" Behold the fowls of the air," says the Saviour, " your
heavenly Father feedeth them."b "Therefore take no
thought, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we
drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed? for your
heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all
these things."0 "Your Father knoweth what things
ye have need of before ye ask Him."d And on this
ground of likeness to God, in His care for our preser-
vation, notwithstanding ingratitude, our Lord incul-
cates the return of good for evil, thus: "Love your
enemies, . . . that ye may be the children of
your Father which is in Heaven; for He maketh His
sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth
rain on the just and on the unjust. "e

The mercy of Redemption, again, is allowed to be a
part of the paternal relation ; hence Isaiah, in the per-
son of the captives of Israel, addresses God thus :
" Doubtless Thou art our Father, though Abraham be
ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not ; Thou,
O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer, from everlast-
ing is thy name." And the same may be our language ;
for though the Son be the agent of Redemption, and
therefore is called more commonly the Redeemer, yet
it was the Fatherly love of God which planned the re-
demption of the world ; for " God so loved the world
that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlast-
ing life."

a Ps. lxviii. 5. lj Matt. vi. 26. c Matt. vi. 31, J2.

d Matt. vi. 8. c Matt. v. 45.

Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 1 9

We have a new claim to the title of Sons, and are
enabled to call God our Father, by our Regeneration,
— the return back, by new birth, into that state of
Sonship, the title to which man had lost through sin.
" Except a man be born again, he cannot see the
Kingdom of God,"a is the word of our Saviour, which
He reiterates more solemnly: ''Verily, verily, I say
unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the
Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God."
Being regenerate, we are children and offspring of God,
by partaking of the Sonship of Christ, who only is the
true and eternal Son of God. For, "as many as re-
ceived Him, to them gave He power to become the
Sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.
Which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God ;"b and there-
fore God is their Father.

Our regeneration is called also by the name of
adoption, and therefore our teachers in the faith have
observed that God is our Father also, if we be regen-
erate, by the way of adoption. "Behold," says St.
John, "what manner of love the Father hath bestowed
upon us, that we should be called the sons of God."c
That love was shown in this way : " When the fulness
of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of
a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that
were under the law, that we might receive the adop-
tion of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent
forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying,
Abba, Father. "d "For ye have not received the

a John, iii. 3. c I. John, Hi. I.

b John, i. 12, 13. d Gal. iv. 4-6.

20 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

Spirit of bondage again to fear ; but ye have received
the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba,
Father."4

To crown all, God will make Himself our Father in
yet another way, by bringing us again from the dead.
" They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that
world, and the Resurrection from the dead, are equal
unto the angels, and are the children of God, being
the children of the Resurrection."1'

We thus see that Holy Scripture attributes the title
of Father to God, as being our Creator and Preserver
in the Kingdom of Nature, the author of our Redemp-
tion and Regeneration in the Kingdom of His grace,
and the worker of our Resurrection into the Kingdom
of His glory. The notion of a Father, therefore, be-
longs essentially to our knowledge of God ; we cannot
think of Him truly, except under that notion. This
truth appears so clearly from the relation of ourselves as
created and dependent beings to the Supreme Governor
and Creator, that those who impugn the doctrine of the
Trinity produce these grounds of the title as sufficient
to justify it in its whole extent ; trusting that those who
listen to them will accept them without inquiring for a
sense beyond ; thinking that if they can content the
mind with a plausible explanation, it will be apt to
rest short of a true one. It is necessary, therefore, to
disarm them by enumerating all the grounds for the
title acknowledged by Holy Scripture, arising out of
temporal relations, and then to show that there is still
another and infinitely higher reason for the acknowl-

a Rom. viii. 15. h Luke, xx. 35, 36.

Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 2 1

edgment of God the Father in His begetting His
eternal Son. We are brought thus to the considera-
tion of the truth that the being a Father is eternally
and essentially an attribute of Deity, because He is the
eternal Father of His only-begotten Son. He is the
Father of the created, because He is the Father of the
uncreated ; the earthly sonship is the shadow of the
heavenly. He is the Father, because of Himself, not
because of us.

I have arranged the argument thus, advisedly. In
considering Truth, which is objectively indivisible, we
are compelled, by the subjective conditions of thought,
to separate one notion from another, and thus make
logical, when there are no real divisions. I began for
this reason, with the conception of the unity of God —
that there is one, self-existent, Supreme Being, the first
cause and controller of all things. But the mental
notion, "one self-existent Supreme Being," does not
necessarily contain the conception of Personality,
which we must add to it, to reach the true idea of God.
Now the Scripture helps us to the conception of God's
Personality, by pronouncing His name, " The Father,"
in connection with the exercise of all these acts of
creation, preservation, and redemption above enumer-
ated. He might be a "first cause," and be imper-
sonal; but not so a "Father." To be a Father He
must be a person ; for all paternal attributes are per-
sonal attributes. And conversely, to be a person He
must be a Father; for were God not a Father, He
would be inert, without offspring, without affection,
without any personal attributes ; and therefore imper-
sonal. But God never was nor could have been im-

22 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

personal. He is, therefore, ever the Father. The
Divine essence or Being is ever personal as God the
Father. This is what we have next to prove from
Holy Scripture, — that God is eternally the Father.
We shall show also, with equal conclusiveness from
Holy Scripture, that the same Divine Nature is also
personal in the persons of the Son and of the Holy
Ghost.

To guard, however, against every mistake, the reader
is requested to fix in his mind the truth that the Divine
Nature is simple and indivisible, and as well as infinite
and eternal. When we say, therefore, that God is the
Father, we mean that the whole Divine Nature, which
is eternally self-existent in simple unity of essence, is
ever personal in the person of the Father. The propo-
sition is the precise logical equivalent of its converse,
the Father is God. The same is true when we say that
God is the Son, or the Son is God. We do not by
this assert that there is no other person who is God
except the Son ; but we do assert that there is naught
of the Divine nature which the Son does not pose
that the whole Divine Nature is in the Son, as in the
Father. The same naturea is in the Son and in the
Father; in the Father, originally, in the Son, by
eternaP derivation from the Father. The Divine
Being subsists originally, therefore, and absolutely, as

a i.e. the self-same — numerically identical.

b Those who accept Locke's absurd definition of eternity, can-
not, of course, accept the doctrine of the Trinity. Hence the rise
of Socinianism in England, together with the " philosophy" of
Locke.

Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 23

God the Father ; derivatively, as God the Son and God
the Holy Ghost. That old scholastic realism which
held that the Divine Nature was (as it were) a fountain
whence were derived, or a matrix in which inhered,
the three Personalities of the Trinity, is altogether to
be shunned. The Father is the fountain of the
Divinity, whence is derived the Son and the Holy
Spirit. Hence, in the Holy Scripture, when the name
of God is spoken without any adjunct determining it
to another person of the Trinity, — it is generally1 in-
tended to refer to the Father — not to the Divine
Nature, or to the threefold personality. The Holy
Scripture, dealing with realities, and not with logical
conceptions, does not distinguish between the Divine
Nature and the Divine Person. In our thought, only,
do we thus separate conceptions ; in the reality all is
one. God is always self-existent, and always personal,
that is, always a Father. But to be always a Father,
He has always a Son, who, being ever-existent, is God,
since there is nothing eternal but God, and who, there-
fore, is the self-same God with the Father, though not
the same Person.

The Second Person of the Holy Trinity, thus being
both in essence and in person eternally derived from
the Father in a way in which no other being is, is for this
reason called "the only-begotten Son of God "b — only
begotten, that is, in this high sense, as eternally be-
gotten, and so eternally existing. In contradistinction
to the temporal and momentary generation by which
we receive our being, the act by which the Only-be-

a Generally, but not universally. b John, iii. 18.

24 Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity.

gotten Son of God receives His being is an eternal
act — an act never begun and never ending, eternally
proceeding from the infinite activity of God.a And
this is the meaning of that well-known theological
phrase, the " eternal generation of the Only-begotten
Son."

This is the doctrine which we have now to prove ;
and it will be established from Holy Scripture, by
showing, first, that God is called pre-eminently, and
most frequently, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ;
and conversely, that our Lord is called the only Son,
or only-begotten Son of God. Secondly, that Jesus
Christ, the only Son of God, is God as well as man, and
therefore the same God with the Father. Thirdly,
that, being the same God with the Father, He is not
the same Person, but a different and distinct person,
subsisting distinctly from the Father. Fourthly, that
He subsists by receiving, by eternal generation, the
Divine Nature from the Father ; which generation is
the foundation of the relationship of Father and Son.

a « t Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlast-
ing.' Micah, v. 2. So use they also [by the plural Dumber] to
note out continuance. And so it sets out to us the continual ema-
nation or proceeding of Him from His Father, uc u-av-.anua, the
Apostle's word, as a 'beam of brightness,' streaming from Him
incessantly. Never past — ' His generation' — but, as the school-
men call it, actus commtnsuratus atemitate. For hodie genui tc
is true of every day; yet, because it hath coexistence with many
revolutions of time, though it be indeed in itself but one drawn
out along, yet, according to the many age> it lasteth, it seemeth to
multiply itself into many, and so is expressed plurally." — Bishop
Andrewes* Sermon on tlic text.

Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 25

I. God is called the Father, many times in Holy
Scripture, with more particular relation to one Son,
who, by way of eminence, is called the " Son of
God,"a the " only-begotten Son of God."b This re-
lation is evidently implied in the baptismal formula :
"In the name of the Father, and of the Son." As
we naturally ask, "the Son of whom?" and receive
for reply, "the Son of the Father;"0 so we may as
naturally ask, "the Father of whom?" and answer,
"the Father of the Son here mentioned." The pre-
eminence of this Son above all others is shown by the
appellation bestowed upon Him, "the only-begotten
Son of God;" by the numerous passages in which the
Father and the Son are spoken of, without any more
particular designation, as if (in the highest sense) but
one Father and one Son could be conceived of; and
by the closeness of the relationship intimated in the
phrases used, such as that the Son "is in the bosom
of the Father,"dthat "the Father loveth the Son, and
hath given all things into His hand,"e that it is the
Father's will, "that all men should honor the Son,
even as they honor the Father, "f that by the Saviour's
granting the answer to prayer, " the Father is glorified
in the Son;"^ that "no man knoweth the Son, but
the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father,
save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will
reveal Him."h

a Luke, i. 35.

b John, i. 14; i. 18; iii. 16; iii. 18; I. John, iv. 9.

c II. John, 3. e John, iii. 35. s John, xiv. 13.

d John, i. 18. f John, v. 23. h Matt. xi. 27.

3*

26 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

The pre-eminence of this relation above all others is
clearly marked by our Saviour Himself, contrasting it
with our relationship, in his address to Mary, when He
appeared to her after His resurrection: "Go to my
brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father
and your Father, and to my God and your God."a
"My Father and your Father," but not my Father as
your Father, "My God and your God," but not my
God as your God. So the Apostles, marking the same
pre-eminence, expressly attribute the title of Father to
God, because of the~relation to Christ. "Blessed,"
says St. Paul, making his ascription of praise, "be
God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort."6
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ, according as He hath
chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before Him
in love ; having predestinated us unto the adoption of
children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the
good pleasure of His will. "c Mark how His Sonship
is in this passage made the foundation of our adoption.
And when the Apostle would make his most solemn
asseveration of his truthfulness, he declares, "The God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ knoweth that I
lie not."d So St. Peter speaks of God by the same
title, at the commencement of his first epistle : " Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which,

* John, xx. 17. c Eph. i. 3, 4, 5.

b II. Cor. i. 3. « II. Cor. xi. 31.

Mystery of the Holy Tri?iity. 2 7

according to His abundant mercy, hath begotten us
again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead."a These passages show con-
clusively that God is called the Father, principally
because He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Correlatively, Jesus Christ is called, by way of emi-
nence, the Son of God, and so He is doubly identified,
both by the way in which God is called His Father,
and in this way with the Son, whose relation to the
Father is seen to be, from the baptismal formula, so
close and intimate. "These things are written," St.
John says of His Gospel, "that ye might believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that believing
ye might have life through His name."b For, " this is
the commandment of God, that we should believe on
the name of His Son, Jesus Christ. ' 'c Hence, the angel,
announcing His birth to His mother, promised " that
holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called
the Son of God."d John the Baptist, when he saw
heaven opened, and the Spirit descending upon Him,
"bare record that this was the Son of God."e The
revilers at the cross tell us what the testimony of
Christ to Himself was: "He trusted in God," they
said, "let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him ;
for He said, I am the Son of God."f When the eunuch
of Candace, Queen of Ethiopia, was baptized by Philip,
he thus confessed his faith: "I believe that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God."5 Saul, the converted

a I. Peter,!. 3. c I. John, iii. 23. e John, i. 34.

b John, xx. 31. d Luke, i. 35. ' Matt, xxvii. 43.

e Acts, viii. 37.

28 Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity.

persecutor, afterwards the great Apostle, " preached
Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God."*
The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us: "We have a
great high priest, who is passed into the heavens,
Jesus, the Son of God."b And ''whosoever shall
confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth
in him, and he in God."c

II. Now since God is, as we have seen, the Father
of so many children in so many ways, there must be
a special reason for the confession upon which St.
John, as above, predicates the communion with God.
The faith that Jesus is the Son of God, to be made the
ground of such communion, infers a special kind of
Sonship, over and above all the reasons for which our
Lord has the same right to the title which we have.
It is not to be denied that He is called the Son of
God, for several subordinate reasons, and in respect of
several relations, inferior to the highest. But, admit-
ting these, there is a reason beyond them all ; and that
is, that Jesus Christ our Lord is a Divine Son ; that He
is God, having the same nature with the Father, which
is our next point to be proved.

i. Jesus Christ is called the "Son of God," because
of His birth into our world, which was supernatural.
He was born a man ; born of a woman, but by no
earthly Father. He was "conceived by the Holy
Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary." Such a birth gave
not only the title of creation, but was a good ground
of the appellation in a distinctive sense. Hence the
Angel Gabriel announced to Mary His Mother, "That

a Acts, ix. 20. b Heb. iv. 14. c I. Jobn, iv. 15.

Mystery of the Holy Trinity. ^29

holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called
the Son of God. "a

2. Our Lord assigns His commission and mission of
the Father, as, in one respect, a reason for His name.
When charged by the Jews with blasphemy, He did
not care to insist before scoffers upon His Divinity,
but replied, "Is it not written in your law, I said ye
are gods? If He called them gods unto whom the
word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be
broken), say ye of Him whom the Father hath sancti-
fied and sent into the world, thou blasphemest, because
I said, I am the Son of God?"b

3. As we shall be the "children of God," being
the " children of the Resurrection," so God's bringing
Christ again from the dead is a reason for His being
called " the Son of God." So St. Paul expounded the
second Psalm to prophesy of the Resurrection, preach-
ing in the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia as follows :
"We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the
promise which was made unto the Fathers, God hath
fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that He
hath raised up Jesus again ; as it is also written in the
second Psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I be-
gotten thee."c So in the Epistle to the Colossians,
our Saviour is called "the first-born from the dead."d

4. He is called the Son of God, also, with respect
to His inheritance of the Father's riches and power
and glory. "God . . hath spoken unto us by His
Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things ; who,

a St. Luke, i. 35. c Acts, xiii. 33.

b John, x. 35, 36. d Col. i. 18.

30 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

. . when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down
on the right hand of the Majesty on High ; being made
so much better than the angels, as He hath by inherit-
ance obtained a more excellent name than they. For
unto which of the angels said He at any time, Thou
art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee?"*

5. Now, to use the language of Bishop Pearson, from
whom this argument is taken ■ " The actual possession
of His inheritance, which was our fourth title to His
Sonship, presupposes His Resurrection, which was the
third ; and His commission to His office, which was
the second, presupposeth his generation of a virgin, as
the first." "But besides these four, we must find yet
a more peculiar ground of our Saviour's filiation,
totally distinct from any which belongs unto the rest
of the Sons of God, that He may be clearly and fully
acknowledged the Only-begotten Son." Hence we
must show that our Lord Jesus Christ was a person ex-
isting before He was born into the world ; and that
He so existed as God, having the same nature with the
Father, and having received it from the Father.

That the Son of God was, before He was born of
the Virgin Mary, is proved by His testimony, that
when He came into the world, He came down from
Heaven: "I am the living bread which came down
from Heaven. "b " I came down from Heaven, not to
do mine own will; but the will of Him that sent me."c
" I came forth from the Father, and am come into the
world; again I leave the world, and go unto the

a Heb. i. 1-5. b John, vi. 33, 51. c John, vi. 38.

Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 31

Father. "a So John Baptist assigns the reason for the
Saviour's taking precedence of himself. "He that
cometh from above is above all : he that is of the
earth is earthly, He that cometh from Heaven is above
all."b " This is He of whom I said, After me cometh
a man which is preferred before me ; for He was be-
fore me."c And our Lord, directing the minds of the
carnal Jews to heavenly truths of which He had been
speaking, alludes to His future ascension thus : "What
and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where
He was before ?"d thus again asserting that He was in
Heaven before He came to earth.

This being which He had before He became a man,
is eternal, without beginning. The creation of the
first created thing was "the beginning," and nothing
which had beginning existed before it. That therefore
which was before the Creation, or which already ex-
isted "in the beginning," had itself no beginning,
that is to say, is eternal. Such the Scriptures repre-
sent to be the being of Christ, the Son of God. He was
not only before John the Baptist, as proved above,
but before Abraham ; " Before Abraham was, I am ;"e
not only before Abraham, but before the world ; "The
world was made by Him,"f says St. John. God " hath
spoken unto us by His Son, by whom also He made
the worlds, "? says the Epistle to the Hebrews, which
also interprets of the Son, the well-known passage from
the io2d Psalm : " Thou Lord, in the beginning hast

a John, xvi. 27, 28. c John, i. 30. e John, viii. 58.

b John, iii. 31. d John, vi. 62. f John, i. 10.

s Heb. i. 2.

32 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are
the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou
shalt endure ; they all shall wax old as doth a garment,
and as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they
shall be changed ; but Thou art the same, and Thy
years shall not fail." a That He is before all created
things, St. Paul expressly asserts in a passage, the full
force of which is missed in our translation : " He is
the image of the invisible God, first-begotten before all
creation. b For by Him were all things created, that
are in Heaven, and that are in earth, visible and
invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or
principalities or powers, all things were created by
Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and
by Him all things consist."0 And St. John, to the
same effect, in the opening of His Gospel: "In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. The same was in the begin-
ning with God. All things were made by Him, and
without Him was not anything made that was made."d
"And the Word," it is farther stated, to identify this
Divine eternal Being with our Lord Jesus Christ, "was
made flesh and dwelt among us. ' '

The existence of our Lord before His birth as a man,
being, as thus proved, before all time and all worlds,
and therefore eternal, cannot be any other than Divine.
He is eternal, and therefore He is God ; for there is no
other eternal being except God. Moreover, it is said
that He made the world and all things ; therefore He

a Heb. i. 10. c Col. i. 15-17.

b npuroTOKoc naoris xrioeug. d John, i. 1-3.

Mystery of the Holy 7>inity. 33

is God : for there is no Creator except God. Besides,
in the last text cited, He is expressly called God ; and
thus the question is set at rest without further argu-
ment. Nor is this the only passage in which it is
unequivocally asserted that Christ is God. God de-
clared by the prophet Isaiah, as we have seen, against
idolatry and Persian philosophy : "I am the first
and I am the last, and beside me there is no God."
But the Saviour declared Himself to be the first and
the last when He appeared to St. John, in the Reve-
lations: " These things saith the first and the last,
which was dead and is alive. "a "I am Alpha and
Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord,b
which is, and which was, and which is to come, the
Almighty."0 So the Epistle to the Hebrews quotes the
forty-fifth Psalm as addressed to the Son: " But unto
the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and
ever."d And so the Apostle Paul preaches: "Being in
the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be
equal with God."e Nor could it be robbery of God
for Him to take this honor unto Himself, for " in Him
dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. "f He
is "God manifest in the flesh, "g and His name is "Im-
manuel, which is, being interpreted, God with us."h
St. Thomas, being convinced of the truth of His resur-
rection, confessed faith in His deity by exclaiming,
" My Lord and my God."1 And his adversaries, the
Jews, understanding rightly His claim to be the Son of

a Rev. ii. 8. ' d Heb. i. 8. at I. Tim. iii. 16.

b i.e. the Lord Jesus Christ. e Phil. ii. 6. h Matt. i. 23.

c Rev. i. 8. f Col. ii. 9. ' John, xx. 28.

4

34 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

God as including the assumption of Divinity, but re-
fusing to admit that claim, objected it against Him as
blasphemy, "because that Thou, being a man, makest
Thyself God. "a St. John, who is called "the Divine,"
because he discoursed so much of the deity of the Lord,
ends his first Epistle with the declaration: "We know
that the Son of God is come, and hath given us under-
standing, that we may know Him that is true, and we
are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ.
This is the true God, and eternal life."b Finally, St.
Paul enumerates among the glories of his kinsmen ac-
cording to the flesh, that " of them, as concerning the
flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for-
ever. Amen."c

This abundant proof that Christ is God is proof
also that He is the same God with the Father; for
since, as was proved in the first place, there is no God
but one, Christ must be that God, or not God at all.
But that God is shown to be God the Father ; there-
fore Christ, the Son, is the same God with the Father.

in. But, being the same God, He is nevertheless a
different Person from the Father. He has the same
Divine Nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
but a different personal subsistence11 from both. The
very names, Father and Son, testify this so clearly that
there would be no need to insist upon it, were it not
that " the thing that hath been, that is it that shall be,"
and therefore the old Sabellian heresy may arise again.
Hence it is to be noted that the difference of Persons

a John, x. 33. « Rom. ix. 5.

b I. John, v. 20. d Gr. v^oaraatq.

Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 35

in the Divine Trinity was manifested at the baptism of
Jesus: "The Heavens were opened unto Him," it is
said, "and He saw the Spirit of God descending like
a dove, and lighting upon Him ; and lo, a voice from
Heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I
am well pleased. "a Here the voice was the voice of
the Father ; He upon whom the Spirit descended was
the Son ; and the descending Spirit was the Holy
Ghost. He who gave, and He who received, and He
who was given, are clearly distinguished. The personal
distinction thus demonstrated was carefully preserved
by our Saviour, when speaking of Himself and His
Father : "My Father is greater than I." "I came
forth from the Father and am come unto the world,
again I leave the world, and go unto the Father."
"As the Father gave me commandment, even so I
do." "Ye believe in God [i.e. the Father], believe
also in Me." " I am the true vine, and my Father is
the husbandman." " Father, the hour is come, glorify
Thy Son, that Thy Son may also glorify Thee." So in
numberless passages the personal distinction is clearly
implied, proving that while the nature is the same the
personal subsistence is other.

iv. It is as clear also, from Holy Scripture, that
the Son, who is God eternally with the Father, re-
ceives His Divine Being from the Father, which is the
last point to be proved. It is evident from the mutual
relations of the terms Father and Son ; for the name
"the Son," in its proper acceptation, rests upon deri-
vation of being from the parent ; and that name be-

a Matt. iii. 16, 17.

36 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

longed to our Lord Jesus Christ before He was born
into the world ; and therefore it infers the derivation
of His Divine Being from His Father. Thus, applying
' the name to His Divinity, the Epistle to the Hebrews
informs us that "God hath spoken unto us by His Son,
by whom [that is, by which Son] He made the worlds;"*
whence it is to be concluded that the Person spoken of
as a Son, was a Son before " the worlds were made,"
and therefore a fo?'tiori before he was born as a human
Son. It has been before noticed that He is called
"the only-begotten Son," because of His Divine Being
which He alone has of all the Sons of God. He is
therefore a "begotten Son," that is, a Son who de-
rives His being from His Father — an "only-begotten
Son," as He alone derives by His generation a Divine
Being from His Father. "No man hath seen God at
any time," says St. John, "the only-begotten Son,
which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared
Him ;"b which passage can only be interpreted of the
Divine Nature of our Lord. And reason, of itself,
might conclude this generation ; for, as there is but one
Divine Nature, which is infinite, and at the same time
one and indivisible, and as that Divine Nature is origi-
nally in the Father, the Son could not have being at
all unless He had received that being from the Father.
The Divine Essence could not subsist in two persons
were not one derived from the other. Hence our
Saviour testifies that what He is He has received from
the Father: "All things whatsoever the Father hath
are mine."0 "As the Father hath life in Himself, so

a Heb. i. 2. b John, iii. 18. c John, xiv. 15.

Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 37

hath He given to the Son, to have life in Himself. "a
" Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing
of Himself but what He seeth the Father do."b "I
know Him, for I am from Him."c " I and the Father
are one."d " If I do not the works of my Father, be-
lieve me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me,
believe the works ; that ye may know and believe that
the Father is in Me, and I in Him."e The derivation
asserted in these passages the Epistle to the Hebrews
represents by a happy figure, "Who being the bright-
ness of the Father's glory, and the express image of
His person," etc. — coming forth from the Father, that
is, as the ray from the sun, and answering to the
Father's likeness as the wax to the seal by which it is
impressed.

We thus at length arrive at the proposition laid down
at the beginning of this somewhat complicated argu-
ment, having proved fully by it that God is always a
Father — the Eternal Father of an Eternal Son. Col-
laterally the doctrine respecting the Son has also been
brought out, part by part, and clearly shown by Scrip-
ture teaching.

III. The truth concerning the Holy Spirit, the
third Person of the blessed Trinity, is easy of recep-
tion when we believe in the Son. All that we need is
Scripture testimony to the facts ; and the teaching of
the sacred volume will be clear if we show that the
Holy Spirit is God, — that the attributes which are
peculiar to God alone are assigned to Him, — whence

1 John, v. 26. b John, v. 19. c John, vii. 29.

d John, x. 30. e John, x. 37, 38.

4*

38 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

we infer that He is God ; that He is a person distinct
from the Father and the Son ; and that He receives
His being by proceeding from the Father and the Son.
I. The Holy Scriptures, understood in their plain
and natural sense, call the Holy Spirit God, and assign
to Him attributes which belong to God alone. As we
infer the Son to be God, because "by Him God [the
Father] made the worlds," so we understand the Holy
Spirit to be God, because the same operation of Crea-
tion is attributed to Him in the words, "By His Spirit
He hath garnished the Heavens." For if the Son were
existent before the world, as He must have been if God
made the world by Him, so also the Spirit must have
been pre-existent, and co-operative in the Creation,
and therefore uncreated, and therefore God. So the
Angel Gabriel promised that the Son of Mary should
be called the Son of God, because He was conceived
by the Holy Ghost. "The Holy Ghost shall come
upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall over-
shadow thee ; therefore that holy thing which shall be
born of thee shall be called the Son of God." Not as
if the Holy Ghost were the Father of our Lord accord-
ing to the flesh, but that, according to the mystery of
the Triune activity, the Holy Spirit is the immediate
agent of all operations of the Father. It is to be con-
cluded, also, that He is God, because the bodies of
those to whom He is given as the Indwelling Spirit are
said to be " temples," since temples are exclusively the
habitations of Deity: " What ! know ye not that your
body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which dwelleth
in you?" Omniscience is one of His attributes : "The
Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.

Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 39

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 one,a but the Spirit of God."b Were
He not God, no sin could be committed against Him
so fearful as to preclude forgiveness; yet our Saviour
says: "All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be for-
given unto men, but the blasphemy against the Holy
Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whoso-
ever speaketh a word against the Son of Man, it shall
be forgiven him ; but whosoever speaketh a word
against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him,
neither in this world, neither in the world to come."0

The baptismal formula is an incontrovertible argu-
ment for the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. For as we
are baptized in the name of the Father, who is God,
and in the name of the Son, because He is God, so we
are baptized in the name of the Holy Ghost, because
He also is God. In the benediction, also, the union
of His name with that of the Father and that of the
Son is an argument of the same force: "The grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the
fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.
Amen."d

The Holy Ghost, moreover, is expressly called Lord
and God: "Now the Lord is that Spirit, and where
the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."6 When
Ananias kept back part of the price of his land, falsely
pretending that he had brought the whole as a donation
to the church, St. Peter rebuked him with the words :

1 ovSeig. b I. Cor. ii. 10, 11. c Matt. xii. 31, 32.

d II. Cor. xiii. 14. e II. Cor. iii. 17.

40 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

" Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy
Ghost? . . . Thou hast not lied unto men, but
unto God."a

Now, since the Holy Ghost is, according to Holy
Scripture, possessed of the attributes which belong
only to God, is joined in the baptismal formula with
the Father and the Son, each of whom has been
proved to be God, and moreover is in the Scripture
expressly called Lord and God, it is therefore to be
concluded that that Blessed Spirit is God — the same
God with the Father and the Son.

2. But the Holy Ghost is a Person distinct from the
Father and the Son. He performs actions towards the
Father and the Son which fully distinguish Him from
them. He is distinguished from the Father, because
" He maketh intercession for the saints, according to
the will of God."b That is, He makes intercession to
the Father; but the Father, it would never be said,
makes intercession to Himself; as it must be said
if the Father and the Holy Ghost were the same per-
son. He comes in obedience to the mission of the
Son: "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if
I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you ;
but if I depart, I will send Him unto you."c But the
Scripture would not represent our Lord as saying that
He would send Himself, as it must if the Spirit and the
Son were the same person ; much less when He had just
declared that He was about to depart, and that He who
was to be sent would come in His stead. "Through
the Son," says St. Paul, distinguishing the Persons,

a Acts, v. 3, 4. b Rom. viii. 27. c John, xvi. 7.

Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 41

"we have access by one Spirit to the Father." And
so in the benediction, "The grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and the love of God [the Father], and the fel-
lowship of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen."

3. The Holy Spirit receives His Divine Being from
the Father and the Son. For, as the Son receives the
Divine Nature from the Father, or He could not be at
all, so the Holy Spirit could not be, unless He received
it from the Father and the Son. This truth is inti-
mated by His being named, "the Spirit of God,"
"the Spirit of the Father," "the Spirit of the Son,"
"the Spirit of Christ." Of His being called the
Spirit of God, examples are so numerous that it will
not need to cite them ; it is sufficient to open the
Bible at the first chapter of Genesis, where we read,
"The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters." He is called the "Spirit of the Father" by
our Lord, encouraging the disciples to bear witness
boldly before governors and kings : " It is not ye that
speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in
you."a " Because we are sons," says St. Paul, "God
hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. "b
" Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is
none of His." The procession of the Spirit from the
Father is asserted in express terms: "He proceedeth
from the Father."0 And in equivalent words from the
Son, "He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto
you."d

The Scripture teaching respecting the Holy Trinity

a Matt. x. 20. c John, xvi. 26.

b Gal. iv. 6. d John, xvi. 14.

42 Threefold Grace of the Iloly Trinity.

is thus shown to be full and clear. The doctrine
taught is thus concisely summed up in the Athanasian
creed: "The Father is God, the Son is God, and the
Holy Ghost is God. And yet there are not three Gods
but one God." The object of the present volume is
to inquire into the practical relation of this doctrine
with our religious life, through the grace given by each
Person to the Christian, in applying to him, the Re-
demption and salvation of the Gospel.

CHAPTER II.

THE GRACE OF GOD THE FATHER.

'T^HE truth which God has revealed respecting Him-
self is not a speculative, but a regulative truth.
We have not faculties for speculation upon the nature
of God. The proper exercise of thought in religion
is to purify our understanding of the revealed Word
from errors of misapprehension, to accept the truth in
its transcendent mystery, and to carry it into our lives,
by making it the source of all our comfort and the
sanction of all our duty. We miss of the value of the
Revelation altogether, unless we receive it as intended
to govern our religious life. Our knowledge of God is
not knowledge of Him in Himself, apart from us ; but
knowledge of Him in relation to us. Our faith in the
Holy Trinity is the highest reach of thought, above
which it cannot ascend into a philosophy of the Abso-
lute, such as has been vainly imagined possible ; it is
rather the starting-point from which reason may de-
scend to the world and to ourselves. When, therefore,
we attempt to comprehend the mystery of God's being
as he is in Himself, we fail ; but when we set ourselves
at our proper business — to understand the relation of
the Ever-blessed Trinity to the world and to mankind
— the truth will be found to arrange itself in intelligible

(43)

44 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

conceptions, to be coherent, systematic, and, to careful
reflection, easily understood.

A merely speculative truth, unnecessary to Christian
practice, would be devoid of influence in life, and
therefore useless. Much as has been written concern-
ing the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake only, the
practical sense of the world has continually demanded
that the result of science should be the perfection of
art. The spirit of inquiry may be supreme, as such, in
individuals, in order that they may devote themselves
untiringly to investigations of which the practical value
is not foreseen ; but the world has no honor for the in-
quirer, until it sees that something can be done by
means of his discoveries. All science seeks an appli-
cation ; even the most abstract metaphysical inquirers
aim at an ultimate influence upon conduct, either by
laying down principles of morals or by guiding intel-
lectual activity. Hence, in a matter which concerns
every one as closely as religion, truth is altogether
regulative ; the faith is given to enter immediately into
the life of man and become the supreme governing
principle of his conduct, without which he cannot shun
evil and attain good.

What we want to know and understand is, what God
is to us, what He does to us, and what He requires
from us ; and this, of course, implies some knowledge
of what God is in Himself; but it also implies that that
knowledge, so far as comprehensible by us, is suffi-
ciently comprehended in the relations to us, of which
it is the foundation. The unity of God is sufficiently
revealed in the unity of His Law, which is the same
law, whether viewed as given by the Father, or pub-

The Grace of God the Father. 45

lished by the Son, or written in our hearts by the Holy
Spirit. The difference of Persons is sufficiently re-
vealed in the difference of operations of the Three in
our Redemption — the Father justifying and adopting,
the Son redeeming, the Holy Spirit sanctifying.

Conversely, without the knowledge of God thus
given, we cannot understand our position, or our
hopes, or our duty in the world ; but with it we have
all that is practical, and, therefore, all that is neces-
sary. Hence the Apostles' and the Nicene Creeds,
the Church's concise but systematic expositions' of the
truth which it has learned from God's revelation of
Himself, have been, the one for eighteen hundred, the
other for fifteen hundred years, allowed to be the sum
of the fundamental truths of Christianity, have been
found by experience sufficient to regulate conduct and
to preserve from deadly error, and are rightly required
to be believed, on pain of exclusion from her body
and from participation in her hopes.

The absolute necessity of Christian faith in God the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost consists in this,
that God requires it; and though we can give no other
certain reason (since we cannot affirm that God could
not save us without the exercise of faith on our part),
yet there are reasons which show us the fitness and, to a
certain extent, the necessity of this dispensation. One
such reason is thus stated in the Epistle to the Hebrews :
"Without faith it is impossible to please God; for he
that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that
He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him !"a

a Heb. xi. 6.

5

46 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

Following the example of the Apostle, we may assign
such others as present themselves — as thus : There is a
relation of each Person -to us, and an operation of each
Person towards us, which it is every way expedient we
should know, that we may willingly respond to it ; and
there is a duty required from us towards each Person,
which it is certainly necessary we should understand in
order to be able to perform it ; and the knowledge and
understanding of these relations, operations, and re-
quired duties implies, as a condition, faith in the Per-
sons who are their source and object. The work of
Redemption is a complex operation of the Three Di-
vine Persons, in which each bears His own distinctive
part. There is an operation of the Father, an opera-
tion of the Son distinct from that of the Father, and
an operation of the Holy Ghost distinct from those of
the Father and the Son. The knowledge that these
operations are effectually performed in us to our salva-
tion gives us the only well-grounded comfort and
Christian joy; since it only can relieve us from the
danger of self-deception and false security, and put to
flight the doubts of an unsettled heart.

Were this all it were surely enough to make the be-
liever "contend earnestly for the faith once delivered
to the saints;" but it becomes vastly more important
to have a right faith, when duties are based upon it,
without the due performance of which we are not in
the state of salvation, and without which God will not
give us the full benefits of His grace. A living, justi-
fying faith, the Apostle teaches us, is a " faith which
worketh by love;" it is a faith manifested in obedi-
ence. And therefore faith in the Holy Trinity stands

The Grace of God the Father. 47

in the closest connection with our spiritual life. For
the influences of Divine grace are partly given before,
and partly follow after, our doing what is required of
us. Moulding us beforehand to the will of God, they
yet depend on our faithful obedience to become com-
plete in effect, — prevenient grace not availing towards
final salvation, unless we believe and obey. Faith and
obedience are the outward branching and fructifying of
the spiritual life of the Christian of which the root is
grace — itself a principle not perceivable, but becoming
visible and conscious to the possessor by projecting
itself in thought and action ; the form of thought
being faith, and the form of action, obedience. In
their root, therefore, faith and obedience are the same,
— the answer of the soul to the Divine operations, and
the measure of the degree in which we have profited by
the grace given us ; besides, they exert a reflex action
upon the life from which they spring, strengthening
and perfecting it. Now, though true obedience is that
which is rendered unhesitatingly to the positive com-
mands and teachings of God, because they are His
commands and teachings, without any questionings as
to the reasonings for them, yet it needs to be assured
that the commands of the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost are all alike the commands of God, and that the
duty which springs from our relation to each of those
three persons is alike our duty towards God. Hence
the faith is necessary to this end, and we are helped to
obey more cheerfully and with greater satisfaction
when we can discover in the truths it delivers the rea-
sons and grounds of command and duty.

And lastly, the necessity of this faith must be still

48 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

more apparent in the fact that it is made the condition
of our receiving the chief benefits of the Gospel by
opening our souls to them, in conscious understanding
of what we are to receive, of the manner of obtaining,
and of the meritorious cause whose virtue we must
plead with the Father; thus throwing out other and
contrary thoughts, and the feelings and intentions
which would make grace useless if it were given. For
all these reasons — right acceptance of, and co-operation
with, the gift of salvation, true comfort and hope in the
gospel, and right obedience to the commands of God
— the faith in the Holy Trinity may be seen to be the
foundation upon which all who profess and call them-
selves Christians must build the edifice of their re-
ligious life.

The purpose of this volume is to inquire into the
operations of the Blessed Trinity towards and upon
man, in regenerating and sanctifying him. For these
operations, manifold and varied as they are, a name
has been found comprehensive enough to include them
all — the word grace. The grace of God is the whole
work of God in redeeming the world. In the present
chapter we consider the grace of God the Father
Almighty.

The word grace in Holy Scripture has three general
significations : first, it means the favor, love, mercy,
kindness, or benevolence of God, the Divine affection
of God towards us;a secondly, the spiritual gifts, what-
soever they be, imparted to our souls by God through

a Rom. iii. 24, etc.

The Grace of God the Father. 49

His favor and love;a and thirdly, in a sense admitting
the plural number, the effect produced in us by the gift
of Divine grace, b as the grace of humility, the grace of
charity, etc.

In order to understand what is the grace of God the
Father towards us, some consideration is necessary of
the relation in which He stands to the whole creation
at large, to mankind as originally created upright,
and, lastly, to mankind as fallen and redeemed. And
since the Church's understanding of Scripture teaching
respecting the Creation is (according to the formula of
Hooker), c that " all things are from the Father, by the
Son, through the Spirit," something more must be
said, in order to understand this concerning the attri-
butes exercised in the Creation of the world, and the
Redemption of mankind, as related to the action of
the three persons.

The Church, looking upon the Creed as a regulative
truth, teaches us, in her catechism, this answer to the
question, " What dost thou chiefly learn in these arti-
cles of thy belief?" " First, I learn to believe in God
the Father, who hath made me and all the world ;
secondly, in God the Son, who hath redeemed me and
all mankind ; thirdly, in God the Holy Ghost, who
sanctifieth me, and all the people of God." The three
titles, then, which the Church gives to the three per-
sons of the Holy Trinity are, God the Father, the
Creator ; God the Son, the Redeemer ; God the Holy
Ghost, the Sanctifier. These titles represent to us, as
the subordination of persons, so also the subordination

a Eph. iv. 7. b II. Cor. viii. 7. c B. i. c. 2.

5*

50 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

of attributes in the Godhead. They tell us that the
attribute specially exercised in the act of Creation, is
first in order ; that the special attribute which governs
the work of redemption is second ; and that that which
carries on the work of sanctification is third. These
are, Power, the creative attribute ; Wisdom, the re-
deeming attribute ; Love, the sanctifying attribute.
All these attributes belong to each of the three persons
of the Blessed Trinity; for it is of the essence of a
person (so far as we are able to conceive ; and God,
so far as revealed, is revealed according to our concep-
tions, and is unrevealed, so far as He transcends them)
that He should possess power or will, and also wisdom
or. intelligence, and also love or affection. The dis-
tinction of persons to us in the unity of essence, con-
sists in the manifestation of each attribute in a different
person. The characteristic attribute of God the Father,
and the source of both the others, is His glorious and
infinite power, which, by its own self-determinations, is
the origin of all that Wisdom beholds or Love delights
in. The Son is distinguished from the Father because
His power, though infinite and eternal as the Father's,
is not self-determinant, but subordinant to that Wisdom
which is the full beholding of the glory and mind of the
Father. "The Son can do nothing of Himself, but
what He seeth the Father do."a Hence the name
given by St. John is, "the Word" or "Wisdom" of
God ; for the first eternal energy of the Father's power
has for its result eternal, infinite Wisdom. The Holy
Spirit, so we are taught by our Fathers in the faith, as

a John, v. 19.

The Grace of God the Father. 51

the third Person of the Blessed Trinity, has for His
chief attribute, infinite, eternal Love — for what can be
the further outflow of that infinite essence, which is
self-developed into infinite power and infinite wisdom,
but infinite goodness — that is, infinite love?

These, then, in the Catholic theology, are the dis-
tinguishing attributes of the three Persons, as standing
respectively first in the order of their perfections. But
each Person, by reason of their co-essential equality,
has all the attributes in common with the other two,
only in a different order ; which difference of order
guides them in their operations. The Father, as the
source of all being, has Power first, and, from that,
Wisdom, which is in Him self-derived, and Love,
which is complete in Himself. The Son has first,
Wisdom, from the Father, and from Him also Power
and also Love. The Holy Spirit, proceeding from the
Father and the Son, has Love, first, and also Wisdom
and also Power ; for all these attributes are essential to
each Person, as personally subsisting. Thus, obtaining
their doctrine from Holy Scripture and a sanctified
philosophy, the Fathers of the Church, describing the
Persons of the Trinity by their chief attributes, repre-
sent the Father as the Supreme Power, the Almighty;
the Son as the Divine Word or Wisdom (for the Greek
worda used by St. John means both); and the Holy
Ghost as the Divine Love. Hence, bringing these
attributes into operation, God the Father is, by His
Power, the Creator ; God the Son is, by His Wisdom,
the Redeemer ; God the Holy Ghost is, by His Love,

a 6 /loyof.

5 2 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

the Sanctifier. That is, all those operations of the
Godhead in which Power is immediately subordinate
to Love, are operations of the Holy Ghost ; all those
in which Power is immediately subordinate to Wisdom,
are operations of the Son ; all those in which Power is
originant of that which to love, is to be good, and
which to know is to be wise, are operations of God the
Father. This being true, it may be understood how
the Creation is "of the Father, by the Son, through
the Spirit." As receiving being it is "of the Father;"
as arranged by manifold operations of wisdom, it was
so wisely constituted by the power of the Son, working
under the wisdom common to the Father and the Son ;
as made "very good," it was wrought through the
Spirit, under that Love, which, with Wisdom and
Power, the Spirit is, in common with the Father and
the Son.

It may, however, at first sight, seem hard to receive,
that Power is the highest attribute of the Godhead.
That this is true we have inferred from the first article
of the Creed : "I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of Heaven and Earth." Still, when we look
abroad on the world, and ask ourselves, Whence came
all its order and beauty and harmony? it is not un-
natural, that the further question should arise, Is
Power, really, the chief attribute? Must not Wisdom
guide and rule Power, and Love guide and rule Wisdom ?
Are not Love and Wisdom, then, predominant over
Power? The true answer to this is, that in the unity of
the Divine Nature, Power and Wisdom and Love are
co-equal, co-inclusive,a and co-eternal, and therefore

a efi~t(HXUp7]TOC,

The Grace of God the Father. 53

inseparable. But we are now considering them as
coming forth into activity, as relative to the creation
of the world ;a and it is evident that temporal creation
depended on the enactment of eternal, unchangeable
law. In reply to these questions, then, we ask another :
What is there for Wisdom to behold, or Love to delight
in until the Infinite Will has determined in its own
unity and perfection the harmonies of His own eternal
law ? The earth and the heavens have their harmonies,
and the universe runs round its appointed cycle, in
obedience to eternal and immutable laws, of which all
our science is the study. In thinking upon the Crea-
tion, therefore, we have to consider, not only the being
of the world, but the being of the law that governs it.
What are these laws which we call eternal and neces-
sary ? Do they exist without the enactment of God ?
Are there other eternally existing beings besides God ?
for, if eternal laws be eternally self-existent, they must
be existences other than God, and independent of
Him. Or are they not rather the determinations of His
eternal will — the enactments of His Infinite Power?
Clearly, there is nothing existing from all eternity but
God ; and therefore these eternal, immutable, necessary
laws, which govern God's works, must be themselves
enactments of God's infinite, unchangeable, eternal
will. Without the infinite Almighty Power of God
there could be no such thing as wisdom, no such thing
as love j for wisdom is the knowledge of God's eternal
laws, and love is the acceptance of, and delight in,
their perfections. Infinite, Almighty, perfect will and

a TzpocpopiKog,

54 Threefold Grace of the Jloiy Trinity.

power stand first in the Godhead ; and the proper
name of God the Father is that in the Creed, "I
believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven
and earth."

Nor does the supremacy of this infinite Power of
God in any way suggest the idea of capriciousness, as
being governed by no law derived from any other at-
tribute. It is governed by God's own essence, which
is perfect unity, and therefore cannot but be at unity
and harmony with itself. " The Being of God," says
Hooker, "is a kind of law to His working." The
power of God possesses the perfections of His being ;
and because it is perfect, one, unchangeable, and
eternally active, from it springs eternally, His wisdom
and His love ; and thus from His Power and Wisdom
and Love the Creation receives its being — its law and
order and glory.

Here, then, is the scriptural representation of our
relation to God the Father. God is the God of law.
He ordained the universal law of all things. His one-
ness makes that law a harmonious, perfect, just, upright,
all-holy law. We have no law but that which God has
given. We move and breathe, we live and die, under
His enactments. Nor is there any other origin of that
law which prescribes our duty. God has not only given,
but published, the law under which we are to act. He
demands obedience. He is our Governor, and we can
plead no allowance for disobedience to His commands.
As an infinite, eternal, and unchangeable God, He is a
just and holy God ; and as such He cannot overlook un-
holiness and disobedience. Our relation to God the
Father is that of children and subjects. The debt

The Grace of God the Father. 55

which we owe to Him — worship, adoration, humility,
whatever it be — is all comprehended in the two words,
faith and obedience.

This, then, is the first relation of man towards God,
partaking of His love, and therefore held to obedience
to His law. Man Avas originally created capable of
perfect obedience ; and if he had always rendered it,
his relation to his Creator would not have been com-
plicated with the dark and awful fact of the Fall, nor
with the wonderful mystery of Redemption. It would
have been the perfect love of a Father, governing His
children, and of children rendering willing obedience
to their Father in Heaven. Such will be the relation of
the Redeemed to God, in the eternal world, after the
Resurrection. The history of fallen man moves be-
tween the obedience of Eden and the obedience of
Heaven ; and the present operation of grace belongs to
the period included within these bounds, beginning
with the Fall, and ending with the Resurrection. But
in man's first estate the grace of God was simply love
and favor towards His child ; and its result was all the
blessings, whatsoever they were, which could be be-
stowed upon Adam to make him perfect in happiness.

The fact of the Fall, therefore, has a direct bearing
upon the doctrine of grace ; and its consideration leads
us to inquire more particularly into the nature of the
law given to Adam, and the nature of the act by which
he fell.

The law of God given to the perfect man was three-
fold, mirroring thereby the threefold personal attri-
butes of the Deity. First, the law of nature, or natural
affection ; secondly, the law of reason ; thirdly, the law

56 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

of positive command, or conscience, — the first, govern-
ing man according to his constitution and being ; the
second, governing him in his occupations in the world ;
the third, governing him in his closer relation to God
as a responsible and spiritual being.

By the law of nature, I understand the necessary im-
pulses inherent in the original constitution of beings
of whatever kind, which urge to physical, involuntary,
instinctive, or emotionala action. Such is the law by
which planets revolve around the sun ; that by which
the relations of inanimate things are established ; by
which geological changes take place, by which sub-
stances enter into chemical combinations, by which
planets grow according to their kinds, by which animals
seek their food, and by which their life is developed,
preserved, and propagated. In this, its comprehensive
sense, the law of nature includes, not only such rela-
tions as govern inanimate beings, and animated beings
simply as organized bodies, but also such as govern
animated beings in those acts which are not purely acts
of a proper will, working under reason towards a pur-
pose, or consciously obeying a command, — that is,
those acts which animated beings perform by impulse
or instinct of nature rather than by rational volition.
As man is a natural being, and was so in Paradise, he
was there governed as he is now, by a law of nature.
He had his place on the earth by the law of gravita-
tion; his organization was subject to the laws and con-
ditions of animal life; the involuntary movements of

aI use this word to designate action prompted by the natural
emotions or passions of animate beings.

The Grace of God the Father. 57

the heart and lungs were governed in him as in lower
animals by the law of nature. And so, also, his sinless
instincts, desires, appetites, and affections furnished
him a law of nature to guide his more common and
necessary actions.

In the highest generalization, it will not be very far
out of the way to define the law of nature as the law of
the attraction of beings towards, or their repulsion
from each other, according to the natures given them
by God. Thus, with respect to man ; his place upon
the earth is secured by the attraction of gravitation ;
his growth is effected by the attraction of necessary nu-
triment from the food digested to the various parts of
the body ; his food is selected by its attractiveness to
the appetite ; his likes and dislikes, his passions and
desires, are simply attractions and repulsions. The law
of attraction rises higher than the control of merely
physical movements, and in some degree enters into
the moral sphere, into combination with the under-
standing and the will. Man has appetites, desires, sen-
timents, emotions, instincts, affections, under which he
acts in part involuntarily, in part consciously ; and by
these, so far as they influence him rightly, the law of
nature is proclaimed. His emotional and instinctive
faculties were given him for wise and good purposes ;
and though now (like the nobler faculties) perverted
by the fall, they had .place in the perfection of Para-
dise, and were there the expression of laws of action,
which were consciously obeyed. Natural law, in this
sense, stood between merely physical natural law and
the law of reason, differing from the one, in that its
obedience is unconscious and altogether involuntary ;

58 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

and from the other, in that the will is permissive rather
than directive. The instincts, in a perfect state, would
tend to self-preservation, and the affections and senti-
ments would govern the relations of society, without
the need of being informed by any processes of rea-
soning or any revealed law, the golden rule being
" written on the heart." They would thus be natural
teachers of the duties men owe to each other in society,
and perhaps of the duties we owe to God. It pleased
God not to leave society to the cold impulses of mere
rational conclusions in respect of these things ; but to
implant in our nature those social principles in accord-
ance with which even now, fallen as we are, society
shapes itself and coheres together, and which, were we
as perfect as Adam was made, would of themselves be
a perfect law of social action and human morality.

That system of faculties which proclaims the law of
nature is called, in Holy Scripture, the heart. The
law of the heart, if the heart were perfect, would be,
under the present constitution of society, the ten com-
mandments ; nor can that be a right heart whose de-
terminations, claiming authority under color of being
natural feelings, differ from the commandments. We
are, at the present day, too much inclined to take our
hearts and feelings for our guides, not reflecting that
they are fallen, as they are, and need to be taught by
Holy Scripture and cleansed by Divine grace, to give
us right impulses and a right obedience to God. But
in Paradise, the nature of Adam being perfect, his
heart proclaimed truly God's law of nature ; and that
law being in principle the ten commandments, so far
as they applied to a possible society in that perfect

The Grace of God the Father. 59

state, this is the reason, I suppose, that we do not read
df any moral law given to Adam by express revelation.

The law of nature, as the bond of society and the
principle of attraction by which all things, animate or
inanimate, seek what is best for them, and (so to
speak) love each other, is correspondent to the Divine
love ; and since that is the third in the order of the
Divine attributes, this law acknowledges in man, as a
spiritual being ordained to the highest knowledge of
God, a twofold higher law, — that of wisdom or reason,
and that of command or conscience.

Under the law of reason, instead of emotion, or in-
stinct, or appetite, or affection, the will substitutes pur-
pose as its principle of action. It sets before itself ends
to be attained other than the gratification of present
feelings ; it governs our calling and occupation in this
life ; it puts us in the way of discovering means and
ways of action ; it enables us to decide whether our
purposes are wise, and whether our means are adapted
to the end in view. For example, legislation in our
present state is, or ought to be, an exercise of reason,
seeking means to preserve society from disruption,
since nature is no longer sufficient. The laws of a
state are laws of human reason ; and so is every rule
which implies a purpose consciously adopted, and the
choice of means to carry it into effect. Like the
heart, the reason is now fallen, and therefore its deter-
minations are neither the wisest nor the best ; but in
Paradise it was, in its sphere, a perfect guide, ruling
Adam in his occupation. We read that "the Lord
God put the man into the garden of Eden to dress it
and to keep it." That means, He gave him an occu-

6o Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

pation to which his mere instincts and emotions did
not urge him. Purpose not resting upon impulse is
supposed in this, and means inferred. The discovery
and adaptation of means to purposes, and the adoption
of rules of action, were exercises of reason, leading
further to the knowledge of laws and principles, and
so to an insight into the works and ways of God. The
law of Reason thus represents in man that wisdom
which is the second of the attributes of God.

It is true, therefore, that man, in his perfection, was
created to be governed by the law of reason as well as
by the law of nature ; but they have a very false idea
of human nature, and of our position under God's
government, who suppose that this is all which even
the perfect man must obey, or that nothing more is
necessary to bring him into full communion with God.
Adam obeyed the law of nature almost unconsciously
— by instinct, as it were ; he obeyed the law of reason
by reflection upon the ends to be attained and the
means to attain them ; but there needed a positive
command, to which neither instinct pointed nor reason
reached, to try his faith, his obedience, and his filial
love. The highest spiritual qualities — faith, love,
fidelity — could find expression only in obedience to a
positive revealed command. Hence, the laws of rea-
son and of nature being presupposed, we are told that
God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of
the garden thou mayest freely eat : but of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of
it : for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt
surely die." This law of positive command repre-
sented, in the sphere of human activity, that primor-

The Grace of God the Father. 6r

dial, constitutive will which is the first of the Divine
attributes.

We are told that disobedience to the command was
the cause of the fall. To see, then, how obedience to
a law of which we do not see the reason, ennobles, and
how disobedience debases a moral being, even while
obeying the laws of nature and reason, and so to real-
ize something of a true philosophy of human nature
and its obligations, let us contrast this account of the
fall with one of the many ways in which the existence
of evil is explained.

It is said, for example, that evil is necessary in the
world as subordinate to the purposes of good, — that the
good finds opportunity to develop itself in the work of
restoration only because evil is at work marring all
things. Human nature is thought to develop in ac-
cordance with the necessity of evil. It is at first un-
consciously innocent, ignorant of right and wrong,
and, prior to experience, without a rule of judgment.
It must, therefore, fall into evil, and thus a twofold
effect is obtained, — the evil of one furnishes the oppor-
tunity for the good of another ; and one's own experi-
ence leads him finally to reject the evil altogether and
to choose the good. The education of humanity, in
this view, consists in setting before it the evil and its
consequences, that it may taste their misery and so
choose the happiness of the good. Each person must
learn by his own experience to make the choice for
himself; and therefore the necessity of an experience
of evil was inherent in human nature ; and there has
never been a fall ; and no blame attaches on account
of sin, since it is only an unavoidable misfortune.
6*

62 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

The various propositions of this theory are argued
somewhat after the following manner:

Why, it is asked, does God permit the whirling tor-
nado to sweep over, or the rumbling earthquake to
tremble beneath a town, and cripple man or bury his
home in devastation, or crush in its ruins the partner
or the child? We bow in silence at the inscrutable
counsels of our Creator, and confess that He has done
His will. The afflicted and the bereaved appeal to our
sympathies, and afford us opportunity for the exercise
of virtue in acknowledgment of the brotherhood of
humanity. With this admission, the argument is taken
up again, and we are asked, "Is not moral evil — man's
sin against his fellow — ordained for the purpose of
developing otherwise hidden virtue? Is not the aggre-
gate of human action grander and nobler for the virtue
of the many developed by the sin of the few ? How
much of our sympathy is excited, and how many
mighty schemes of benevolence are carried on, it is
argued, to remove the misery of the world, which has
its roots in antecedent sin ! Is not the development of
this virtue, and the happiness occasioned thereby,
more than the evil which called it forth ? How nobly,
for example, Christian fortitude enables us to bear the
ills put upon us by injustice and harsh dealing ! How
unweariedly reason — that loftiest faculty of man — is
exercised in devising wise laws to meet the wants of
society which we have learned from our experience of
evil ! Were all men innocent, it is argued, there
would be no need of studying laws and principles, no
moral reason and intelligence, no call for benevolence,
no active sympathy, no high endurance, no Christian

The Grace of God the Fathe?'. 6$

forgiveness, no opportunity of our benefiting one an-
other and of becoming more excellent thereby. Fraud
and violence and oppression, it is admitted, reduce to
poverty ; drunkenness and neglect involve families in
misery; evil passions inflict injuries; careless selfishness
tramples on hearts without a thought. But these pain-
ful effects of evil, it is argued, develop a far greater
degree and higher state of virtue than could otherwise
be developed, in those who suffer nobly and act chari-
tably and reap a reward infinitely outweighing all mor-
tal sufferings, in the exalted sphere to which the soul is
translated after death. Upon the mountain-tops, in a
purer but rarer atmosphere, virtue, it is thought, is
stripped of its warmth, like the sunlight lying on eter-
nal snow ; but in the denser air of lower earth it fills
the otherwise dreary void with deeds of benevolence
and love, which, without the coexistence of evil, it
would have had no power to perform. In a world
without sin, it is said, forgiveness could have no place,
firmness and constancy no trial ; humility shows lovely
in contrast with pride, and love itself is noblest when
overcoming hate. Hence, it is said, there must be
evil, or there could be no good.

To this, our direct answer is short. The theory
does not meet the fact, — it does not admit the magni-
tude of the evil in the world. Is evil really so little
that it is but the uncomely handmaid of good ? Far
from it. What history does not teem with crimes?
What nation's record shows virtue persistent on the
throne? What star of empire has not set in blood,
amid a people weltering in corruption ?

Human nature, however, is supposed to be consti-

64 Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity.

tuted under such a necessity of evil within it and around
it. It is further argued that there must be evil in
others, for it to be around us ; and in us, that it may
surround others, in order that mankind, by overcoming
it, may attain to the highest good. For this reason,
they say, man is not fallen ; but was created in a child-
ish unconscious innocence, knowing neither good nor
evil. An ignorance of temptation, it is said, and said
truly, is less of good than a strong and conscious
virtue victorious over it, or which has passed through
the flames, and learned to embrace the good through
loathing at the evil. Hence, it is argued, we must fall
in order to rise. That soul only, it is to be inferred,
can gain true intelligence and true virtue which has had
a wild and bitter experience. The storms must beat
upon it, that it may rise above them, and so attain the
calm. Only by passing through the cloud is the sun-
shine beheld in all its brightness. So, it is thought,
must the soul be under the cloud of sin, that it may
drink in the brightness of God's goodness. Hence, it
is concluded, our moral progress is from unconscious
innocence into the deep and the dark of sin, and
through that to awakened conscience and resistance
and victory, until it stands forth in the uprightness of
the moral athlete, able to endure every conflict and
secure in abundant strength.

But this theory, to be complete, must add something
more. If man have been, not only the victim of evil
himself, but also the cause of grief and sorrow to
others, — a leader of others into excesses, a bad example,
and bad companion, — he has really been a benefit to
the world ; for his evil is balanced by the good that

The Grace of God the Father. 65

accrues, when the virtue he has been the means of de-
veloping, in those who have suffered heroically from
himself and his bad associates, falls upon him in bright
contrast to his hateful self, and so brings him back
from the pit of sin to the love of good. For it is not
unreasonable, in this Utopia, to hope for the universal
result, that the man of guilty passions, at war with him-
self (no account being taken of the slavery in which
his passions hold him), will be led, by seeing the good-
ness around him, to love it and embrace it, and to flee
from his guilty self to a better life, under the guid-
ance of that overruling power, to carry out whose edu-
cational purposes he has been playing with the fierce
and scorching lightnings. Or, if, untouched by the
light (as it must be confessed many seem to be all their
life through), he die wallowing in the mire, then,
seeing that his guilt arises from a defect in his educa-
tipn, it is thought that his career in another world will
be, though bereft of much happiness as a lower and
debased nature, yet free from actual misery; while
those who have been led to virtue by overcoming evil
will rise to heights otherwise impossible ; so that the
sum of happiness in the future will, in any event, have
been increased by the evil of the present.

The fallacy from which this speculation starts is trans-
parent enough. It supposes the primal innocence to
have been simple unconsciousness of right and wrong.
Innocence, it thinks, is thoughtful and confiding, happy
and free, childlike and simple, lovable and yet defence-
less,— a beautiful flower, but frail, and delicate and ex-
posed. Such an unconsciousness must be at the mercy of
the deceiver to be imposed upon, and of the tempter to

66 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

be led away at the first allurement. If such be the origi-
nal state of man, — if such were the condition of our
first parents, — if they were innocent in the same sense
in which we employ the term in speaking of childhood,
human nature must be led away at the first temptation.
Thinking no evil itself, it cannot comprehend the pos-
sibility of the tempter's thinking evil, and so must fall
into the snare. Such innocence, having no knowledge
of the law of God as a rule of life, the penalty of
which is to be feared, cannot be held back from sin by
fear; not knowing wrong to be contrary to God's love,
it cannot be held from it by the love of God. It must,
therefore, trust to experiment for its enlightenment.
The conflict of the soul with itself, in passing through
the dark labyrinth of sin, will be necessary, with such a
start, to give it reason and reflection and watchfulness
and faith. Hence men think they have discovered the
true account of the world's mystery of sin and sorrow,
when they have supposed the human race exposed in-
nocent and defenceless to every temptation to sin and
crime. If its primal innocence were a childish uncon-
sciousness of wrong, — a mere happy, thoughtless life,
governed by its own impulses of self-preservation,
nothing could elevate it to the dignity of rational,
intelligent obedience but the experience of danger
through the experience of sin.

But if the evil of humanity in its origin be not neces-
sary, but voluntary, — the consequence of a fall, and
not inherent in us at first, though it be now, — then it is
evident that the innocence of our first parents was
something other than this mere defenceless unconscious-
ness and unsuspecting confidence. If man were a

The Grace of God the Father. 67

moral and reasonable being, who was put into a state,
not of education, but of probation, then evil was not
necessary to bring him to the highest good, and the
guilt of its appearance belonged to him alone ; he had
all the consciousness of good, all the defence, all the
safeguard against evil, all the moral height and gran-
deur of his nature, when he came from his Maker's
hand blessed and pronounced very good, which he
could have after the fight had been fought and the
victory won ; and the trial, even had he not sinned,
could have left him nothing more than he was at first, —
his only excellence being the persistent preservation of
that holiness with which he was originally endowed.

The picture which Holy Scripture shows us of the
first man is this : not that, while he remained pure in
the garden of Eden, he did good and right uncon-
sciously; but that he did good consciously, knowing it
to be good, and forewarned, and therefore forearmed
against evil. His innocence was not merely negative,
the want of experience of evil ; but it was the innocence
of self-restraint, of obedience, of faith and love, of truth
known as fully and completely as it could ever be.
Adam was not created a child, nor a savage ; he was
made a man. His innocence was not childish and un-
suspecting, but manly and reflective; and therefore
he had no need of sin and evil for an education into
character. When he sinned, whatever may have been
the labyrinth in which his soul wandered and bewildered
itself so as to choose evil for its portion, — whatever may
have been the secret interior moral history of the fall, —
whatever the thoughts which passed through his soul,
and induced him to yield to temptation, — he lost by

68 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

the experiment; he could not gain; and nothing in
this mortal life, not even the glorious gospel of redemp-
tion itself, can restore man, while on earth, to his pris-
tine perfection, or give him the same moral judgment
and moral knowledge of good which Adam possessed
when first from his Maker's hands, his soul illuminated
with the full light of the Holy Spirit. His primal in-
nocence was that of principle, of knowledge, of reflec-
tion, of self-restraint, of reason, of obedience, of per-
fect and complete manhood.

This is proved by two facts in the history of the fall.
First, God gave to Adam an occupation and a law ; He
endowed him with a calling and laid upon him a com-
mand, which appealed to his reason and reflection as
strongly as any experience of sin could be supposed to
do. His life was to be a life of earnest work, without
pain, indeed, and without sweat, but still work. " The
Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden
of Eden to dress it and to keep it." "And the Lord
God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree in
the garden thou mayest freely eat : but of the tree of
knowledge of good and evil, thou mayest not eat of
it : for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt
surely die." Here was reflection and consciousness of
responsibility, developed by the law demanding obe-
dience, and therefore not needing a fall to develop it.
The second fact is, that the perfection of Adam was to
be retained by self-restraitit. The tree seemed every
way a desirable one ; it was "good for food, and pleas-
ant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one
wise." It allured him to try his self-restraint, and the
devil, in addition, was permitted to tempt him, to try

The Grace of God the Father. 69

his faith ; and this he did by holding out a false idea of
the knowledge of good and evil. The tree was called
the tree of knowledge of good and evil, not because by
it came the knowledge of good as well as of evil ; but
because by it came the experience of evil in contrast
with the good he had lost. To eat of it was, in reality,
to obtain the knowledge of good lost and of evil gained,
changing the one into the remembrance of a lost glory,
and enthroning the other as an ever-present tyrant.
But before he ate Adam had the knowledge of good,
without the experience of evil, and in this consisted his
perfection. The law and the sense of responsibility
were the instruments and means of producing that re-
flective, faithful obedience in which true perfection
consists.

Now, the having a law is not sin, nor is it evil ; nor
is the being subject to temptation for probation. The
yielding to temptation and the disobedience to law are
the sin and the evil. There was, it is true, the possi-
bility of sin; but the possibility of sin is not actual sin.
There was no evil in the world when sin was only pos-
sible and not actual. The possibility of evil is the con-
dition of moral freedom itself; but there is no need
that moral freedom should lead us into sin. Free
obedience is far more moral freedom than actual diso-
bedience. Hence, had Adam obeyed the law and kept
from yielding to the temptation, there would have been
the highest good without any evil. Here, then, is the
true solution of the question respecting perfection of
nature in Adam. His moral and spiritual qualities
were developed and brought into action by the law of
positive command, and that law was the condition of his
7

70 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

spiritual probation. The law of nature was% preserva-
tive of his existence; the law of reason governed him
in his worldly occupation ; but the law of command
brought him into the communion of faith and obedience
with his God and Father.

The significance of the law of positive command is
thus made evident. It is the condition of his becom-
ing a higher being than a mere animal. For if we
examine carefully, we shall find that all the difference
in action between a spiritual nature and an animal na-
ture is contained in the idea of moral responsibility, or
accountability. And this accountability being analyzed,
implies a mutual trust of each other on the part of two
parties ; the superior committing to the inferior a trust,
on the faith that he will keep it, without any positive
guarantee of the confidence thus reposed ; and the in-
ferior accepting the trust, without any guarantee of the
reward or punishment, except his faith and confidence
in the superior. Now, if the trust be betrayed, respon-
sibility rests, because of the personal offence implied in
unfaithfulness. The disobedient subject puts a personal
affront upon the superior by doubting his word, or
setting at naught his menace, or making light of his
proffered rewards. His disobedience and unfaithful-
ness imply contempt of the person who has put the law
upon him ; while, on the other hand, obedience and
faithfulness imply faith, love, trust, high principle, hope,
and confidence. Obedience or disobedience to a posi-
tive command is, therefore, a strictly personal concern ;
the imposition of such command brings God and man
into personal communion with each other, in a way
which could not have been accomplished by the law of

The Grace of God the Father. 71

nature, or the law of reason. For faith, love, and
trust come in when a law is given to us of which we do
not see the reason ; when we do see it, the reason is
sufficient to determine us, without either faith, or love,
or hope. But only by positive command can a law be
given of which we do not see the reason ; and there-
fore, if there had been no command in Paradise,
Adam would not have been in the way of developing
those moral and spiritual qualities, nor gifted with that
personal communion with God, which made him the
chief of the terrestrial creation.

But as it was the law of command which gave Adam
his moral being, so it was in disobedience to it that he
fell. The possibility of his elevation involved the
possibility of his fall. It being God's gracious will,
therefore, to give man the loftiest position possible for
a created being to attain, He did not shrink (if we
may so speak) from any possible consequences which
that intention involved, nor did He fail to make such
provision for the reparation of the evil as might be
necessary in case it occurred. "The Lamb" was
"slain from the foundation of the world." Out of
the command grew the whole moral and spiritual his-
tory of mankind. Nor is it conceivable how, were
there not the command, any disobedience or sin could
have been possible, — how any man could have haw. free
to do right because able to do wrong. For the impulses,
emotions, and instincts which proclaimed the law of
nature were themselves the agents in obeying it ; in
proclaiming it, they were actually at work obeying it ;
the proclamation and the obedience were in general
identical, and the perfect man would never will to do

72 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

anything which the law of nature prohibited. The
same is true with respect to the law of reason. Guided
by reason, we always choose that which seems to us to
be best; and if reason were perfect, as it was in Adam,
it would show us that which is really the best ; nor is it
agreeable to the nature of reason, seeing the best, to
choose a worse. Hence there could be no disobedi-
ence to the law of reason in a perfect state. As far as
it or the law of nature is concerned, we should stand
on the moral level of the brutes, who have no morality,
have no personal faith, are conscious of no accounta-
bility, because they are subject to no positive com-
mand. The moral station which implied the possi-
bility of choice inherent in the nature of freedom is
that of subordination to a command ; and this station
is the highest to which any created being can aspire.

Adam misused his freedom to disobey the command ;
he sinned, and lost his innocence, his favor with God,
his happy Paradise, and his perfection of nature.

Of the fall itself, speculation can give us no clearer
knowledge than our possession of the simple fact.
Adam was tempted ; he had the power of resistance,
he was forewarned of the consequence, he did not re-
sist, he was unfaithful, disobeyed, and fell. The effect
of the fall upon himself was the guilt of his disobedi-
ence fixed upon his soul, the withdrawal of God's favor,
the departure of the indwelling Spirit of God, the loss,
consequently, of immortality, spiritual death immedi-
ately, and temporal death after a short delay ; and,
besides this, such a corruption of his being, such an
indwelling sin, that neither nature nor reason would
henceforth proclaim audibly and clearly the law they

The Grace of God the Father. 73

were intended to teach. The depravation of the spir-
itual being spread into the rational and the natural
being, and depraved them likewise, so that, in every
part of his constitution, he was "very far gone from
original righteousness," had within himself the seeds
of sin, and transmitted this fault, and corruption and
unhappy state to all his posterity.

Here, then, is the true explanation of those facts
which the false theory noticed above misconstrues and
perverts. The primitive state of man is for us only a
fixed point of observation, — not a present or attainable
state. We are not as Adam was ; evil is now a melan-
choly experience, and sin a dreadful plague. Our
present state, with all its moral phenomena, is the con-
sequence of that original sin which brought death into
the world, and changed the whole pathway of humanity
towards eternal life. The redeemed and regenerate
man has a different development of spiritual life from
what would have been had he retained his purity. He
comes into the world a sinner, as made by Adam ; he
leaves it a saint, as new-made by Christ. He derives
guilt from Adam, and he must arrive at the knowledge
of good through Christ. The work of grace is the
work of restoration.

It is true that on coming into the world, and for a
long time after we have attained some physical and in-
tellectual growth, we are in a state of moral uncon-
sciousness ; but it is not the true explanation of the
fact that unconsciousness in man is innocence. Moral
unconsciousness is moral guilt, — the effect of the loss en-
tailed upon us by the fall. To one who watches with
an observant eye, it cannot but be evident how easily

7*

74 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

and how unconsciously the so-called innocence of
childhood falls from one wrong into another as years
pass on, totally defenceless (if apart from the saving
influence of God's grace given to His church) against
the assaults and seductions of the tempter. The cycle
of life, in too many cases, it is admitted, runs through
and because of moral unconsciousness, into actual and
open sin; then, by the grace of God, the sin is brought
home to the conscience, the man passes through a crisis
of the spiritual life, and at length begins to serve God
aright, having developed, by the aid of Divine grace,
moral consciousness, reflection, repentance, living
faith, self-examination, repudiation of sin, and the
endeavor to lead a holy life. But why so defenceless
against sin at the first, except that he has inherited a
fall? That cannot be true innocence which falls natu-
rally, as the powers waken, into first the little sin, then
the great sin, then the life of sin. It is guilt, needing
the atoning blood of the Redeemer to wash out its
stain, — needing the alarm of conscience urging it to
seek the conscious innocence of justification by grace.

The true account of our actual sin is not that it is
our necessary education up to good, but that it is the
fruit and manifestation of that original sin in which
we were born. We are justly held guilty before the
act, because by our birth-sin, our fallen estate, and
our want or our neglect of the safeguards of religion,
we carry the principle of disobedience or unruliness
within and have no defence against it.

"Sin," says St. John, "is the transgression of the
law;" and therefore its chief offence is against God
the Father, since He is that person of the Holy Trinity

The Grace of God the Father. 75

who is the giver of the law. This consideration ena-
bles us to observe the difference between the grace of
the Father, and the grace of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit, — the Father's grace accepting the atonement,
the Son making it ; the Father granting our sanctifica-
tion, the Spirit working it. The contrast we have just
concluded, of the fallen with the unfallen state of man,
will show us also what action of the grace of God the
Father is directed towards us in our fallen, and what in
our regenerate state.

1. In the holy and happy state of Paradise, since
there was no need of redemption, there was no need
of redeeming grace ; still there was grace of God the
Father with the man unfallen. Applied to what Adam
enjoyed in that state, the word grace is used in its
primary sense, to denote the favor and love of God
bestowed upon Adam in the perfect bliss of full com-
munion and personal converse with his Maker. We
may also apply the word to the indwelling presence of
the Holy Spirit which was in Adam until he lost his
innocence/ Thus the word bears its second sense, a
gift actually given, — in Scripture language, "poured
out upon" or infused into the mind or soul of man.
A clear apprehension of the distinction between these
two meanings is most important, for the reason that
while the first sense is common to each of the three
persons of the Holy Trinity, the second sense is pecu-
liar to the second and third persons, as will be seen
further on. In the first sense, grace or favor is not a
gift actually given over to man ; it is (to speak after

1 See Bp. Bull's Fifth Discourse.

76 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

the manner of the schools) an affection of the Divine
Mind immanent in Deity ; in the second sense, grace
is a spiritual gift transferred to man by a Divine act,
and remaining with him, unless, in consequence of sin,
it be withdrawn. Both kinds of grace were enjoyed
by Adam in Paradise, — the presence of the Spirit as a
gift, the love and favor of the Father as a disposition
or affection; the latter the source of the former, as,
indeed, of all other gifts, of whatever kind, which
added to the blessedness and happiness of Adam's per-
fection.

All things, it was said, are of the Father, by the
Son, through the Holy Spirit. The Father is the
source or origin of all beings ; the Son and the Spirit
are the immediate agents by whom all operations are
carried on. What the Father wrought in the creation
of the world, He wrought by the Son, and through the
Holy Spirit. So, likewise, in the work of grace, what
the Father, who is the source and original of grace as
of all other good, communicates to mankind, is given
by the Son, through the Holy Spirit. The Father,
therefore, enters not personally into our souls; but the
grace which enters into man as a gift, is given per-
sonally by the Son, or by the Holy Spirit, and the
Father is present essentially, by His unity with the
Son and the Holy Spirit, whom He gives to us.a
Hence the grace which He personally shows to man is
His favor and love, His forgiveness and justification
and adoption, the immanent affection which is the
foundation of the grace given by the other Persons of

a St. John, xiv. 23.

The Grace of God the Father. 77

the blessed Trinity. And with this fundamental con-
ception of the grace of God the Father, the language
of Scripture uniformly agrees.

2. The grace of God the Father towards fallen, un-
regenerate man, must, of course, difTer in its mani-
festation from that towards him in his first estate. It
is developed in showing mercy. Love and favor, as
such, are for the perfect ; mercy is for the fallen.

By his disobedience, man forfeited the love and
favor of God. Instead of continuing a child of God,
he became a rebellious and condemned sinner, a child
of wrath whose future, by his own act, was the penalty
of which he had been warned, temporal and eternal
death. The Holy Spirit, who had clothed him with a
robe of righteousness, was withdrawn ; he was guilty,
naked, ashamed, conscience-stricken, already unhappy,
self-condemned, and expectant of unhappiness forever.
He had offended God, had no more title to Divine
grace in any form, had arrayed against himself, on the
contrary, every attribute of the Divine nature. The
justice of God required satisfaction j His holiness, the
condemnation of sin ; His truth, that the threatened
penalty should be inflicted ; His majesty, the vindica-
tion of His law ; even His love, that the disorder and
disturbance of a perverse will should be banished from
the harmonies of the Creation. The sin of Adam
was no "being overtaken in a fault." The command
had been disobeyed with full knowledge of the conse-
quences. No account of the event will meet the truth,
but that it was the wilful, conscious disobedience of
pride and ambition, by which Adam set himself against
God, and sought another place than that which God

73 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

had assigned him ; and of necessity he set God against
himself, unless some means were found, by which God
and man might be reconciled.

Now, since God the Father, as we have seen, is the
giver of the Law, the offence was particularly against
Him. He was the offended person. The Son and
the Holy Spirit could not but partake in the Father's
indignation against and abhorrence of the sin, as being
one with Him, as having the same will, and the same
holiness ; but against the Father, formally and prin-
cipally was the sin committed. The alienation was a
total alienation from God, but specially from God the
Father. The Father, therefore, could not, by the
necessities of the case, be the person who' actively
wrought the reconciliation. The grace, which even
as an affection was forfeited, could not become a gift
immediately from the Father, entering into the soul
of man, and so regenerating him. It could only re-
main (so far as Scripture gives us ground for con-
cluding) as a merciful disposition, and a merciful sus-
pension of judgment until the Atonement was made
for the sin, and its effect upon man's nature was blotted
out by his regeneration and renewal. If any act or
gift of grace could restore the filial relation, it must
come into our souls, whether as an object of faith, or
as a regenerating power, from the Son, or the Holy
Spirit ; the deed availing to reconciliation must be
acted towards the Father, not by the Father. We
have seen that the grace of God could become a gift to
the man unfallen, only in the person of the Son and
of the Holy Ghost ; there must be added the addi-
tional reason against its becoming so, in the case of

The Grace of God the Father. 79

fallen man, that God the Father was the offended per-
son, and so set at an immeasurably greater distance
from mankind. In the attitude of hostility (for it was
no less) in which man had set God the Father against
him by his transgression, — when the primitive love
and favor had been forfeited, no further advance or
closer approach could be thought of, until the atone-
ment was provided, on the part of that person against
whom the sin had been committed, and all whose at-
tributes were pledged to vindicate the broken law.

The prevent ent grace of God the Father, therefore, is
His merciful disposition towards mankind, displayed in
several acts preparatory to their forgiveness, regenera-
tion, and readoption into His Kingdom and family.
The Holy Scripture shows us the extent of this merciful
disposition: "God so loved the world that He gave
His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in
Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." He
suspended the infliction of extreme punishment on
Adam • He permitted his posterity to come into the
world with a hope of redemption, though born in sin ;
He sent His Son in due time to make the atonement,
and authorized a new covenant, whereby its virtue
could be communicated to each particular man for the
forgiveness of his sins. For if there were not this
prevenient grace and merciful disposition of Gpd the
Father towards man, how could the means of regenera-
tion and restoration ever have been provided ? Unless
God the Father had the merciful will to accept the
atonement and permit the regeneration, neither the
atonement nor the regeneration would have been
possible by the agency of the Son and the Holy Spirit,

80 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

who are in all things subordinate to the Father, and
can do nothing against His will.

Every man, then, who is now born into the world,
stands in this relation to God the Father. He is born
in sin, with the taint of guilt and the disorder of nature
under which Adam remained after the Fall ; subject,
therefore, to condemnation ; called in Holy Scripture
a "child of wrath." But, by the mercy of God, the
condemnation is suspended, the execution stayed, and
an opportunity offered to escape it altogether. Man is
not, at birth, in a "state of salvation," but of condem-
nation suspended by grace ; and this suspension of
judgment, together with the provision for the atone-
ment, is the prevenient grace of the Father. Before we
can be truly in a " state of salvation," we must be made
actual partakers of the virtue of the atonement, by re-
generation through the Son, and sanctification of the
Spirit.

3. Then will God the Father accept us again into
the fulness of His love and favor as His own children
by adoption. This is the third bestowal of the grace
of the Father. When regenerate in Christ, God re-
stores us to His love, and adopts us again into his
family. The suspended condemnation is now alto-
gether removed j instead of a mere provisional exist-
ence, a toleration conditional on a future regeneration,
we are now " accepted in the Beloved." The dividing
line between this grace of complete acceptance and that
of forecasting mercy is, for all who live where the Gospel
is known (and of others we have no means of judging),
the moment when they are made one with Christ in
the waters of regeneration. Before that moment, they

The Grace of God the Father. 81

are sinners under sentence of death ; after that, they
are children of God, restored, regenerated, accepted,
adopted, heirs of the everlasting inheritance of His
love and favor as Adam was at first, — nay, better than
in Adam's first estate, for they are beloved in Christ,
still subject, however, to the " infection of nature,
which remains even in them that are regenerated," a
and which cannot be wholly eradicated until the death
of the body, and its resurrection from the grave.

This final and full grace of God the Father is mani-
fested particularly in the economy of Redemption, by
those declarative acts of Divine goodness towards us,
which assure us of our estate, conditioned on the
effectual operations of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,
respecting which we shall treat in the subsequent chap-
ters. They are : i. Remission, or Forgiveness, by
which all our sins are pardoned and blotted out of the
book of God's remembrance, no more to appear against
us. 2. Justification, by which we are declared or ac-
counted just before God, for the merits of His Son
Jesus Christ, in whom we are regenerate and made
righteous. 3. Adoption, by which the cloud on our
Sonship of the Universal Father is removed, and we
can rejoice in the love He dispenses to His children.
For which mercy and grace to Him be praise and
thanksgiving for ever and ever.

b Art. IX, of the XXXIX Articles.

CHAPTER III.

THE GRACE OF THE SON.

A /TAN fell, as we have seen, by a voluntary act of
disobedience; and his fall was the death of his
spiritual nature, God's favor and the presence of His
Spirit being withdrawn; for, "as the soul is the life of
the body," says an old author, "so God is the life of
the soul." By the fall, his rational nature also became
depraved, and his animal nature corrupted ; so that he
could work righteousness neither by the natural law
nor by the law of reason, any more than by the com-
mandment. We fallen men, in our wickedness, act
both disobediently, and irrationally, and unnaturally ;
in every way, therefore, we disobey the law of God,
and are amenable to His severest displeasure. But in
the midst of His anger God remembered mercy ; He
provided a way for our restoration ; "He so loved the
world" that He gave His Son for our Redeemer, a
Mediator between God and Man.

The work set before the Mediator was twofold :
i, to satisfy the law of God, by an atonement for the
transgression, and thus to blot out the sin (so to speak)
from the book of God; and 2, to regenerate, renew,
and finally restore man to a state of perfect righteous-
ness, so that no record nor trace of sin remains in the
(82)

The Grace of the Son. 83

book of human nature. Both these operations are
necessary; for whether God read the record of sin in
His own book, or in man's book (if it were possible,
which it is not, that it could be blotted out from the
one while it remained in the other), it must meet with
condemnation, wherever it is read, and therefore it
must be wiped from both records. The one work is
performed by the Atonement which Christ offered to
the Father; the other, by the communication of His
grace to each person who receives it, — for, unless we be
partakers of Christ's grace to blot out our sins from our
own hearts, the Atonement does not avail to blot them
out from the book of God's remembrancer

The Grace of the Son is His entire work of media-
tion, undertaken in obedience to the Father, and from
love and mercy to us men ; but specially, the term is
used in this book to designate His influence and work
in the nature of man, regenerating and restoring it.
Preliminary to the inquiry what that influence and work
are, it is important to answer the question, What are
the conditions in human nature to be met by the act
which restores?

It is evident that the restoration cannot be, like the
fall, an act purely voluntary on the part of man, else
would no mediator and no grace be required. But
since man has still a will (though enfeebled, naturally
disposed only to evil, and unable to do good of itself),

a Misapprehension of the relation of grace imparted and the
Atonement offered, is the foundation of the difficulty from which
the Calvinists seek to escape by their sad error of "Particular
Redemption."

84 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

and since one effect of the restoration must be to bring
the will back to the freedom it has lost, so that it will
be a restored will", obeying freely, the grace of the Re-
deemer will be made a matter of voluntary acceptance,
and the restoration will be so far voluntary on man's
part, as that he is willingly, or not at all, a subject of
regenerating grace. a Man, though he is unable to
" turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength
and good works to faith and calling upon God,"b is
able, when his heart has been touched by the Spirit,
and the salvation is offered to his personal acceptance, to
exercise a choice in respect of it, to accept or to reject
it. The means by which he is Divinely enabled to act
with freedom in seeking and receiving the regeneration
will be seen in the next chapter, in which we treat of
the grace of the Holy Spirit; for the present, attention
is asked to the fact that we are voluntary subjects of the
grace of the Son.

To accept that grace voluntarily, is to accept it by
an act; and so to bring it under the conditions of
human actions in general.

To perform any voluntary action, man needs, under
the laws of his finite nature, (i) the motive, (2) the
opportunity, and (3) the power to accomplish what
he wills. The Infinite will draws all the conditions
of action from itself, unbounded by anything without
itself; but a finite will, before it can act, must be
stirred by the heart with a motive to act, in a desire

aThe case of infants, before they reach the age of consciousness
and responsibility, is an exception to be noted hereafter.
b Article X, of the XXXIX Articles.

The Grace of the Son. 85

which seeks realization ; it must be afforded the oppor-
tunity for action, which is perceived by the mind, the
observing and thinking faculty. Having the motive
and the opportunity, the freedom of the will consists
in this, that it is not necessarily controlled by them ;
it has an inherent ability to adopt or resist the motive,
to perform or decline the action. This seems to be
the law of finite, voluntary action, so far as we are
able to conceive it. A perfect finite will, therefore, is
that to which the heart always presents the right
motives and the mind the right opportunities; and
which retains in itself, unimpaired, the power of action
with which it was originally endowed by its Creator.

The human will, however, is not perfect. It is cor-
rupt and depraved, partly in its loss of power to do
what otherwise it might have done, and partly in its
connection with the other faculties of our nature. In
fallen man, the heart, the seat of the desires, affections,
and other motives, is fallen; by its separation from
God it has lost faith, hope, and love, the higher spirit-
ual motives to action ; it retains only the lower, dis-
orderly, selfish or sensual passions and emotions. Now,
when these are all the motives which the heart presents
to the will, the will itself may be free; but, from its
very constitution, as depending on motives, it is, in
the language of the old theologians, " free only to do
evil" apart from Divine grace; free of choice, but
having a choice only among diverse modes of evil.
In this fallen state, helpless, hopeless, and unholy, if
man were forsaken of all influences of Divine grace,
none but evil motives could be present in his heart,
none but opportunities of evil action could present
8*

S6 ' Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

themselves to his mind ; and therefore his will could
have neither power, nor motive, nor opportunity to do
the thing that is right. For without the Redeemer and
the Gospel, and the grace given for the Redeemer's
sake, there could be no repentance, and no impulse
towards it ; no faith as a ground of hope ; no oppor-
tunity of regeneration, and no motive to seek it. The
will could act freely and by choice, up to its power,
under the motives presented ; but those motives them-
selves, being all evil, would urge only to the short-
lived pleasures of sin, or to hate against God, under
whose righteous condemnation we lay. That this is
not our state is of the prevenient mercy and grace of
God.

The three things, then, which it was necessary to
provide for man, to meet the conditions of human
action, and enable him to accept as a voluntary agent
the grace of regeneration, are — (i) for his heart, a
motive to seek and accept it; a "conviction of sin,
of righteousness, and of judgment ;"a (2) for his mind,
a knowledge of the Redeemer, by whom, and the means
by which, it may be obtained ; and (3) for the will
itself, an exertion within his ability, by which, under
the direction of the heart and the mind, it may take
hold of, and receive back again, the life and power,
by the loss of which it has been unable to do good, by
the restoration of which it will be enabled to serve
God more and more perfectly, growing day by day to
spiritual manhood.

Correspondingly the act of the man, requisite to

1 John, .wi. S.

The Grace of the Son. 87

obtain the gift which entitles him to his readoption
into God's family, unfolds in a threefold development:
(1) obedience to the motive, the forsaking of sin, the
return to good works, the desire to be cleansed from
guilt, the determination to live as becometh the child
of God, — repentance, the allegiance of the heart to
God ; (2) recognition of the Redemption wrought,
trust in the Redeemer, perception of the opportunity
and means offered, or faith, which is the allegiance of
the mind; and (3) the seeking by the appointed
means, and the thankful and joyful receiving the gift
by which the will and the whole man is regenerated.

Repentance, faith, regeneration, these three acts, or
rather, these three developments of the one act, must
agree in the man who is restored by the grace of the
Son, to the favor and grace of the Father. Repent-
ance without faith will not avail, nor faith without
repentance (were either possible separately, which
neither is), nor both faith and repentance without
the actual gift of regeneration. Salvation is a grace
given unto us. Though voluntarily receptive, we
are only receptive in every stage of our spiritual re-
newal. Even repentance and faith are the yielding
to an influence from above. The act, then, through-
out is receptive ; it has its virtue in the work of the
Mediator; and thus the conditions are harmonized
that it is under the conditions of our voluntary action,
and yet is entirely the work of the Son of God.

The reader will bear in mind that I am now treating
of the Grace of the Son. Many questions will doubt-
less suggest themselves, and press for an immediate
reply, touching the genesis of repentance and faith,

88 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

which, in order of time, precede the gift of the regen-
erating grace of the Son ; they will be answered in the
subsequent chapter on the Grace of the Holy Spirit.
Nor is what has been said intended as a complete ac-
count of repentance and faith. As viewed thus far,
they are rather a preparation for, than a part of, the
Christian life, which does not begin until our regenera-
tion j after which both faith and repentance have a
new development and office. What it is wished to fix
attention upon at this time is, that three operations of
the spiritual faculties of man must coincide in one
complex act of voluntary return to God, and accept-
ance of the offered salvation, in order to begin the
new life. *.

It has pleased the Divine Wisdom that these faculties
should all find their object in the one person, who is
set forth as the Redeemer, in whom are combined all
the attributes and offices required as the complement
of man's needs and weaknesses, and guilt and dire
necessity.

The one testimony of our Saviour to Himself, there-
fore, which is all-inclusive, — the text in which He has
collected all His multifarious revelations of Himself
into one focus, — is the declaration: "I am the Way,
the Truth, and the Life ; no man cometh unto the
Father but by Me."a Of this text, so full of meaning
and so wide in application, comprehending all pro-
vision for the necessities of man, regenerate or unre-
generate, the meaning doubtless is: "The Way," by
which the penitent may return and be accepted ; "The

a John, xiv. 6.

The Grace of the Son. 89

Truth," which the faithful behold; "The Life" com-
municated to the regenerate. To repent and plead
Christ's merits is to enter on the way; to believe in
Him is to know the truth ; to be made one with Him
in His Church is to have the life.

The consideration of the grace of the Son, therefore,
divides itself into three heads: (1) as he is the Way;
(2) as he is the Truth ; (3) as he is the Life.

In each development, however, it has the same rela-
tion to its source, which is therefore first to be noted.

The grace of the Son is personal, — given from Him-
self as distinct from the Father and from the Holy
Spirit. The Son is the second Person of the Holy
Trinity, and upon this His distinct personality depends
His power to help us in our needs. " In Him was life,
and that life was the light of men."a "As the Father
hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to
have life in Himself."5 Hence He takes of His own
to give unto us, that "through Him we may have access
to the Father."0

Now His personal grace is the effluence and act of
whatsoever belongs to His personality. His whole
Person is at work in the atonement He has made for
us, and in the grace He gives to us. But His Person
includes both His Deity and His humanity. He is
God, and He became man; He is God and man
thenceforth, in one person. He became man for the
work of Redemption ; He is God and man, therefore,
in whatsoever appertains to that work.

This truth the Church confessed in the decision of

a John, i. 4. b John, v. 26. c Eph. ii. 18.

90 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

her General Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, that
the two natures, Divine and human, exist in the one
person of Christ. The Divine Person assumed human
nature, not a human person, into conjunction with
Himself, so that after the conjunction there were no
more persons, — there was no other person than before.
He took a complete human nature, — a human body and
a human soul; but He who assumed it was still the
one person and no other, — God the Son. His human
nature belonged to His personality; it did not consti-
tute another personality. In the well-known language
of our great Hooker, "If the Son of God had taken
to Himself a man new-made and already perfected, it
would of necessity follow that there are in Christ two
persons, — the one assuming and the other assumed ;
whereas, the Son of God did not assume a man's per-
son into His own, but a man's nature to His own per-
son, and therefore took semen, the seed of Abraham,
the very first original element of our nature, before it
was come to have any personal human subsistence.
The flesh and the conjunction of the flesh with God
began both at one instant ; his making and taking to
Himself our flesh was but one act, so that in Christ
there is no personal subsistence but one, and that from
everlasting. By taking only the nature of man, He
still continueth one person, and changeth but the
manner of His subsisting, which was before in the
mere glory of the Son of God, and is now in the
habit of our flesh. "a

Now, as He became man, that He might accomplish

a Ec. Pol., b. v. ch. lii. 3.

The Grace of the Son. 91

our Redemption, it follows that His Atonement is the
compound effect of His Divine worth and His human
action; it follows, also, that His regenerating and re-
storing grace is a compound influence of His Divine
life and His glorified humanity. There is a human
part or element in the grace of the Son, as well as a
Divine. He is the Way, by being man, as well as by
being God ; the Truth, as God, and also as man ; the
Life, both as God and as man. His Divine and human
natures are united in His action and influence, as they
are united in His person. This truth seems to have
been strangely overlooked in our day ; but it was uni-
versally admitted and dwelt upon by our Fathers in the
faith. "Doth any man doubt," asks Hooker, "but
that even from the flesh of Christ our very bodies do
receive that life which shall make them glorious at the
latter day, and for which they are already accounted
parts of His blessed body?"a The conjoint activity of
the two natures in the work of grace was so universally
received that that great divine could not conceive the
possibility of a negative answer. The grace of the
Godhead, filling Christ as man, is diffused from Him,
as man, upon those whom "He is not ashamed to call
His brethren ;"b and by vital union with Him, the
second Adam, drawing immortality from Him as we
drew nature from the first Adam, we who are regener-
ate are made living members of His body, living
branches of Him, the true vine.

His mediatorial work, therefore, in all its parts, de-
pends on His Incarnation, — His being made flesh. He

a Ec. Pol., b. v. ch. lvi. 9. b Heb. ii. 11.

92 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

"was made man;" He lived upon earth thirty-three
years and a third; He taught, He suffered, He died;
thus accomplishing the first part of His Mediation, the
making atonement to the Father for our sins. After
this, He rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven,
in token that the atonement is sufficient. This was
preliminary to the gift of His indwelling grace. Even
the salvation of those who died in faith before He
came seems to have waited for its completion until His
death, according to that passage in the Epistle to the
Hebrews: "These all, having obtained a good report,
through faith, received not the promise : God having
provided some better thing for us, that they, without
us, should not be made perfect."4 As respects us who
live after His day, our part in the atonement is con-
ditioned on our participation of His grace.

It does not fall within the plan of this work to dis-
cuss at large the logical conceptions under which men
have presented to themselves fuller or more partial
views of the Atonement; nor to consider the perver-
sions of Scripture language by those who deny it. It
has been argued that the Atonement is offered to the
justice of God, as the assumption by Christ of our
penalty ; that it is the means of appeasing the anger of
God; that it is directed to the holiness of God; that
the actual sufferings of the Saviour were equivalent to
the aggregate pains of all who would have been lost
without Him. But it is rather, I conceive, to be ac-
cepted as a transcendent truth, above all logical state-
ments or analysis, containing within itself a likeness to

a Heb. xi. 39, 40.

The Grace of the Son. 93

all the analogies by which it is represented in the Holy
Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testaments, but
not to be adequately described by any one ; a fact, in-
disputable on the authority of Holy Scripture, but, like
the Incarnation, a mystery above our comprehension.
It satisfies, and is addressed to all the attributes of God ;
it is, at once, the mirror of His love, the satisfaction of
His justice, the vindication of His holiness, the mani-
festation of His wisdom, the exhibition of His power,
the assertion of His sovereignty, the example of His
mercy, the display of His glory, "which angels desire
to look into and are not able."a Against those, how-
ever, who deny the death of Christ to be a proper
sacrificial act, an atonement and propitiation for sin,
while they profess to receive Holy Scripture, we need
urge but one reflection. If His death on Mount Cal-
vary were not a propitiatory and expiatory sacrifice for
the sins of the world, to what effect were the multitudi-
nous sacrifices of bulls and goats and lambs offered up,
day by day, for so many centuries, by God's appoint-
ment, in the tabernacle and the temple, in prophecy
and type of that "blood of Jesus Christ which cleans-
eth from all sin ?" It is not that the Sacrifice of Christ
is represented of like nature with those others by a Di-
vine accommodation to the partial conception of the
human understanding, but that those precedent typical
sacrifices themselves were established by Almighty God,
for the express purpose of educating the human mind to
a right conception of that precious death of Christ. The

a The student may follow out for himself the train of thought
thus suggested.

9

94 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

type took its meaning from the antitype, not the anti-
type from the type. By the sacrifices of the Mosaic
law, God taught the world that the death of Christ
was truly an expiation ; and if the type — so many
thousands of lives sacrificed day by day and year by
year — if this type were so great, even counted by money
value and mere number — if the principle of sacrifice for
expiation and for purification were made to pervade
every part of the national and the individual religion —
if these millions of stricken victims and seas of blood
were but the type, what must be the infinite dignity
and awfulness of the antitype ?

As a man, "the Christ," the "anointed Man," the
Son, became our Prophet, Priest, and King. He com-
bined in His person all the offices to which the anoint-
ing oil, which was the type of His Spirit, consecrated
men. Elisha was His type, thus consecrated a Prophet ;
Aaron, thus set apart a Priest ; David, thus made a King.
As a Priest, Christ atones for, intercedes for, blesses us ;
as a Prophet, He reveals, teaches, instructs ; as a King,
He protects, governs, and feeds us. This is the Catho-
lic conception of Christ's office. It is but another
way of saying what He Himself said, in the text we
have quoted. As Priest, He is the Way ; for by His
atonement and intercession we can approach the
Father, and by His blessing all favor from the Father
is given us. As Prophet, He is the Truth, for He is
Himself the doctrine He reveals. As King, he is the
Life, for from His royal treasure-house of grace we re-
ceive our new life of pardon and obedience, and our
nourishment with heavenly food.

These offices are inseparable in Him, as are His two

The Grace of the Son. 95

natures, both in themselves and in relation to us. The
atonement He made as priest does not avail for us in-
dividually, unless we have accepted Him as prophet ;
nor does He make the revelation of Himself as the
Truth, in His full blaze of glory and of comfort to our
souls, until we are subject to His kingly rule, partakers
of His kingly bounty, and related to Him as "the first-
born among many brethren." He is not the Way for
us, unless He is for us the Truth ; nor is He the saving
Truth for us, unless He is in us the Life. "In Him
was life, and that life was the light of men." His act,
though complex, is one ; though consisting of many
parts, it is a complete whole, of which all must be
ours, or not any.

It being laid at the foundation, therefore, that the
grace of Christ is a compound effect of His own two
natures in the unity of His person, having both a Di-
vine and human element, and reposing upon the fact of
the Atonement ; and these truths being such as must
not be lost sight of for an instant, but are assumed in
all which is hereafter said, we proceed to consider
each declaration separately. And as our purpose is to
state the doctrine of Holy Scripture, we shall chiefly
occupy ourselves with ranging under each head such
passages as belong there, pointing out their bearing
and interpretation when necessary.

I. First, then, Christ is "the Way." The reader
will have seen, by this time, from the course of the
argument, that the significance of this title which our
Lord assumed to Himself is derived from the sad but
certain truth, that by sin man is set afar off from God,
that the communication has been broken off between

g6 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

the sinful being and his Maker. This necessitated a
mediation and a Mediator. It was in respect of the
mediation of His Son Jesus Christ, as at a future time
to be accomplished, that God gave His prevenient grace
to those who lived acceptably before the coming of
Christ ; and it is with respect to the same mediation
that He now gives grace and shows mercy to men,
even before they are actually accepted into saving
union with the Head of the Church. Whatsoever
dealings of God with man, therefore, have been merci-
ful (as what dealings have not?), whether before the
Atonement was made or since, whether the recipients
of mercy are accepted Christians or not yet regenerate ;
whatsoever access man has had to God, to ask either
for transitory mercies or for everlasting salvation, have
been procured for us by the mediation of our Lord
Jesus Christ, — by His priestly acts of atonement for our
sins, and of intercession on our behalf. He has made
"a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say,
His flesh. "a He is thus the Restorer and the means
of communication between God and man ; and this is
His meaning in calling Himself "the Way." "No
man cometh to the Father but by Me." And, con-
versely, no man receiveth from the Father but by Him.
This general truth is expressed in several different
parts of Holy Scripture. It is revealed in shadow in
the dream of Jacob, in which he saw a ladder set on
the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven, and by
it the angels of God ascended and descended from
earth to heaven and from heaven to earth. b That the

a Heb. b Gen. xxviii. 12.

The Grace of the Son. 97

ladder was a type of Christ, our Lord Himself teaches,
interpreting it, as He closed His interview with Na-
thanael : " Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye
shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascend-
ing and descending upon the Son of Man."a The
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews founds his ex-
hortation upon the figure thus: " Having, therefore,
brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the
blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He
hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say,
His flesh, and having an High Priest over the house of
God, let us draw near with a true heart, in full assur-
ance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil
conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. "b
So St. Paul, writing to his Ephesian converts, reminds
them of the contrast between their former heathen
darkness and their present Christian blessedness :
"Remember that ye, being in time past Gentiles in
the flesh, ... at that time ye were without Christ,
being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel ; . . .
but now, in Christ Jesus, ye, who sometimes were far
off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ."0 A little
further on, he refers to the same figure: "Through
Him we both [Jew and Gentile] have access by one
Spirit to the Father. "d And again: "In whom we
have boldness and access with confidence by the faith
of Him;"e which idea is expanded, in the Epistle to
the Romans, thus: "Being justified by faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by

a John, i. 51. b Heb. x. 19-22. c Eph. ii. 11-13.

d Eph. ii. 18. e Eph. iii. 12.

9*

98 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

whom also we have access by faith into this grace
wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of
God."a " I am the Door," says our Saviour Himself:
"by Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and
shall go in and out and find pasture. "b

The grace of Christ, then, for which He calls Him-
self "the Way," is the virtue of His sacrificial death
and priestly power. This may, indeed, seem to exhaust
His work and comprehend all its results. For if He
be a way by which we have access to God, and by
which blessing is returned from God to us, our salva-
tion is all accomplished, — we are fully restored. But,
in truth, the different views of the office of Christ are
only different aspects of the same whole, according as
it is seen from different points, and in relation with
different needs of humanity. Are we viewed as in a
state of banishment from God, Christ is " the Way" of
return ; are we groping in mental and spiritual dark-
ness, He is the "Light" and the "Truth;" are we
spiritually dead, He is the "Life." Hence, if we be
" brought nigh" in the way, it follows that we shall be
"walking in the light," and be made "alive from the
dead." We cannot contemplate one view without
finding features common to the others. The progress
is the same along each line of advancement, — they all
converge in the act of our Regeneration.

Not to digress, however, the grace of Christ, " the
way," is the virtue of His sacrificial death and priestly
power. His priestly mediation, being the condition
precedent of all grace whatsoever, having been estab-

a Rom. v. 1,2. b John, x. 9.

The Grace of the Son. 99

lished in the eternal counsels before any grace was
given by Father, Son, or Holy Ghost, and being also,
through the intercession He makes in heaven, the
means by which all blessings, spiritual and temporal,
are* obtained for us, day by day into all the future, the
priesthood of Christ must be commensurate with our
salvation, even to our immortality. Hence we are
told, "He abideth a priest continually."3 "He hath
an unchangeable priesthood. "b He is " a priest for-
ever, after the order of Melchizadek."c

The priestly office under the law, which was the
pattern of things unseen, had three functions: 1. To
offer the sacrifice of atonement for sin, or of thanks-
giving for mercies. 2. To make prayer and inter-
cession to God on behalf of the people. 3. To bless
the people with authority on behalf of God. By the
two former acts, taken together as essentially the same,
is represented the mediatorial work of Christ, our great
High Priest, directed on our behalf towards God ; in
the latter act was foreshadowed His mediatorial work
towards us, — comprehending together, with all exercise
of His Kingly munificence, our absolution from our
sins, and the "sprinkling" or cleansing our con-
sciences from their stain, by the actual, but spiritual
application of His blood.

There is thus presented to our view a twofold grace
of our High Priest : first, His Divine love, leading
Him to give Himself for us, — in combination with His
human sympathy, by which He ever feels for us ; and
secondly, His gift or communication to the soul (by

ioo Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

which it becomes regenerate) of a grace supernatural,
derived from Himself as God and man, which, so far
as relates to this division of our subject, is called in
Holy Scripture "the sprinkling with His blood."
This last is the act which seals the reconciliation.
When the conscience is thus cleansed, and God is
thereby reconciled to the individual believer by the
personal appropriation to him of the atoning blood,
then is Christ "the way;" the access to God is free
and open, and they "who were far off" are "made
nigh by the blood of Christ."

This twofold grace has a fourfold operation, — a final
observation, which enables us to understand and har-
monize all the Scripture declarations respecting the
Priesthood of Christ, i. He made the Atonement to
God for us. 2. He absolves us, for God. 3. He
entered into Heaven as our Intercessor. 4. He enters
into our souls as our Restorer. These four particulars
underlie all the statements of Holy Scripture. In the
Epistle to the Hebrews, which is the inspired treatise
that expounds systematically the doctrine of the Evan-
gelical Priesthood, they are everywhere assumed, and
appear throughout the whole course of the argument,
so that for proof we need only refer to that Epistle.

Thus, (1) for the first particular, we read in the
very beginning of the first chapter, He " being the
brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image
of His person, when He had by Himself (that is, by
His sacrifice of Himself) purged our sins, sat down
on the right hand of the Majesty on high."a And

a Heb. i. 3.

The Grace of the Son. 101

again : " Every high priest taken from among men, is
ordained for men, in things pertaining to God, that
he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins."a " Such
an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, un-
dented, separate from sinners, and made higher than
the heavens; who needeth not daily, as those high
priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins, and
then for the people's : for this He did once, when
He offered up Himself. "b "For every high priest is
ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices ; wherefore it is of
necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer. "c
Hence, " Christ being come an High Priest of good
things to come, by a greater and more perfect taber-
nacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this
building; neither by the blood of goats and calves,
but by His own blood, He entereth in once into the
Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption for
us."d Of such passages as these it is needless to argue
an interpretation, so plain are they in teaching the
sacrificial atonement made by Christ.

2. For the second particular, His blessing of absolu-
tion on the part of God, we have such passages as
these : " Verily, He took not on Him the nature of
angels ; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham.
Wherefore, in all things it behoved Him to be made
like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful
and faithful High Priest, in things pertaining to God,
to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For
in that He Himself hath suffering being tempted, He
is able also to succor [that is, to absolve, as well as to

a Heb. v. I. b Heb. vii. 26, 27. c Heb. viii. 3.

d Heb. ix. n, 12.

102 Threefold Grace of the Holy Tri?iity.

succor in other ways] them that are tempted.' 'a "Every
High Priest is Ordained for men . . . who can have
compassion on the ignorant {i.e. absolving them], and
on them that are out of the way, for that He Himself
also is compassed with infirmity. "b

3. For the third particular, His Intercession within
the veil, we read more clearly, as follows: "We have
an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the
throne of the Majesty in the Heavens ; a minister of
the sanctuary, and of the true0 tabernacle, which the
Lord pitched, and not man."d " Christ is not entered
unto the Holy Places made with hands, which are the
figures of the true; but into Heaven itself: now to ap-
pear in the presence of God for us."e "This man,
because He continueth ever, hath an unchangeable
priesthood. Wherefore He is able also to save them
to the uttermost that came unto God by Him ; seeing
He ever liveth to make intercession for them."f " This
man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for-
ever, sat down on the right hand of God ; from hence-
forth expecting until His enemies be made His foot-
stool."*

4. The fourth particular, the application of His
blood, and His entrance into our souls, with restoring
power, is declared with emphasis, thus: "If the blood
of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer, sprink-
ling the unclean, sanctified to the purifying of the
flesh ; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who,
through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot

aHeb. i. 17, 18. b Ileb. v. 2. c ahjdivoc. d Heb. viii. 1,2.
e Ileb. ix. 24. f Ileb. vii. 24, 25. s Heb. x. 12, 13.

The Grace of the Son. 103

to God, purge your consciences from dead works to
serve the living God."a The point of the passage, it
is to be noted, lies in the words, "sprinkling the un-
clean," compared with "the blood of Christ shall
purge your consciences," teaching most certainly that
there is a gift of grace from Him, which may and must
be so described ; to which effect also, the following :
"Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into
the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living
way which He hath consecrated for us through the
veil, that is to say, His flesh, and having an High
Priest over the house of God ; let us draw near, with a
true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts
sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies
washed with pure water. "b And still more plainly,
that noble doxology of St. John, in the Revelations :
" Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins
in his own blood, . . to Him be glory and dominion
for ever and ever."c

Combine these four operations into one view, as the
work of Christ's twofold grace of Divine affection, and
actual gift, and include also His continual priesthood,
and we have the full interpretation of His figurative ex-
pression, "I am the way." The act of man by which
he comes to God through Christ, the Way, is, as we
have said, Repentance. The priesthood of our Re-
deemer is the objective fact correlative to Repentance
in the soul. Repentance is possible only because
Christ has made the atonement for our sins, and inter-
cedes for us by the virtue of His merits ; it is only

a Heb. ix. 13, 14. b Heb. x. 19-23. c Rev. i. 5, 6,

io4 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

complete when He has blessed us with remission of
sins, has sprinkled us with His blood, and infused into
us His new life for a continual principle of resistance
to and triumph over the old life of sin and rebellion.
By making it possible for us to be restored, He fur-
nishes to the heart the motives of hope, if we repent,
of fear if we remain in sin ; of love, for His love ; of
thankfulness for the mercy of God. By giving us the
power and fruition of repentance, He enables us to
bring the motives into act, forsaking our sins, and
rendering to God the allegiance of our hearts; and
thus, "we who sometimes were far off are made nigh
by the blood of Christ."

We are thus able to give a more particular account of
Repentance. The reader will recur to what has been
said respecting the human conditions of the problem of
restoration, — the needs of the heart, the mind, and the
will of man, to enable him to return to God. He will
remember that we saw the need of a motive for the
heart ; and he will also observe the distinction that
while the conviction of sin, of righteousness and of
judgment is the ??iotive, repentance itself, — the giving
to God the allegiance of the heart was asserted to be an
act, corresponding to, and predicated upon the motive.
This distinction is most important, both scientifically
and practically. For to be simply under conviction,
to be touched at heart by the preaching of the Gospel,
to fear its threatenings and to desire its hopes, is not
repentance. It is, indeed, the operation of the pre-
venient grace of the Holy Spirit urging us to repent-
ance; but if the effect is circumscribed in the sphere
of the emotions it does not reach to be repentance.

The Grace of the Son. 105

Repentance is more — it calls into operation more facul-
ties— it is an act ; as such it includes all the parts of an
act, and implies all its conditions. While, therefore,
we define in few words, repentance to be the allegiance
of the heart to God, we must remember that, as a con-
stant act of allegiance, it is essentially an exercise of the
will, and comprehends also a mental element co-oper-
ating in the right direction of the heart, its withdrawal
from earthly and sinful desires, and its elevation to
heavenly and pure affections. In other words, true and
complete repentance is the power of the regenerate will,
directed by a right faith, and under the influence of
motives derived from the preaching of the Gospel,
withdrawing the heart from its evil propensities, and
turning it towards the law and will of God. As an act,
then, Repentance includes faith and obedience, and
issues in Divine love ; — for the Christian is an indivisi-
ble whole, just as the Redeemer's work is one whole,
and therefore the different views of it are mutually in-
clusive. Repentance is both a constant, all-pervad-
ing act of self-renunciation, and a continual series of
acts done in obedience to the commands of God. As
the one, it revolutionizes the inner life; as the other,
it controls and directs anew the outer life, and in doing
so, is itself confirmed and made perfect.

True repentance thus pervades the whole nature, and
extends over the whole mortal life of man. Its history,
therefore, is divided into two great periods, that pre-
ceding, and that following, regeneration. It must exist
incipiently and progressively before our regeneration,
to make us capable subjects of that great gift. So ex-
isting, it is wrought by the prevenient grace of the

106 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

Holy Spirit, by ways and means which He knows ; but
which are to us as " the wind that bloweth where it
listeth, and we hear the sound thereof, but can not tell
whence it cometh and whither it goeth." After regen-
eration it must exist continuously, still the work of the
same Holy Spirit, — its office then to keep us from sin,
sorrowful for our lapses, steadfast in our renunciation,
untiring in our resistance. In the former state its pre-
vailing character is sorrowful, fearful, burdened with its
load, and waiting to receive the gift of remission at its
regeneration ; in the latter state, it is forgiven, hope-
ful, loving, humble, ever watchful against a relapse.

The view, therefore, of the grace of Christ as our
High Priest (and this remark completes this part of our
subject) which is presented to the truly repentant, while
yet unregenerate, is His atonement offered up on Cal-
vary, and His present Intercession ; after his regenera-
tion, the Christian adds to this, his knowledge of abso-
lution or remission of his sins, his faith in the Divine
gift applied at his regeneration to his soul, cleansing it
by the sprinkling of the blood of Christ. The media-
torial work thus complete, he is assured of his recon-
ciliation to, and his participation in the grace of, God
the Father — he is in a "state of salvation."

II. Complete, however, as this view of the mediato-
rial office of our Saviour seems to be, He has thought
good to add to His revelation of Himself "the Way,"
the declaration that he is also " the Truth" — thus re-
quiring us to contemplate Him, and our relation to
Him, on a different side, viewing His Person and His
work as related to the thoughts and mind of man. and
our appropriation of the gift of salvation, as an act of

The Grace of the Son. 107

faith, as well as of repentance ; He being both Prophet
and Truth, as well as Priest and Sacrifice.

The reader will observe here also, that we speak of
belief as an act of faith, in the same way, as we just now
spoke of repentance as an act, — meaning thereby, that
faith is not merely an impression upon the mind, but a
voluntary act of allegiance, in which both the heart and
will concur to direct the mind aright. "With the
heart, man believeth unto righteousness, and with the
mouth, confession is made unto salvation." It is im-
possible, therefore, to have a true, complete, and perfect
faith in Christ without true repentance, or before we
have been made partakers of the life through regenera-
tion ; since it is this regeneration which gives spiritual
power to the will, besides making the Truth a matter
personal to, and operative in ourselves, incorporate (as
it were) with us, and not an abstract, external, far-off
Truth. This needs especially to be borne in mind,
since, otherwise, dwelling on the lofty expressions in
which Holy Scripture indulges with regard to faith,
but forgetting that it includes repentance, men have
fallen into the Antinomian heresy; and, forgetting
that it includes regeneration, they have denied the ne-
cessity of the Holy Sacraments of our Lord's institution.
Whereas, the Apostles considering faith to be inclu-
sive, all that they say of justification by faith only is
true in its fullest and most absolute sense, and yet is
fully reconcilable with all that is attributed to any
other parts of the Christian scheme.

Passages of Holy Scripture which reiterate and ex-
pand the statement that Christ is the Truth, are such
as follow: "In Him was life, and the life was the

108 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

light of men."" ''That was the true light, which
lighteneth every man that cometh into the world. "b
"lam the light of the world ; he that followeth me
shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of
life."c " While ye have light [the Saviour is referring
to Himself], believe in the light, that ye may be the
children of light. "d "God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in
the face of Jesus Christ."6 "He is the image of the
Invisible God;"f He is "the brightness of the
Father's glory, and the express image of His person, "B
the manifestation of whatever truth may be known of
the Father. His name is, "The Word of God."h
" In whom are laid up all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge."'

Other passages sum up the whole of religious knowl-
edge in the term, " believing in the Lord Jesus Christ,"
and its correlative expressions; thus as fully concen-
trating the whole of truth in the person of the Saviour,
as for example : " Whosoever believeth in Him, should
not perish, but have everlasting life."j " He that be-
lieveth on the Son hath everlasting life ; and he that
believeth not the Son shall not see life ; but the wrath
of God abideth on Him."k " A man is not justified by
the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ."1
" The Holy Scriptures are able to make thee wise unto

a John, i. 4. e II. Cor. iv. 6. * Col. ii. 3.

b John, i. 9. f Col. i. 15. J John, iii. 15.

c John, viii. 12. s Heb. i. 3. k John, iii. 36.

d John, xii. 36. h Rev. xix. 13. ' Gal. ii. 16.

The Grace of the Son. 109

salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus. "a So
also all those texts which speak of " preaching Christ,"
meaning thereby, preaching the whole Gospel.

From the use of such a mode of speech, commonly
and familiarly, we may see how this idea filled the
minds of the writers of Holy Scripture, so as to under-
lie it, and be assumed in it everywhere, coming to the
surface in these detached passages. Not, however, as
though, all truth being " in Christ," it were indifferent
what belief we have respecting the other Persons in the
Godhead, or the other beings in the Creation ; but
rather that other persons and other beings are only
rightly known by being manifested in, or seen in rela-
tion with Him. As He is not identical with other
beings who coexist with Him, other things must be
known as well as He ; but the Truth of them is only
known through Him. He is the Keystone of the
arch of knowledge, which binds all things in the sym-
metry, and self-sustaining power of truth, — take Him
away, and they drop into the confusion and disorder
of falsehood.

The weighty declarations of Holy Scripture cannot
be understood as teaching less than two things: (1)
that our Lord Jesus Christ is in His own person the
principal object of the Christian's knowledge, as being
"God manifest in the flesh," and therefore revealing
the Father and the Holy Spirit to*the world ; and (2)
that He is the centre from which Truth radiates upon
all other things ; so that even the beings of the created
universe only manifest themselves truly when they re-

a II. Tim. iii. 15.

no Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

fleet His light, and are apprehended in their relation
to Him, "by whom all things were made," and "by
whom all things consist."

Mutually inclusive as are all true views of Christ,
and all Christian acts, it is evident that what has been
said concerning the priesthood and sacrifice of Christ
is a necessary part of that Truth, which is presented
to our faith. A knowledge of Him as "the Way,"
is, so far, a knowledge of Him as the Truth in the
most essential particular. What has been said, there-
fore, on that subject will be understood, without reitera-
tion, to have its place in this division ; so also the
statements made with respect to His Divine person-
ality, His coexistence with the Father and the Holy
Spirit, His incarnation and subsistence forever here-
after in two natures, Divine and human. And so also,
what will hereafter be shown to be implied in His de-
claration that He is "the Life," is a part of that
Truth which we receive when we believe in Him.

The Incarnation, indeed, is the centre of the whole
body of truth; not only as being the most wonderful
mystery upon which thought can dwell, but also as
being the fact which makes it possible for us to live.
Hence so much of the Creed is taken up with the con-
fession of His Being as God Incarnate, and of the acts
He performed while present on earth. We believe in
Him as God and man ; and thus the incarnation is the
well-spring of the grace of faith, as of all other grace.

Into the depths of this mystery it is not for us to
penetrate. We may well be content to be ignorant
how it can be a truth, being satisfied that so it
is ; and that, therefore, Christ is, so to speak, the

The Grace of the Son. 1 1 1

point where God takes hold on the Creation, and
when the Creation reaches up to God. But it is given
us to behold how from this centre truth irradiates up-
wards to God, and downwards to man. The Incarna-
tion is itself a twofold Revelation : (a) of God as made
manifest to human conceptions; and (Ji) of human
perfection in the sight of God.

(a) The Persons of the Holy Trinity being the same
in essence and attributes, equal in power, having the
same law, the same moral and spiritual qualities, the
same character (if we may so say), — differing only in
the subordination of one to the other, as already ex-
plained; it follows that if one Person be manifested to
human conceptions, so far also are the other Persons.
In this sense, the Incarnation of the Second Person of
the Holy Trinity is a manifestation of the whole God-
head; for His person, being the "express image "a of
the person of the Father, the Divine character which
He manifests is the character of the Father and of the
Holy Spirit as well as His own. It is admitted that
the Divine nature is in itself incomprehensible. The
adequate self-knowledge which the Divine Intelligence
possesses needs translation and reduction into human
thought to be transferred to human minds. It has
pleased God, therefore, that the manifestation of Him-
self should be made by His Son becoming human,
that we may thus see the Divine itself under a human
form.

This is what is meant by the scriptural declaration,
"God was manifest in the flesh.'"3 The Divine

a Heb. i. 3. b I. Tim. iii. 16.

ii2 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

Essence itself was not made visible at the Incarnation ;
but the Divine character was, the Divine attributes,
the Divine laws, the Divine dealings with man, the
Divine mind and Spirit, by the Divine Person becoming
man. The substantial, actual union of the Divine and
human natures in the person of Christ was an invisible
union, and (it is almost needless to remark) the word
"manifestation" is not to be taken as asserting that
the Divine nature or essence became visible by union
with humanity. No one who saw our Lord Jesus
Christ after the flesh would see more than the visible
part of His manhood; no one could perceive where
(if we may so say without irreverence) the Divine
nature joined, or how it was united to the human.
That is an incomprehensible mystery. We cannot,
when the fact is revealed to us, comprehend how such
an union could take place — how Divinity could inhabit
a human form. With respect to our understanding, or
our imagination, such a question is like that respecting
the union of soul and body in ourselves ; which is a
truth, not so stupendous, indeed, as the mystery of the
Incarnation, but fully as inexplicable.

WThen we speak, then, of the manifestation of the
Godhead in the face of Jesus Christ, we mean that in
Christ, and through Him, we know what otherwise
we could not have known of the attributes of God,
of His dealings with us, of His will concerning us, of
His judgment and mercy towards us. The manifesta-
tion of God by the manhood of Jesus Christ is like the
manifestation of our souls to one another by means of
our bodies. We do not see one another's souls ; and
yet we know of them, their feelings, tempers, and d:s-

The Grace of the Son. 113

positions towards us, their thoughts and intentions.
They are manifested by that incomprehensible action of
the soul on the body, which we cannot reach by anal-
ysis nor anatomy. The soul manifests itself by giving
life to the body ; by making it its instrument. "So our
Lord Jesus Christ is the manifestation of God to us, by
being bodily, mentally, morally, humanly, the instru-
ment of the Divine nature, which invisibly inhabited
His visible form ; by showing in Himself the Divine
character, in His acts, the Divine operations, princi-
ples, laws, in such manner that man can grasp them,
can know God in them, and become Godlike by fol-
lowing Christ.

Christ is thus the Truth, because He is the Revelation,
as well as the Revealer. We speak popularly, and, for
practical purposes, correctly, of the Holy Bible as the
revelation of God, as the word of God ; but it may be
well to recall that in strict and proper language, it is
not so much the Revelation itself, as the inspired record
of that Revelation. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Reve-
lation of God. The Bible is our spiritual guide because
it shows Him to us. He is the exemplar of the Divine
Mind. What we know of God, we know clearly and
truly and sufficiently, only by knowing His life on
earth. The light that streams from Him is the light
of God. What is in Heaven above we know, if we
have learned what He was on earth.

If we have paid any attention to the speculations of
philosophers respecting the nature and being of God,
we must have been struck with the unsatisfactory nature
of their conclusions, and the difficulty, nay, the impos-
sibility, thus made evident of knowing the infinite and

ii4 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

absolute perfection of God. Philosophy has no terms
'by which to describe infinite or absolute justice and
virtue. It has no conceptions by which to contem-
plate, out of all relation, in the unchangeableness of
eternity, those ultimate principles which govern the
relations of a transitory and mutable life. It is start-
ling, if it is true, to say that God, the absolute Being,
has no human virtue ; a philosophy which thus ends in
negation is of no practical value in determining what is
the character of God. But if we cannot know what
God's perfections are in themselves, we must know, as
the next possible thing, what human conceptions of
virtue, holiness, justice, will stand as correct represent-
atives before our minds of those infinite perfections.
Our ideas of God, to be receivable by us, must be trans-
lated from the infinite, absolute reality, into the form
and likeness of humanity. They must be reduced from
the infinite to the finite ; they must be presented to us
in definite relations, shown in acts with which we have
something in common, given in the way of example.
We must be able to refer to some acts which are intel-
ligible in their moral relations, and be able to say,
"These are the acts of God, under circumstances in
which we may be placed ; these were the rules of Di-
vine life, when a Divine Person was in our condition ;
this is the Divine measure of human thought and life."
The infinite justice of the Absolute Being must be trans-
lated into human justice, infinite love into human love,
infinite holiness into human holiness, infinite law into
human law, to be intelligible to us. This is done for
us in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot
make the translation for ourselves. Fallen and erring

The Grace of the Son. 115

as we are, we cannot take our own human natures to be
for us the correct image of the Divine attributes ; we
cannot say that our own untutored conceptions of what
is just, or holy, or pure, or lawful, are correct repre-
sentations of God's perfect judgments. We cannot
affirm that what we consider just and right action, under
the influence of our selfish and sensual passions, is just
and right in the sight of God ; or that (to speak plainly)
God would act as we do, — when we know how often
we regret what we have done. Hence we cannot argue,
from the fallen moral basis of our own nature, what
God's nature is. We must get beyond ourselves. We
must have some example by which to rectify our mis-
takes. We must have God Himself in the likeness of
man, since we cannot know God from our own broken
image and marred likeness of Him. His glory, there-
fore, was manifested in the person of our Lord Jesus
Christ. He is "the Truth" which we know of God.
The Gospels have their inestimable value, because they
preserve to us the lineaments of Christ ; the whole
Bible has its priceless worth, because it is the expansion
of the Gospel, the reduplication of His likeness, in
which the faithful behold

" Him first, Him last, Him midst, and without end."

And so we have "the light of the knowledge of the
glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ." In Him
the likeness of God is reduced to a size which we can
receive, and still remains perfect.

And as He is thus the Revelation of the Attributes
of God, so is His Incarnation also the evidence or

n6 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

proof to us of that great doctrine of the Holy Trinity,
which, with the Incarnation, makes up the very matter
and substance of our faith. I do not say that without
the Incarnation God could not have made this truth
evident to the mind of man ; nor do I mean that in
logical statements of the doctrine, and its logical proof,
stress is laid upon the Incarnation itself as a necessary
evidence, except as connected with words spoken by
the Incarnate Son. Those great doctors who have
stated the logical argument upon Holy Scripture, do
not formally support the proposition, that the doctrine
of the Holy Trinity must be true, because " God was
manifest in the flesh." But the practical and real ar-
gument in all minds, — the conviction underlying all
the logical arguments, the very centre and essence of
them all, drawn, as they all must be, from Holy Scrip-
ture, is this : " The doctrine of the Holy Trinity must
be true, because the Second Person of the Holy Trinity
was Incarnate among men."

(b) Our Lord Jesus Christ, again, is the pattern and
exemplar of man, as he should be, in the sight of God,
and also the evidence what he is in that sight.

"When the fulness of time was come, God sent
forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law"
" He became obedicjit unto death." That is, He took
upon Himself, with the form of a man, the state also
and condition of a man, its duties and its obligations,
as completely as if He had been none other than the
son of man and woman. He fulfilled all the law, both
in outward blamelessness of conduct, and with spiritual
perfection of submission ; and thus He became to us
the example what our perfection is in the sight of God.

The Grace of the Son. 117

It differs, in some respects, from the native human
idea of perfection. Notice this, for brevity's sake, in
only two points.

He was poor and self-denying, a "man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief," not having where to lay
His head, despising the riches and glory of this world ;
and all this voluntarily, as an act of humility and self-
denial; submitting to indignity, reproach, and perse-
cution without retaliation, — thus showing it to be a
part of the perfection of humanity to be humble and
self-denying. The native human idea, on the contrary,
sees perfection in pomp and self-gratification, so that
they who have most means and capacity to indulge
themselves are called "the better classes," and "our
best society."

He was obedient ; and here, again, He contradicted
our common ideas. We think it the glorious thing of
life to have our own way, to do what we will, to have
means to carry out our purposes and designs. But
Christ came on earth to do, not His own will, but His
Father's. "My meat is to do the will of Him who
sent me," is His own word. " He was obedient unto
death," says His Apostle. In the mystery of His
being, His Divine will must always have concurred with
the will of His Father, as being one with it ; but His
human will shrank oftentimes (and what wonder!)
from the bitter cup He was to undergo; yet in all
things He surrendered Himself — though He shud-
dered— freely, unreservedly, to do His Father's will.
Now it is not, perhaps, sufficiently noticed by pious
readers of Holy Scripture, that the will of God towards
Him, after He assumed humanity, was directed by those

n8 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

universal principles by which God governs all man-
kind; so that, though He stands alone and unap-
proachable in the magnitude of the benefits He obtained
for mankind, and in the righteous purity of His self-
sacrifice, yet, in respect of the principle of obedience,
He was on a level with His brethren in the flesh. All
that Christ did for mankind, He did as a duty, as an
obligation, which became such when He took human
nature. The all-inclusive act of free grace was His
willingly becoming man ; but when He had done this,
He (as it were) put the Divine under human law j so
that what obligations lay upon man according to the
power of man, He, having superhuman power, met in
a superhuman manner, being, nevertheless, ''under the
law." As, for example, thus: By that law of human
sympathy and social communion by which we are held
in the bonds of a common brotherhood, — that law which
is made . objective in the Divine command, "Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," — the duty of help
in difficulty, of comfort in sorrow, of charity in sick-
ness or in want, became as binding upon Him, the
man, as upon every one else who partook of that
human nature ; and therefore, in helping the afflicted,
in healing the sick, in comforting the sorrowful, and
in providing for the hungry, all by miraculous means,
He was acting, though by Divine power, under the law
of humanity, giving "what He had/' on the principle
of obedience, as well as of love, because it was His
duty so to do. And that, not as His peculiar, indi-
vidual duty, under a covenant of obedience singular to
Himself, as if isolated by His Divinity from mankind,
but as verily and indeed in the " form of a servant,"

The Grace of the Son. 119

upon the same principle on which His disciple acted
when he raised the lame man with the words, " Silver
and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee,"
— on the same principle on which any of us must act
when met by the calls of the suffering. And if we may
penetrate into the mystery of that sublimest act of all,
His offering Himself upon the Cross, and apply to it
the principle of obedience in illustration of human
duty, we may say of that also, that therein He acted
on the same principle, — offering up His Divine worth
for His brethren, as a duty appertaining to the man-
hood He had assumed, by its relationship with the
fallen creatures who needed that redemption. For if
it had been possible that a mere man, one of ourselves,
could have redeemed the world by the offering of his
life, there can be no question that it would have been
his duty under the law of love ; and therefore, the
same law applying, when the only sinless man who
ever lived had that power of atonement, because He
was also Divine, He became the Sacrifice, on the prin-
ciple of duty; " being found in fashion as a man, He
became obedient unto death, even the death of the
Cross."

Christ is then the truth of human nature, so abso-
lutely and so purely, that so far as we can, under the
illuminating power of Divine grace, by constant medi-
tation and study, realize the character of His life on
earth, as a human life, as well as a divine, we shall
have the perfect rule of all human conduct before God.
If we were able .to answer accurately and infallibly
with reference to every important event of life, the
question, "How would our Lord Jesus Christ have

1 20 Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity.

acted under these circumstances had He been placed in
them?" and if we were able to, and did act according
to the rule so elicited, we should be perfect. So the
Apostle St. John argues in relation to the future world :
"We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He
is." His Person, then, it is not too much to say, is
the only complete and all-sufficient rule of our lives
before God. His precepts and teachings are, indeed,
a perfect rule ; but they need to be informed by a
living faith in Him, — they are only a part of the law
by which the Christian is governed, only a part of the
truth which he must behold. We must live according
to them to the minutest letter, since "not a jot or a
tittle shall in any wise pass from the law till all be ful-
filled,"— since "Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but His words shall not pass away." It is idle to speak
of following Christ, and yet disregarding any of His
spoken commands, as if Christ could be inconsistent
with Himself; yet to rest in the letter is not enough.
We must have the letter, but we must have the Spirit
as well. The letter is but one of the indications of the
"mind of Christ," and it is that mind which is the
ultimate object of our research. "The words that I
speak unto you," said He, " they are Spirit and they
are life;" but they are this, by leading us beyond
themselves to Him and the true faith in Him, as the
exemplar of true obedience, the rule of true life, the
law of redeemed humanity.

c. But further : Our Lord Jesus Christ is also the
evidence what human nature actually is in the sight of
God. We have in Him not only the realization of an
ideal of perfect humanity under the conditions of

The Grace of the Son. 121

mortal existence in such a world as ours is, but also in
His incarnation and death the dominant fact accord-
ing to which we must arrange all our knowledge and
observation of ourselves as we actually are. The
moral quality of our actions is settled, not by specula-
tions in morals, seeking for abstract grounds of action,
not by Platonic, or Aristotelian, or Stoic, or Epicu-
rean theories, but by their agreement or disagreement
with His example and teachings, and the principles
they disclose. What is and what is not sin ; what is
the future consequence of sin; what right and duty
are; and how far we fall short of our duty, — these
questions are to be decided by our knowledge of
Christ "the truth." The moral history of man, as a
race or as an individual, is comprehensible only by the
light of his coming into the world ; and his state at
any given period is fixed by his relation to the Gospel.
What view we understand Revelation to give of the
origin of our moral history has been seen in the dis-
cussions of a former chapter, which it is not necessary
here to repeat. Whether that, or any other account,
be the truth, must be decided by the perfect harmony
of the system in which it is contained with the reve-
lation of the Redeemer incarnate ; just as the truth of
our modern account of the solar system is demon-
strated by the completeness, the comprehensiveness,
and the simplicity with which it harmonizes all the
phenomena of the planetary world on the heliocentric
theory. As it would be the height of absurdity to
attempt to frame a planetary theory without the sun,
so no account of human nature and human position
can be a true one which does not harmonize with the

122 Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity.

Incarnation and Redemption of God the Son. Hence
all researches into, all observations and experiences of,
human nature, physical, physiological, metaphysical,
however accurately registered as separate facts, can
only be bound together in a true system by putting
this fact at the center, and searching till we find the
true relation of the others to our faith in Christ. By
the revealed truth, the great and difficult fact of evil
in humanity is accounted for and shown to be accord-
ant with the goodness of God, because of the univer-
sality of the Remedy offered to man's acceptance; its
origin by the fall is declared, its subordination to an
end in our probation for another life, the cause and
use of the mingled web of joy and sorrow with which
we are clothed in this world, — all these are made appa-
rent, and the solutions of the perplexing questions to
which they give rise are demonstrated more clearly in
each succeeding age as we advance in true knowledge.
For example : all the facts deduced by successive inves-
tigations into the abnormal workings of our fallen na-
ture and its hereditary transmission take their Christian
position as exponents of the "law of the flesh," which
warreth against the law of the Spirit ; because, if the
record of Redemption be true, the fact of a fall must
be true also ; if "in Christ all are made alive," it is
equally true that "in Adam all die." So, too, the
area of the field assigned to human freedom by Divine
Providence, and its limitation by the laws of the
human constitution and of the constitution of the uni-
verse, by the necessary operation of the various facul-
ties of man, by the diverse circumstances in which he
is placed, and the influence of those circumstances

The Grace of the Son. 123

upon him, are legitimate objects of philosophical ob-
servation and analysis ; but they must be appre-
hended in their true connection with the coming
of Christ and the truths of the Gospel. Thus all
inquiries in the field of human science will enlarge
our knowledge and make it more accurate by show-
ing us the positive effects of the Fall upon the various
parts of our being, the limitations of our freedom
and their nature, because of which we are finite and
not infinite beings, the laws of the Creation which
supplement the facts of Revelation, and the means by
which our position and our laws of action and recep-
tivity may be made auxiliary to the designs of the
Gospel for our restoration. If human nature be finite,
its limitations may be inquired into ; if it be fallen, the
nature and extent of its deterioration in the individual
or the mass is a subject of possible study ; and if it be
capable of Providential government and ultimate res-
toration, the laws under which the restoration is ap-
plied and in harmony with which it works, are at least
probable additions to our Christian knowledge, as in-
dustry and faith together explore the regions of human
science. But in such investigations the totality of
truth can never have been arrived at until the result
comprehended is the Divine system of which Christ is
the Head, "Who is over all from the beginning," and
"in Whom all fulness dwells."

The Incarnation of the Son of God, again, is the
one fact which must be considered, in order to decide
the questions that have been raised concerning the suc-
cessive communications of the Divine Creator to His

i 24 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

human creatures. We cannot obtain a true knowledge
what Holy Scripture is, or how to interpret it, unless
we study it "according to the analogy of the faith."
In this relation, as in deciding upon the present con-
dition of human nature, the Incarnation has the power
of a fact in relation with other facts, of an act which
has its historic place among the affairs of the world.
Every fact has an absolute power of evidence which
cannot be contradicted when it is apprehended in its
true relation with its fellows. All our philosophy be-
gins with the observation of them, proceeds with their
classification, and seeks its end by induction or deduc-
tion from them. They control us by the laws of our
intellectual being, according to which we must allow
every fact its place in the system of truth, and accept
it as defining the relations of others with itself and
with each other. Hence facts are evidence. And if
this be true of subordinate facts, how much more of
the Incarnation, the principal, the all-controlling fact
of human history ! Hence, before we can enter upon
the examination of the Revelation purporting to come
from God, we must accept this fact, we must have the
faith in Christ, and it must guide our studies, or no
research and no ingenuity will lead us to a true con-
clusion.

All persons of any theological reading are familiar,
to some extent, with the (so-called) Rationalistic
hypotheses put forth of late years, concerning the
origin and nature of the books of Holy Scripture, and
with the methods of reasoning by which it is endeav-
ored to support them. Whether any minor truths are
brought to light or not, by these methods, they all

The Grace of the Son. 125

start with 2ipetitio principii ; they assume at the outset,
as the base of the argument, the conclusion to be
arrived at, and therefore reason in a circle. However
careful the reasoning, false premises must issue in false
conclusions ; but few sophisms are as transparent as
those of the Rationalistic commentator on Holy Scrip-
ture. Assuming that the books of Holy Scripture are
naturally produced, he argues thence to the conclusion
that they are not supernaturally produced. He sets
them on the same level with other ancient documents,
and from that premise urges a denial of their superior
authority; then, because those documents are con-
demned of advancing myths or fables when they treat
of the supernatural, he refuses to receive the super-
natural intimations of Holy Scripture on the ground
of this assumed analogy. But the analogy itself is the
very thing to be denied on the ground of the Incarna-
tion, since those books which are inseparably con-
nected with the Incarnation, either in the way of
prophecy or inspired history, are, by that relation,
removed from the level of all other writings. If the
Rationalist begin by denying that the Incarnation as a
dogma should have any influence upon his judgment of
the Bible, he will naturally throw out every reference
of prophecy, every record of miracle, which refers to
the Incarnation as a fact ; whereas, if he accept it as a
fact, it must have its influence as a dogma.

The way in which Rationalism approaches Holy
Scripture is this : It first investigates the traditions,
remains, and records of the various heathen nations of
antiquity, and, observing that in them there are many
things incredible as they stand, many legends, alle-

126 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity*

gories, and myths, — it accounts for their existence by
the operation of certain real or supposed tendencies of
human nature, as the love of the marvellous, or national
feeling, or the attempt to supply lost links of tradition
by imagination, or the tendency to cast moral and
religious teaching into a dramatic form. It then draws
by induction the inference that all human records and
traditions are necessarily wrought over in the same
way, and therefore that all supernatural relations are
to be accounted for by the same principles. Hence it
argues, because matters of a supernatural aspect, which
are clearly false, are contained in the myths of anti-
quity, therefore matters supernatural in Holy Scripture
are to be judged only by the light derived from the
study of heathenism. And it is evident that if Holy
Scripture is the product of humanity only, it must be
judged by the analogy of other human writings ; hence
the supernatural relations it contains will be discredited,
unless it can be shown that the books it contains are
not of the same class with those other writings from
which the critical rules have been derived.

But the evidence that Holy Scripture does thus differ
the Rationalist altogether refuses to receive ; he will
not permit it to be offered. He protests that the dogma
of the Incarnation of the Son, and the Inspiration of
the Spirit of God, ought not to influence the investiga-
tion. Whereas, if they are facts (as they are), they must
influence the investigation ; for if the Scripture is only
human, it may be mythical, but not if it be Divine.
If it is only human, there is no more evidence of the
supernatural in Scripture than in the traditions of
heathenism, beyond the verisimilitude of the story, —

The Grace of the Son. 127

whereas, if it be Divine, it must of necessity contain
supernatural relations. It is a preliminary question,
therefore, whether Holy Scripture is Divine or human,
— or rather, whether it is exclusively human, or both
human and Divine. If it be a special Divine Revela-
tion, it is separate from other records, above their
analogies, not to be judged by them ; it is the criterion
by which they are to be judged. Now the fact which
does separate the Bible from all other books, is its
relation to the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
to which all the record points, and with which it closes.
The Incarnation is a fact. It cannot be a myth. It
belongs to times confessedly historic; and therefore
the Gospels cannot be clouded as the Book of Genesis
is, with doubt and disputation. It is a fact never re-
produced in the history of the world \ and therefore it
places the records of the Jewish people, among whom
He came, in a class by themselves, with respect to the
supernatural, subjecting them to higher than merely
human laws. This fact must guide our judgment of
Holy Scripture. If the Son of God were made man
for the salvation of the world (as He was) His life de-
manded an inspired record ; and the inspired record
must be altogether a true record.

Nor is it reasoning in a circle to say that we believe
in the Son of God on the testimony of Holy Scripture,
and that we believe the Inspiration of Holy Scripture,
because we believe in the Son of God. For the great
facts which prove Christ to be the only-begotten Son
of God, His miracles, His Resurrection, corroborating
His claims made throughout the whole of His teach-
ing, were such as would be remembered by the original

128 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

witnesses, by the natural powers of memory, even with-
out inspiration. But these main facts being true, and
the Divinity of our Lord acknowledged on their evi-
dence, there was evident need of Inspiration to recall,
and guard from misconception, the less memorable de-
tails of the teaching He intended to transmit to pos-
terity. We argue from the truth of the greater facts,
naturally observed and naturally remembered, to the
Deity of our Lord; from His Deity to the Divinity and
uniqueness of His Gospel ; from that to the truth of
the minor details; and so to the Inspiration of the
whole. And this argument is irrefragable. For, if God
sent His Son to be the object of faith, it is certainly
most reasonable that He should send His Spirit to in-
spire a true record of Him who is to be believed in, —
even did we not possess the actual promise of the
Saviour that the Spirit should be sent to " recall all
things to the remembrance" of the Apostles. Thus
our faith in Christ proves the Inspiration of the New
Testament (for the same reasoning must be extended
to the Acts, and to the Epistles, and Apocalypse) ; and
from the New Testament we reason back to the Old ;
since its inspiration is everywhere inferred by the New.
Hence, before the inquirer after truth can approach
the record of Holy Scripture, he must assign it its
place alone, as a Divine Revelation ; and thus the
truth of our Lord Jesus Christ enables us to get at the
truth of all Holy Scripture. Then, with this guiding
light, it becomes a subject of legitimate inquiry, how
far the Divine will permitted the laws of the human
mind to find expression in the word; how far knowl-
edge was conveyed to the Inspired writer by ordinary

The Grace of the Son. 129

avenues of information, how far by extraordinary, and
in what state the text has been transmitted to our own
times.

The inquiries entered upon in this spirit will add
further meaning to the declaration "I am the Truth,"
by showing that our Lord, the ever-blessed Word, is
the object ever before the eye of faith in all the varied
contents of both Old and New Testaments ; that He
is the Person who reveals Himself and the Godhead
therein, both immediately and mediately ; that He is
(so to speak) the substa?ice, of which Holy Scripture is
the phenomenon.

This is self-evident in the New Testament and needs
no demonstration. It is equally true of the Old. The
Old Testament History, for example, — what is it but a
Divine Epic, having, for its twofold argument, man's
sin in the past, and his redemption then future ? The
Fall is its beginning, the Redemption its end, its middle
the result of the one and the preparation for the other.
The Creation of the world and of man, the temptation
and the fall, the promise of a Redeemer, the increase
of the human race and the development of sin, the
division of mankind into two parts, — worshippers of
God and apostates, — children, respectively, of Seth
and Cain, the mingling of the two, the consequent
corruption of the better by the worse, the destruction
of the world by the flood, the salvation of Noah, that
the promise might not fail, the second corruption of
man by the workings of his fallen nature, the choice
of the family of Abraham to be the repository of true
religion, the increase of that family into a nation, the
promise of Christ again in that family and nation,

130 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

their law, the Divine intercourse with them, their
various transgressions, punishment and repentance, the
renewal of the promise from time to time, the guardian
care of God over them, until, in "the fulness of time,"
He sent forth His Son, — this is the course of that his-
tory. Is it not all summed up in the one sentence of
St. Paul, "As in Adam all die, so in Christ all are
made alive?"

In like manner the prophecies and the religious
writings of all kinds which make up the collection pre-
served with so great care by the Jewish Church, with
their types, their ceremonies, their hopes, their aspira-
tions, all refer to the coming of Christ, and the king-
dom to be set up by Him. The bond of union of all
the varied contents of the Old Testament is the an-
ticipation of the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ. In
the eloquent language of one3 not long dead: "Expec-
tation is the inward spirit of the Old Testament, as
fulfilment of the New. Wonderful itself, its function
clearly is to testify wonders more august to come.
From Moses to Malachi, these Hebrew Scriptures are,
as it were, one long-drawn sigh of sorrowful hope;
while, to make the purposed lesson of imperfection
more complete, the same testimony is uttered from
every rank and state of humanity ; for of what variety
of human fortune will you not find an example there ?
Not from Jeremiah in his dungeon alone, but from the
gorgeous palace of their mightiest king, at the most
consummate hour they record of earthly prosperity,
comes forth the mournful strain (it is the voice, not of

a The Rev. Wtn. Archer Butler, Sermon XIV, vol. i.

The Grace of the Son. 131

Jewish, but of human nature): 'Vanity of vanities,
all is vanity. ... I have seen all the works that are
done under the sun ; and behold all is vanity and vexa-
tion of spirit.' . . . Not from insulated predic-
tions alone, not from separate types alone, not from
occasional allusions, but from the whole spirit and
tendency and bearing of the Hebrew Scriptures was
the Lord Jesus Christ justified when He declared that
'They are they which testify of Him,' that, disjointed
from Him, they were a fair and elaborate structure,
doubtless, but shadowy, nevertheless, and unsubstan-
tial ; while, seen in the light that His coming flashed
back upon that strange story of four thousand years,
every page sparkled with illumination, every sentence
quickened with meaning..' '

There is still another view to be taken of the rela-
tion of our Lord to the Holy Scripture. He is not
only the one prophesied of and pointed to, but He is
also the Revealer of all the Truth made known by
them; so that He is the beginning and the end, "the
first and the last" of Holy Scripture in every sense.

Various passages in the earlier records intimate that
God was manifested to human vision before the Son
was born into the world. He appeared to Abraham
on various occasions, as at the time of the destruction
of Sodom and Gomorrah ; to Jacob, as when He wres-
tled with him ; to Moses in the burning bush and on
Mount Sinai ; to all the congregation of Israel at the
time of the giving of the ten commandments. There
are several accounts of the appearance of an uncreated
"Angel of the Lord," who speaks in the person of
God Himself. These all have been abundantly proved

132 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

by the theologians to have been revelations of the God-
head in the person of the Son, under such form as He
was pleased to manifest Himself; and they lead us to
expect that He would be the direct Revealer of the
great body of supernatural truth which the Bible con-
tains.

Accordingly, we are to understand that the gener-
ality of those places where it is said, "The Word of
the Lord came" unto one or other of the prophets, as-
sert that the matter following was directly revealed by
that Person whom St. John, in his gospel, calls " the
Word," that is, by the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
That "The Word" is a personal being was discerned
by older Jews, the Chaldee paraphrasts, Philo, and
others, and is placed beyond a doubt by the declara-
tion of St. John. For we must interpret the older
books of Holy Scripture by the newer. That which
in the older is more obscure, in the newer is more
clear; and though the expression "the word of the
Lord," might at first seem to be but a figure of speech,
its true interpretation is disclosed with certainty when
St. John tells that the Everlasting Word is the only-
begotten Son of God.

In treating of the Divine element in Holy Scripture,
we must distinguish between Revelatiofi and Inspira-
tion.* Holy Scripture is said to be revealed, and also
to be inspired ; but the latter term is perhaps less
properly applied to the written words than to the
writers of the Word. They were inspired, and to
them the Word was revealed. Now Revelation is the

Lee on Inspiration.

The Grace of the Son. 133

agency of the Son in giving Holy Scripture, and In-
spiration the agency of the Spirit. Inspiration is sub-
jective; Revelation is objective. Correct apprehen-
sion rests upon two things, an external presentation of
truth, and an internal fitness to receive that truth.
Revelation secured the first condition ; Inspiration the
second. The prophet's mind was made capable of
receiving the ray of light without refracting or dis-
coloring it, by the Inspiration of the Spirit ; that ray
was sent into the mind from without by the Revelation
of the Son.a

It follows, therefore, that wherever there is Revela-
tion in Holy Scripture there is the manifestation of
the Son; that is, of Christ our Lord; He is "the
Truth," which is beheld.

It is not asserted, however, that everything con-
tained in Holy Scripture is i?nmediately revealed by the
Son. Revelation may be either immediate or mediate.
The supernatural truth of Holy Scripture was revealed
immediately to the prophets and Apostles, mediately
through them to us. So truth might be given mediately
to the prophets themselves ; it might be set before their
minds by other agencies which stood between them
and God, as well as be given directly by God. Truth
which could not be known, except by supernatural
means, was necessarily revealed, either immediately
by the Son of God Himself, or mediately by the

a The distinction of Revelation and Inspiration is clearly shown
in the Apocalypse, where the objective and subjective operations
are referred to the Second and Third persons of the Blessed
Trinity. Cf. Ch. i. 10, 11.

12*

134 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

agency of angels performing His commands. We
have accounts of the first mode in the passages intro-
duced by the formula already alluded to. Of the
mediation of angels we have several accounts, as in
the visions of Daniel and Zechariah. But in this case
also the Revelations were mediately from the Son j
the angels received them from Him, and were His
agents to communicate with the children of men ; He
is the Principal, visible to the eye of faith, as if He
were personally present.

In like manner, the matters related in Holy Scrip-
ture, which seem not to be supernatural, — the references
to events of the natural world, or of tradition or his-
tory,— are to be counted a part of Revelation proper,
and therefore from the Son of God, though the ordi-
nary avenues of knowledge were the mediate chan-
nels by which the writer obtained information of them.
They have their place as essential parts of the one
whole ; they were recorded as such under the Divine
guidance. As Inspiration wrought according to the
matter to be recorded, in the measure appointed by
the Spirit, — as Providence works by constant law or
special interposition, according to the will of God, so
Revelation wrought, supernaturally, or naturally, ac-
cording to the measure necessary to give us the mind
of God.

Thus, the objects for which Inspiration was given
did not necessitate that it should be exerted to the full
extent of correcting the language of the apparent into
the language of the real, in cases where the sensible
perceptions of mankind, or their philosophical beliefs
respecting natural phenomena were at variance with

The Grace of the Son. 135

the final conclusions of merely physical science. " God
works," says Hooker, somewhere, "according to the
end to be attained," and here the end to be attained
was spiritual, not scientific Revelation. Had Inspira-
tion, in fact, wrought to the full extent of rectifying
every ordinary belief respecting natural phenomena,
to which Scripture refers, it would practically have
defeated its own end ; for, while it is as easy for us to
translate the apparent in Holy Scripture into the real
(as we now understand it) as it is to apprehend by the
terms sunrise or sunset, the real motion of the earth, it
would have been very difficult for the minds of the first
ages of the world to have divested themselves of their
philosophy of the apparent, in order to accept a revela-
tion of the philosophy of the real ; and therefore the
result would have been to them both unintelligible and
incredible. Inspiration, therefore, increased the power
to perceive truth, only so far and on such subjects as
was necessary in the Divine plan of the record.

So Revelation wrought, in measure suited to the
matter to be recorded, — sup ernatur ally, so far as truth
unattainable by ordinary avenues of information was to
be revealed ; naturally, by those avenues, when they
sufficed for the purpose God designed. It was direct
and immediate, so far as the truth could not otherwise
be known; but when it could, God permitted the writer
to obtain it by natural means, — observation, tradition,
or documentary research; the whole Scripture being
thus an union of the natural and the supernatural,
both blended together, both from the same author;
in the same manner as God's Providence in the world
at large is the perfect blending of His natural laws,

136 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

and His immediate oversight of, and care for His
creatures. But whether the truth were matter of his-
tory, of observation, of experience, or of supernatural
communication, it was none the less Divine Revela-
tion,— none the less the work of the Word, the Son of
God, — either immediately, or mediately from Him ;
for " the whole Creation is the Lord's;" "all things
were made by the Son, and for Him ;" and the records
of the Inspired Word were selected by God's over-
ruling care ; they are revelations of Him who reveals
the Godhead by the Creation, and in every other
way.

3. And this introduces another fact contained in
this inexhaustible name of our Lord ; that the Creation
itself is a revelation of Him its Creator. The book of
God's Word, and the book of God's Works (as the
natural world has been called), though separate are
not disconnected volumes, any more than the Old and
New Testaments. They are parts of one mighty whole,
by which God is completely manifested ; and the Re-
vealer of the whole is the same Divine Word, who
became man. The natural under Inspiration, in Holy
Scripture, is the transition from Nature in the Crea-
tion to the Supernatural in Revelation ; just as Provi-
dence in the midst of human affairs is the transition
from the constant course of nature under law to the
miracles by which Revelation was authenticated, — all
being nicely blended parts of the one Divine plan.

Our Nicene Creed instructs us to confess faith in
"one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven
and earth, and of all things visible and invisible."
This has been already explained to mean, that as God

The Grace of the Son. 137

the Father is the source and origin of all being, He is
the source and origin of the created universe. But
the same Creed also instructs us to confess, " Our
Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, . .
by whom all things were made." The Son is the
active agent in the Creation. So St. John declares
in his Gospel, "All things were made by Him, and
without Him was not anything made, that was made;"a
and again, "The world was made by Him."b The
true doctrine therefore is, that God the Father created
the world by the Son as the active agent, of whom (it
must be added to make the statement complete) the
Holy Spirit is'the energizing power.

Now the world is not God, nor is it the body of
which He is the soul. It is a system of things and
powers distinct from God, created by Him, differing,
therefore, from Him as the created from the uncreated.
It is under His government. We know God through
the world, therefore, not by perception of things them-
selves, but by knowledge of the wisdom with which
they are formed, and made to harmonize together, and
ordered to a common end. We know God through
nature, by means of the law under which nature con-
sists. The world can tell us nothing of its creation ;
it can only give us to infer that it was made according
to a preconceived pattern or idea, and that it continues
in being, in motion, and in development, according to
universal and necessary laws. These ideas and lawsc

a John, i. 3. b John, i. 10.

c An idea is the constitutive law of a thing ; a law is the regu-
lative idea of the activity of a thing. In reason, therefore, there

138 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

are not the world, they are above it, they govern it ;
they are, therefore, so far as they are truly apprehended
by us, the manifestation to us of God as the Governor
of the Universe. If, then, we could, by the Creation,
attain a knowledge of laws and ideas as they exist in
the mind of God, we should know God perfectly, as
manifested in the creation ; and so far as we can ap-
poximate to it, so far we approximate to a knowledge
of God. The knowledge of ideas and laws, so far as
we can reach it, is Reason. The world, therefore, as a
work of God, reveals itself as a work of Wisdom or
Divine Reason ; it reveals the Wisdom of God more
clearly than any other attribute. For, being a finite
world, it tells us only inadequately of infinite Power ;
without Revelation, only inadequately of infinite Love;
but in every adaptation of means to ends, in every
realization of an idea or a law, in every provision for
growth, increase, reproduction, in every effect pro-
duced by any cause, it tells us of perfect Wisdom.
But the special attribute of the Second Person of the
Holy Trinity is the being the Word, or Wisdom, or
Reason of the Father, beholding and knowing His
eternal, universal, constitutive, all-penetrating, perfect
law, and working all things subordinate to that law.
The Creation, therefore, is in Holy Scripture and
the Creed, attributed to the Son; and the manifesta-
tion of God which is made through the Creation is a
manifestation of the Son, and of God through Him ;
since the only true knowledge of God's law of crea-

is no essential difference between ideas and laws ; both have the
character of universality and necessity.

The Grace of the Son. 139

tion which we can attain is thrown upon the world by
the Son, as the mirror of the Father's perfection.

And this is true, whether the Divine law, which it is
the object of philosophy to reach, is given objectively
or subjectively, — whether there is really any distinction
between intuition and induction or not ; whether it is
elicited from our own being in contact with external
phenomena, or is inferred from the phenomena of the
rational mind. For, in considering the- Creation, we
must remember that we, too, are created beings, and
therefore, wherever laws and ideas are placed for our be-
holding, whether in the mind or out of the mind, they
are placed there by the one Creative Wisdom, they are
in us (if we apprehend them truly) the image of the
Divine Wisdom, the vision of God the Father in and
by the Son. The object of philosophy, whether natu-
ral or metaphysical, is to attain the knowledge of these
laws, to comprehend them in their totality, to destroy
isolation, and to know everything in its relations to the
system of the whole, — that is, under all its laws, — and so
to attain the mind of its Governor. It is a well-known
dogma of philosophers, that "Truth consists in abstrac-
tions," which is but a less religious way of saying that
truth is above the world of things, — that "it resides in
the bosom of God."

Hence every fresh advance in philosophy, every cer-
tain truth attained, is a further approximation to the
knowledge of God through His Son, capable of" bear-
ing its part in the enlargement of our Christian faitlx,
if we can trace its connection with the central truth of
our Redemption. And that is the true system of the
Creation which beholds in all its parts the continuity

140 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

of all God's laws and doings, and their complete agree-
ment with the Revealed Word and the Gospel of His
Son. But if it be separated from that centre, if it be
set up in opposition to it, then, however accurate may
be the knowledge of the isolated truth, it is, as regards
its relations to the complete system, a falsehood the
more pernicious according to its magnitude.

Of all this body of truth, however, the work of
Christ, the Word Incarnate, is the centre and the most
necessary part. The initial need of man is a Re-
deemer. Without His atonement and mediation, what-
ever other knowledge we might have, whether of God
above, or of earth below, would not avail for our hap-
piness, if, indeed, without Him, we could have any
knowledge. To be held under condemnation and
given the knowledge that we are so, would be simply
to know our own misery, and the impossibility of es-
cape ; while to know other things, and yet be igno-
rant of this, would be not to know the truth of any-
thing. To penetrate the mysteries of science and of
art, and to take our pleasure in them, lying under such
a doom without knowing it during life, would but make
the unveiling of the future world by death the more
awful and crushing in the intensity of terror and de-
spair ; while, on the other hand, the illusory pleasures
of this transitory world would be turned all to gall, by
the accuracy of a knowledge which, without a media-
tor, possessed a revelation of the coming eternity, and
every accession of insight into our true condition,
would be but a foretaste of the final punishment. The
unbeliever, to enjoy even the fleeting moment, must

The Grace of the Son. 141

seek a "refuge of lies,"a — ignorance, not knowledge,
delusion, not truth.

Christian faith, then, is formally the apprehension
and reception of our Lord Jesus Christ as the Truth,
in this wide latitude of meaning, so far as we have
the capacity to take it in — as the object of religious
contemplation, the foundation of religious trust, where-
ever we turn, whether to God above or to earth below,
whether we search for truth in the word of Revelation
or in the knowledge of our own nature, and the expe-
rience of our own condition and duty, — as the circum-
ference of the sphere of religious thought, which alone
is thought that reaches truth. He reveals to us the
Father, He sends us the Holy Spirit, He makes us to
know ourselves, He is the origin and end of the Crea-
tion, of human history, of all things; and therefore
that only can be a truly religious life which beholds
Him everywhere, and in all, and the world in Him.

But if all that is were known, except the mediation
revealed in the Gospel, it could never avail to give us
hope of salvation; whereas, clinging to Christ the
Mediator, it is possible for the Christian to have all
the comfort, and assurance, and joy of true religion,
however otherwise illiterate and ignorant. This knowl-
edge, then, is not only the most necessary, but the
only necessary part. To know God the Father recon-
ciled in Christ, to know ourselves according to our
calling as redeemed Christians, to know what to do as
such, and to have the happy consciousness of duty done
by the rule of Christ, — this is sufficient for the Christian

a Isaiah.
13

142 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

as a Christian, and the rest is added on as he expands
in knowledge and in power.

Finally, as we have seen that Repentance, to be com-
plete, must include faith and regeneration, so Faith
must include repentance and regeneration and the walk
of the regenerate, to be perfect and saving faith. To
preach Christ the Truth, then, is but to proclaim Him
as the Way and the Life, — for He is Truth realized in
the person for whom He is saving Truth. Such a per-
son has repented of the sin and the falsehood of his
natural life ; he has sought the grace of Regeneration ;
he " lives by the faith of the Son of God." Hence
faith, like Repentance, has its two stages, the one pre-
ceding the other following Regeneration.4 In the first
stage, the penitent sinner beholds Christ (as it were )
afar off, as the Mediator, indeed, and the Redeemer,
but cannot yet say, " Christ is my Redeemer;" for the
personal appropriation of the Redemption rests upon
the communication of the Divine life of Christ to the
individual at his regeneration. The second stage is
when the believer is regenerate and lives as becometh
the regenerate ; then he is made one with Christ, his
redemption is assured, he is " alive from the dead," he
has within himself the assurance of forgiveness, and all
the other benefits of Christ's passion. Then his faith
is perfect, and so long as he retains, by a holy walk,
the life implanted at his regeneration, so long he has
the confidence of salvation, he knows in his own soul
that he is "justified by faith," and through the merits

a These are the fides informis and fides formata of the old
theologians.

The Grace of the Son. 143

of his Redeemer can stand in the presence of God the
Father.

III. We are sent, therefore, to the consideration of
the mystery of "Christ our Life,"a to complete the
circle of Scripture teaching respecting the grace of the
Son. By the life-giving operation of His grace, He is
the centre of our being, as in His presentation of Him-
self to faith He is its circumference and spiritual hori-
zon. He thus enters into a still closer relation with
the regenerate, into a vitalizing union, by which He
becomes the active principle of their life, the inward
revivifying influence of their spiritual natures. He
enters (if we may so say) into the substance of the
soul, He communicates to it life from Himself, He
resides in the soul of the regenerate, which, by this
union with Him, is "dead to sin," and "alive to
God."b Our regeneration, then, is our entrance into
this so close union, by which "He dwelleth in us, and
we in Him," by which "we are members of His body,
of His flesh, and of His bones. "c

I do not know that it is formally stated, but it seems
to be tacitly, perhaps unconsciously, assumed, by our
modern theological writers, that our Lord Jesus Christ
is in us by the presence of His Spirit in our hearts, and
in no other sense. It is true, and (as will be hereafter
seen) a truth of most momentous importance, that the
Holy Spirit is indwelling in the regenerate, and that
He is (in the language of the Nicene Creed) the
" Giver of Life ;" but it is no less true that our blessed

a Col. iii. 3. b Rom. vi. ir. c Eph. v. 30.

144 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

Saviour Himself is also present, that He is the Life
which the Spirit gives, that the Son Incarnate, in His
own person, in some mysterious way, dwells in and is
the life of the Christian. Our "life" is the indwelling
grace of the Son; the indwelling grace of the Holy
Spirit is the means by which this life springs up, and is
brought to maturity in our sanctification, — it is (as it
were) the light, the heat, the air, the rain, by which
the seed of life fructifies in righteousness of Christian
thought and deed. "Know ye not your own selves,"
says St. Paul, "how that Jesus Christ is in you, except
ye be reprobates?"3 On this fact, indeed, more than
on any other depends the whole doctrine of threefold
grace, which makes faith in the Holy Trinity of so
great practical necessity.

Further, God the Son is the life of the Christian,
not simply as Divine, but as Divine and human. For,
as Hooker remarks, "That which quickeneth us is the
Spirit of Christ, and His flesh that wherewith He
quickeneth." And again he asks: "Doth any man
doubt but that, even from the flesh of Christ,- our very
bodies do receive that life which shall make them
glorious at the latter day, and for which they are
already accounted parts of His blessed body?" For
Christ, being God and man in one person, His grace
being His personal efficacy in us to eternal life, and
His assumption of humanity being the means to our

a II. Cor. xiii. v. udoni/ioi, "spurious," said of coin which has
the color and appearance, but not the substance of gold and silver ;
hence of Christians who have the semblance, but not the substance
of the Christian, — who have lost " the life," and therefore are
reprobate.

The Grace of the Son. 145

Redemption, there is the same conjoint operation of
the Divine and human natures in this respect, which we
have seen in the parts of His grace already treated of.
There is a mystical conjunction, therefore, of all true
Christians with the humanity, as well as with the
Divinity of their head. Not only is there that sub-
stantial conjunction with him, through the presence of
His Spirit, which rests upon the unity of essence in
the Deity, but there is also a personal conjunction with
Himself, in His own person, in which He partakes of
the Divine and the human nature, — a conjunction
wrought by the operation of the Holy Spirit when we
are made regenerate ; and it is in respect of this that
He is said to be the Life of His people.

Upon so important a subject as this, it is impossible
that a theologian whose authority is as deservedly great
as that of Hooker should misunderstand or misstate
the doctrine of the Church of God. As an example,
therefore, of the testimony of her doctors and fathers,
I shall set down his statements at some length, request-
ing attention to the forcible, unmistakable, and un-
hesitating precision of his language.

" We are by nature the sons of Adam. When God
created Adam He created us, and as many as are de-
scended from Adam, have in themselves the root out
of which they spring. . . The sons of God have
God's own natural Son, as a second Adam from
Heaven, whose race and progeny they are by spiritual
and heavenly birth. . . Life, as all other gifts and
benefits, groweth originally from the Father, and
cometh not to us, but by the Son, nor by the Son to
any of us in particular, but through the Spirit. For
13*

1 46 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

this cause, the Apostle wisheth to the Church of
Corinth ' the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the
love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost.'
Which three St. Peter comprehendeth in one, ' the
participation of Divine Nature.' . . But in God,
we actually are, no longer than only from the time of
our actual adoption into the body of His true Church,
into the fellowship of His children. . . Our being
in Christ by eternal foreknowledge saveth us not, with-
out our actual and real adoption into the fellowship of
His saints in this present world. For in Him we
actually are, by our actual incorporation into that
Society which hath Him for. their Head, and doth
make together with Him one body (He and they in
that respect having one name), for which cause, by
virtue of this mystical conjunction, we are of Him, and
in Him, even as though our very flesh and bones should
be made continuate with His. . . We are, therefore,
adopted sons of God to eternal life by participation of
the only-begotten Son of God, whose life is the well-
spring and cause of ours.

. . . " The Church is in Christ as Eve was in Adam.
Yea, by grace we are every of us in Christ and in His
Church, as by nature we are in those our first parents.
God made Eve of the rib of Adam. And His Church
He frameth out of the very flesh, the very wounded
and bleeding side of the Son of Man. His body cruci-
fied, and His blood shed for the life of the world, are
the true elements of that heavenly being which maketh
us such as Himself is of whom we come. For which
cause the words of Adam may be fitly the words of
Christ concerning his Church, 'flesh of my flesh, and

The Grace of the Son. 147

bone of my bones,' a true native extract of mine own
body. So that in him, even according to His man-
hood, we, according to our heavenly being, are as

branches in that root out of which they grow

Adam is in us as an original cause of our nature, and
of that corruption of nature which causeth death, Christ
as the cause original of restoration to life ; the person
of Adam is not in us, but his nature, and the cor-
ruption of his nature derived into all men by propaga-
tion; Christ, having Adam's nature as we have, but
incorrupt, deriveth, not nature but incorruption, and
that immediately from His own person into all that
belong unto Him. As therefore we are really par-
takers of the body of sin and death received from
Adam, so, except we be truly partakers of Christ, and
as really possessed of His Spirit, all we speak of eternal
life is but a dream

" Thus much no Christian man will deny, that when
Christ sanctified His own flesh, giving as God, and
taking as man, the Holy Ghost, He did not this for
Himself only, but for our sakes, that the grace of sanc-
tification and life, which was first received in Him,
might pass from Him to His whole race, as maledic-
tion came from Adam unto all mankind. "a

Confirmed by these statements of our great divine,
we proceed to inquire into the teachings of Holy
Scripture respecting the communication of spiritual
life from our Lord to His faithful followers.

The word life, besides having its twofold physical
use to denote the bodily vitality and the outward state

a Hooker, Ec. Pol., b. v. ch. lvi.

148 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

or condition of man, is used in four different but re-
lated senses in Holy Scripture, to express, 1, the eter-
nal life of our Lord as a Divine Person, residing in
His separate Personality, received by Him from the
Father, dwelling in Him as God before His Incarna-
tion, after His Incarnation as God and Man; 2, the
grace of which that Personal life is the fount, com-
municated as an inward, active, vivifying power to
the soul of man, as the spiritual life both of soul
and body; 3, the outward working of that inner life,
its growth and development into the outer walk of
the Christian ; and 4, the continuance of that life in
consummate blessedness in the eternal happiness of
Heaven. Examples of these senses (except the third,
which is singular) are most distinctly apparent in the
writings of St. John ; in those of St. Paul two or three
senses are frequently combined.

1. The first meaning appears in the opening of the
first chapter of St. John's Gospel, "In Him was life,
and that life was the light of men."a The Son, as a
person distinct from the Father, has life in Himself; this
life He has from the Father, and it is the light of men,
their joy and hope of salvation ; because on the posses-
sion of a Personal life in Himself depends His power
to mediate between the Father and man ; by it He is a
third party, able to merit from the Father what He gives
to man, able to give to rebellious man of His own, that
He may make him acceptable to His Father. So the
Saviour Himself declares: "As the Father hath life in
Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in
Himself, "b where the sense unquestionably is that the

a John, i. 4. b John, v. 26.

The Grace of the Son. 149

Father hath given to the Son the subsistence of a dis-
tinct personality, by giving Him His own divine life.
And this truth our Saviour further uses as an analogy by
which to show the spiritual subsistence of the Christian
through participation of Him: "As the living Father
hath sent Me, and I live by the Father, so he that
eateth Me, even he shall live by Me."a The Divine
life of the Son, indeed, is the foundation of St. John's
teaching ; he begins his Epistle with it, as well as his
Gospel : "That which was from the beginning, which
we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes,
which we have looked upon, and our hands have han-
dled of the word of Life : for the Life was manifested,
and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto
you that eternal life which was with the Father, and
was manifested unto us."b Here "the Life," and the
"Word of Life," are names of our Lord derived from
His possession of life in Himself, and His giving us to
partake of it. And as this is the beginning, so it is
the end of St. John's doctrine ; for he closes his Epistle
with the words, "We are in Him that is true, even in
His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal
life."c

2. The second sense, in which it denotes the com-
munication of the grace of Christ as a power of spiritual
life in us, is as clearly and distinctly to be perceived in
St. John. The testimony of John the Baptist, set down
by the Evangelist in his third chapter, is: "He that
believeth on the Son hath everlasting life : and he that
believeth not the Son shall not see life ; but the wrath

a John, vi. 57. b I. John, i. I, 2. c I. John, v. 20.

150 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

of God abideth on him."a The words "everlasting
life" may combine the fourth sense with the second,
but the present tense of the verb shows conclusively
that the life itself is a present possession, — now begun,
and everlastingly continuing, — an inner, spiritual resur-
rection of the soul from its death in sin. So our
Saviour Himself says : " Verily, verily, I say unto you,
He that heareth my words, and believeth on Him that
sent me, hath everlasting life and shall not come into
condemnation, but is passed from death unto life."b
And again, "I am come that they might have life."c
These passages prove that the word "life" has the
sense of an inner spiritual power in man ; but they do
not prove, with the clearness necessary to demonstra-
tion, that this power is derived personally from the Son
Incarnate. This, however, is evident, beyond gain-
saying, by the following: "The bread of God is He
which cometh down from Heaven, and giveth life unto
the world. "d " I am the bread of life."6 " The bread
which I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the
life of the world. "f He would not represent Himself
under the figure of bread — "bread of life" — unless
He intended us to understand that He would be given
and received in order to be life to the world. Hence,
further on in the chapter whence the foregoing quota-
tions are made, He declares, "Except ye eat the flesh
of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no
life in you."* And when the manner of this reception

a John,iii. 36. c John, x. 10. e John, vi. 36.

b John, v. 24. d John, vi. ^3- f John, vi. 51.

« John.vi. 53.

The Grace of the Son. 151

was in doubt by His disciples He explained that it
would be a spiritual reception, a reception of the life, —
the " incorruption " (to use Hooker's word) of His
body and blood: "The flesh profiteth nothing; the
words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they
are life.' 'a Hence, also, St. John says in his first
Epistle, " He that hath the Son hath life, and He that
hath not the Son of God hath not life."b The union
of the Christian and his Lord, by which he derives
his spiritual life, is represented also by the growth of
the branches in the vine : "I am the vine, ye are the
branches. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself,
except it abide in the vine ; no more can ye except ye
abide in me."c

3. It is somewhat remarkable that the word seems
not to be used by St. John in its third sense, in which
it seems to be most commonly (I might almost say, ex-
clusively) used in our modern theological literature.
For the verb "to live," in this sense, the Evangelist
substitutes ' ' to walk, " as in the following from his first
Epistle : " He that saith he abideth in him, ought him-
self also so to walk, even as He walked;" from his
second, "This is love, that we walk after His com-
mandments;" from his third, "I have no greater joy
than to hear that my children walk in the truth." A
clear example of this sense, however, is St. Paul's
declaration, "The life which I now live in the flesh, I
live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me
and gave Himself for me."d

a John, vi. 63. c John, xv. 54.

b I. John, v. 12. d Gal. ii. 20.

152 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

4. Of the fourth sense, containing the notion of
eternal blessedness, examples are so numerous that it is
not necessary to set any down ; all those passages where
eternal or everlasting life is spoken of have this sense,
and how many they are, may be seen by turning to the
concordance/

From this analysis of the meanings of the word, we
perceive the history of the grace of Christ the Life to
be as follows: 1. He is, in Himself, the Divine Life,
having received it from the Father. This life He first
communicated to His human nature by His Incarna-
tion, and completed its effect upon it by His Resurrec-
tion from the dead. 2. To mankind in His Church
He communicates the grace of life from Himself (by
the agency of His Spirit) as an inward principle of
Regeneration, — a seed (as it were) of eternal life. 3.
That seed of eternal life, the indwelling grace of Christ,
springs up in the Christian and develops, by the
assimilation to itself of the whole man, his thoughts,
feelings, affections, actions; it becomes active by the
co-operation of the will and affections under the Di-
vine influence of the Holy Spirit, which are to it as
soil, and air, and light, and heat, and moisture to a
plant, and so grows outwardly into the life and walk of
holiness, justice, charity, and purity ; and finally, 4,
having brought forth fruit unto holiness in perfection,
it is transplanted into the Heavenly Kingdom of the

a Between the second and fourth senses comes in the whole
world of Christian faith and practice. We first receive it, we live
according to it by faith and grace influencing our wills ; and so we
make our calling and election sure. This explains such texts as
John, iii. 15, vi. 40, 47, etc.

The Grace of the Son. 153

redeemed, there to flourish and abide in eternal
blessedness.

This account agrees with all the passages in the New
Testament which speak of our spiritual life. And
since that entire accordance with Scripture is the proof
of the doctrine, the rest of this chapter will be occu-
pied with its verification — 1, in those places (more
abundant, especially, in the writings of St. Paul) in
which the word "life," or the verb "to live," em-
braces a combination of two or more of the senses above
assigned to it, and 2, in those places where the doctrine
is assumed as the ground of other forms of speech.

1. Passages in which the word combines two or
more senses are these which follow :

Rom. v. 17. "If by one man's offence death
reigned by one ; much more they which receive abun-
dance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall
reign in life by one Jesus Christ." Without entering
into questions regarding the rendering of the very dim-
cult context of this verse, it is evident that the Apostle
argues a fortiori from Adam to Christ, in favor of uni-
versal Redemption, and the salvation of the Redeemed
through partaking of the grace and life of Christ. This
is well brought out in the rendering of the verse in
Conybeare & Howson's Life and Epistles of St. Paul
(vol. ii. p. 168) : "If the reign of death was established
by the one man [Adam], through the sin of him alone ;
far more shall the reign of life be established in those
who receive the overflowing fulness of the free gift of
righteousness, by the one man Jesus Christ. ' ' But this
translation omits the point of the antithesis of the two
parts of the sentence, — the change of giving a personal
M

154 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

nominative to the verb " reign," in the second clause.
The exact sense is that by the original sin of the first
man, death reigned over us and enslaved us ; but by
the gift of Christ we are restored, not only to liberty,
but to dominion in life. It is not merely that righteous-
ness reigns in us to life, but that we reign, being
alive, now and forever, spiritual life being eternal
life — the verb in the future (" shall reign") having
a present force (as is evident by the nature of St.
Paul's argument), and carrying on this present dispen-
sation of. grace to the future dispensation of glory.
The idea of " reigning in life," therefore, combines the
second and fourth senses of the latter word; to which
the third sense is added in the next verse: •''There-
fore, as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all
men to condemnation ; even so, by the righteousness*
of one, the free gift came upon all men to justification15
of life " — the meaning being, I conceive, that the grace
obtained for us by the righteousness of Christ, avails
for all who receive it, to a threefold justification0 of
life: i. Justification, by infusion of the life of Christ
(our being alive being the justifying fact); 2. Justifica-
tion by the righteousness of a life or walk according to
grace; 3. Justification availing to eternal life. The
same idea is expressed in v. 21 : " Where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound : that as sin hath reigned
unto death, even so might grace reign through right-
eousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord."

a diKaiojfjia. b 6lk<;

c diKaiioair, the act in progress, as distinguished from <
the act completed.

The Grace of the Son. 155

Rom. vi. 2, 3, 4. "How shall we, that are dead to
sin, live any longer therein ? Know ye not, that so
many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were
baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried
with Him by baptism into death : that like as Christ
was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,
even so we also should walk in newness of life. ' ' The
word is used here in the third sense, the Apostle ex-
horting Christians, as baptized into the death and
resurrection of Christ, to act and walk according to
the commandments of God, in a new outward life. If
we are dead to sin, we cannot live or walk any longer
therein ; hence our outward life is a new one, the fruit
of a new inner life. In v. 8, "If Ave be dead with
Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,"
this passes over into the fourth sense — life completed at
the Resurrection. And that the union with Christ in
baptism is the ground, both of the exhortation in v. 4,
and of the hope in v. 8, is manifest from the use of the
word in the second sense, in v. n: "Christ being
raised from the dead dieth no more ; death hath no
more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He
died unto sin once ; but in that he liveth, He liveth
unto God. Thus,a also, reckon ye yourselves to be
dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus
Christ our Lord."

Rom. viii. 2. " The law of the Spirit of lifeb in Christ
Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and

a oiiTO) Kac "thus also," not "likewise'1'' as in the authorized
version.

b ttjq farjg " of the life " in Christ Jesus.

156 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

death." The sense evidently is, "the law of the
Spirit who giveth the life in Christ Jesus;" for the
"Spirit of life," or "of the life," is the "Spirit who
maketh alive, "a and the life is "the life in Christ
Jesus." The word is therefore to be taken in its
widest application, as including the second, third, and
fourth significations; according to which view, "the
law of the Spirit of life" will be, 1. the law of the
Spirit, written upon the heart, when the Christian re-
ceives the inner life ; 2. the law of the Spirit govern-
ing the outward life according to God's will ; and 3.
the law of the Spirit, by obedience to which, having
received the initial life on earth, we shall attain its con-
summation in heaven. In the same way, the "Spirit
who maketh alive," is the Spirit, 1. by whose agency
we receive " the life in Christ Jesus," 2. by whose help
we live the life in Christ Jesus, and 3. by whose power
we are raised to the life everlasting.

Rom. viii. 10. "If Christ be in you, the body is
dead because of sin ; but the Spirit is life because of
righteousness." The inner life is presupposed, and
the fountain of it declared to be the Second Person of
the Holy Trinity, in the postulate: "If Christ be in
you." The expression, "the Spirit is life," therefore
can only mean that the Holy Spirit is the agent devel-
oping and perfecting the outward life of righteousness
by His action on the heart, thus opposing and over-
coming the deathful influences of the carnal nature, and
assuring us power to continue in the grace we have re-
ceived to eternal life. This text, therefore, is a clear

a to nvev/xa to faonotoi' — Nicene Creed.

The Grace of the Son. 157

testimony to the fact that the grace of life is personally
derived from the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing
could be stronger than the expression " If Christ be in
you."

In the twelfth and thirteenth verses of the same chap-
ter the word is used three times, twice to denote the
outward walk in this world, and the third time the
final consummation in the future world: "We are
debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if
ye live after the flesh ye shall die ; but if ye through the
Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live."

II. Cor. iii. 6. " Our sufficiency is of God ; who also
hath made us able ministers of the New Testament ;
not of the letter, but of the spirit ; for the letter killeth,
but the Spirit giveth life." The life here declared to
be given by the Spirit is the life of Christ, which is
communicated by His operation, whose agents and
ministers (the Apostle asserts) are the commissioned
ministers of the Gospel. St. Paul contrasts this minis-
try with that of the law, which, having no such regen-
erating grace and spiritual power to give as would
enable men to perform its commands, was but a
"letter" not a "spirit," and so, as it is called in the
next verse, a "ministration of death."

The next place in which the word occurs is in the
tenth and eleventh verses of the fourth chapter of this
Epistle, where the Apostle refers to the hardships en-
dured in the exercise of his ministry, and draws atten-
tion to the source of the strength which sustains him
under them: "Always bearing about in the body
the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of
Jesus might be manifest in our body. For we which
14*

158 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

live [this natural life of hardship, want, and suffering]
are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that
the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our
mortal flesh." That is, that the life communicated by
the grace of Christ might be made manifest in the
fruits of fortitude, patience, and endurance which the
Apostles were enabled to exhibit — that the inner life
might be manifest in the outer life.

II. Cor. v. 4. " That mortality'might be swallowed
up of life" — the eternal life succeeding the Resurrec-
tion.

Gal. ii. 20. "I am crucified with Christ: neverthe-
less I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me : and the
life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of
the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for
me." In this passage, note the accuracy of the Apos-
tle's language, as interpreted by the doctrine here ex-
pounded. "Not I, but Christ liveth in me," — this in
the second sense above assigned to the word. The
grace of Christ is the inner life-power. The Apostle
has an inner spiritual life because " Christ liveth in
him." The word then passes over to the next sense,
the outer life of act and deed : " the life which I now
live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God."
Note the words " by faith of the Son of God." A new
element is here introduced. The grace of Christ is
the inner life ; but in order for that life to develop
outwardly, it must be assimilated by the sanctified will
and other spiritual powers. But the will needs to be
stimulated to action by the "faith of the Son of God,"
and therefore the Apostle so expresses himself in rela-
tion to the outer life.

The Grace of the Son. 159

Gal. iii. 11. "The just shall live by faith." This
quotation from the prophet Habakkuk cannot be un-
derstood, except by remembering that "faith " here is
inclusive — equivalent to the acceptance of the whole
Gospel dispensation, with its spiritual grace, as well as
its preaching of the Atonement. "The just shall
live/' — be made alive, and so continue to all eter-
nity,— by the grace of the Divine life, the condition of
receiving which is " faith."

Gal. v. 25. "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk
in the Spirit." The gift of the Holy Spirit is simulta-
neous with the gift of life from the Son ; we cannot
have the latter without the former; therefore " to live
in the Spirit " is "to live in Christ " and vice versa.

Eph. iv. 17, 18. " This I say therefore, and testify
in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gen-
tiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, . . . being
alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance
that is in them, because of the blindness of their
heart." The "being alienated from the life of God "
is equivalent to the being " without God in the world,"
in ch. ii. v. 12, — being without the life of Christ in
their souls, having no power in themselves to do what
is right, and therefore living an outward life contrary
to the law of God.

Phil. ii. 15, 16. "That ye maybe blameless and
harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst
of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine
as lightsa in the world ; holding forth the word of
life," — preaching the truth of the inner life by your

160 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

outward conduct, and setting forth by the beauty of
your holiness, the blessedness of your hope of eternal
life.

Col. iii. 3, 4. "Ye are dead, and your life is hid
with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in
glory." Note here, again, how it is said that " Christ
is our life," — how all that is said of our spiritual life in
other passages is to be understood of His presence
in us.

I. Thess. v. 9, 10. "God hath not appointed us to
wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we
should live together with Him." The word is here
used in the last sense assigned to it above. The Apos-
tle has previously instructed the Thessalonians, that at
the last day, those Christians who remain in the body
will be partakers of the Lord's glory together with
those who rise from the dead. He exhorts them,
therefore, to be steadfast in their profession, since it
will make no difference whether they "wake or sleep "
— the same eternal life will be theirs in heaven.

II. Tim. i. 1. "Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ by
the will of God, according to the promise of life which
is in Christ Jesus." A more correct translation is:
"Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God,
according to the promise of the lifea in Christ Jesus."
Our translators, by inserting the words "which is,"
have confused the sense, making it possible to read it
as if the clause "which is in Christ Jous. referred to

71 ^t.u/r 77/f ev \j>. I//.

The Grace of the Son. 161

"the promise." The Greek shows that it refers to
"the life." St. Paul is an Apostle carrying out the
fulfilment of the promise made long ago by the pro-
phets of "the life in Christ Jesus." This promise is
now fulfilled by the grace of, not now promised by, the
Gospel.

II. Tim. i. 10. " Our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath
abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality
to light by the Gospel." He has abolished spiritual
death, in the Redeemed, has brought forth life and im-
mortality from their hidden place in the secret coun-
sels of God, made them manifest by the preaching of
the word, and given them in possession, to His people
by the grace of the Gospel. The word " life " is here
used to denote the inner grace of the regeneration, the
beginning on earth of the immortality of blessedness
assured to believers in heaven.

Titus, ii. ii, 12. "The grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared unto all men, teaching us that,
denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live
soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world."
The word in this passage needs no comment. The
third sense is apparent.

These are the most (if not all) of the passages in the
Epistles of St. Paul in which the word " life " is used
in a spiritual sense. Taken together, they agree com-
pletely with and prove fully the doctrine advanced in
these pages. Indeed, the interchange and mingling of
senses in the pregnant language of the Apostle, is one
of the strongest proofs of the doctrine which could be
advanced ; for it is impossible to understand him,
without attending to this fulness of meaning.

1 62 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

2. But if we confine the evidence of the doctrine to
the passages in which the word "life " itself occurs, we
lose much of its support from Scripture. Strong as its
authority would be, even with this limitation, it is
doubly confirmed, when we note the equivalent ex-
pressions, the modes of speech, the course of argument,
of which the root-idea is the vital union of the regen-
erate with Christ, through His personal indwelling
grace. The following are examples of this kind of evi-
dence :

John, i. 12, 13. "As many as received Him, to
them gave He power to become the Sons of God, even
to them that believe on His name : which were born,
not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will
of man, but of God." In this passage a new birth is
spoken of, and that by the power of the Son, given to
as many as received Him. The idea is evidently the
same as that contained in the class of texts before dis-
cussed, since a new birth implies a new life. It is re-
produced no less clearly in v. 16 of this chapter: " Of
His fulness have we all {i.e. all Christians] received, and
grace for grace."

John, xiv. 19, 20. " Yet a little while, and the world
seeth me no more ; but ye see me : because I live, ye
shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in
my Father, and ye in me, and I in you " V. 23. " If
a man love me, he will keep my words ; and my Father
will love him, and we will come unto him, and make
our abode with him."

John, xv. 1, 2. "I am the true vine, and my Father
is the husbandman. Every branch in me that bearetfa
not fruit He taketh away; and every branch that

77/6' Grace of the Son. 163

beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth
more fruit. " V. 5 . ' lIam the vine, ye are the branches :
he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth
forth much fruit." V. 7. "If ye abide in me, and
my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and
it shall be done unto you. ' ' The expression ' ' my words
abide in you" is not the exact equivalent of the "I
in him," above. "Christ in us" is the source and
beginning of life, "His word in us," governing our
conduct, is the means whereby that life comes to ma-
turity. The retaining His word is within the compass
of our wills, aided by the grace of the Holy Spirit ;
hence He says, "If ye abide in me, and my words abide
in you," as intimating the responsibilities and contin-
gencies of our action. There is no "if" — no subjec-
tion to the receiver in His own presence. That, He
gives or withdraws.

John, xvii. 19-23. This is from the sacrificial prayer
with which our Saviour consecrated Himself to be the
Atonement for our sins. He is praying for His Church :
" For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might
be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for
these alone, but for them also which shall believe on
me through their word ; that they all may be one ; as
thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also
may be one in us ; that the world may believe that thou
hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I
have given them ; that they may be one, even as we
are one. I in them, and thou in me, that they may
be made perfect in one." V. 26. " I have declared
unto them thy name, and will declare it : that the love
wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I

164 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

in them." The life-giving union of Christ and His
redeemed is surely the ground of these solemn utter-
ances.

Acts, xxii. is an account of St. Paul's defence before
his countrymen at Jerusalem. In relating the story of
his conversion, after telling them of the miraculous light
which he beheld, he says : "I fell unto the ground, and
heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why perse-
cutest thou me ? And I answered, Who art thou, Lord ?
And He said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom
thou persecutest." Can any words express more forci-
bly the union of the saint and his Saviour, than this
identification of the two? Christ is persecuted in His
saints — and why, but because He is in them ?

Rom. vii. 4. "Ye are become dead to the law by
the body of Christ ; that ye should be married to
another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that
we should bring forth fruit unto God." The Church
is represented in Holy Scripture as the bride, the
spouse of Christ; the spiritual union is as close as the
union of husband and wife, who "are no more twain,
but one flesh."

Rom. viii. 16, 17. "The Spirit itself beareth wit-
ness with our spirit, that we are the children of God ;
and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint
heirs with Christ ; if so be that we suffer with Him,
that we may be also glorified together." The " part-
nership " with Christ, being fellow-heirs, fellow-suffer-
ers, and partakers of His glory, and the consequent
suggestion of the union with Him in His Church, by
the partaking of His life, is mure plain in the original
than in the translation.

The Grace of the Son. 165

Rom. viii. 28-30. "We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who
are the called according to His purpose. For whom
He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be con-
formed to the image a of His Son, that He might be the
first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom He
did predestinate, them He also called : and whom He
called, them He also justified : and whom He justified,
them He also glorified." Without entering into the
predestinarian controversy, which does not affect the
particular subject now under consideration, we may
perceive that the text evidently states the process of
God's grace in leading us to ultimate salvation. It is
His will that we should be ' ' completely made over in
the image of His Son,"b first by being made partakers
of His life ; then by being trained to righteousness after
His example ; and lastly, by being raised to the glory
of the life eternal — "called" at baptism, "justified,"
by grace enabling us to walk in righteousness and holi-
ness; "glorified" at the Resurrection.

I. Cor. i. 30. " Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who
of God is made unto us, wisdom, and righteousness, and
sanctification, and redemption." "Of Him," that is,

a cvfj,fj.op<povg TTjg eiKovoc,

b This,. perhaps, expresses the force of cv/2{j.op<povg, though the
text is an exact and literal translation. In the ancient philosophy,
things being considered to consist of matter and form, the matter
was held to be an inert, and the fon7i an active, vivifying prin-
ciple. To be cv/iuopqog, therefore, is to be subject to the active
form or formative influence, and by it to be brought into con-
formity with the archetype. How well this expresses the opera-
tion of the grace of the Son.

15

1 66 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

"born of God," as St. John expresses it — "in Christ
Jesus," being made "members of His body, of His
flesh, and of His bones." Being thus closely united to
Him, He is made unto us "wisdom," enabling us by
His grace to receive the truth, "and righteousness,"
giving us the ability to walk justly in this present world,
"and sanctification," imparting inward holiness of
heart, "and redemption," as gaining the final victory
over death, by raising our bodies to immortality.

II. Cor. v. 17. "If any man be in Christ, he is a
new creature : old things are passed away ; behold, all
things are become new." To be a "new creature"
is equivalent to being "new born," "regenerate,"
" made alive unto God/' — a man is this by being " in
Christ." And as far as in his life the life of Christ
within him is realized, so far the old is passed away,"
and " all things are become new." To the same effect
also, in Gal. vi. 15, the Apostle says: "In Christ Jesus
neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircum-
cision, but a new creature." And in Ephesians, ii. 10 :
"We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jefus
unto good works."

Gal. iii. 24-27. "The law was our schoolmaster to
bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
But after that faith is come [that is, the dispensation
in which faith is made perfect by grace given from
Christ ; — for it is evident that " faith" is here used as
a comprehensive name for the whole Gospel covenant]
we are no longer under a schoolmaster/ For ye are

a naida.} w, or , that i>, the servant who attended children of rank
to their teacher. The English woi die same word

The Grace of the Son. 167

all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. For
as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have
put on Christ." "Being baptized into Christ," and
"having put on Christ," are clearly equivalent to being
made partakers of the life of Christ, as well by partici-
pation of His grace as by profession of His calling.

Ephesians, ii. 4, 5. "God, who is rich in mercy,
for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when
we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with
Christ." The union, — nay more than this, the oneness
of Christ and His saints, the Head and the Body, is so
vividly impressed upon the Apostle's mind "that he
speaks as if the Church were raised from the dead at
the very resurrection of her Lord, — as if it were partaker
of His lot, not only in the manner of His life, but at
the time. The Apostle's vehemence carries him into
this use of the figure hyperbole, and gives intensity to
his meaning. The same is the case in all other places
where we are said to have or to do anything " together
with Christ."

Col. ii. 20. "If ye be dead with Christ from the
rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the
world, are ye subject to ordinances?" The Christian
grace and profession is a partnership with Christ in
His death, by which He is severed from "the world
that now is." It may be well to remark, that, gener-
ally, when the Apostle speaks of death, he does not con-
sider it in the heathen way, as a state of the body, a
state of dissolution or non-existence \ but as a state of

shortened. The translation " schoolmaster " gives a wrong sense
to the entire passage.

1 68 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

the man, and therefore as a state of existence ; so that
to pass from life to death or from death to life, is not to
pass out of existence, and vice versa ; but to pass from
one state of existence to another. a To be dead with
Christ to the world, therefore, is to be alive with Christ
to spiritual and eternal verities, — to have received the
grace of spiritual life from Him. The Apostle tells Chris-
tians that if they be thus regenerate, they must live ac-
cordingly; their actions must correspond to their state.

Col. iii. 9, 10. "Ye have put off the old man with
his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is re-
newed in knowledge after the image of Him that cre-
ated him." This is parallel with, "As many of you as
have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ."

Heb. iii. 14. "We are made partakers of Christ, if
we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto
the end." That is, we are made partakers of Christ,
now, by receiving His grace of life, and shall continue
so to be, if we hold this beginning of our confidence,
by leading a holy life, steadfast unto the end.

In Heb. x. 1, the Apostle begins a discussion of the
efficacy of the life-giving sacrifice of Christ with these
words: "The law having a shadow of good things to
come, and not the very image of the things, could
never, with those sacrifices which they offered year by
year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect."
This passage is produced to note the antithesis of the
legal "shadow" and the "image" which, it is implied,
the Gospel is. The law, according to the teaching of
the Epistle to the Hebrews, was an inefficacious typet or

a Cf. Rom. vi. 2; vii. 4; \iv. 9; I. Cur. XV. 12; Eph. v. 14;
Col. i. iS; and many other passages.

The Grace of the Son. 169

bare representation of the mysteries of the heavenly
world, prophesying of a future dispensation (the Chris-
tian), which should be the "image," or embodied
form, the heavenly mysteries themselves being the true
substance. Three things, then, are here implied, the
"shadow," the "image," and the substance. The
"shadow"* differs from the "image" as a picture
from a statue. Figures painted have no substance ;
they are represented only by their surface colors,
with no body underneath; the statue or "image"
bodies it forth, filling out the form with substance,
yet not substance of the same nature with that which
is represented. So, the Christian dispensation is the
" image" of the heavenly world, differing from it, as
grace differs from glory. The Christian "image,"
therefore, differs from the Mosaic " shadow," in having
the grace of Christ, — the life of Christ realized in us on
earth, as the image of the life of Christ realized in
heaven. It is in such expressions as this that the all-
pervading evidence of this doctrine is noticed.

I. Peter, i. 22, 23. "Seeing ye have purified your
souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit, unto
unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one
another with a pure heart fervently : being born again,
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the
Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. ' ' Four
statements are implied in this passage : 1 . that Chris-
tians are born again ; 2. that this new birth is "by the
Word of God," — that is, by the grace of Christ, the
Son of God, the "Word, which liveth and abideth

a GKia.
15*

1 70 Threefold Grace qf tht I/oly Trinity.

forever;" 3. that obedience to the truth advances the
purification of the soul, being the means by which the
" incorruptible seed assimilates the soul to itself; and
4. that this progress from the beginning of the new
birth to the perfection of the Christian character, is
"through the Spirit," that is, by His abiding grace,
acting in co-operation with the grace of the Son.

These passages corroborate the evidence contained
in the former group. They contain the same doctrine
in different words. We read as clearly in them, that
Christ our Lord is the source of our spiritual life ; that
we possess that life by His indwelling ; that our out-
ward life and conduct as Christians is the outgrowth or
development of the inward life received from the Re-
deemer, and that the eternal life of Heaven. is its fur-
ther development, its consummation, and its reward.

We see also in the Scripture which has been brought
forward, the confirmation of the assertion advanced
at the beginning of this section : that we derive our
life from the Son of God, not only as Divine, but
as Incarnate. Take, for instance, the sixth chapter
of St. John : " The bread which I will give is my flesh,
which I will give for the life of the world," and the
whole discourse of which this is an example. It asserts
clearly the connection between our spiritual life and
the partaking of Christ Incarnate. Nay, every text of
the whole catena proves it, speaking, as they do, of our
Lord as Jesus Christ. The Word did not take His
name Jesus, nor his official designation, Christ, until
He took flesh ; and this constant use of His human
name informs us by implication that He first filled His
own humanity with the Divine Life, and thence de-

The Grace of the Son. 171

rives His grace to His followers by mystical union with
Himself; so that Christ, the Son of God, made man,
is the fountain of our life, as He is the truth of our faith
and the way of our repentance.

It will now, also, be seen more clearly why Repent-
ance and Faith, in their first stage, are so necessary for
those who seek the life of Christ, having come to the
knowledge of their need of it, after having committed
actual sin ; and why, at the same time, this life itself is
the bringing of repentance and faith to perfection. In
the case of those who are regenerate before they have
committed actual sin — infants who attain the election —
a preparatory repentance and faith are not necessary,
as they are not possible ; the repentance and faith of
their after-years are that forsaking of sin, and knowledge
of a present Redeemer, which follow after their re-
generation, and which must be acted while life lasts,
that they may not lose the gift. But from adult per-
sons, a preparatory repentance and renunciation of
their past sins, and a faith in Christ the Redeemer, are
required, that they may have in themselves no ' ' root
of bitterness," — no bar to the operation of grace; be-
cause the life is a restoration from the death of sin,
which must be left behind when they rise new-born in
spirit ; and because it is a making over to them the
merits of the Redeemer, which they must plead by
faith in Him. In such persons, therefore, repentance
and faith in the first stages begin the work, which is
carried forward by the communication of life in their
regeneration ; and then repentance and faith, contain-
ing within themselves all added Christian graces, com-
plete the work, by the life of holiness which ensures its

172 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

continuance and increase, till it grows " to the measure
of the stature of the fulness of Christ."

It remains to be said that, since the true beginning of
the Christian life is the communication of the grace of
Christ as an inward gift at our regeneration, its growth
consists in its development from within outwardly ', in
heavenly affections and works of righteousness. This
has, indeed, been spoken of; but it needs to be insisted
upon, in order to call attention to Scripture testimony
bearing upon this point, the strength of which might be
lost were it mingled with that which has been brought
forward in another connection. It will be seen also,
that by the mercy of God this grace may continue for
a time at least in those who do not show in themselves
the full fruits of its presence ; though it will finally be
taken away, to their eternal loss, unless they eventually
"give diligence to make their calling and election
sure."

In the third chapter of the first Epistle to the Corin-
thians, St. Paul writes : "I, brethren, could not speak
unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as
unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and
not with meat : for hitherto ye were not able to bear it,
neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal :
for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and
divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?" From
this we collect that the Corinthian Christians had the
gift within them, though it had not yet brought forth
fruit according to its full measure, it had not yet cast
out "envyings, strifes, divisions;" hence they were but
"babes in Christ;" their infancy consisted in the dis-
crepancy of the outward life, with the profession of

The Grace of the Son. 173

Christ ; and therefore the full stature of manhood
would consist in the subjection of the outer life to the
obedience of "faith working by love." So to the
Galatians, who were in danger of being led away by
legalizing Jews to the bondage of the law of Moses, he
writes in the same spirit, but with expression of more
intense emotion: "My little children, of whom I
travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, I
desire to be present now, and to change my voice ; for
I stand in doubt of you."a He counts them "little
children," because they are, indeed, new-born ; but he
fears that " Christ is not formed within them," or their
life would correspond more closely to the Gospel, and
not be led away to follow the dead ceremonies of the
law, which are now abrogated.

To the same effect, in the chapter of I. Corinthians
above quoted, by a change of the figure, the Apos-
tle says: "Other foundation can no man lay than
that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man
build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious
stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall
be made manifest : for the day shall declare it, because
it shall be revealed by fire ; and the fire shall try every
man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work
abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a
reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall
suffer loss : but he himself shall be saved ; yet so as by
fire."b

Of the various meanings of this passage, it is surely
one, that the building upon the foundation, " Christ in

a Gal. iv. 19, 20. b I. Cor. iii. n-15.

174 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

them," with "gold, silver, precious stones," i.e. im-
perishable good works, is equivalent to the growing to
the full measure of holiness in the other figure ; while
the building with "wood, hay, stubble" is like re-
maining a babe, — yet, in this case, if the foundation
still remain, if Christ be in the man, "he shall be
saved, yet so as by fire."

In still another way the same thing is expressed in
II. Cor. iii. 18: "We all, with open face beholding
as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into
the same image from glory to glory [that is, from one
height of holiness to another], as by the Spirit of the
Lord."

In the Epistle to the Ephesians the Apostle explains
the labor of the members of the Church in their several
offices to be, " for the perfecting of the saints, for the
work of the ministry, for the edifying the body of
Christ: till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of
the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ :
that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and
fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by
the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby
they lie in wait to deceive : but speaking the truth in
love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the
head, even Christ : from whom the whole body fitly
joined together and compacted by that which every
joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in
the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body,
to the edifying itself in love." And so he goes on to
the exhortation: "That ye put off concerning the
former conve'rsation the old man, which is corrupt ac-

The Grace of the Son. 175

cording to the deceitful lusts ; and be renewed in the
spirit of your mind ; and that ye put on the new man,
which after God is created in righteousness and true
holiness." And then he ends with certain practical
exhortations ; from which we gather that in his mind
the progress of the Christian life is from within out-
wardly, and that the means of progress is the earnest
endeavor to make the outward life correspond with the
law of God ; by which means the whole heart and
character is assimilated to the Divine seed implanted at
the beginning.

The same idea is expressed in the exhortation to the
Colossians : "As ye have received Christ Jesus the
Lord, so walk ye in Him : rooted and built up in Him,
and established in the faith. "a "Rooted" of the
inner life, " built up " of the outer.

So again, and lastly, in the fifth chapter of the Epis-
tle to the Hebrews : ' ' Every one that useth milk is
unskilful in the word of righteousness : for he is a babe.
But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age,
even those who by reason of use have their senses ex-
ercised to discern both good and evil,"b — that is, who
by practice have made the outer life correspond with
the inward gift. These are grown to manhood in
Christ.

Now the grace of Christ, by which He is the life of
His people, corresponds to His kingly office. As He
is "the Way," by His priesthood, and "the Truth,"
in his prophetical character, so He is "the Life," in
His kingly relation to His people. For the type of

aCol. ii. 6, 7. bHeb. v. 13, 14^

176 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

the kingly office which represents His reign is not
that with which we are acquainted in modern times;
but it is the patriarchal type, and therefore includes,
besides rule and judgment, the idea of family relation-
ship, of a common nature, and of nourishment and
preservation as well as of subjection. The patriarchal
king was the " first-born among many brethren." He
was "the head of the body;" it was he who fed and
sustained and preserved his people, as the defender of
the common weal, and the administrator of the com-
mon store. So our Lord Christ is the King of those
whom He has made His brethren, by giving them to
partake of His nature in their regeneration ; He is the
head of the corporate body, His Church ; He feeds His
people with the Divine food of His body and His blood ;
and these acts are as essential to His kingly office, as
the watchfulness of His providence, and the scrutiny of
His judgment.

But the offices of Christ are inseparable ; and there-
fore His kingly grace confirms and makes operative
His grace as Prophet and as Priest. His priestly ac-
tions are, for the most part, those of one not immedi-
ately present in the soul; a part of them were per-
formed while He was on earth in the flesh ; another
part are performed by Him now present in heaven.
His prophetical grace is, for the most part, external ;
by it He is to us as the world of sight around us, pre-
senting Himself, and all things in Himself, as the object
to the spiritual eye of faith. But by this grace He
enters into our nature, makes us Hi> own, and applies
to us personally the merits «>f I lis priestly acts, and the
hopes, comforts, consolations, and joys of His propheti-

The Grace of the Son. 177

cal teachings. For it is this imparted grace which
separates those who are the saved from those who are
not. While Christ made a " full, perfect, and sufficient
sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the
whole world," yet, without the communication of a
gift of grace, which draws with it the application of
the atonement to them individually, men are not re-
deemed from their sins, nor released from the con-
sequences of them. Nor, though men "believe and
tremble," as do the fallen angels with a dead faith, are
they thereby justified ; but they require a grace im-
parted, which shall make it a living faith, quickened
with hope, joy, love, and good works. That gift of
grace is the Divine life of Christ our Head. Its pos-
session alone gives the sacrificial and mediatorial acts
their efficacy for the recipient, causes them to termi-
nate in individuals for their salvation, gives faith its
power for justification, its energy for good works. And
thus, by fitting this part into its place, the doctrine of the
grace of Christ becomes an ensphered and perfect whole.

The effects of the grace of the Son, so far as they be-
long to Christian experience — so far as they enter into
the consciousness of the Regenerate — are connected
so intimately with the grace of the Holy Spirit, that
they will best be considered in that connection in the
next chapter. We have still to consider here, however,
the relation of the grace of the Son to the grace of the
Father, and the effect of the former upon our position
before God.

The priesthood of Christ has been hitherto consid-
ered as sacrificial and intercessory. It has been shown
16

178 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. .

that He offered up Himself as a Sacrifice and Atone-
ment, and that now, by virtue of that atonement, He
intercedes within the veil of the heavens on our behalf.
The virtue of His intercession extends to all mankind
so far as this, that God grants to them, in respect of it,
the opportunity of pardon and reconciliation, depend-
ent upon their action in accepting the grace of Christ.
Where, without the Atonement, all must have been lost,
now, because of it, all may be saved, if they will avail
themselves of the offer of mercy, and come unto God
in the way which He has appointed. The intercession
of Christ in this aspect is represented in Holy Scrip-
ture by that parable of our Lord's in which He repre-
sents Himself as the gardener pleading for the barren
fig-tree, " spare it this year also," thus averting the im-
mediate sentence. Though the first and most obvious
application of this parable may be to the case of the
unprofitable members of the Church, it is certainly sus-
ceptible of the widest interpretation, as applying to the
whole world in its natural estate, and thus it represents
the universality of Christ's mediatorial action in delay-
ing the execution of the sentence, and giving opportu-
nity for its reversal.

But the priesthood of our Redeemer assumes a new
and higher aspect for those who accept the Gospel, and
are regenerate and renewed by His grace and the grace
of the Holy Spirit. It is not only sacrificial and inter-
cessory, but Eucharistical and perfective of the new re-
lation between man and the reconciled Father. He
not only obtains us from the Father and makes us His
own, but He offers us again to the Father, as an ac-
ceptable gift, having taken away our sins ; and thus as

The Grace of the Son. 179

our great High Priest, in our regeneration and renewal,
He acts towards the Father — not terminating our rela-
tion to the Godhead in Himself. Hence in that holy,
sacrificial prayer recorded in the seventeenth chapter
of St. John, He dwells more upon this exercise of His
office than upon any other ; since it is this which com-
pletes the other acts, and makes them operative and
effectual. " For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they
also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither
pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall be-
lieve on me through their word ; that they all may be
one ; as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they
also may be one in us : that the world may believe that
thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest
me, I have given them ; that they may be one, even as
we are one : I in them, and thou in me, that they
may be made perfect in one ; and that the world may
know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them,
as thou hast loved me. Father, I will," He proceeds,
"that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with
me, where I am; that they may behold my glory,
which thou hast given me : for thou lovedst me before
the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the
world hath not known thee : but I have known thee,
and these have known that thou hast sent me. And
I have declared unto them thy name, and will de-
clare it ; that the love wherewith thou hast loved me
may be in them, and I in them."

Now the first effect of the fully imparted grace of
Christ, in this function of His priestly office, as opera-
ting upon our relation to the Father, is to secure "the
remission or forgive mess of our sins," — those which we

180 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

commit before our regeneration, at our regeneration,
and those which we commit after, — provided they be
not such, nor so many as to provoke the entire with-
drawal of the grace of the Son, on our sincere repent-
ance and amendment. " The God of our Fathers raised
up Jesus. . . . Him hath God exalted with His
right hand, to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give
repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins;"a so
preached St. Peter. And so St. Paul: "Be it known
unto you, men and brethren, that through this man is
preached unto you the forgiveness of sins."b And so
St. John: "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son,
cleanseth us from all sin."c

The second effect is our justification, or our being
accounted just before God, for the sake of His merits.
" Being justified freely by Hisd grace, through the Re-
demption that is in Christ Jesus. "e We are "justified
by faith. "f There is, perhaps, no declaration of Holy
Scripture which has been the subject of so much con-
troversy as this. But at this stage, we are able to ob-
tain the true meaning with a few words. To be "jus-
tified " is a forensic term, and is, undeniably, "to be
declared just." In its forensic use, it has two applica-
tions: first, to the sentence of the judge, acquitting the
defendant — either accounting him innocent of the
charge, or admitting the atonement or restitution as
sufficient ; and secondly, to the declaration of the de-
fendant, setting forth his innocence, or pleading satis-

a Acts, v. 30, 31. d i.e. the Father's.

b Acts, xiii. 38. c Rom. iii. 24. See Titus, iii. 4-7.

c I. John, i. 7. f Rom. iii. 28.

The Grace of the Son. 181

faction. With respect to the former meaning, faith is
the title to justification. In the judgment which passes
upon every human soul, God accepts the true faith of
those who are truly united to Christ, as members of
His mystical body (since no one can be thus in vital
union with that body who has not true faith), as equiva-
lent to complete righteousness, and so declares them
just, appropriating to them the merits of the Redeemer
to cancel their guilt, and counting His obedience as
theirs. In the second sense, man, trusting not in his
own works, which, though he be regenerate, are still
imperfect, is empowered to declare himself justified, as
before the bar of God, with a certainty equal to his
faith in the Redeemer, his knowledge that he has ful-
filled the conditions attached to the gift of the grace of
Christ, and his assurance that that grace is his possession.
The ground of justification, then, is union with
Christ. a The gift of His Divine life carries with it all
the benefits of His sacrificial acts, and causes them to
terminate in the recipient for his salvation. This union
is so intimate — it is so completely a oneness of the

a It is a proof of the essential unity underlying all apparent
theological differences, that Bishop Mcllvaine quotes with entire
approval, in his " Righteousness by Faith," S. Bernard's expres-
sion of this doctrine of justification as follows : " Since the Apostle
[says ?] if one died for all, then were all dead ; meaning that the
satisfaction made by one should be imputed to all, even as one
bare the sins of all; so that there shozdd not be found one distinct
person who incurred the forfeit, and another who made satisfac-
tion ; because truly the head and the body are one Christ. The
head satisfied for its members : Christ for His own bowels." —
Righteousness by Faith, p. 1 08, note.
16*

1 82 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

members of the mystical body with their head, that it
pleases God to count as ours the merits of the sacrifice
of Christ, as He placed upon Him our sins. It is (to
speak as forcibly as we can, if we may do so reverently)
as if, being made one with Him, the atonement belongs
to us and the sin belongs to Christ, so unreserved is the
communion, so entire is the transfer of properties be-
tween Him and the members of His mystical body, the
Church. The Apostle' Paul speaks of our union with
our Lord, as being " dead with Him," being " buried
with Him," being "risen with Him," being "set with
Him in heavenly places" — as being " members of His
body, of His flesh and of His bones," so that what
is His is ours and what is ours is His — His righteous-
ness takes away our sins and God accepts us as fully
justified in Him.a

The third effect of the grace of the Son is to secure
our adoption as the Sons of God. Though we had for-
feited by sin our title to be counted the children of
God, by creation, God adopts us again through Christ,
receives us into His family, " the general assembly and
Church of the first-born," makes us "fellow-heirs"
with His only-begotten Son, and so pours upon us the
fulness of His love, that we may stand before Him with
joy to all eternity.

Thus the mediatorial work is accomplished ; — the

a This simple Church statement cuts away all disputations re-
specting the application of the Atonement, the imputation of Christ's
righteousness, the nature of vicarious sacrifice, etc., and substi-
tutes in place of the scholastic refinements which have darkened
the subjects, the firm faith in the reality of the union of the mem-
bers with the Head.

The Grace of the Son. 183

grace of the Son being for remission of sins, for regen-
eration of nature, for justification of life, for adoption
into the heavenly household of God the Father.

In conclusion. It must be remembered, by way of
warning, that, being of so transcendent benefit, so fully
efficacious to eternal life, — the grace of the Son, if it be
once lost, can never be restored. Those who fall away
totally from the grace of Christ fall away forever. De-
grees of it may, by the mercy of God, be regained ;
but if all be gone, there is no new imparting. As it
required Christ to restore what we lost of the perfection
in which Adam was created ; so it would require a
second Christ to restore the loss of the new creation.
Such a second Redeemer there cannot be ; and there-
fore there cannot be a second regeneration. This is
the sense of such passages of Scripture as the following :
"It is impossible for those who were once enlightened,
and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made
partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good
word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if
they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repent-
ance ; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God
afresh, and put him to an open shame. " a " For if after
they have escaped the pollutions of the world through
the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
they are again entangled therein and overcome, the
latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For
it had been better for them not to have known the way
of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn
from the holy commandment delivered unto them."b

a Heb. vi. 4-6. b II. Peter, ii. 20, 21.

CHAPTER IV.

THE GRACE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

A S the grace of the Son is subordinate to the grace
of the Father, and is directed to restore man to a
state of acceptance with the Father, so the grace of the
Holy Spirit is auxiliary to the grace of the Son. and
operates to the end of making man able to receive and
retain that grace, and the benefits it confers. The
communication of the grace of the Son (to all except
those whom God regenerates in infancy, and takes out
of the world before they reach the age of conscious-
ness) depends, as we have made clear, upon the will-
ingness and co-operation of the recipient, both for its
initial reception and subsequent growth and increase.
Since the natural state of man, however, "is such that
he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natural
strength and good works to faith and calling upon
God," — such that he cannot at first dispose himself to
desire and seek the gift, nor afterwards do without fur-
ther help, those good works will ensure its continuance,
nor shun those evil deeds which would cause its with-
drawal, he has need of other grace, given independent
of, and before the operation of his will and his affec-
tions, to restore these faculties to their freedom of
choice, and enable him to seek the saving grace of
Christ, and to co-operate with it when acquired. That
( 184)

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 185

other grace is the help of the Holy Spirit. It has
pleased God, in arranging the economy of salvation, to
assign the Holy Spirit the part of the work of man's
restoration proper to His attributes. It is our duty
now to inquire what that part of the work is.

In entering upon this inquiry, it will help us towards
understanding how there is need of the grace of the
Spirit, to remember that our Lord Himself, in His
human nature, was actuated by the influence of the Third
Person of the Blessed Trinity, though He is Himself, as
to His Divine nature, the Second. There is an analogy
in this respect between the Christian's participation of
Christ, and Christ's participation of Divinity; and if
the inherent Divinity of our Saviour did not exclude
His human inspiration by the Holy Ghost, neither
does the Christian's possession of Christ exclude the
necessity of the grace of the Spirit. The two Persons
of the Blessed Trinity have their different spheres of
operation, one of which is supplementary to the other.

When the time came at which our blessed Lord was
to be born into the world, the Angel Gabriel, we are
told, was sent to the Virgin Mary, with the announce-
ment, "Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and
bring forth a Son, and shalt call His name Jesus j" and
when Mary, in her astonishment, inquired: "How
shall this be, seeing I know not a man?" the angel an-
swered : " The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and
the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee ; there-
fore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of
thee shall be called the Son of God."a It appears

a Luke, i. 31-35.

1 86 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

from this, that though our Lord was in His Divine na-
ture pre-existent to His birth in the flesh, and possessed
in His own person all Divine power, yet the operation
and agency by which He took flesh of the Virgin, was
that of the Holy Spirit. And we learn, also, that though
the Father was the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ac-
cording to His human nature, as well as according to
His Divine, yet He performed the miraculous opera-
tion which enabled the Virgin to conceive, by the
agency of the Holy Spirit. We may infer from this,
that God the Holy Ghost is the immediate agent in the
operations of Deity in the Creation. For surely if in
any case the Father and the Son would operate directly
in their own persons, that case would be the Incarna-
tion ; yet it was the Holy Ghost who effected the con-
junction between the human and the Divine, by which
the Son, who is " Perfect God," became " perfect man,
of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting."

Further, the Holy Ghost, in separating from the
Virgin that substance which was to become the man
Christ Jesus, cleansed it from all impurity and defile-
ment of original sin, so that our Saviour, who "did no
sin, neither was guile found in His mouth," was born
without sin, "a lamb without blemish and without
spot." The Holy Ghost thus appears as the agent of
all sanctification in man ; since He sanctified the hu-
manity in which the Son was pleased to dwell, that it
might be His acceptable tabernacle.

The Spirit who was thus present and operative at the
Incarnation of our Lord was, moreover, present with
Him during all His earthly life. We learn this from
our Lord's own exposition of the prophecy of Isaiah :

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 187

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath
anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor ; He
hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach de-
liverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to
the blind, to set at liberty them that are bound, to
preach the acceptable year of the Lord." "This day,"
said He, as He read this passage in the synagogue at
Nazareth, "is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears."a
Hence, when He went into the wilderness to be tempted,
He was " led by the Spirit ;"b and when He returned,
He "returned in the power of the Spirit."0 So St.
Peter, preaching to the Centurion, told him "how God
anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and
with power : who went about doing good, and healing
all who were oppressed with .the devil ; for God was
with Him."d

The anointing of our Saviour is specially referred
to two occasions : the first (which has been already
spoken of) at His Incarnation, by which he was made
a man without sin, and so remained, which was (if we
may so distinguish it) a personal unction ; the other at
His baptism by John in the Jordan, which was His
ministerial unction to be prophet, priest, and king of
God's people. "Jesus, when He was baptized, went
up straightway out of the water; and lo, the heavens
were opened unto him, and He saw the Spirit of God
descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him."e
After this He commenced the active exercise of His
ministry, to which the baptism and unction was His

a Luke, iv. 18-21. b Luke, iv. 1. c Luke, iv. 14.

d Acts, x. 38. e Matt. iii. 16.

1 88 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

solemn consecration ; and in the exercise of that min-
istry Scripture testimony is clear that He was aided by
the Holy Ghost. From the words of John the Baptist
we learn this in respect to his prophetical office:
" He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God ;
for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him."a
And of His exercise of His kingly power by the same
Spirit our Lord Himself testified in His answer to the
Pharisees, who blasphemously said : " He doth not cast
out devils but by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils."
"If I," He replied, "by Beelzebub cast out devils, by
whom do your children cast them out ? therefore they
shall be your judges. But if I cast out devils by the Spirit
of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you."b
And the Epistle to the Hebrews says the same of His
Priestly office : " If the blood of bulls and of goats, and
the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth
to the purifying of the flesh : how much more shall
the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit
offered Himself without spot to God, purge your con-
science from dead works to serve the living God?"c It
is evident from these passages of Holy Scripture that
Christ, though He is God the Son, was, while on earth
as man, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and
without Him did nothing. We may not be able to
solve the mystery why it was so ; but such is the fact.

The truth seems to be this : The Holy Spirit, being
the third Person of the Blessed Trinity, proceeding
from the Father and the Son, is, as it were, the nearest
to the Creation ; and therefore the carrying forth of all

a John, iii. 34. b Matt. xii. 24, 27, 2S. c Hcb. ix. 13, 14.

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 189

Divine operations into the created universe is ascribed
to His immediate agency ; the power of the Father and
the Son is shed forth upon the world by Him. The
Father communicates His power to the Son ; the
Father and the Son communicate it to the Holy Ghost ;
and the Holy Ghost communicates it to the world to
produce the effect designed by the Divine will. The
world itself was created at the beginning by His active
operation, so receiving and communicating the creative
energy of the Father and the Son. " By His Spirit,"
says the book of Job, "He hath garnished the heav-
ens:"1 and the Psalmist sings: "By the Word of the
Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them
by the breath of His mouth," or by His Spirit ;b and
again, "Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are cre-
ated; and Thou renewest the face of the earth. "c
And so we read, " The Spirit of God moved upon the
face of the waters," when the primordial matter was
about to be ordered into the fair beauty of the world
which now is. And so in all Divine operations upon
the world and among created beings, the Holy Spirit
is the Divine Person who places Himself in immediate
contact with the world. Hence when the Son was to
come into the world, and, by taking a human nature,
become a part of the Creation, He took the substance
whereof He was made man by the operation of the
Holy Ghost; and the Third Person of the Trinity
cleansed and sanctified that substance that it might be
His habitation ; so that, while it was the Son who be-
came man, and in whose person (and not in the person

a Job, xxvi. 13. b Ps. xxxiii. 6. c Ps. civ. 3a

17

190 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

of the Holy Ghost) humanity was united to Divinity ;
yet the Holy Ghost accomplished the union, that act
being His proper operation.

After the Incarnation, our Lord Himself was, as
respects His human nature, a created being, and in
that nature was therefore subject to the same limitations
as others, sin only excepted. In the intimate union
of the Divine and human natures in one person, the
Divine nature did not yield any of its properties to the
human, nor did the human subject the Divine to any of
its limitations. The Person was all which was Divine
and human ; but both natures of that Person retained
their respective properties as distinctly as if they were
separate. As body does not cease to be body on
being united with spirit in the composition of man,
so the human soul and body of our Saviour did not
cease to be such in every attribute by being the soul
and body of a Divine person. His Divine Wisdom
was the attribute of His Divine Nature ; but His human
soul possessed human wisdom, which was capable of in-
crease as He advanced from childhood to maturity.
His Divine Power belonged to His Divine Nature ; His
human nature had but the natural powers and capaci-
ties of a perfect and sinless man. The Divine Love
inherent in His infinity had its counterpart in the affec-
tions of a human nature. His Divine Will was one;
His human will was another. There was no transfer or
confusion of properties in consequence of the personal
union. Hence, when His human nature was the re-
cipient of a Divine impulse, that impulse was commu-
nicated according to the conditions of other humanity
by the Holy Spirit; and, in like manner, whatsoever

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 191

He operated in the way of miracle, upon beings other
than Himself, was performed by the same agency. In
the exercise of His Divine power in healing the sick, in
liberating the possessed, in feeding the hungry, in con-
trolling the elements of the natural world, He wrought
by the Holy Ghost, as he would have done had He not
been Incarnate ; and in like manner, when He acted
upon Himself as a created Being, transferring from His
Divinity to His humanity any supernatural gift, He
illuminated it with supernatural wisdom, or increased
its power, or made efficacious in miracle his human acts,
as He would have given such gifts to any other prophet,
by the Holy Ghost, — the difference between Him and
any other prophet in this respect consisting in this, that
being the Son, " God gave not the Spirit by measure
unto Him." And so, also, since a perfect man, not
needing the grace of regeneration and renewal, would
nevertheless find his perfection in the communion of
the Holy Spirit, He lived in that communion in moral
and spiritual perfection while He was on earth, and in
that communion "by the Eternal Spirit offered Him-
self without spot to God."

Such being the facts with respect to our Blessed Lord
Himself, it will at once be seen that His communica-
tion of Himself and the efficacy of His grace to His
followers for their salvation, does not exclude, but
infers the grace of the Holy Spirit, in preparing
man to receive it, in applying the gift, and in leading
the recipient to full sanctification. As it was necessary
that the substance taken of the Virgin should be sanc-
tified to become the manhood of Christ, so the man
who is joined to His mystical body must first be so far

192 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

sanctified as to be made penitent and believing by the
grace of the Holy Spirit. As that Spirit operated to
conjoin the Divinity of our Lord with His humanity,
so He operates in regeneration to convey the life of
Christ into the soul of man. As our Lord's perfection
in manhood consisted in the communion of the Holy
Ghost, so the Christian reaches full sanctification in
the same communion. And as our Lord was anointed
to His ministerial office by the Holy Spirit, so those
who are Divinely employed to minister in the Church,
receive from the same source the special gifts by which
their labors are made efficacious.

Now as the unction of our Saviour was both offi-
cial and personal, so the influence of the Holy Spirit
upon the members of His mystical body is both official
and personal, — official, so far as particular persons are
called to minister to the rest ; personal, as it is given
to each for his own personal, spiritual good. Hence is
suggested an obvious division of the operations of that
influence into two classes named, in accordance with
Scripture authority, "gifts" and ' ' graces, "—gifts being
those influences which conduce to efficiency in minis-
tering to the edification of the Church ; graces, those
which operate to the sanctification of the recipient.

The "gifts" of the Holy Spirit are not generally
counted a part of His grace ; since, by the latter, we
understand that which operates to personal sanctifica-
tion. For though, ordinarily, the gifts of God were
given to holy men, they were not causative of holiness,
nor were they universally joined with holiness. There
are instances in Holy Scripture where unrighteous per-
sons have been made instruments of ministration to

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 193

others, they themselves, by their unrighteousness, being
cut off from any benefit of their gifts. An example is
Balaam, who, though he was entrusted with the gift of
prophecy, nevertheless loved "the wages of unrighteous-
ness" and taught Balak to tempt Israel to sin. Strictly,
therefore, the consideration of the "gifts" belongs not
to the present inquiry ; but it will enlighten us as to
the "graces" to touch upon them briefly, and to note
the points in which all the influences of the Spirit bear
an analogy to each other.

The most extended catalogue of the "gifts" in Holy
Scripture is that contained in the twelfth chapter of the
First Epistle to the Corinthians : "To one is given by
the Spirit the word of wisdom ; to another the word of
knowledge by the same Spirit ; to another faith by the
same Spirit ; to another the gifts of healing by the
same Spirit ; to another the working of miracles ; to
another prophecy ; to another discerning of spirits ; to
another divers kinds of tongues ; to another the inter-
pretation of tongues : but all these worketh that one
and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man sever-
ally as He will." In this list we may distinguish two
classes of gifts, — those analogous to Inspiration, which
transcend the ordinary intellectual power of man j and
those which can all be counted together as the "work-
ing of miracles," which transcend ordinary physical
power, or ordinary command over the phenomena of
nature.

Inspiration is the means by which Holy Scripture was
written, and is to be studied in its product.

The distinction has been drawn between Inspiration
17*

194 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

and Revelation ; by which it appears that Revelation is
the operation of the Son and Inspiration of the Holy
Ghost. The supernatural facts set before the mental
vision, relating to the future of this world or to the in-
visible things of the heavenly world, were so placed as
objects of spiritual intuition, mediately or immediately,
by the Son ; they were beholdings or reflections of His
light, and so Revelations; but the influence on the
mind itself, which raised its powers to behold, compre-
hend, remember, and judge correctly of the matter set
before it, was that operation of the Holy Ghost which
we name Inspiration. The Divine illumination of the
inspired men of old consisted (as we have said) in the
two facts that to them was revealed, by symbol, by
dream, by angelic ministration, or by the Word of
God, what was not given to other men ; and that their
intellectual and moral faculties were inspired to a super-
natural clearness of vision, correctness of judgment,
and accuracy of memory, and stimulated to action by
an irresistible impulse from above. In the variety of
matter contained in Holy Scripture the following cases
are to be distinguished :

i. When the inspired writer was required to record
such history as enters into the sacred volume. In this
case it is permitted to understand, that personal obser-
vation, reliable tradition, documentary evidence, fur-
nished the objective fact which, in matters supernatural,
was supplied by Revelation ; Inspiration, therefore,
would operate to give accuracy to the memory in re-
taining a knowledge of events ; to aid the judgment
in selecting proper matter and rejecting extraneous;
to perfect the moral perceptions, so as to present the

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 195

truth in the right moral and spiritual aspect and con-
nections.

2. When the subject-matter was prophecy, by symbol
or vision, in the extatic state. The personal appear-
ance of the Son, as the "Angel Jehovah/' was with-
drawn after the idolatry of Israel in worshipping the
calf at Mount Sinai. After that He veiled His commu-
nications, giving them by the agency of His Spirit, or
by angelic ministry, or in dreams, visions, and symbols.
The objective fact is, nevertheless, a revelation of the
Son, so veiled and farther removed from His people.
But in visions and symbolic representations, the Holy
Spirit may have been — doubtless was — the agent opera-
ting on the mental or bodily organism, so as to produce
the impression in the mind. This, however, as a func-
tion of Revelation, must be separated from the Inspir-
ing act, which consisted in inducing the elevation of
soul, suspension of bodily sense, and strengthening of
spiritual insight that gave the prophet power to behold
the vision and to receive the Revelation, — that condi-
tion of the spirit which is called in Holy Scripture
"having the eyes opened." This seems to have been
the inspiration also when angelic ministers were made
the means of communicating Divine knowledge, as in
the prophecies of Daniel and Zechariah, and in the
Revelations. In other cases Inspiration and Revela-
tion seem to coincide more closely, and prophecy to
be the object rather of inward intuition than of vision,
as in the Messianic prophecies of Isaiah.

3. When the present is made the type of the future.
It has been remarked of prophecy, that "each predic-
tion, with scarcely an exception, proceeds from, and

196 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

attaches itself to, some definite fact in the historical
present. In other words, when the future is to be fore-
shadowed, certain events of the time, historical or in-
cidental, are selected as occasions on which may be
founded the several disclosures of the Divine will."
Hence prophecy has a double sense, a nearer and more
remote ; oftentimes both a literal and a figurative fulfil-
ment. In this case, the form of the prediction is given
by the present circumstance, and that furnishes the ob-
ject before the prophet's mind ; the Inspiration consists
in the Divine afflatus, which raises the prophet's con-
ception of the event, and gives his language an appa-
rent exaggeration, but real meaning far in the future, of
which the prophet himself may not have been imme-
diately conscious ; but which the Holy Ghost intended
from the first.

4. The inspired writer is himself oftentimes the type
of Christ, and speaks in his person. In this case, the
prophecy is rather, Christ, speaking by His Spirit,
through the mouth of the prophet ; the Divine influence
moulding him, for the time being, into the likeness of
Christ, — he being to himself, as he is to us, the imme-
diate objective element of the Revelation, and being
supernaturally endowed with the subjective element by
the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit. An example of this
is the second Psalm, in which David speaks of himself
in words which can find their truest fulfilment only in
our Lord.

5. When the inspired writer touches the facts of
human nature in its fallen and redeemed estate, — giving
utterance to prayers, praises, penitential bewailings,
spiritual aspirations. The Psalms of this character

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 197

were doubtless written under that measure of Inspira-
tion which consisted in bringing the soul into the
right moral and spiritual state, in which it would obtain
true views of human needs and of God's goodness, and
a full expression of its devotional feelings.

Under these various manifestations of the Spirit's in-
fluence, there is discernible a unity of the Divine im-
pulse. Leaving aside that part of the operation which
belongs to Revelation, Inspiration remains as a quick-
ening of the soul into supernatural activity, involving
an elevation of all its faculties, their emancipation,
while under the influence, from the imperfections of
nature, and their introduction into a higher world.
Upon this state of Inspiration Revelation supervened.

As an operation on and through human nature, In-
spiration wrought in harmony with its constitution and
laws. The inspired men of old remained in possession
of their natural faculties ; but those faculties were
strengthened and raised to a supernatural degree of
power and activity ; and thus were guarded by the Di-
vine influence against the mistakes to which, if left to
themselves, they would have been liable. Hence their
natural characteristics are preserved by the writers of
Holy Scripture ; at the same time the truth is infallibly
communicated by them, and shown in all its bearings.
The operation of the Holy Spirit was not merely me-
chanical; the prophets were not mere instruments to
write down, word for word, without any personal in-
terest in the matter ; the Spirit spoke through them, as
through persons, and therefore exercised His influence
upon their personal qualities, energizing them, and so
giving "the word of God in the language of men."

198 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

Inspiration supernaturally stimulated the spiritual na-
ture, opened senses ordinarily closed, co-ordinated the
spiritual faculties with each other, withdrew them from
thraldom to the bodily organization, urged them to
fulfil their mission, gave accuracy to the memory in
recording history and vision and prophecy, and so
ensured us a Scripture "profitable for doctrine, for
reproof, for exhortation, for instruction in righteous-
ness."

The chief part of the effect seems to have been the
arousing the moral powers — the affections, the con-
science, the judgment — to perfection of action in respect
of those matters which were to be treated of. Hence
the strict impartiality and straightforwardness of the
history. Hence the stern denunciations of the sins of
Israel and Judah, of which so large a proportion of the
prophetical writings consists; from which it is evident
that the prophet's moral nature was laboring under an
irresistible impulse, and that he spoke with a personal
interest which identified him with the message, as a
co-worker with the Spirit. Hence, also, the penitential
and meditative psalms, in which human nature is mir-
rored, are both the Divine declaration of the right
thoughts and feelings of the heart, and the human ap-
preciation and expression of those thoughts and feel-
ings. And so, too, where, as in so many portions of
the Epistles, the writer enters into argument, it is clear
that the spiritual reason has been illuminated, and the
Apostle is so filled with the Divine Spirit that he has
for his own, the truth he proves and imparts. On the
other hand, being under the guidance of an intelligence
higher than his own, the words of the inspired man may

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 199

oftentimes have had a reach beyond his comprehension
of them. The prophecy revealed to him by type met
its fulfilment in the antitype, of which he had but dim,
uncertain vision ; himself (like David) oftentimes the
type, he spoke in language designed by the Inspiring
Spirit to be prophetic of other times and circumstances,
and another Person, — unconscious, it may be, of the
fulness of the message he was delivering to future gen-
erations. Hence "prophecy came not of old time, by
the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost."

Nor is this account invalidated, but rather confirmed
by the instances in which the moral perceptions of the
prophet did not continually influence his own conduct.
He was, in this respect, under the same laws of moral
conduct with other men. Inspiration was a temporary
gift for a special purpose; it was a "gift," not a
"grace ;" the exalted perceptions necessary for official
accuracy in prophesying or recording were results of
the Divine afflatus, given in a measure beyond that
vouchsafed for the ordinary guidance of mankind, and
withdrawn when the occasion ceased. The example of
Balaam is in point. His prophecies are an epitome of
all Revelation, and Inspiration is evidently the source of
their moral coloring ; the noble sentiments, the aspira-
tion for the death of the righteous indicating that for
the time the man was possessed of a judgment respect-
ing the good, which enabled him to give his prophecies
in their organic connection with the spiritual intent
of the Word of God. But when the Inspiration was
withdrawn, he relapsed into his meaner self; when
actuated by the will of God, he appears holy ; but when

200 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

left to his own will and put upon his responsibility, he
shows what manner of man he is, and perishes for his
unworthiness.

The gifts of "wisdom," "knowledge," "prophecy,"
"discerning of spirits," imparted to the early Church,
are doubtless to be regarded as different degrees of
Inspiration, directed towards supplying the need of
special Divine guidance which the Christian communi-
ties felt in their incipient state. "Knowledge" and
"wisdom" were evidently something more than sanc-
tified natural endowments ; like the other gifts, they
were Divine operations on the minds and souls of
special instruments for special purposes, at a time when
the Church had not gained the mastery over its situa-
tion in the midst of hostile Jewish and Gentile tradi-
tion, learning, and philosophy, and while the canon of
the New Testament was incomplete. A different mani-
festation of the same power was the "divers kinds of
tongues," and the "interpretation of tongues," con-
cerning which it is not necessary nor convenient to
theorize.

The analogue of this gift in the permanent constitu-
tion of the Church is the Divine aid granted to the
ministry in the execution of their office as teachers of
God's word. Holy Scripture stands to the Church in
place of the direct immediate Revelation granted to the
prophets of old ; but the right apprehension of it, the
influence by which the ambassadors of Christ are
enabled to preach "with power," is the aid of the Holy
Spirit, — given, not indeed in supernatural measure, but
in degree suited to the ordinary and continuous work of
preaching the Gospel to the world at large.

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 201

Of a different nature was the Divine influence in that
class of gifts which are grouped under the general title
of " the working of miracles." In this class the
power of the Holy Ghost, it is more reasonable to be-
lieve, was exercised not through, but in connection with
the act of the person who is said to be endowed with it.
It is difficult to understand that any special efhcacy was
given to the act or word itself which was the immediate
visible or audible antecedent of the miraculous effect —
that the outward sign, whether of words spoken, or hands
imposed, or whatever else it were, had in itself the
power it signified. We rather conclude that by the
Divine will there was a conjunction of the act of the
Holy Spirit with that of the human agent, and that,
for His own wise purposes of confirming the Church in
the faith, the Omnipotent Spirit chose thus to honor
His special instrument, by operating in time and place
according to that conjunction.

Analogous to this gift, in the permanent constitution
of the Church, is that operation of the Holy Spirit by
which the Sacraments and ordinances, administered by
lawful authority, are made means of conveying spiritual
blessings to the faithful recipient. Not that the effects
of the operation are visible, or wonderful, as in the
miracles of the natural world ; but that the operation
itself is in the same manner performed by the Holy
Ghost in conjunction with the ministerial act. The
effect is in the spiritual world, and therefore invisible.

These two gifts, that of teaching (with the possession
of Holy Scripture) and that of administering the Sacra-
ments and ordinances of Christianity, given to some
persons in the Church for the edification of the whole,

202 Threefold Graec of the Holy Trinity,

are the external means of influence of the Holy Spirit
upon the individual Christian, ordained for the purpose
of bringing him into union with other Christians, and
so building up the Church as the visible body of Christ.
But the grace of the Holy Spirit proper is internal and
direct upon the heart, and in large part given without
Sacraments and ordinances. To the consideration of
this we now address ourselves.

First. The Holy Spirit is the agent in working the
Regeneration of those who embrace the Christian
faith, — that is, of conveying to them the life-giving
grace of Christ treated of in the last chapter. The or-
dinary means of conveying this gift (as will be fully
proved in the next chapter) is by sacramental partici-
pation. The Holy Sacraments of Baptism and the
Lord's Supper were ordained, the one for the initial,
and the other for the continuous communication of the
grace of the Son. A collateral benefit of their faithful
reception is an enlarged measure of the Spirit's aid ; but
their principal intention has relation to the person of
Christ. Their efficacy, to that end, rests upon the will
of Christ, pledged in their institution and in the various
declarations of Holy Scripture concerning them ; and
that will is carried into effect by the operation of the
Holy Spirit in time and place with the ministerial act in
which the outward form of the Sacrament consists. It
is this operation, which we said was the analogue in the
permanent constitution of the Church, of the "gift of
miracles." As the Holy Spirit was the agent in uniting
the humanity and the Divinity of our Lord, so in Bap-
tism He works in the faithful recipient that union with
the Redeemer, by which the life of Christ is made his.

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 203

with the benefits and blessings it confers. In the
Lord's Supper, also, the Holy Spirit operates to confer
the spiritual sustenance and increase of the Divine
life which our Saviour Himself calls "His body and
blood." Hence, in the Nicene Creed, we profess Him
to be "the Giver of Life." The Scripture proof rests
upon our Saviour's own words: "Except a man be
born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into
the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. "a
This connects clearly our Regeneration with the opera-
tion of the Spirit in Baptism. The same inference fol-
lows, with respect to the communication of the body
and blood of Christ in the Holy Communion, from the
close of our Saviour's discourse in the sixth chapter of
St. John, where, His disciples having missed the
spiritual sense of His words, He says: "It is the Spirit
that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing : the words
that I speak unto you, they are Spirit and they are
life," — intimating (whatever may be the precise exe-
gesis of the words) that that Divine food of the soul is
communicated by the Holy Spirit, and spiritually re-
ceived.

Now in the case of infants who are brought to the
Sacrament of Regeneration before they have committed
actual sin, there is no bar to the communication of the
grace of Christ ; that unconsciousness which prevents
sinful deeds renders repentance and the active exer-
cise of faith unnecessary, as it renders them impossible.
Their regeneration, therefore, is the first operation of

a John, iii. 5, 6.

204 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

the Holy Spirit, and His subsequent action upon their
souls is directed to preserve them in life, and build
them up upon the foundation already laid.

But in those who have grown up to years of maturity
unregenerate, and are therefore stained with the guilt
of actual sin, there must be wrought that sorrow for sin,
that repugnance to it, that disposition and determina-
tion to put it away, that appreciation of and endeavor
after holiness, that desire and will to return unto God
by Christ, "the way, the truth, and the life," which
will inspire them to seek and enable them to approach
the Sacrament in a receptive state of .the soul ; other-
wise their sin interposes a bar to its efficacy. Man
cannot produce in himself this repentance and faith
without aid from on high ; and therefore the prevenient
grace of the Holy Spirit is given to convict and convert
him. By submission and obedience to His influence
man is brought into the right spiritual state to receive
the gift of regeneration.

While the grace of the Son, then, is, as we said in
the last chapter, of voluntary reception (except in the
case noted above of infant regeneration), and therefore
sacramental, since Sacraments are the acts by which
God gives and man takes, — the prevenient grace of the
Holy Spirit is extra-sacramental and involuntary; be-
cause it is the initial step in man's restoration, which
must originate with God. Its object is to enable us
"to will and to do according to God's good pleasure"
— to will, as well as to do ; and therefore it is given
antecedent to any religious exercise of the will of man.
Man may voluntarily follow or resist the grace of the
Holy Spirit after it is received ; but it is not voluntary

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 205

with him whether he shall receive it ; otherwise the
will so to do would be of his own strength, and he
could originate in himself the good will which would
dispose him to its reception. He can receive, volun-
tarily, the grace of Christ, because the Holy Spirit pre-
disposes his will; but there is no predisposing grace
before that of the Spirit, and therefore its reception is
involuntary. That it is so, Scripture testimony is clear.
It is true, St. Paul says in one place, "I know that in
me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing ; for to
will is present with me, but how to perform that which
is good I know not;"3 but here he is speaking of the
man as under the influence of the Spirit, and his asser-
tion of the presence of a will to do what the natural
man lacks power to accomplish, is predicated upon that
influence. Under it, the state of the natural man is
thus described in the Epistle to the Galatians: "The
flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the
flesh ; and these are contrary the one to the other, so
that ye cannot do the things that ye would. ' 'b Such texts
are not contrary to the reasoning by which the Apostle
enforces the advice: "Work out your own salvation
with fear and trembling" — "for," he proceeds, "it is
God which worketh in you both to will and to do of
His good pleasure." And although this is said to regen-
erate Christians, it is true a fortiori of all others ; for if
God's help is necessary that Christians should will the
good, much more is that help necessary for the unre-
generate ; if nature in the one is not renewed so as to
do or to will that which is right of its own power, cer-

a Rom. vii. 18. b Gal. v. 17.

18*

2o6 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

tainly neither the act nor the will is in the power of
nature unrenewed. When God was about to destroy
the world by the flood, we read that He said, "My
Spirit shall not always strive with man," from which it
is to be inferred that the Spirit had striven with him
hitherto. So our Lord, making promise to His disci-
ples of the Comforter/tells them, "When He is come,
He will reprove [or convict] the world of sin, of right-
eousness, and of judgment," referring to that exercise
of Divine grace which operates upon the world (as dis-
tinguished from the Church, and therefore as unregen-
erate), to open its heart to the Gospel, or to leave it
without excuse. And the Apostle to the same effect :
"By grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not
of yourselves: it is the gift of God;"a and again:
"Through Christ we both (that is, Jew and Gentile)
have access by one Spirit to the Father ;"b and more
particularly in the first Epistle to the Corinthians : .
"Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto
these dumb idols, even as ye were led. Wherefore I
give you to understand, that no man speaking by
the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed : and that no
man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy
Ghost. "c The confession of Christ is a necessary con-
dition precedent to admission into the Church ; and
therefore the grace of the Holy Spirit is given before-
hand to enable men to exercise faith. Indeed, though
the mass of New Testament teaching respecting the
grace of the Holy Ghost is directed to inform Chris-
tians of their blessedness in Him, being regenerate, so

a Eph. ii. 8. b Eph. ii. 18. <= I. Cor. xii. 2, 3.

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 207

that it is difficult to produce passages bearing imme-
diately upon the present subject, yet the argument is all
the stronger; for if Christians who have received the
grace of the Son need also the grace of the Spirit,
those who are unregenerate need that grace to produce
in them the motions towards virtue and religion.

The Holy Spirit, therefore, is the author of conver-
sion, producing repentance and faith in those who
come to their regeneration after having committed ac-
tual sin. The reader will remember that faith and re-
pentance were said to be acts, or rather different parts
of one and the same complex act, — not mere emotions
or impressions ; and that, as acts, they implied a motive
in the heart, a perception in the mind, and an effort
of the will, terminating in the performance of the deed
or deeds required. The motives to repentance and
faith are : fear of the consequences of sin, hatred of
sin itself as repugnant to the law of God, desire after
good, love of God, gratitude to the Saviour, hope of
attaining heaven. The mental element is knowledge
of the Gospel. The effort of the will is to forsake
sin, to receive the sacrament of regeneration, to per-
form all good and right actions. The Holy Spirit is a
Helper in each part of the act ; His influence, there-
fore, is exerted on the mind, the heart, and the will,
giving each the power and the conditions necessary to
enable it to perform its religious functions.

The will (it was also said) is defective, — partly by a
loss of its own power, and partly by its connection
with the other fallen faculties of our nature. Without
right perceptions in the mind, without right desires,
affections, and motives in- the heart, it cannot act

208 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

rightly, even if it possessed the necessary power to
carry its resolves into effect, because it could not form
the right resolves. But in addition to this fault of
association, it is itself weakened by the fall, so that
the lower parts and passions of our nature, which it
ought to hold under control, are naturally unruly and
insubordinate. The influence of the Holy Spirit in
adding power to the will as weakened in itself, so as
to enable it more and more fully to act up to the law
of God, I conceive to be sacramental — the communi-
cation of the life of Christ/ which, being received
efficaciously, enables the soul to grow up into the con-
dition and power it lost at the fall, by a gradual in-
crease through life perfected at the resurrection. His
influence on the faculties auxiliary to the will I con-
ceive to be, on the mind, external; on the heart (in
which, in accordance with the Scripture use of the
word, I include the conscience), internal and im-
mediate.

The sacramental operation has been spoken of. So
far as the will depends upon it the repentance and
faith preceding regeneration is defective, and but pre-
paratory to a better state. The two operations of
Divine grace now claiming attention are, therefore,
the external and the internal.

One part of the external work of the Spirit in in-
ducing faith and repentance in the unregenerate is per-
formed by the revelation of the Law and the Gospel,

a Hence the religion of those denominations which deny the
virtue of the Sacraments is observed to be emotional, resting in
the excitable parts of the nature, not in the will, and therefore
not steady and constant.

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 209

through the teaching of the ministry, and the giving
of the Holy Scripture which He inspired. By this
means He sets before the mind the facts and laws of
truth and righteousness, reveals the Saviour, and the
way to come to God by Him. "Faith cometh by
hearing," says the Apostle; and so does Repentance,
— for it will be admitted that to be real and valid re-
pentance it must be actuated according to the Gospel,
and therefore infers a knowledge of the Gospel. It is
not to be denied, indeed, that heathen have had per-
ceptions of the law of nature, and feelings of self-con-
demnation because they could not keep it; but true
repentance, in the Gospel sense, implies more than
this, — it implies a knowledge of sin which Scripture
alone, or teaching founded on Scripture, can give.
"The Word," says St. John, "was in the world, and
the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him
not." The reason and conscience of man, apart from
revelation, even though we admit him to be inwardly
gifted with that measure of the Holy Spirit's grace
given to the unregenerate, are so imperfect that whole
communities are habitually addicted, without com-
punction, to their particular sins; and there is proba-
bly no sin condemned in Scripture which has not been
approved and openly practiced by some community or
other among the heathen. We depend upon God's
word for the mental element in repentance and faith ;
and therefore Holy Scripture and the gift of teaching
granted to the ministry are operations of the Holy
Spirit for the conversion of the world.

The other external means of influence is the Holy
Spirit's use of the circumstances of our life, the provi-

210 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

dential disposition of our temporal and social con-
dition, and of the occurrences which happen around us,
to awaken us to the truth. It is in vain to attempt a
classification of the means and modes in and by which
these circumstances are made instrumental in working
conviction and conversion. "The wind bloweth
where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof,
but canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it
goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit."*
All God's influence in nature and society is an act of
Divine grace upon the soul, the end of which is our
salvation. Besides the modifications of circumstances
themselves by Divine Providence, the aspects which
they are made to present are adapted by Divine grace
to our moral and spiritual state. They influence us
not only as they are in themselves, but as we are per-
mitted to behold them. The same event is differently
viewed by different men ; and as circumstances strike
upon us at different angles, or range themselves around
us in different combinations, it is not to be doubted
that our perceptions of them are arranged by the Di-
vine Spirit, so as to forward our discipline in our state
of probation. One man sees a way open in a certain
situation which another does not observe; they are
conscious of different possibilities, they discover dif-

a The precise force of the Greek can scarcely be expressed in
English, because we have no word combining the two senses of
the Greek Trvevpa. Our Saviour not only expressed a truth, but
illustrated it by an analogy, combining the force of these two
sentences : " The wind bloweth, etc.; so is that which is produced
of the wind," and "The Spirit breatheth (nvti), etc.; so is every
one that is born of the Spirit."

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 211

ferent connections, some missing of one and some of
another. Hence the varieties of spiritual experience
are as numerous as the individuals in the world. Some
men are led to God by observation of the works of
nature, some by the orderly influences of the society
in which they are placed, some are awakened by spe-
cial circumstances, — an accident (as it is called), an
escape from death, the loss of friends, the influence of
times of special religious interest, intercourse with re-
ligious people, solitary hours, — all things are made
means, by the Holy Spirit, of impressing our souls,
weaning us from the world, and setting our thoughts
on our religious calling and duty, thus becoming ex-
ternal auxiliaries to the Gospel.

The i?iternal influence of the Holy Spirit He exerts
directly upon the heart itself, developing the affections,
the conscience, the sense of sin, the holy desires by
which man is enabled to accept the Gospel and seek
the Regeneration. The motives on which we adopt
any line of conduct, the possibility or feasibility of
which is perceived, are drawn from the fears, or desires,
or affections, or principles of the heart. Of the infinite
multitude of facts set before us by our perceptions, we
select as important and of practical interest those only
with which we have an affinity, by reason of some de-
sire or affection tending that way ; others are passed by
as irrelevant and without interest, and are not recalled.
The Gospel is presented under this law of human nature.
If man were to hear it without any affection or desire
towards it, without any motive in the heart urging him
to adopt it, it would have no more effect upon him than
a fiction, — he would never follow it. The truths that

212 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

enter the soul through the mind are photographed (so
to speak) upon the background of the heart, and those
lines and colors only are fixed with which the heart has
an affinity. Conscience and feeling, and good and bad
affections, are in every picture, and, as they are, so is
the picture. The will stands as spectator, not of the
reality without, but of the transcript within, and from
it makes the choice which way the man shall go. A
holy and pure heart will color the world with the hues
of heaven, and enable us to see the means and oppor-
tunities of right action in all things and in all situa-
tions ; the unholy and impure heart will shadow the
picture with its own gloom, and lust, and selfishness.

Now, left to itself, the natural heart has nothing holy
or heavenly within it, and therefore no affinity with
the holy and the heavenly in what is set before the
mind. The spiritual affections are torpid, dormant,
dead. Hence, were there no internal grace, the heart
would have no affinity for the Gospel, it would make
no impression upon it, — it would appeal to the will upon
no motive; neither its promises nor its threatenings
would have any weight, and the will would turn away
from it to follow the things the heart lusted after in
the world. To Overcome this natural deadness to
spiritual things, and to implant again, or develop the
latent germs of the holy and heavenly affections which
are the acceptable motives to repentance and faith, to
arouse the conscience, and so give man an aptitude for
the Gospel, the Holy Spirit exerts His influence di-
rectly and internally upon the heart. With the effectual
preaching of the word, and with the providential use
of circumstances to enforce reflection and conviction,

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 213

an inward grace and operation upon the soul is wrought,
calling forth into activity the conscience and the spir-
itual affections, and thus enabling the man, who other-
wise would be unable, to repent and believe, and seek
the gift of the new life. Yielding himself to these in-
fluences, he receives a new view of his present condi-
tion and past conduct, his conscience is roused to
activity and bears witness against him, his higher
affections seek after good and God and Christ, he
forsakes and renounces the evil he has heretofore fol-
lowed, and by this means is made a capable recipient
of the Sacrament of regeneration.

The Spirit's influence upon the heart, then, is di-
rected to arouse in it the love of God, and of good,
and by this means to create an affinity for the Gospel,
and induce that " godly sorrow which worketh repent-
ance to salvation not to be repented of," and that
" faith which worketh by love. "a For only a repent-
ance and faith, actuated by the love of God, is valid
and real, and acceptable with Him. Fear of the pun-
ishment of sin, I suppose, might be wrought in the soul
by the preaching of the word without internal grace ;
but under this motive alone, there would be no real re-
pentance, no contrition, no forsaking and hating of sin,
as sin, no faith but that of the devils, who, without any
grace at all, "believe and tremble." Fear is and
must be an ingredient in repentance, and doubtless is,
in many cases, the most powerful and the prime mover
in the conviction of the sinner ; and the attempts at
reformation which it causes may, by the mercy of God,

a II. Cor. vii. 10.

19

214 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

have the effect of opening the heart to the influence of
the Spirit, which infuses the higher principle of love,
both to define sin, and to show its vileness. But that
fear, in all actual cases which result in conversion, is
always a collateral effect of the grace of the Spirit ; it
cannot be an element of progress unless it be allied with
hope, and hope follows from a persuasion of the good-
ness and mercy of God in Christ that cannot exist
without calling out love, and which has love for the
foundation of the belief in its possibility. The con-
science, witnessing of guilt, if untouched by love (as
we may see by the dealings of man with man), works
rather hatred of the being against whom we have
sinned ; whereas, let there be love in the heart, there
is genuine and sincere repentance and self-accusation.
It is this love which is the foundation of true " godly
sorrow" for sin, of endeavors after a holy life, of living
faith and trust, of the right fear of God, and of all
Christian progress ; and this love it is the object of the
internal grace of the Holy Spirit to produce.

In speaking thus of the internal influence of the
Spirit as exerted on the heart ; of the external as
directed to inform the mind ; and of the sacramental
operation as giving back, in measure and degree, the
lost power to the will, I do not wish to be understood
as denying that each faculty receives benefit from each
operation. The soul, in truth, is one and indivisible,
whole in every part; and therefore whatever influence
is exerted upon it by Divine grace is exerted upon all
the faculties, or rather upon the soul itself in all its
functions; for those which we call faculties are but
functions of the soul. To speak of the heart, or the

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 215

mind, or the will as a faculty, is not to assert that each
is a separate division of the soul, but that each is the
soul itself in different relations. They are no more
separable from each other than are length, breadth,
and thickness in space. The heart is the soul itself in
relation with things to be desired or shunned ; the
mind is the soul itself in relation with things to be
perceived ; the will is the soul itself in that relation in
which deeds are to be done. As the three dimensions
of space everywhere interpenetrate, and there is no
position in length which has not position in breadth
and thickness, so these three functions everywhere
interpenetrate, — each is in all and all in each. The
simplest exercise of the mind, attention, whether ob-
servant or recollective, has in it, however uncon-
sciously, a desire of the heart, and an effort of the
will. And as it is with the soul actively, so it is with
it passively. Hence, when the Divine Spirit exerts
His influence upon it, in whatever way, He touches
all alike, — He touches the soul itself, the one indivisi-
ble essence, and therefore excites and exalts every fac-
ulty. But as the grace is diversely exhibited, it has
relation to one and another function or faculty, in de-
veloping which it chiefly acts, acting on the other sub-
ordinate^. Thus, while the external grace influences
the heart by giving it the object without which the
internal grace would excite only a blind and aimless
instinct of affection, its principal relation is to the soul
as perceptive and knowing; and so, also, while the
internal grace operates upon the mind, quickening it
to attend to and receive the external presentations of
the Word, its principal effect is to arouse the soul to
the love of things divine; and, in like manner, while

216 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

the sacramental communication of the life of Christ is
to restore, as far as may be, what Adam lost of all
spiritual power, both of heart and mind, as well as of
will, yet as this power works outwardly principally in
Christian acts, it is rightly assigned chiefly to the will.
The results, the phenomena are apparent in these rela-
tions ; by them, therefore, we have made the division
necessary in treating the parts of the subject in consecu-
tive order.

In further prosecuting the inquiry respecting the
grace of the Holy Spirit as given to the regenerate,
we meet the question : What are the respective spheres
and what is the mutual connection of the grace of the
Son and that of the Spirit, both being possessed by the
child of God?

And first it may seem to require explanation how —
if the communication of the grace of the Son is, as we
have said, the regeneration of the Christian, that is,
the true beginning of his spiritual life — how the soul
can be the recipient of spiritual influence before it is
thus spiritually alive — how it possesses the capacity,
under the grace of the Spirit, of repenting and believ-
ing, while yet unregenerate, and therefore dead. The
explanation is the more necessary because the want of
it is the foundation of that popular misconception
which confounds conversion with regeneration, and
both with the renewal and sanctification of the Chris-
tian believer. The three things are, in truth, distinct :
Conversion is the term appropriated in Holy Scrip-
ture3 to denote a turning to obey the prevenient grace

a In the form of the verb; the noun, I believe, does not occur
except in Acts, xv. 3.

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 217

of the Holy Spirit from a former life of sin ; Regener-
ation is the communication of the life of Christ in the
Sacrament, to which conversion (in the adult) is pre-
paratory; and Renewal or Sanctification is the subse-
quent growth into complete holiness. That the last is
the act denoted by renewal is plain from the admo-
nition of St. Paul, several times repeated in other
forms, and addressed, it is important to observe, to re-
generate Christians : "Be renewed in the spirit of your
mind ; and . . . put on the new man, which, after
God, is created in righteousness and true holiness. "a

The difficulty arises from pressing the metaphor of
life and death, which the Scripture applies to the
spiritual state of man, as if it were taken from the
physical condition, with the heathen opposition of ex-
istence and non-existence. The description of the
state of the Christian as a spiritual life has for its cor-
relative idea that the natural man is in a state of death ;
and this is directly "asserted by St. Paul in several
places, as in the fifth chapter of Romans, "If through
the offence of one, the many be dead, "b etc.; in the
fifth chapter of II. Corinthians, "We thus judge that
if one died for all, then were all dead;"c and in the
second chapter of Ephesians, "You hath He quick-
ened, who were dead in trespasses and sins."d But
the use of the word "dead" does not amount to a de-
claration of annihilation, or total paralysis of the spir-
itual powers of man ; but it rather implies that total
separation from the kingdom and family of God, which
is wrought by innate unrighteousness. It is easy of

a Eph. iv. 23, 24. bRom. v. 15. c II. Cor. v. 14. d Eph. ii. I.
19*

218 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

verification by any one who will look, with the help of
his concordance, over the passages in which the Apostle
speaks of natural death, that he does not give the word
the heathen meaning of dissolution, even as referred to
the body ; but, viewing it in the light of the Christian
faith in immortality and the resurrection, he contem-
plates it as another state of existence — a state of sepa-
ration from that world in which the man existed while
a tenant of the body — another sphere in which the dead
are as truly existent as are the living in this. From this
point of view he transfers the word to the mysteries of
religion. Death and life, therefore, are terms of oppo-
sition, describing states which exclude each other, in
the former of which, existence is as real as in the latter,
the application of either term to either member of the
opposition being determined by the relation to the
other of the party spoken of. Hence the Apostle's
apparent indifference in calling either a state of death
or life. The unregenerate are "dead in sin," as being
in a state of separation from the kingdom of God, and
under the dominion of the devil, heirs by nature of that
punishment which is called eternal death. Christians
are "dead with Christ," being by their membership in
the Church, separate from the world. Indeed, Chris-
tians are more often said to be dead, in relation to the
world, than sinners in relation to God — thus marking
more plainly the Apostle's sense to be "existence in
separation"— life in another sphere — a relative, not a
real dissolution — as the meaning of the word.

But if the man exists, while thus spiritually dead —
especially if he exists with a capacity to be restored —
it is evident he must possess the essential qualities

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 219

and necessary faculties and powers, however weakened
and debased, without which his soul would no longer
be a spiritual nature. These faculties may be weak-
ened and shrivelled up, and what remains of them may
lie torpid and dormant, but they are there ; and there-
fore, according to the measure of existence which
remains in them, they are capable of responding to
the Divine grace. At the same time it cannot be
doubted that in the application of the figure of death to
express the state of the sinner, there is reference to the
loss which his spiritual nature has sustained by original
sin. There is an evident discrimination of the means
which define the separation from the worlds respect-
ively of righteousness and of sin. The Christian is
dead to the world, because he is possessed of a higher
hidden life, in which the world has no share ; the sin-
ner, on the other hand, is dead in sin because of the
depravation and degradation of his spiritual powers,
consequent upon the fall; he is thrown out of relation
to the kingdom of God, by inherent inability to work
righteousness according to God's law. Hence his state
of spiritual death is defined by these two facts, that he
still exists as a spiritual nature, possessing all the essential
powers and faculties of a soul ; but that all those facul-
ties are weakened and depraved by sin. As possessed
of these powers and faculties, however, he has a ca-
pacity, while unregenerate, of being acted upon by the
Spirit of God, — a capacity, not only of receiving the
regeneration, but of receiving and answering to those
impulses of grace which are preparatory to the regener-
ation ; just as the souls of the dead, though unable by
their own power to reassume their bodies, have a

220 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

capacity of receiving the Divine impulse which will call
them forth clothed with bodies at the Resurrection.

Here, however, is the distinction between the re-
sponse to the Divine grace in the state of death and
the state of life. Just as we must suppose the dead,
while without the body, to be capable of some of the
acts of life, as consciousness, thought, the communica-
tion of ideas with each other, and yet to lead a maimed,
imperfect existence, bereft of the natural power of the
united soul and body: so the soul of the man dead in
sin, though to some extent responsive to the Spirit's
influence, answers to it in a maimed, imperfect, power-
less way, incapable of that steady, continuous righteous-
ness which God requires. Nor is it capable of sustain-
ing the weight of the Divine impulse, and the blaze of
the Divine light, in such measure as is granted to the
holy after regeneration. It must receive an inward
strength, a reorganization of its substance (so to speak),
to be enabled to respond perfectly to the motions of
grace. The owl's eye must be made the eagle's, the
strength of the shadow of Hades must be made that of
the new man of the resurrection, by a new birth. It
needs, therefore, for continuous holiness, besides the
Divine impulse upo?i it, the replanting of the lost
strength in the soul, the communication of the power
to bear that influence. Hence the possession of the
grace of the Spirit by the regenerate is called His "in-
dwelling"— a closer personal presence than is granted
to the unregenerate, to whom this term is never applied j
and consequently, conversion is an event of far less
magnitude than the subsequent renewal or sanctifica-
tion; while regeneration stands between the two, as

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 221

the restoration from the glorified Divine humanity of
Christ our Lord, of that life and power which enables
the converted sinner to "go on to perfection." Not,
indeed, that all the "infection of nature" is removed
by this gift ; but that the grace of Christ enables the
soul, under the influence of the Spirit, to overcome it,
and live no longer to the flesh, but to God.

We may see from this discussion what are the respec-
tive spheres of operation of the grace of the Son, and
the grace of the Spirit. The grace of the Son in the
soul operates in its inmost nature, is directed to restore
it in its essence which underlies all the phenomena of
its activity ; while the operations of the grace of the
Spirit is upon the soul, directed to elicit the spiritual
phenomena, and to call forth into action the qualities
it possesses as a spiritual being, whether in its unregen-
erate or its regenerate estate. The grace of the Spirit
acts upon it as a breath from above, stimulating and
exciting its powers, as the pure air stimulates and in-
vigorates the bodily organs ; the grace of the Son en-
ters into the soul and reconstitutes it, as bread and
wine enter into and reconstitute the wasting body.
The one acts within the soul, the other acts upon it.

And this, so far as relates to the grace of the Son, I
conceive to be the sense of Hooker in this passage
(before quoted) : ' ' The person of Adam is not in us,
but his nature, and the corruption of that nature de-
rived into all men by propagation; Christ, having
Adam's nature, as we have, but incorrupt, deriveth
not nature, but incorruption, and that ijnmediately from
His own person into all that belong to Him." This
view is confirmed, and at the same time guarded, by

222 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

another passage on a succeeding page: "His Church,
and every member thereof, is in Him by original deri-
vation, and He personally in them by way of mystical
association wrought through the gift of the Holy Ghost,
which they that are His receive from Him, and to-
gether with the same [gift] what benefit soever the vital
force of His body and blood may yield; yea, by steps and
degrees they receive the complete measure of all such
Divine grace as doth sanctify and save throughout till
the day of their final exaltation to a state of fellowship
in glory with Him whose partakers they now are in
those things that tend to glory. As for any mixture of
the substance of His flesh with ours, the participation
which we have of Christ includeth no such kind of gross
surmise. ' '

At this point the reason will be observed for the
statement made in the last chapter that the grace of
the Son, as "the Life" is, like all other of His grace,
a derivative from Him as now existing in the two
natures, Divine and human. It is needless to remark
that the last sentence in the preceding paragraph is
directed against the Romish figment of transubstantia-
tion — a notion as gross and low in divinity as it is
absurd and baseless in philosophy. If the substance of
the flesh of Christ entered into ours, it would not, as
such, be in us that "life" which His grace is said to
be. But it has pleased God that the reparation of
the loss which our nature sustained at the fall should
be derived from Him, the Redeemer; and therefore
that His grace should be given to humanity after the
analogy of the derivation of life from man to man.
"For as in Adam all die [that is, are born in the

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 223

natural state subject to death], even sq in Christ shall
all be made alive." Hence this economy implies a
derivation of grace from Him as man to us as men;
from His humanity, purified and glorified, to our cor-
rupt and fallen humanity. And this is the reason that
we are said to be " members of His body, of His flesh,
and of His bones," vivified by His life, as His own
body is. What is the mode in which the regeneration
is wrought we do not know. The gift and the man-
ner of its communication are transcendent mysteries.
The means by which it is communicated and the reality
of the operation are made known to us in Holy Scrip-
ture ; but the manner how is as mysterious and impene-
trable to human thought as the mystery of His birth,
of His Resurrection and Ascension. That a vital
power is given by Him to the regenerate, through the
operation of the Spirit in regeneration, the result of
which is a "new birth," a "new creation," — this is
certain ; more than this is no subject of speculation to
the devout and humble Christian.

While the grace of the Son, as "Life," however,
works that change in the substance and essence of the
regenerate, which underlies the phenomena of con-
sciousness, the grace of the Holy Spirit, it is next to
be observed, is connected more consciously with the
phenomena themselves of the religious life. We are
conscious of the effects of the one, while we are not
immediately conscious of the effects of the other.

The substance and the phenomena being distin-
guished, that which works in the substance can reveal
itself to the consciousness only in the intuition of sub-
stance, while that which elicits the phenomena will

224 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

manifest itself by the phenomena. But the soul is only
conscious of itself as substance in the affirmation of
its indivisible unity, as the ego which, as an idea, is in-
capable of intensive or extensive increase or diminu-
tion ; and this being the full expression of the soul's
substantial existence, it cannot go back to what enters
into and underlies this consciousness, — to what brought
it into being and makes it what it is from time to time.
It cannot get behind the affirmation, "I am;" and
there is no combination of facts in that affirmation,
the analysis of which will tell it what lies behind it.
Whatever faculty or power of the soul is in activity, it
presents to the consciousness but the one intuition of
an existing substance, which is the subject of that ac-
tivity, and of which that activity is the phenomenon.
The intuition of self-consciousness is the same precisely
in its affirmation of myself whether I say, "I love,"
"I hope," "I believe," "I think," or "I act." How
the various powers whose acts are expressed by these
words coexist in the indivisible unity of myself as re-
vealed to my consciousness, I am ignorant. I can gain
no intuition of them. In other words, what powers or
faculties underlie the affirmation of being are concealed
from direct consciousness. And therefore, a fortiori,
that Divine grace of the Son which lies still deeper
than these powers, operating, as it were, from under-
neath to revivify and regenerate, must operate uncon-
sciously. Its results may be apparent at last in the
magnified phenomena of the soul's active life ; but
itself is contained in the affirmation of substance, "I
am," which suffers neither increase nor diminution,
whether I am equal to an atom or to a world ; whether

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 225

the spiritual life is that of the babe or of the strong
man in Christ.

Underneath this simple consciousness of an indivisi-
ble entity lie, it is not to be doubted, powers and facul-
ties, or attributes of the soul, which are the subjective
elements of the phenomena that reveal themselves to
that entity. But the phenomena themselves, whether
affections, or thoughts, or intuitions, or sensations,
whether moral or mental, cannot be produced by their
own self-activity ; they are dependent upon influences
from without, and the consciousness of the diverse
powers is all contained in the consciousness of the phe-
nomena, as phenomena, and therefore as distinguished
from self. The phenomena of the soul's regenerate
active life, therefore, as objects of spiritual experience,
testify rather of the influence brought to bear- from
without itself than of that which takes place within its
substance ; they testify of the grace of the Holy Spirit
upon the soul. That I exist is the testimony of con-
sciousness to my substantial being ; that I love, that I
hope, that I believe, that I think and act is the testi-
mony of consciousness to the phenomena supervening
upon my substantial existence — inferring within me,
indeed, the powers, or faculties, or capabilities of love,
hope, faith, thought, action ; but implying also another
influence besides myself, acting upon me, and always
referred by consciousness to that influence. Outside
of the phenomena, I am not conscious of the powers or
faculties they suppose, as I am, or conceive myself to
be, of my existence ; those powers never reveal them-
selves immediately to my consciousness as my exist-
ence does ; I can in thought separate from myself not

226 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

only the phenomena but the powers, but I cannot
separate from myself in thought, my existence ; I do
not separate the " I " which loves from the ' ' I " which
believes; but I do separate the "I" which loves from
the love which I feel. Hence the internal phenomena
of the soul are always, in immediate consciousness, con-
templated on their objective side and in their objective
relations. Under this law, therefore, the phenomena
of the spiritual life are naturally referred to the grace
which operates upon us, rather than to that which
operates within us; for it is in more immediate con-
nection with the grace of the Spirit than with the
grace of the Son. There is a love-faculty and a faith-
faculty, as well as a love-phenomenon and a faith-phe-
nomenon ; but the grace which is more immediately
concerned with the production of the phenomenon will
in ordinary thought be counted its cause, rather than
that whose operation is in the faculty, — whose imme-
diate effect is unconscious, and of which the result is
not apparent till the third or fourth remove. In this
sense, then, it is to be understood that the grace of
the Son is substantial and the grace of the Spirit
phenomenal.

These remarks are valuable, chiefly as showing us
the grounds on which in Holy Scripture the graces
which are in one view an outgrowth of the life derived
from our Saviour, are more immediately referred to the
grace of the blessed Spirit as produced by His imme-
diate influence on the regenerate nature. Thus, St.
Paul tells the Galatians : "The fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness,
faith, meekness, temperance." And so our Saviour

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 227

promised Him to be a "Comforter" to His disciples,
bringing forth in them the joy, and hope, and peace in
believing, which is the source of the Christian's satis-
faction in the Gospel. These passages, and such as
these, are not contrary to the doctrine of the grace of
the Son ; but they add to it that of the grace of the
Spirit.

In this manner, also, is explained that view of the
grace of the Spirit, according to which it is opposed to
"the flesh," as a ruling principle of the active life.
For this opposition supposes this grace to operate upon
the soul, as a force from without, in the same manner
as "the flesh" does. For the flesh, although it is a
part of the complex being of the man as a whole, is ex-
ternal to the soul, in which the essence of his being
consists, and therefore operates upon it, in conveying
to it its own disorderly and unruly desires. It would
be manifestly less symmetrical in the analogy, there-
fore, to oppose to "the flesh" that grace whose opera-
tion is within the soul, a part of its very being, — where
the object is to draw attention to the Christian calling,
as implying obedience to the rule of a power con-
sciously distinct from itself. The soul is considered in
this relation as placed between two powers, of which
the one is the "flesh" or carnal nature, and the other
the "spirit" or the grace of the Holy Spirit; and
from the one or the other of these, and the emotions,
affections, or passions which are its fruits, the will
assumes the motive on which it acts. Thus St. Paul
exhorts the Galatian Christians: "Walk in the Spirit,
and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the
flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against

228 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

the flesh : and these are contrary, the one to the other ;
so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. "a Here
it is to be noted that "the Spirit" is not the natural de-
sires of the spiritual nature of man (as if the Apostle
were advancing some Manichean doctrine), but the
motions of the grace of the Holy Spirit in the soul ; and
that to "walk in the Spirit" is equivalent to the phrase
" to walk after the Spirit" in the eighth chapter of the
Epistle to the Romans, where the Apostle draws out
this opposition at great length: "There is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ
Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath
made me free from the law of sin and death. For
what the law could not do, in that it was weak through
the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of
sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in
us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of
the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of
the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death ; but
to be spiritually minded is life and peace. . . But ye
are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the
Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not
the- Spirit of Christ he is none of His. And if Christ
be in you, the body is dead because of sin ; but the
Spirit is life because of righteousness. . . Brethren,
we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.
For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye
through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ve

a Gal. v. 16, 17.

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 229

shall live." So to the Ephesians : "Be not drunk
with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the
Spirit ; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs."

The mutual relation, then, of the grace of the Son
and the grace of the Spirit is that of the seed and the
conditions of its growth. The heart is prepared to re-
ceive it by prevenient grace, working repentance and
faith; the good seed is then implanted in regeneration,
and after that the grace of the Spirit is as the air, and
heat, and light, and moisture, causing it to spring and
grow up, and bring forth fruit, — assimilating to itself in
the process all the powers and faculties of the nature
of man.

The carrying forward this process is called in Holy
Scripture renewing or sanctification, — renewing, as it
is the gradual assimilation of the disorganized elements
of our nature to the Divine seed implanted in us, and
their reorganization in the likeness of Christ ; sanctifi-
cation, as it is that restoration to holiness, that ad-
vancement of the consecration to God, that acceptable-
ness before Him which is the result of the inherency
and operation of Divine grace.

The words sanctification and renewal, however, are
not precisely equivalent ; because the former is used in
Holy Scripture in two senses, to denote (1) a consecra-
tion or separation of the person to God ; and (2) the
being made holy in heart and life, — in which last sense
it is the equivalent of "renewing." In the first sense,
sanctification is attributed to Christ, in the second to
the Holy Spirit. It may be well to verify this by an
examination of passages.

230 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

1. "Paul, . . . unto the Church of God which is
at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus,
called to be saints." This is the opening of the first
Epistle to the Corinthians, and the ground on which
they are said to be " sanctified" is evidently their bap-
tismal consecration. So, in the thirtieth verse of the
first chapter: " Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of
God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and
sanctification, and redemption," — which text, so far as
the present subject is concerned, may receive illustra-
tion from such passages as these: "Both He that sanc-
tifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one : for
which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren. "a
"Then said He, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.
. . . By the which will we are sanctified through the
offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. . . .
For by one offering He hath perfected forever them
that are sanctified."15 The connection of this sanctifi-
cation with baptism is seen again in Ephesians, v. 25,
26: " Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for
it ; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the
washing of water by the word, that He might present
it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or
wrinkle or any such thing ; but that it should be holy
and without blemish." In this passage, however, the
first sense passes over into the second, the Apostle
looking forward to the completion of the work of re-
demption in the glory of the Church triumphant. The
same combination of the two senses is evident also in
the following: "Know ye not that the unrighteous

a Heb. ii. II. b Heb. x. 10, 14.

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 231

shall not inherit the kingdom of God ? Be not de-
ceived : neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adul-
terers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with
mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards,
nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the king-
dom of God. And such were some of you: but ye
are washed [a reference to baptism], but ye are sanc-
tified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord
Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God."a

2. In the second sense in which the word is gen-
erally used in theology, it occurs in the following
places: I. Thes. iv. 3 : "This is the will of God, even
your sanctification." lb. v. 23: "The very God of
peace sanctify you wholly ; and I pray God your whole
spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." II. Thes. ii. 13 :
"God hath from the beginning chosen you to salva-
tion, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of
the truth." St. John, xvii. 17, 19: "Sanctify them
through thy truth: Thy Word is Truth." " For their
sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanc-
tified through the truth." These, with the exception
of Heb. x. 29 (in the same sense as Heb. x. 10, 14),
are all the passages in which the word "sanctify" or
" sanctification" is used in the New Testament with any
bearing on this subject. But the same root appears in
all the words translated ' ' holy, " " holiness, " " saints, ' '
etc., and the connection of our sanctification with the
Spirit is expressed in His very name, "the Holy Spirit. ' '

3. That our "renewal" is the same with our sancti-
fication, in the second sense, is plain, from the fact

a I. Cor. vi. 9-1 1.

232 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

that St. Paul exhorts those who are already Christians
to labor for it as not yet attained in its perfection.
This he does in such passages as the following: "I
beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of
God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service. And be not conformed to this world : but be
ye transformed by the renewing of your minds, that ye
may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and per-
fect will of God."a "This I say therefore, and tes-
tify in the Lord, . . . that ye put off concerning the
former conversation the old man, which is corrupt ac-
cording to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the
spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man,
which after God is created in righteousness and true
holiness."5 "Lie not one to another, seeing that ye
have put off the ,old man, with his deeds ; and have
put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge
after the image of Him that created him."c This ad-
monition recalls to the Colossian Christians their
Christian profession, and exhorts them to live up to it,
truly "putting on the new man" as they have pro-
fessed. These texts (the two first more particularly)
fix the meaning of that much-controverted one, Titus,
iii. 5: "Not by works of righteousness which we
have done, but according to His mercy He saved us,
by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the
Holy Ghost;" where the "washing of regeneration"
is the baptismal grace, and the " renewing of the Holy
Ghost" another and subsequent operation, carrying on

a Rom. xii. I, 2. b Eph. iv. 17, 22-24. c Col. iii. 9, 10.

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 233

the baptismal state to the perfection of the Christian
life.

The grace of the Holy Spirit in this relation is
named by theologians aiding, or assisting grace.

It is further to be observed that this grace is given
in larger measure, and with a more intimate and con-
stant presence of the Holy Spirit, as an endowment of
the estate of regeneration, — a presence which is called
the "indwelling" or constant abiding of the Spirit
with the accepted members of Christ. " I will pray
the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter,
that He may abide with you forever ; even the Spirit
of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it
seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him : but ye know
Him, for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you."a
So St. Peter, preaching to the multitude on the day of
Pentecost: "Repent, and be baptized every one of
you, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the
gift of the Holy Ghost ;"b where the increased meas-
ure of the Spirit's presence is connected with the sacra-
ment of initiation into the Church. "The love of
God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost,
which is given unto us."c " Ye are not in the flesh, but
in the Spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you.
Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, He is
none of His."d " Know ye not that ye are the temple
of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?"e
And many others to the same effect, all predicated upon
the membership of the' Church which is the body of
Christ.

a John, xiv. 16, 17. b Acts, ii. 38. c Rom. v. 5.

d Rom. viii. 9. e I. Cor. iii. 16.

234 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

The operation of the Spirit upon the regenerate,
therefore, is more powerful than upon the unregen-
erate, and reaches farther in its effects, producing in
the soul which is obedient to it, all the graces, com-
forts, hopes, joys, and works of the spiritual life. But
it is not necessary to understand that it differs in kind
from that before treated of. The altered relation of
the Christian to his Saviour changes the conditions of
reception ; the grace differs in degree, not in kind, —
just as the same air passing through the pipes of an
organ produces in one one sound and in another an-
other, according to its volume and velocity. Hence
the same division applies here which we before made
use of. The sacramental influence is realized in the
Holy Communion, conveying to the worthy recipient
the spiritual food of the body and blood of Christ
which that Sacrament was ordained to exhibit. The
external influence is as necessary to instruct the disci-
ple more fully in faith and duty as it was to awaken
him to the first knowledge of the Gospel; it enforces
the instruction and carries it home, by the constant
operations and special dispensations of Divine Provi-
dence, and bears upon him and moulds him to the
Christian pattern by the social organization of the
Church of which he is a member. By the internal
grace, the heart and conscience are cultivated and re-
newed, developing those holy affections, that devout
fear, that tender conscience, those manifold phenomena
of the heart which are all generalized under and con-
tained in the expression, " the love of God." Under
these influences in the regenerate state, the faith which
before the gift of the grace of Christ was but a pre-

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 235

paratory, imperfect, provisional faith, now becomes
" faith working by love;" repentance loses its need of
sorrow, and becomes the continual renunciation of sin,
the habitual purity of self-watchfulness, and the con-
stant holiness of a heavenly walk ; the act which pre-
vious to regeneration could reach no farther than the
Sacrament, becomes the communion with God in the
beauty of an acceptable life. And in this way the
grace of the Holy Spirit is the indispensable auxiliary
by which the inner life of Christ develops into the
outward life of the Christian.

The mediation between the grace of the Son and
the grace of the Spirit, however, is the will of the
Christian ; and therefore the actual results in the Chris-
tian life at any given time are complicated with the
imperfections of his obedience and also with the re-
mains of original sin. The theoretical beauty of the
Divine economy falls short of practical realization by
so much as the man has yielded to adverse influences
or suffered himself to be tempted to sin. "The infec-
tion of nature doth remain in the regenerate also," is
the language of the Church, and the experience of
every individual proves its truth. The tendency to
sin is only gradually overcome by earnest endeavors
after perfect obedience ; and therefore Christian im-
provement and sanctification is progressive, following
upon growing habits of well-doing, and corresponding
conquest over the motions and temptations of the flesh,
and its abettors, the world and the devil. Besides, the
Divine grace operates not to a compulsory, but to a free
obedience, and therefore leaves the will of the regen-
erate in a freedom which it is possible to abuse. Hence

236 Threefold Grace of the Holy Tri?iity.

it is not to be wondered at if the results are only par-
tially manifest in this world ; they were never intended
to be more perfect than is consistent with the designed
economy. Nor is it to be argued from the evil lives of
some who have received the Sacrament of regeneration,
that the doctrine fails by the test of experience, since
all the lapses and falls are fully accounted for by the
perversion of their freedom and neglect of their privi-
leges on the part of those who fall back into condem-
nation. The Christian standing of every one at any
given time is the result of the combined action of
grace and self; and since all actions have a reflex in-
fluence upon the agent, the acts of sin will operate to
freeze the heart against the germination of the seed of
life, and to render it unresponsive to the grace of the
Spirit ; while the acts of righteousness and obedience
will open the heart to those influences and accelerate
the growth of the ''tree of righteousness. "a

There is one effect of the grace of the Spirit which
has not yet been noticed, — the co-ordinating the mem-
bers of the Church into one body, so that each is edi-
fied by the other and all work in common. "By
one Spirit are we all baptized into one body."b This
is the work of the Spirit, because the Spirit is essen-
tially the love of God, which, being shed abroad in the
hearts of men, produces in us the love to our neigh-
bors. Thus, in the harmony of divine love, the pecu-
liarities of each individual character, subordinated to one
common principle, assign the different labors and posi-
tions to each member of God's Church — to one being

* Isaiah, lxi. 3. b I. Cor. xii. 13.

The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 237

given "the word of wisdom," to another "the word
of knowledge," — some being "Apostles," and some
"Evangelists," and some "pastors and teachers," —
the very imperfection of one member being balanced
by the imperfections of another ; the tendencies of one
in one direction being balanced by the opposite tend-
encies of another, and so, all co-operating to carry
on the work of the Church on every side, in complete
harmony and mutual subordination of part to part. He
who will study the influence of individual and national
intellectual tendencies in preserving the faith whole and
entire, as evidenced in the history of the Ecumenical
councils, will there see one illustration of the scriptural
representation of the one body having many members.
The other effects of the grace of the Spirit, the "com-
fort" of the Paraclete, the "helping our infirmities,"
the " witness with our spirits," the strength, and peace,
and joy, and whatsoever other fruits are brought forth
in the Christian heart, may easily be assigned their
places in the system of which the principles are here
developed. It is not needed to carry the inquiry any
farther. The effects are as various in manifestation as
individual men, and as manifold as the circumstances
of life ; and an attempt at a full classification would be
as presumptuous as impossible. Only, let it be remem-
bered, that though the grace of the Holy Spirit is
"extra-sacramental," yet it is given in increasing
measure, in prayer, in reading Holy Scripture, in pub-
lic worship, in all religious duties, and especially in the
Apostolic rite of confirmation, and that its withdrawal
is consequent upon the neglect of these means of grace
and upon continuance in sin.

CHAPTER V.

THE PLACE OF THE SACRAMENTS IN THE SYSTEM
OF GRACE.

T^HAT the grace of Christ, the Son, is of volun-
tary reception, is the ground of the institution of
the Holy Sacraments as parts of the Divine economy.
It remains, therefore, to assign them their place in that
economy.

It has been sufficiently shown in the preceding chap-
ters how the grace of the Son differs in respect of volun-
tary reception from the grace of the Spirit. The latter
being the prime mover in drawing man to the way of
life, operates upon the will before any exercise of its
activity. It is the condition by which he is able to ex-
ercise his will in the reception of Christ. It has for its
object, whether as prevenient or as assisting grace, to
free the enslaved will, to lead man to seek for and lay
hold upon the grace of Christ, and to prepare him for
its reception ; and therefore it must be given antece-
dently to, as well as together with every human act.
But the grace of the Son of God, being the gift offered
to the sinner to accomplish his redemption, is made of
voluntary acceptance, that his restoration may be
wrought under the conditions of his freedom as was his
fall. The one is a gift forced/ as it were, upon man,

a Gen. vi. 3. " And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always
strive with man."
(238)

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 239

though not so but that he can resist it ; the other is a gift
so offered that it may be freely appropriated. Hence,
while the internal grace of the Spirit is given without
as well as in means, the grace of Christ is imparted in
connection with certain acts appointed by our Lord,
which have the twofold design of being, on the one
hand, tests of the faith and obedience of the recipient,
and so. of his desire and endeavor after saving grace ;
and, on the other hand, of being seals and vessels of
that grace, conferring it upon him in time and place
determined by the acts. These acts are the two Sac-
raments of Baptism and the Holy Communion.

The Sacraments, then, have relation to the grace of
Christ, and are the appointed means of its communica-
tion. This is their distinctive use in the economy of
the Church. They are, in their primary intent, means
of applying the grace, not of the Spirit, but of the Son ;
though the possession of a larger measure of the grace
of the Spirit follows necessarily from being made par-
taker of the grace of Christ. In scholastic language,
the grace of the Spirit is an accidental, the grace of the
Son, the essential gift of the Sacrament. And the ground
of the institution of Sacraments is, as was said, that they
may be acts of voluntary performance, by which the
faithful recipient may take to himself this saving grace.

The proof that the Sacraments are thus related to
Christ is the language of Holy Scripture, which assigns
them this place. With respect to Baptism, we have
the words of St. Paul in the sixth chapter of the
Epistle to the Romans: " Know ye not, that so many
of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized
into His death ? Therefore we are buried with Him

240 Ttireefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

by baptism into death : that like as Christ was raised
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we
also should walk in newness of life." Here the idea
of union with Christ as the result of the Sacrament un-
derlies every expression. So also in I. Cor. xii. 12,
13 : "For as the body is one and hath many members,
and all the members of that one body, being many, are
one body; so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we
all baptized into one body ; . . . and have been all made
to drink into one Spirit." In this passage the three facts
are distinctly brought forward, that the Spirit is the
invisible agent in the Sacrament ; that our baptism
brings us into Christ's body — that is, makes us mem-
bers of Him, conveys to us the grace of His life, and
makes us thereby, as it were, " continuate with Him ;"a
and that, as a collateral benefit, we are given a larger
measure of the grace of the Spirit. But the whole text
turns on the similitude of the body, showing that our
union with Christ in the Sacrament is its principal end.
The same truth is evident in Galatians, iii. 27 : "For
as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have
put on Christ;" where, if the phrase "have put on
Christ" refers to the public profession made in bap-
tism, the other phrase, "baptized into Christ," most
certainly asserts the inward oneness of the grace of
union. The phraseology of the passage from Romans
is reproduced in Colossians, ii. 12: "Buried with Him
in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through
the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him
from the dead."

a Hooker, b. v. ch. lvi. 7.

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 241

In view of texts such as these, no difficulty need be
felt in regard to our Lord's statement to Nicodemus :
"Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he
cannot enter into the kingdom of God;"a nor in re-
gard to that of St. Peter: "Repent and be baptized in
the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and
ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. "b They
harmonize perfectly with the doctrine here delivered.
The one text declares the agent by whom the regenera-
tion is wrought ; the other, the enlarged measure of the
Spirit's presence consequent upon the regeneration.
But the regeneration itself consists in the communica-
tion of the grace of Christ, and our incorporation
thereby into His body.

That the Sacrament of Holy Communion has relation
to the grace of the Son is still more clear. It appears
in the words of institution: "Take, eat, this is my
body." " Drink ye all of this, for this is my blood."
"Do this in remembrance of me." The only other
passage in which the Holy Communion is openly men-
tioned in connection with the grace it conveys is, I.
Cor. x. xi., where, in the sixteenth verse of the former
chapter, St. Paul says : " The cup of blessing which we
bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ ?
The bread which we break, is it not the communion of
the body of Christ?" But we cannot doubt that this
appointment of the way in which the Divine gift is
granted was anticipated in the sixth chapter of St.
John's Gospel, which records our Lord's discourse in
the synagogue of Capernaum, respecting the eating of

a John, iii. 5. b Acts, ii. 38.

242 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

His flesh and the drinking of His blood. All these
passages connect the Sacrament specially and distinct-
ively with the grace of Christ.

A more profound reason, therefore, than appears at
first sight, underlies the decision of the Reformers,
when they rejected the Romish enumeration of seven
Sacraments and restricted the word to these two only.
If we seek for a definition more inward than they have
given us in the Church Catechism, we may say that
Sacraments are the outward and visible signs ordained
by Christ to convey His personal grace. Those acts,
such as confirmation, in which the grace of the Holy
Spirit is specially vouchsafed, we call rites, as not so
closely connected with the special grace of Christ.

The Sacraments having the twofold design of being
tests of faith and obedience, and seals and channels of
grace, have a corresponding twofold outward character.
They are acts of the administrator, and acts of the re-
cipient. The administrator stands on the part of
Christ; he is His "steward" and "ambassador," em-
powered to act on His behalf. Christ acts thus through
His minister in that which is visible, because by His
ascension into heaven He is Himself invisible. The
recipient acts in his own person. The Sacrament,
therefore, is of the nature of a covenant ratified openly
and visibly by the two parties, each attesting something
invisible. The minister, by Divine, authority, pledges
the invisible grace; the recipient, on his part, con-
fesses his faith and trust in Christ, and shows his pur-
pose of obedience to the law of God.

The force of the act of the administrator rests upon
the promise of Christ, pledging that He will honor the

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 243

commission by which His servant acts, with the aid of
His Spirit and the communication of grace. The
effect of the act being invisible, it is beheld by faith ;
it needs, therefore, the Divine promise that faith may
have a sure foundation. The formal promise of our
Saviour is preserved for us in the Gospels, in the com-
mission of His ministers, and the institution of the acts,
in the words by which they are commanded, and in
such expositions of their intention as the Apostles
afford in their inspired teachings. These last will
appear as occasion offers. The commission to baptize,
making baptism of universal necessity, is set down in
the words : " Go ye and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost. "a "He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not
shall be damned." The commission to administer the
Eucharist is contained in the words of institution,
spoken "in the night in which He was betrayed:"
"Take, eat, this is my body." " This is my blood of
the New Testament. " "Do this in remembrance of
me." These are assurances sufficient to the faithful
heart that Christ will honor the Sacrament with the
grace it is intended to convey.

Such an act, of course, is not necessary on the part of
Christ, so far as we can see, to enable Him to confer
the gift of grace, or to know the person on whom to
confer it. But if it be His purpose thus to confer it,
His promise limits to this way our hope of attaining it ;
just as His promise, attached to any other act, would

a Matt, xxviii. 19.

244 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

require us to perform it. And there does seem to be
need of such an act on man's part, if he is to receive
grace with consent and by seeking ; because the fact of
seeking consists in the performance of the prescribed
act with the faith that desires to attain the benefit. The
grace of the Sacrament is made to depend upon the
outward sign ; not because the Holy Spirit is under any
necessity of working by such means in this, any more
than in any other operation, but because man's pro-
bation under the Gospel is thus made more accordant
with his moral nature as a voluntary agent. Unless
there be an act, the element of human will necessary to
the restoration of man as a moral being is not present.
And, unless the act be one determined by Divine ap-
pointment, it does not declare the submission to God
of heart, and mind, and will, in which the restoration
consists. Hence the Sacrament is (as it were) the
clasped hands of the Saviour and the sinner, joined in
the covenant of grace. The administrator of the Sacra-
ment, and the Sacrament itself, 'are ordained for the
sake of the recipient. They pledge him to God, and
in return they pledge and convey the grace of Christ
to him.

Hence, on the part of the recipient, the act is in
form a receptive act. The intention being to obtain a
gift, the form of the transaction is such as to declare its
purpose. It is therefore the constant witness against any
notion of merit by reason of good works on the part of
him who receives it. It testifies that all we can do — all
works of penitence, of faith, of charity, of self-denial,
are all too little, and nothing worth, until over and
above them we have the imparted virtue of the atone-

Sacraments i?i the System of Grace. 245

ment of our Lord. The Christian who relies upon his
baptismal adoption into the family of God can do so
only because he trusts his Saviour and his Saviour's
word. Were it an act of great difficulty, or self-denial,
or great visible effect for good, it might be misappre-
hended. Were it an act of service instead of recep-
tion, it might obscure, to a mind not fully enlightened,
the truth that our salvation is the free gift of God in
Christ. But, consisting as it does in receiving simple
elements, administered with a simple rite, it obtains all
its value from the faith which rests upon the promise of
Christ. It is purely an act of faith. The more im-
plicit the faith, the more unreserved the trust, the
more exalted will be the sense of the transaction ; the
less faith and trust, the less importance will be attached
to it, — the infidel will have no motive to seek it.

Hence the objection which is sometimes urged against
the doctrine of the Sacraments — that it is unreasonable
that such momentous consequences should hang upon
transactions outwardly so insignificant — proves only
the want of faith of those who make it. If the body
of Naaman, the leper, could be healed by the Holy
Ghost after washing in the Jordan at the command of
a prophet, surely the soul of the sinner will be regener-
ated by the power of the same Holy Ghost on his
being washed in the laver of baptism at the command
of Christ Himself.

Every aspect of the act marks its fitness for the end
for which it is ordained. Being receptive and not en-
ergizing, it shows that saving grace is a received ben-
efit, a free gift of God ; being a simple act, it declares
the unreserved bounty of the Giver ; requiring sincere

246 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

repentance and faith and obedience to the command-
ments, as conditions precedent to its reception, and
being a free gift coming after these, it pledges the
Christian to personal holiness, while yet it testifies that
all our works fall short in themselves ; and finally, it is
a continual witness that we are accepted for the sole
merit of our blessed Redeemer, by whose commission
it is administered.

Baptism is the initial Sacrament. It is the Sacra-
ment of Regeneration, the beginning of the Christian
life. What goes before is the preparation of the crude
material of human nature, out of which the Christian
is to be made. Regeneration is, as has been already
much insisted on, the communication of life from
Christ our Lord, by the agency of the Holy Spirit, in
His sacramental operation, connected through the
promise of Christ with the administration of the out-
ward sign by His commissioned minister.

In its outward form, Baptisma is the application of

a To clear the language of theology from misapprehension, it
is to be remarked that the word Sacrament, and the names of the
two Sacraments, have both a wider and a narrower application.
In their wider signification they include the " outward sign" and
the " invisible grace." In their narrower signification they are
applied to the outward sign alone. In either sense they are said
to consist of matter and form. The " matter" of baptism in the
former sense is the invisible grace ; the water, with the words of
administration, is the " form." In the latter sense the water is
the " matter," the words are the " form." So, mutatis mutandis,
of the Holy Communion. This remark is necessary for students
of the works of the Reformers, since, by inattention to the limita-
tion or extension of the word, the reader might be led to draw a
wrong conclusion from their language. Thus, if it be said that

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 247

water in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the
Holy Ghost. That this ceremony is the means in con-
nection with which the life-giving grace of Christ is
imparted ; and that this imparting is the regeneration
of the Christian, which has been all along assumed, is
now to be proved.

The proof consists in sustaining the two following
propositions :

1. That regeneration in Baptism is taught in Holy
Scripture.

2. The baptismal regeneration taught in Holy Scrip-
ture is the communication of the life-giving grace of
Christ.

1. The word "Regeneration" occurs but in two
places in the English version of the New Testament,
in both of which it is the translation of the Greek
word T.ahyytvsata. The first place is St. Matthew,
xix. 28: "Ye which have followed me, in the regen-
eration when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of
His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judg-
ing the twelve tribes of Israel." The other is Titus,
iii. 5 : " Not by works of righteousness which we have
done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the
washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy
Ghost." In the former passage there is no immediate

the Sacraments confer grace, the statement is true on condition
that the word is taken to apply to the whole transaction, visible
and invisible ; taken in the narrower signification, the statement
is false. Conversely, when it is said that the Sacraments do not
confer grace, then the statement is predicated of the outward
form, in connection with which the grace is conferred by the
Holy Spirit.

248 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

reference to the subject under consideration ; but the
analogy of its use there will explain it in the other
passage. "The regeneration when the Son of Man
shall sit in the throne of His glory" has the same
general signification as "the restitution of all things"
in Acts, iii. 21 : "Jesus Christ, . . whom the heavens
must receive, until the time of the restitution of all
things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all
His holy prophets, since the world began;" which,
again, is explained by II. Peter, iii. 13 : "We, accord-
ing to His promise, look for new heavens and a new
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." A parallel
passage from St. Paul's writings is Rom. viii. 19-23:
"The earnest expectation of the creature [i.e. the crea-
tion3] waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
. . . Because the creature itself also shall be delivered
from the bondage of corruption into the glorious lib-
erty of the children of God. For we know that the
whole creation5 groaneth and travaileth in pain to-
gether until now. And not only they, but ourselves
also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we
ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adop-
tion, to wit, the redemption [i.e. by the resurrection]
of our body."

From a comparison of these passages, it appears that
" the regeneration," in this sense, must be taken of the
more glorious estate to which the universe will be ad-
vanced at the end of the present dispensation, when
this world shall be destroyed by fire, and "new
heavens and a new earth" be given as the habitation

a rj ktioic. h Traoa tj ktioic

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 249

of the glorified body of the resurrection. But with
this wider meaning, I conceive that there is in our
Saviour's words a special reference to the resurrection
of the saints. "Ye also (being raised from the dead)
shall sit upon twelve thrones," etc. For that the res-
urrection was counted a "new birth" or "new beget-
ting" is evident from St. Paul's application of Psalm
ii. 7, to the resurrection of our Saviour, in Acts, xiii.
33: "The promise which was made unto the fathers,
God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in
that He hath raised up Jesus again ; as it is written in
the second Psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have
I begotten Thee," — that is, on the day of His resur-
rection, and therefore by the resurrection.

Now this reference to the Resurrection will help us
in our present inquiry so far as this, that as the resur-
rection of the body is a regeneration, so the "restitu-
tion" of the heavens and the earth is also a regenera-
tion ; inasmuch as it is, after its kind, a resurrection of
heaven and earth, from their death by fire, in which
they shall put off "the bondage of corruption" under
which they are held by the sin of man, and "put on
incorruption." And thus the parallel is perfect with
baptism, which is represented in Holy Scripture as a
death and resurrection with Christ. "Know ye not,
that so many of us as were baptized unto Jesus Christ
were baptized unto His death ? Therefore we are buried
with Him by baptism into death : that like as Christ was
raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father,
even so we also should walk in newness of life."a

a Rom. vi. 3, 4.

250 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

" Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are
risen with Him through the faith of the operation of
God, who hath raised Him from the dead."a In each
case the same idea underlies the expression — the idea of
the infusion of a higher principle of vitality, in the one
case, into the body, in the other case into the soul.
The resurrection of the body is a restoration of the
same body which died ; but not simply a restoration, it
is also an advancement to a higher state. "It is sown
a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." We can
conceive of the resurrection, therefore, only as the gift
of a higher, spiritual life-principle to the body, assimi-
lating it to a spiritual nature,b and enabling it to exist
in incorruptible immortality. In like manner, the spir-
itual resurrection of the soul in baptism, asserted in the
passages from Romans and Colossians just quoted, is a
restoration of the soul from its state of death by the
infusion of a higher life, — that is, the grace of Christ
our Lord. Hence -a/uyy^stna, regeneration, may be
harmoniously applied to the resurrection of the body,
the renewal of the world, and the Divine operation on
the soul in baptism.

And so we find it applied to the baptismal act, in the
only other place in which it occurs, Titus, iii. 5 : "Not
by works of righteousness which we have done, but ac-
cording to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of
regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." The
" washing of regeneration" is undoubtedly baptism. It

a Col. ii. 12.

b Nicholson on the Catechism. " As near unto the nature of a
Spirit as it is possible for a body."

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 251

has been shown already, that the two phrases, ' ' the
washing of regeneration" and "renewing of the Holy
Ghost," denote two different operations; but even ad-
mitting them to be the same, the reference to baptism
is equally clear. The only place besides this in which
"washing" occurs as the translation of koozpov, is Eph.
v. 26 : " Christ loved the Church and gave Himself
for it ; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the
washing of water by the Word." The "washing of
water by the Word" is clearly equivalent to the "wash-
ing of regeneration," implying the whole transaction of
baptism, visible and invisible — viewed differently, in-
deed, in either case ; in the one with a reference to the
cleansing efficacy of the grace of baptism, in the other
with a reference to its restoring power. No one will
deny that baptism is alluded to in the text from Ephe-
sians ; and there is as little reason to deny it in the
passage from Titus. The plain, unvarnished sense re-
quires that it should be thus understood, and no reason-
ing is needed to enforce the interpretation. It is a
well-known method of St. Paul to bring in the Sacra-
ments allusively (^<uvsv-og truverocfftv) in his disquisi-
tions upon grace. Thus the reference to the outward
sign is clear in I. Cor. xii. 13 : "For by one Spirit are
we all baptized into one body ; ' ' nor is it any less clear
in "the washing [or laver] of regeneration."

We are willing to admit that the word Tzafoyyevsaca does
not etymologically signify the raising to a higher state
than before, by the infusion of a new and higher life ;
but in both its applications the things themselves con-
tain this idea of advancement. If, however, a more
forcible word be demanded, we have avayevyqatq, whose

252 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

congeners (the noun itself not appearing in the New
Testament) are applied to describe the baptismal grace,
with a force inclusive of all that is claimed for it ; and
that though it is not applied to the Resurrection, thus
giving a greater prominence to the truth of a new birth
in the Sacrament.

It is somewhat unfortunate for the English reader of
the New Testament that, our language being a com-
posite formed out of many others, Saxon, Greek, Latin,
French, etc., the relation of many words to each other,
clear enough in the original, is thereby obscured in the
translation. We miss connections of great doctrinal
importance, because we are not able to express cognate
Greek words by cognate English words. Thus the ad-
jective ixhxroq is rendered nearly always "elect,"
while the verb h.lsyw, from which it is derived, is trans-
lated " choose." So, we have dytot, "saints," tiytoq,
"holy," ayia^u), "to sanctify," aytcur/xos, " sanctifica-
tion;" words of the same root in Greek, rendered by
Latin, French, and Saxon derivatives. In addition to
this defect, very few English words will give the full
force of the Greek, and our translators had to choose
between encumbering their pages with wordy para-
phrases, or the permission of inadequate and vague ex-
pressions, by restricting themselves in the number of
words. It sometimes happens, moreover, that a Greek
word has the sense of two or more English words, and
is translated in the one place by the one, and elsewhere
by the other, so that the mere English reader is unable
to compare passages, with a certainty of arriving at a
right conclusion. These three causes operate to make
the truth of regeneration in baptism less clear in the
translation than it really is in the original.

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 253

The verb yevvaat, from which dvayevvaet is com-
pounded, has in earlier Greek the sense to "beget,"
but in later Greek, the two senses " t» beget" and "to
bring forth;" its passive, consequently, has the two
senses, " to be begotten" and " to be born." It is trans-
lated both ways, in relation to the mystery of the new
birth, in I. John, v. 1 : " Whosoever believeth that
Jesus is the Christ is born [yeyevvqrai] of God; and
every one that loveth Him that begat [rov yewr^oyra],
loveth him also that is begotten [tov yeyevvrjfievov] of
Him." The last rendering is necessary to preserve the
inference of the Apostle, which rests on the active
"begat" and the passive "is begotten." But in
either place the word contains both senses, and there
is no exact equivalent for it in our language ; hence our
translators use that term which expresses the part of the
meaning most necessary to the context. It is, how-
ever, very important to remember the whole extent of
the word, because it bears with great weight on the
question of the initial communication of life in the
Sacrament, giving over both these senses to its com-
pound avayevvaofiai.

The latter verb occurs (in participial form) only in
I. Peter, i. 23: "Being born again [avaysyswrj/j.evot']3-
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the
Wordb of the Lord, which liveth and abideth forever."
AvayeyevvTjfievoi is literally, in its full force, to the
learned ear, "being regenerate;" but our translators

a avayevvrjaag in v. 3 of this chapter.

b 7joyog, not prifia. See Lee on Inspiration, p. 132-3, Ameri-
can edition.

254 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

rightly judged that the plain, homely Saxon would
convey more meaning to the mere English reader than
the foreign polysyllable. The doctrinal equivalent is,
in Saxon, "being begotten and born again ;" and even
then the full force of the preposition a»a is not ob-
tained. In composition it not only implies the return
signified by "again," but it also retains its own proper
signification, "up to," "upon," "from above," — the
compound here being equivalent to yewyth) d>utOe», in
John, iii. 3. Hence, to translate adequately, we must
read, "being begotten again from above [and so be-
gotten to the higher life], not of corruptible seed," etc.
The above passage does not connect regeneration
with baptism; but if there be one passage in Scripture
which does so, that is conclusive for all places where it
is spoken of without definition, and must be under-
stood in each. Thus, as we understand d>a in St.
John's "Which were [new] born, not of blood, nor of
the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God;"a and "Whosoever is [new] born of God doth
not commit sin,"b and "Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is [new] born of God ;"c the thing here
spoken of being the same new birth which is called by
St. Peter avayerevvijfievoi ; so, if there be one undoubted
passage which adds to this notion, the further particu-
lar, f| udaro$ xat -vzu/mroc, " of water and the Spirit,"
that also enters into the notion of regeneration, and
must be understood wherever regeneration or the new
birth of the individual is spoken of, upon the self-evi-
dent principle that anything, however named, has at

a John, i. 13. b I. John, iii. 9. c I. John, v. 1.

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 255

all times its essential attributes and parts, and, if it be
thought of at all, must be thought of as it is.

The authority of the doctrine of regeneration in
baptism finally rests on the discourse of our Saviour to
Nicodemus, in which the required phrase, e£ udaroz xat
xv£o;j.a.Toq, is added, to complete the notion, by the Son
of God Himself: "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Ex-
cept a man be born again [yewr/dy avwtfev] he cannot see
the kingdom of God. . . . Verily, verily, I say unto
thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit
\yevv7)(hq eg udaroq /.at Tzveuiiaroq] he cannot enter into
the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Marvel not that I said unto thee ye must be born again' '
[ysv. av(o6av']. Here to "be born of water and the
Spirit" is certainly equivalent to and a clearer explana-
tion of yewrjOy (-vac) avotOev in the preceding and follow-
ing verses; and as certainly ysv. aviodev is the same with
avdyeyevvyjfievot in the passage quoted from St. Peter.
And since the simple verb and its compounds contain
the sense of begetting? as well as birth, the regeneration
of man, in the full force of the Latin term, is here as-
serted to be wrought in and through baptism.

The only answer to this on the part of those who con-
travene the doctrine, is that the word "water" is used
figuratively, and not materially. But this evasion was

a The author feels the necessity of insisting upon this truth the
more strongly from having heard a clergyman of some ability as
a preacher assert, in a convention, that regeneration in baptism
was but birth, and that "life" must precede birth, apparently in
utter ignorance that the Greek verb used is yevvau throughout.

256 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

met completely by our great Hooker, nearly three hun-
dred years since, in these memorable words: " I hold
it for a most infallible rule in expositions of sacred
Scripture, that where a literal construction will stand,
the farthest from the letter is commonly the worst.
There is nothing more dangerous than this licentious
and deluding art which changeth the meaning of words
as alchemy doth, or would do, the substance of metals,
making of anything what it listeth, and bringing, in the
end, all truth to nothing. Or, howsoever such volun-
tary exercise of wit might be borne with otherwise, yet?
in places which usually serve as this doth, concerning
regeneration by water and the Holy Ghost, to be al-
leged for grounds and principles, less is permitted. . . .
When the letter of the law hath two things plainly and
expressly specified, water and the Spirit, — water as a
duty required on our parts, the Spirit as a gift which
God bestoweth, — there is danger in presuming so to in-
terpret it as if the clause that concerned! ourselves were
more than needeth. We may, by such rare expositions,
attain, perhaps, in the end, to be thought witty, but
with ill advice. "a

Two texts above quoted require additional remark
to guard against misunderstanding. I. John, iii. 9, and
v. 1, were produced incidentally to show that the words
" born" and "born again" were identical in sense in
this connection, and it was assumed that the "birth"
there mentioned is the baptismal regeneration. The
former verse (which reads: "Whosoever is born of
God doth not commit sin ; for his seed remaineth in

a Hooker, b. V. lix. 2, 4.

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 257

him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God")
must not be taken either as asserting the indefectibility
of the baptized, nor as contravening the fact of regen-
eration in baptized sinners. It is an example of St.
John's way of looking at the end from the beginning.
At the last, when all imperfection is done away, it will
be so ; and in view of that final consummation, regen-
eration is nothing if it do not attain the resurrection of
the just. But in respect to this life, it is the mark at
which the Christian aims, the rule by which he must
guide himself to keep his regeneration, the definition of
a new-born man, which he must strive to realize in
himself, — not the description of him as he actually is;
for the same St. John says: "If we say we have no
sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."
The baptized Christian who does not walk by this rule
will lose the grace of regeneration, if he have possessed
it ; he who does walk by it, striving against sin, is not
only born of water, but of the Holy Ghost. It does
not touch the question when or how the man becomes
regenerate, which must be answered from our Saviour's
words to Nicodemus, preserved by St. John himself.
The other text is : "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is
the Christ is born of God ;" from which, were it alone,
it might be inferred that faith was the only necessary
requisite to regeneration. But no one will deny that
faith must be joined with repentance; that the faith
spoken of is a living, working faith, — since St. James
says, "Faith without works is dead." It is faith mani-
fest in the Church, faith confessed in the appointed
manner, and therefore faith which has made the bap-
tismal confession, and received the gift of baptismal

258 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

grace. The Apostle who has preserved to us the most
of our Lord's teaching respecting the grace of the
Sacramentsa is not the one to make it of none effect by
any "tradition" of his own.

We conclude, then, that our first assertion, that Re-
generation in Baptism is taught in Holy Scripture, is
fully proved : 1, by the passage in St. Paul's Epistle
to Titus ; 2, by the words of our Lord to Nicodemus ;
and 3, by the doctrinal harmony of all other texts
which speak of the new birth.

Our next proposition is, that the Regeneration as-
serted to be wrought in Baptism is the communication
of spiritual life by the grace of Christ our Lord.

That the grace of the Son is a Divine life given to
the Christian has been proved in the fourth chapter.
Conversely, as there is but one imparted life, the Di-
vine life given to the Christian is the grace of Christ.
What is now to be proved, therefore, is that the term
regeneration, though not explicitly denned in Holy
Scripture, is there intended to mean the gift of the
grace and life of Christ.

1. Our first argument is that the word itself, whether
-ahyy^zma or a'sayi^r^'^, implies the communication of
life. Regeneration is a second generation ; generation
is a begetting, and begetting is the communication of
life. Dead things, things material, things inanimate,
are not begotten. The father has his right of pater-
nity, because his son partakes of his life. Our blessed
Lord is the "only-begotten of the Father," because
God the Father has given to Him His life. "As the

a John, iii., vi.

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 259

Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the
Son, to have life in Himself. "a So, we are sons of God,
through Christ, because He "hath begotten us again
[a'yaYz'^rt<jaf\ unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead."b This idea of "beget-
ting" as well as "birth" is inherent in izafayyeveaia as
well as oLvayevv^ffK:. The root of the former, yeveaia, is
from the obsolete yz\>w, "to beget," and yevvyatg is from
yew aw, which is only a strengthened and later form of
the same verb ; hence the words are identical in signi-
fication, meaning "begetting" or "birth," as includ-
ing begetting. For the work of grace is instantaneous ;
the end is not separate from the beginning \ there is
no need to have one word expressive of the beginning
and another of the end ; the new birth is the new be-
getting, and the new begetting is the new birth. The
"new birth," therefore, or regeneration of man by
grace, is the begetting him to a new life ; it is the com-
munication of the grace of life from the Divine hu-
manity of Christ our Lord ; the idea of initial commu-
nication is inherent in the term; and, since the grace
of Christ is the only principle of life in the Christian,
we conclude that regeneration in baptism is the im-
planting of that grace.

2. This conclusion is corroborated by the consider-
ation that the Epistles of the New Testament (except
the Pastoral ones) are addressed to Churches of bap-
tized believers, and therefore that the assurances they
contain of the gift of life in Christ are predicated upon
the baptism of those to whom those assurances are made.

a John, v. 26. b I. Peter, i. 3.

260 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

The Epistles were written to the members of the dif-
ferent Churches, as baptized. Those Churches were
societies of converts, who had been gathered together
into a common brotherhood by the Sacrament of bap-
tism. That they were initiated into those societies by
baptism none will deny. Baptism was the act which
pledged them as disciples and separated them from
the world. Before baptism they were not members of
these societies ; after it, they were ; they were made
members by the Sacrament. Hence, when an Apostle
wrote to a Church, he wrote to a company of baptized
people. That was his idea of the Church to which
he was writing; and therefore he addressed to them
teachings, exhortations, comfort, warning, assurance,
promise, as baptized into the Church of Christ. Their
title to take the contents of the Epistle to themselves
rested on their baptism. Without that Sacrament, as
the door of admission into the visible society, no one
had a title to receive, to hear, much less to appropriate
the Epistle. It was for the world without, on condi-
tion of baptismal entrance into the company for which
it was written, but not otherwise. Let the reader, then,
refer to the Epistles themselves, or to the quotations
from them in the third chapter of this book, for the
direct testimony to the fact that Christians are receivers
of the life of Christ. Every such text carries with it,
as an essential part of itself, that it is written for bap-
tized people, as baptized, — and therefore is implicit
testimony that Christians receive this divine gift by
virtue of their baptism. Hence, as in our first argu-
ment we concluded from the name regeneration to the
thing named, so we here conclude from the thing given
in baptism to the name so proper for it.

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 261

3. A third argument may be founded on the baptis-
mal union of the Redeemer and the members of His
Church asserted in Holy Scripture. That union con-
sists in the possession of a common life, derived from
Him, the Head, to us the members. It consists not
only in being endued with the grace of His Spirit, but
also with His grace. The unity of the Church is one-
ness in Christ, as well as "the unity of the Spirit. "a
The Church is "the temple of the Holy Ghost," but
it is "the body of Christ." We are the body, He is
the Head, the Spirit is the soul of the Church. We are
1 ' members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, "b
is the intensive expression of St. Paul. " The Church,
which is His body, the fulness of Him that nlleth all in
all. "c "Ye are the body of Christ, and members in
particular. "d Now this union, so intimate, of the body
with the head, is declared to be wrought in baptism.
" For as the body is one, and hath many members, and
all the members of that one body, being many, are
one body : so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we are
all baptized into one body."e And that the foundation
of this figure of the body is the life which the Church
derives from Christ, the Head, may be inferred most
clearly from that passage in Ephesians iv., where St.
Paul exhorts us to "grow up into Him in all things,
which is the Head, even Christ; from whom," he goes
on to say, " the whole body fitly joined together and
compacted by that which every joint supplieth, accord-
ing to the effectual working in the measure of every part,

a Eph. iv. 3. b Eph. v. 30. c Eph. i. 23.

d I. Cor. xii. 27. e I. Cor. xii. 12, 13.

23

262 Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity.

maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself
in love;" and from Colossians, ii. 19: "Holding the
Head, from which all the body, by joints and bands
having nourishment ministered, and knit together, in-
creaseth with the increase of God. ' ' We reason, there-
fore, that as we are baptized into the body of Christ,
and as we are said to be His body, because of the life
derived from Him to us, and as the most proper name
for the derivation of that life is Regeneration, there-
fore the word Regeneration is intended in Scripture to
signify the communication of the life-giving grace of
Christ to His baptized disciples.

4. A fourth argument for the same conclusion rests
on the application of the figure of death and the Resur-
rection to the baptismal operation, in the well-known
passages, Romans, vi. 3-1 1, and Colossians, ii. 12:
"Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized
into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death?
Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into
death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead
by the glory of the Father, even so we also should
walk in newness of life. . . . Christ being raised from
the dead dieth no more ; death hath no more do-
minion over Him. For in that He died, He died
unto sin once: but in that He liveth, He liveth
unto God. Likewise reckon ye yourselves to be dead
indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord." So, again, in Colossians, "Buried
with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with
Him through the faith of the operation of God, who
hath raised Him from the dead," — a passage which
has its parallel in Ephesians, ii. 4-6: "God, who is rich

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 263

in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us,
even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us to-
gether with Christ (by grace are ye saved) ; and hath
raised us up together, and made us sit together in
heavenly places, in Christ Jesus." The peculiar lan-
guage used by St. Paul can only be understood as say-
ing in sacred rhetoric, that by the infusion of His
grace, making us one with Him, we are made partners
of His death and resurrection ; buried with Him, and
risen with Him, because one with Him ; and one with
Him because living by His life. And this enables us
to see why so much stress is laid upon the resurrection
of our Lord in connection with our spiritual benefit, as
in that passage of St. Peter before quoted : " Hath be-
gotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead." And again, "The
like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now
save us ... by the resurrection of Jesus Christ."3
And so St. Paul : "Who was delivered for our offences,
and was raised again for our justification."1" For at His
resurrection and exaltation He received the power of
giving Himself as God and man to His followers, to
be their life; and since the possession of Him includes
the application to our needs of His merits and atone-
ment, we are "saved," we are "justified," we are
"begotten again" by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Hence, as before, we conclude from the figure em-
ployed by the Apostle, that the essential grace of bap-
tism is the life of Christ, and therefore that the com-
munication of it is the regeneration attributed to the
Sacrament.

a I. Peter, iii. 21. b Rom. iv. 25.

264 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

With the doctrine thus elicited agree the effects
attributed to baptism: remission of sins, salvation,
and the gift of the indwelling Spirit, with His heav-
enly consolations as the earnest of our heavenly inher-
itance. For,

1. Since Christ gave Himself to be our ransom;
since His name is Jesus, because "He shall save His
people from their sins," it follows that the bringing
His people into union with Himself gives them a title
to the remission of the sins He came to take away.
His oneness writh them in the unity of the body is the
meritorious cause of their pardon, transfers to them
the virtue of His atonement, and secures their accept-
ance of God the Father. Hence St. Peter, preaching
on the day of Pentecost, said : " Repent and be bap-
tized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ,
for the remission of sins, and" (he added) "ye shall
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." And so Ananias
to St. Paul: "And now why tarriest thou? Arise and
be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the
name of the Lord."a So, too, baptism is called "the
washing of regeneration," and Christ is said to
"cleanse the Church with the washing of water by the
Word;" showing that the idea of cleansing from sin
by the grace applied in the Sacrament is inherent in
the scriptural conception of the Sacrament.

2. The baptized are also said to be "saved," or, as
the Church Catechism expresses it, "brought into a
state of salvation," because by their union with Christ,
their membership of His body, their adoption into the

a Acts, xxii. 16.

Sacrame?its in the System of Grace. 265

family of God, and the forgiveness of their sins, they
are brought into that state in which, if they continue
therein, they receive now the blessings of God's grace,
and shall at last be partakers of the state of glory.
For which reason St. Peter declares, "baptism doth
also now save us (not the putting away the filth of the
flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards
God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ."

3. Finally, the possession of the grace of Christ
brings with it a larger measure of the grace of the
Holy Spirit ; and this is specially connected with bap-
tism in the passage above produced from St. Peter's
sermon on the day of Pentecost. Nor is this the only
passage where that connection is implied. In the light
which is furnished by what has been said, we can cite
here, as bearing upon this point, such passages as II.
Cor. i. 21, 22: "Now He which stablisheth us with
you in Christ, and hath anointeda us, is God; who
hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit
in our hearts;" and v. 5 to the same effect, "Now
He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is
God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the
Spirit." And Eph. i. 13: "In whom (Christ) ye
also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the
gospel of your salvation : in whom also after that ye
believed, ye were sealedb with that Holy Spirit of

a xpcaag, from Xpuu, whence xptorog. The Apostle, by the use of
this word, intimates the communication of the grace of Christ, as
is evident by his subsequent mention of the grace of the Holy
Spirit.

b I believe the word "sealed" refers to the apostolic rite of
confirmation, which always follows baptism.
23*

266 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until
the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the
praise of His glory." What that promised grace of
the Holy Spirit is, we learn from our Lord Himself:
"I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another
Comforter, that He may abide with you forever ; even
the Spirit of truth ; whom the world cannot receive, be-
cause it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him : but ye
know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in
you."a "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give
unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you."b
And so St. Paul, declaring the comfort of the regen-
erate: "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the
Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba,
Father."0 "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our
spirit, that we are the children of God: and if chil-
dren, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with
Christ ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may
be also glorified together. . . . Ourselves also, which
have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves
groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to
wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by
hope. . . . Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our in-
firmities : for we know not what we should pray for as
we ought : but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for
us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And He
that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of
the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints
according to the will of God."d It is evident that this
grace of the Spirit follows after and is predicated upon

a John, xiv. 16, 17. c Gal. iv. 6.

b John, xiv. 27. d Rom. viii. 16-27.

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 267

the baptismal union with the Redeemer, by which the
Christian is regenerate ; and that this gift is the earnest
of his inheritance and the seal of his adoption.

In the chapter upon the grace of the Son, it was said
that repentance, faith, and regeneration are the three
elements of the Christian's restoration, corresponding
to the three faculties of the soul, the heart, the mind,
and the will. For simplicity of method, these three
words were made to include the whole work of life.
Repentance was considered, not simply as the sorrow
for sin which leads us to forsake it — it was not merely
the beginning, but it was the whole work of the Chris-
tian, constantly turning away from sin, and striving
after good, continually fighting against temptation, and
endeavoring to attain true holiness. It was defined to
be the full, entire, and constant allegiance of the heart
to God ; and therefore it has a place in the regenerate
life of the Christian, as well as in preparation for it.
Faith was also defined to be the allegiance of the mind
to God in Christ, and as such, it also was said to have
its two stages, the one preceding regeneration, in which
the Son of God is recognized as the Redeemer ; the
other, in which the Redeemer is known as our Re-
deemer, by personal appropriation of His grace, made
over to us at our regeneration into His body. In like
manner, Regeneration, in the large meaning required
by its use to imply the full communication of the grace
of Christ, was not limited to the baptismal act, but was
made temporarily to include all the successive opera-
tions of that grace in the state of the regenerate, car-
rying forward the initial act of regeneration to the
consummate fruition of the world to come. Here,

268 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

however, we have arrived at the point where we can
limit the word to its proper meaning, the initial com-
munication of the grace of life, and refer elsewhere
what relates to growth and continuance. Regeneration
thus stands as a middle point in the work of restoration,
separating the faith and repentance which precede from
the faith and repentance which follow after the admin-
istration of the Sacrament. Thus we are furnished with
the proper place in the system, of those other words
used in the chapter on the grace of the Holy Spirit,
conversion and sanctification. Conversion is the oper-
ation of grace, producing (the will of man concurring)
the faith and repentance that precede regeneration ;
sanctification is the operation of grace which develops
faith and repentance into the holy walk of the regen-
erate. The three steps of Christian progress are, con-
version, regeneration, and renewal or sanctification.
The Christian is first converted, then regenerated, then
renewed or sanctified.

This statement of the progress of the work of grace
in the soul, however, relates only to those who are
baptized at mature age and on their own application.
Of such persons, the Church is bound to require, before
the Sacrament is administered, the profession of that
faith, and repentance, and obedience which is the
result of conversion. Upon the reality of the fact
represented by the profession depends the fact of re-
generation in the Sacrament ; since unbelief, and sin
unrepented of, are a bar to the action of regenerating
grace. And it is material to observe that the reality of
conversion is evidenced by the result, and not by any
real or supposed consciousness of , the mode in which

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 269

that result is attained by the grace of the Holy Spirit.
The modes are infinite in variety — various as the re-
sources of the Spirit and the needs of men ; but the
result is one — living faith and true repentance. This
work, however, can be wrought only in those who have
arrived at the age of moral consciousness. In all that
has been written hitherto in these pages, the case of the
adult has been considered throughout ; for, as man fell
in his maturity, the parallel was best drawn out between
the fall and the restoration, by considering him as ma-
ture when he comes to his regeneration.

But it is not to be overlooked that the great majority
of those who profess and call themselves Christians are
baptized in infancy, before the age of moral conscious-
ness is reached, and therefore when any conscious con-
version, any actual repentance and faith is impossible.
The question thence arises, Is the baptism of infants
valid and operative to their regeneration ? or is volun-
tary acceptance of the initial Sacrament such an abso-
lute law that an advanced age and a conscious conver-
sion are its universal and necessary antecedents ?

It is not our purpose, for we have not the space, to go
over the whole anabaptist controversy; but simply to
indicate those considerations which flow from and bear
upon the views here presented. The whole matter re-
solves itself into this : Regeneration being a free gift
of God to man, obtained by no merit of ours, but
gratuitously bestowed through the merits and in the
body of Christ, conversion, as a condition precedent
to regeneration in the adult, operates not to give a
claim, but to remove hindrances set in the way of the
saving grace of the Sacrament. It removes disabilities

270 Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity.

from the recipient. Actual sin and unbelief, persisted
in, freeze the heart against the precious seed of the Di-
vine life j repentance and faith open the heart to its re-
ception. They follow from the fact that actual sin has
been committed, and as antecedents of regeneration
they are the removal of a bar. As far as they can, they
undo the evil which the preceding years of the adult's
life have been heaping up ; they seek to drive out the
evil, and so make room for the good. Their whole re-
lation to regeneration as antecedent conditions, arises
out of precedent actual sin. Now it is admitted, in the
case of infants, that, prior to the age of moral con-
sciousness, actual repentance and faith are impossible ;
but, on the other hand, actual sin is equally impossible.
Original sin, indeed, is inherent, and this constitutes
the need of regeneration ; but original sin is no bar to
the operation of the Sacrament, or no one could be
made regenerate. Actual sin unrepented of, actual un-
belief is the only bar. Hence, from what appears, there
is no bar to the gift of regeneration to infants in the
Sacrament of baptism.

Nor is there any reason against it in the statement
that Sacraments are of voluntary reception. For,
although infants, because of their tender age, are inca-
pable of any voluntary activity, and therefore neither
of actual sin nor of conscious repentance, yet they may,
by the mercy of God, be made recipients of the grace
anticipatively and preventively, subject to a subsequent
ratification when they arrive at the age of moral respon-
sibility. The grace is thus given to them, that it may,
together with the influences of the Holy Spirit and the
teachings of the Church, be present in their hearts at

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 271

the very first opening of the moral consciousness ; and
thus the question of voluntary ratification of the cove-
nant is presented in a more forcible way than if they
were left to grow up outside the pale of the Church.
For now, the question put to the person is not simply
" Do you accept a grace which you have not had hith-
erto?" but "Do you ratify, or do you henceforth
reject the covenant of grace in which you have hereto-
fore been living?" Hence, for the express purpose of
this voluntary ratification, the rite of confirmation was
established by Apostolic authority, — a rite which ob-
tains its significance among us from its position as the
complement of infant baptism, the middle point between
an involuntary baptism, and a voluntary communion.
For this reason, pledges are put upon parents and
sponsors on the child's behalf, bearing witness to the
anticipative character of the Sacrament considered as
a covenant between God and man, in which God
grants the grace before He requires the other part, be-
cause of incapacity which does not involve actual sin j —
holding man to his side of the covenant as soon as he
is able to perform it, and binding, in the mean time,
those who have the natural care of children to teach
them their obligations within the covenant, that when
the time arrives for them to ratify it in their own per-
sons, by coming to confirmation, they may do so, or
decline to do so, with a will fully advised of the tre-
mendous consequences which hang upon their decision.
Thus, while the voluntary character of the Christian
position in the Church is preserved, the Sacrament
of initiation and regeneration is granted an anticipa-
tive force and efficacy; nor is it to be doubted that

272 Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity.

those who are rightly baptized in infancy are truly re-
generate.

If it be objected to this that infant incapacity for
faith, repentance, and voluntary action constitutes an
incapacity for receiving the grace of the Sacrament,
and therefore for receiving the outward sign, it is re-
plied that, in all consistency, such an objection must
be carried further ; it is equally an objection against the
possibility of the final salvation of deceased infants by
the merits of Christ. For infants, lying under the curse
of original sin, must, if saved at all, be saved by the
application of the grace of Christ. To assert their in-
capacity of receiving that grace, therefore, is to assert
the impossibility of their salvation. But if they can
receive it for salvation, they can receive it in that way
in which it is appointed to be given, by sacramental
communication. The grim and horrible doctrine will
hardly be insisted upon, in these days, that infants
dying, even unbaptized, will be found among the lost.
But if they are saved by the merits of Christ applied
in an extraordinary way, surely the argument is all the
stronger that those merits and the grace of Christ may
be applied, to them in the ordinary way, by the use of
the appointed means. For the objection to the use of
the means rests upon the supposed impossibility of the
infant's receiving the gift it conveys; and therefore,
when it is shown that they may receive the grace for
salvation, the objection falls to the ground, and there
is every reason to conclude that they are proper sub-
jects for the means by which that grace is communi-
cated.

Hence, there is no limitation of age in our Saviour's

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 273

commission to baptize: " Go ye and make disciples of
all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." The com-
mand is to baptize all nations; and it is rightly argued
that nations are composed of men, women, and chil-
dren, that the command is universal in extent, and
therefore that children are subjects for baptism as well
as grown-up people. It is incumbent upon those who
object to infant baptism to show some positive pro-
hibition or limitation by which children are excluded
from the Sacrament, and this they can never do. On
the contrary, every inference is against such a suppo-
sition. In the first place, the Christian was grafted
upon the Jewish Church, in which the reception of in-
fants by circumcision was a practice inwoven into all
the life and thought of the Jew by express Divine
command, so that he could not conceive of a religious
privilege of which his child was not the heir as truly as
himself. We hear a question respecting the baptism of
the heathen Cornelius ; but one never could be raised
respecting the eligibility of a Jewish child to all the
privileges conferred in that Sacrament, when every
Hebrew possessed his heritage of "the adoption, and
the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the
law, and the service of God, and the promises" solely
by the title of his infant circumcision. Hence St.
Peter, in his sermon on the day of Pentecost, declares :
" The promise is unto you, and to your children, and to
all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God
shall call."a Moreover, when we are told that Lydia

a Acts, ii. 39.
24

274 Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity.

" was baptized and her household," that the jailer at
Philippi "was baptized, he and all his, straightway," and
that St. Paul "baptized the household of Stephanas,"
it requires something more than mere special pleading
to make us believe that no children of tender age were
members of the many "households" baptized by the
Apostles. Besides, there are many precepts in the
Epistles addressed to children as such, — to children of
tender age, — commands to implicit obedience and the
like, which are based on their membership in the
Church, — that is, on their baptism. And though this
argument admits that such children were so far ad-
vanced that they could understand and receive these
precepts ; yet it implies that they had been or might
have been baptized previously to that development of
the understanding. For the command of implicit
obedience to parents is not only based upon imma-
turity, but it is the very first moral commandment
under which children come ; it enters their under-
standings at the very budding and opening of that
faculty ; and therefore implies a baptism preceding all
conscious responsibility, as the ground of children's
being in the Church to be addressed by the Apostle.

In view of these facts, it can admit of no doubt on
the part of those who truly believe the promises of our
Lord and the teachings of Holy Scripture, that persons
baptized in infancy, as well as others who receive the
Sacrament without bar to its efficacy, are regenerate;
and it is our duty as believers not to seek to invalidate
this conclusion by irrelevant considerations, but rever-
ently to study, with the effort to remedy, those facts
which obscure the truth in actual experience. It is

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 275

matter of deep regret to the truly Christian heart, that
the lives of some Christians baptized in infancy do not
correspond to the calling of the regenerate ; that, in
cases altogether too numerous, the falling short, it is to
be feared, continues to the end of life ; that, in other
cases, the soul does not develop a religious life until a
comparatively late period. On the other hand, how-
ever, the cases are neither few nor hard to discover in
which the Christian life goes on from the beginning
to its full development, in a continuous course of pro-
gressive sanctification. The question is, Can the facts
of adverse experience be harmonized with the doctrine
of baptismal regeneration as taught in Holy Scripture
and held by the Church ? It is certainly our duty, if
they can, to seek for, until we discover, the principle
on which they are accounted for.

1. That very many persons do go on under the full
Gospel system to lead the life of the regenerate from
the very first opening of consciousness, being trained
from their earliest infancy, by the care of pious parents,
by the ministrations of the Church, by the leading of
the Holy Spirit, to obey the teachings of the Divine
word, — the inner life of imparted grace thus receiving
its proper culture and all the conditions of its growth
— is a happy fact, which proves at once the adaptation
of the Divine system to the needs of men, and its effi-
cacy, when operative in all its parts, to work the com-
plete restoration of fallen humanity. These examples
of a whole life spent in the service of God convert
faith in the Divine word into actual experience of the
truth there set forth. We see and know those who
thus have calmly and consistently advanced in a true

276 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

Christian course, — having their faults, and failings, and
lapses, it is true, but on the whole making constant
progress, bringing forth in fair abundance the fruits of
the Spirit, and giving, in all their lives, the demon-
strative example of true piety. Of the baptismal re-
generation of such persons there can be no question.
And, building upon this foundation, the Divine Spirit
works a constant, gradual sanctification, transmuting
the earthly nature into the likeness of the heavenly seed,
and enabling that seed of life to assimilate to itself, by
gradual growth, all the powers and faculties. In this
way evil passions and tendencies are nipped in the bud
as fast as they appear; and thus conversion (which,
whether as a sudden crisis or a gradual change, is the
condition precedent to the baptismal regeneration of
the adult) is entirely absorbed in the process of sancti-
fication. The change which takes place is simply the
passage from infantile unconsciousness to mature con-
sciousness, the opening of the sense of responsibility
and position, and the apprehension of the fact that the
young Christian is and has been a child of God. This
is the fact which is represented by confirmation at the
proper age, when the child of God takes upon himself
publicly the obligations of which he has become con-
scious, and claims for himself the covenant with God,
the benefits of which he has received in anticipation of
this his ratification.

2. Others, however, are endowed with regeneration
in infant baptism who do not thus use the gift, whose
religious life does not proceed forward thus steadily
and continuously. A long time elapses before they
show any appreciable signs of the influence of Divine

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 277

grace, and it is not, perhaps, until late in life that they
are brought to live up to their Christian position. In
some cases they never realize this position. Members
of Christ, they are diseased ; children of God, they
are disobedient ; inheritors of the kingdom of heaven,
they are spendthrift of their heavenly inheritance. The
natural heart holds sway over the conduct, and the
outward life is a life of sin. This state continues for a
longer or a shorter period, — ten, twenty, thirty years
from the beginning of consciousness; at length they
are converted to the obedience of faith, and finally
saved, or, fearful to think, they are cut off in their
sins. What is the cas^e with these? Have they ever
been really regenerate or not ?

Now, having been once baptized, and baptism being
the only appointed means of obtaining the gift of re-
generation, the fact of their having been baptized pre-
cludes the possibility of their ever being regenerate, if
they be not so at their baptism. For there is but "one
baptism. "a Nor, however they may have fallen short,
if brought to obedience at last, can we think that re-
generating grace has been lost and restored in the in-
tervening time. "For it is impossible for those who
were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heav-
enly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
and have tasted the good word of God, and the
powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away,
to renew them again unto repentance." Hence we
must understand that other causes are at work which
prevent the assimilation of the Divine life, the seed of

a Eph. iv. 5.

24*

278 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

grace remaining, as it were, quiescent, and the mercy
of God continuing it in the soul, until the result is at
length attained, or until the day of grace is past alto-
gether.

The parable of the barren fig-tree declares to us the
dealings of Divine grace with these persons. "A cer-
tain man had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard : and he
came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then
said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these
three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and
find none : cut it down ; why cumbereth it the ground ?
And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone
this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it ; and
if it bear fruit, well : and if not, then after that thou
shalt cut it down." The meaning of this parable is
plain. The fig-tree is " planted in the vineyard ;" the
fruitless man is a member of the Church. He has life
in him; it is not yet taken away; but he bears no
fruit. The Divine life is inoperative, and meanwhile
the natural life bears its fruit of sin (a fact for which,
from the nature of the case, there is no parallel in the
figure). The owner of the vineyard is God the Father ;
the vine-dresser is God the Son, whose priestly inter-
cession avails to continue the day of probation, and
to defer the final excision. The appliances of hus-
bandry are the external influences and internal grace of
the Holy Spirit and the Church, stimulating the sacra-
mental life into activity, even after the lapse of a long
time of barrenness; while the implied attributing of
moral unfitness to the unfruitful tree points to the true
source of failure in the perverseness of the human will.

We learn, therefore, that the grace of regeneration

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 279

may remain for a longer or a shorter time, like the seed
in frozen ground, quiescent. And yet by the mercy of
God, and His long-suffering, it is continued to the in-
dividual, and permitted to retain its vitality. So long
as it thus remains he is a member of the Church, capa-
ble, if he will, of repentance and conversion and sanc-
tification. But in the mean time, as has been said, the
natural life brings forth its fruit of sin, and the fearful
spectacle is presented of members of Christ, who are
actually living the life of the world, engaged in the ser-
vice of the devil. In the quiescence of the Divine life,
rank weeds of a worldly growth fill the whole field of
the heart, and require perhaps a bitter experience of
severe culture to uproot them, and bring the will into
obedience to the holy impulses of the true seed of the
word.

The first principle which accounts for the actual life
of persons regenerate in infancy is the truth heretofore
insisted on, of the dependence of regenerating grace
upon the other parts of the Divine system for growth
and development. A seed planted within, it requires,
besides its own inward vitality, the outward conditions
of air, heat, light, moisture, adaptability of soil. It re-
quires the teachings of Holy Scripture, the ministra-
tions of the Church, the training in the law of God, as
well as the grace of the Holy Spirit ; it requires obe-
dience of the will to these influences to bring forth
fruit. By this consideration the whole practical diffi-
culty of believing the truth in the face of apparent ex-
perience is met. For in how many cases is it matter of
experience that the baptized child is left to itself with-
out careful training and subjection to religious instruc-

280 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

tion by the negligence of parents and sponsors, exposed
to the bad influence of improper company, — the heav-
enly life thus being cut off from its proper sources of
nourishment, and the opposite tendencies of the fallen
nature flourishing in full vigor ! God has organized His
Church for a definite work in bringing forward the in-
dividual member on his Christian course. On the
principles laid down in the last chapter, He has assigned
it a place in the complete system of His economy
among all the influences which bear upon the Christian
life, and subordinate to this place, He has assigned a
place to every member of the Church, an influence of
each on all, telling definitely on the result. Parents,
sponsors, teachers, associates, as well as clergy, have a
part in this influence, the greater while the subject of
it is immature; what wonder, then, if these rest in the
simple baptism and neglect the baptismal training, that
the grace of regeneration is dwarfed and choked, and
the heart is overgrown with the thorns, weeds, and
nettles of the world, the flesh, and the devil ? Add to
this, that the total effect of all the influences, internal
and external, of Divine grace, is to raise the will of
man to a condition of freedom, not to coerce him
against himself to right ; and therefore that it is left in
the power of every regenerate Christian, whether bap-
tized in infancy or at adult age, to reject the grace of
God and to neglect the duties of his Christian posi-
tion ; — and add further, that amid the diverse charac-
teristics, and peculiar tempers, and various temptations,
and the hidden nature of much of the inner spiritual
experience of men, a correct judgment of the actual
standing of the Christian is not always attainable ; and

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 281

it will be seen that the apparent want of fruit on the
part of those persons now under consideration is fully
accounted for without the sweeping assertion that they
were never regenerate.

It is a part of the meaning of that profound illustra-
tion of our Saviour's, of the inscrutable nature and in-
finite variety of the Holy Spirit's operations, "The wind
bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and
whither it goeth," that the Spirit meets such cases of
post-baptismal delinquency by special providences of
grace. He strives with them in numberless ways ; He
brings them, sooner or later, if they will follow Him,
by a path they have not known, to a realization of
Christian privileges and Christian responsibilities. It
is in vain, as has been said, to attempt an enumeration
or classification of the experiences by which men are
thus brought to realize and live up to their position.
Suffice it that, whether the way be smooth or rough,
the experience calm and gradual, or violent and sud-
den, the result is a conversion subsequent to regenera-
tion, similar to that which precedes it in persons who
are not baptized until adult years ; the effect of which
is to call forth the baptismal life, hitherto quiescent,
into a holy activity, by which the outward conduct is
controlled and moulded to the will of God, and the
soul made capable of progressive sanctification.

But if this be not the case — if the grace of regenera-
tion, whether imparted in infancy, or at a later period,
do not, under the influences of the Spirit and the
Church, germinate and fructify ; if, by a perverse will,
all these influences are resisted to the end, their final

282 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

excision takes place, the grace of regeneration is with-
drawn, and the reprobate Christian becomes, in the
fearful figure of St. Jude, " a tree whose fruit withereth,
without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots."
"If a man abide not in me," says our Saviour, "he is
cast forth as a branch, and is withered ; and men gather
them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned."
In view of these considerations, we conclude that
baptized children are regenerate ; since it is easier to
believe that man loses his privilege by sin than that
the Sacrament of Christ should fail.

" The grace which we have by the Holy Eucharist,"
says Hooker in the beginning of his thoughtful and
profound disquisitions upon that blessed Sacrament,
"doth not begin, but continue life. No man, there-
fore, receiveth this Sacrament before baptism, because
no dead thing is capable of nourishment. That which
groweth, must of necessity first live. If our bodies did
not daily waste, food to restore them were a thing su-
perfluous. And it may be that the grace of baptism
would serve to eternal life were it not that the state of
our spiritual being is daily so much hindered and im-
paired after baptism. In that life, therefore, where
neither body nor soul can decay, our souls shall as little
require the Sacrament as our bodies corporal nourish-
ment ; but as long as the days of our warfare last,
during the time that we are both subject to diminution
and capable of augmentation in grace, the words of our
Lord and Saviour Christ will remain forcible, 'Except
ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His
blood, ye have no life in you.' "

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 283

In this paragraph the place of the Holy Communion
as a means of grace is stated with a clearness and a
fulness which could not be excelled were it expanded
into a volume. The Sacrament is ordained for our
present life of imperfection and warfare. It is supple-
mentary to Baptism, because the grace of Baptism is
subject to loss from our lapses and sins. It was given
for the purpose of supplying the waste of the spiritual
life, and of carrying it forward to its full growth. It
has, besides, other uses, as an act of worship — the
highest which the Church on earth can offer to the
Father; being (as the name "Eucharist" implies) a
sacrifice of thanksgiving for the one great Atonement,
and being also a memorial for the confirmation of faith
in our Lord Jesus Christ, "until He come." But as
this is not intended to be a complete treatise upon the
Holy Eucharist, it is sufficient now to consider it under
the view presented in the passage quoted from the
judicious divine, who never more merited the title than
when he wrote that part of the fifth book which treats
of this Sacrament.

Now, as we have proved baptism to have relation to
the grace of the Son, and as the Holy Eucharist has re-
lation to the same still more clearly, it being, according
to St. Paul's phrase, "the communion of the body,"
" the communion of the blood of Christ," it is neces-
sary first to understand how the Scripture distinguishes
the grace of the latter Sacrament from the grace of the
former.

Baptism is the Sacrament of the Christian's initiation
into life ; hence the grace of baptism is called "life"
and "regeneration," as well as a "washing" and

284 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

"cleansing." The Holy Communion is the Sacra-
ment of continuance ; and for that reason the grace is
represented under the figure of food, as " the eating the
body and blood of Christ," — food being the natural
means of nourishment, continuance, and growth. The
grace I conceive to be the same in either Sacrament ;
only that the one Sacrament is appointed by our Sa-
viour to be the means of initial communication, and
the other of constant addition, in such manner that the
partaking of communion necessarily presupposes ante-
cedent baptism.

What is to be understood of the grace in itself as
signified by the name " the body and blood of Christ"
it is not necessary to speculate. The whole invisible part
of the Sacrament, on its Divine side, is a transcendent
mystery, which cannot be reduced to the conceptions
of the mere understanding. The truth is revealed to
us under the figure of "body and blood;" but at
the same time we are informed that these words are
not to be carnally understood : "It is the spirit that
quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing; the words
that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are
life." That Christ communicates Himself by means of
the Sacrament, as He does in Baptism, by the opera-
tion of the Holy Spirit, with saving efficacy to those
who receive Him in repentance, and faith, and charity,
is all that we know, or can know.

The various theories which have been framed in the
attempt to render conceivable the ma finer how this
communication is made are equally destitute of au-
thority, and lead to dangerous results. There is no
scriptural ground, and no ground in human reason for

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 285

either the Romish transubstantiationa or the Lutheran
consubstantiation ; the former of which, as is well
known, supposes the communication of Christ to the re-
ceiver to be made by the miraculous withdrawal of the
"substance" of the bread and wine, and the substitu-
tion therefor of the "substance" of Christ's body and
blood ; the latter being divested of its " sensible acci-
dents, ' ' and those of the bread and wine remaining as
if the substance of bread and wine were present. Con-
substantiation is a modification of this doctrine to the
effect that the "substance" of the bread and wine
remain, and the "substance" of Christ's body and
blood is mingled with it, within the local limits of the
elements. Nor is there any scriptural evidence, or
evidence of any other character beyond the mere inge-
nuity of theorizing, for the other hypothesis, known to
theologians as ' ' impanation, ' ' which supposes that
Christ assumes to Himself the bread and wine to be
parts of His body and blood, so that receiving them
we receive Him. These all are but theories, destitute
of any ground, and to be shunned by humble, thought-
ful Christians.

a It would be interesting to count up how many different shades
of meaning are comprehended in this word as it is understood by
the individual members of the Church of Rome — beginning with
the gross materialism of the Irish laborer, and going upward to
the refined and philosophic realism of such minds as that of John
Henry Newman. It raises a shrewd surmise that the Church of
Rome favors multitudes of opinions, provided the dry word is re-
tained, in order that she may affirm any for purposes of persecu-
tion, and deny any for purposes of defence.

25

286 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

But while theories of the manner how are thus
doubtful, it is not at all doubtful, but most certain, that
Christ does communicate Himself by means of the Sac-
rament. And since this communication is a spiritual
act, for which there can exist in human language no
name, except such as is transferred from matters per-
taining to this life, it is named an eating and drinking
of the body and blood of Christ, — the mode of speech
being taken from the means by which Christ has ap-
pointed that the grace shall be received. Thus far we
are safe in our understanding of Holy Scripture, which
uses singular caution in speaking but very few times of
this great mystery. For when our blessed Saviour says :
" Take, eat, this is my body;" " Drink ye all of this,
this is my blood," His meaning is explained by St.
Paul: "The bread which we break, is it not the com-
munion [i.e. the partaking, the means by which we
partake] of the body of Christ?" "The cup which we
bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ ?"
— thus showing that when the bread is called by our
Saviour His body, it is called so in the same way in
which the spiritual act is called an eating — the visible
part of the Sacrament taking a title from the invisible
part, and the invisible act being named from the
visible.

It has been much disputed whether the sixth chapter
of St. John's Gospel refers to the Sacrament or not.
That chapter contains our Lord's discourse in the syna-
gogue at Capernaum on the day after He had fed the five
thousand with the five loaves and two fishes, one year
before the formal institution of the Lord's Supper. In
this discourse our Lord holds the following language,

Sacraments i?i the System of Grace. 287

rising, by successive assertions, higher and higher in
mystery, until He tries to the utmost the faith of those
who hear : ' ' Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave
you not that bread from heaven ; but my Father giveth
you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of
God is He which cometh down from heaven, and
giveth life unto the world." uIam the bread of life:
he that cometh to me shall never hunger ; and he that
believeth on me shall never thirst." " I am that bread
of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness,
and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down
from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die.
I am the living bread which came down from heaven :
if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever : and
the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give
for the life of the world." " Verily, verily, I say unto
you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and
drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth
my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life ; and
I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is
meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that
eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me,
and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me,
and I live by the Father : so he that eateth me, even
he shall live by me. This is that bread which came
down from heaven : not as your fathers did eat manna,
and are dead : he that eateth of this bread shall live
forever. ' '

The Romish divines argue that these declarations
refer to the Sacrament: and thence that the eating the
wafer and drinking of the cup are the eating and drink-
ing the flesh and the blood of Christ; and thence,

288 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

again, that the bread and the wine are transubstantiated
into the body and the blood of Christ. Some Protest-
ant writers, on the other hand, deny that they refer to
the Sacrament at all, and hold that the exercising faith
in Christ, at any and all times, is the eating and
drinking of this chapter. The unwary theological
student may be misled, if he rely simply upon de-
tached quotations, respecting the position of the best
divines of the Church of England. For there is a
third and middle ground, which shuns the error of
both extremes, and upon which the writers of greatest
authority stand. The Roman Church misleads by the
ambiguity of the word Sacrament. We might assent
to the statement that the chapter refers to the Sacra-
ment, if the word be taken in its widest sense, includ-
ing the invisible as well as the visible part ; but, having
beguiled us into this admission, Rome immediately
restricts the word to the narrower sense of the visible
sign alone ; and thence argues that the visible sign is
the thing signified — thereby "overthrowing the nature
of a Sacrament, and giving occasion to many supersti-
tions.'^ To obviate this confusion of unwary minds,
it is to be understood and remembered, that the decla-
rations in question did not, at the time they were
uttered, refer indeed to the Sacrament, because that
was not yet instituted ; but they referral to that invisible
grace and communication of Himself, which our Lord
i?itended to bestotv by means of the Holy Communion,
having the design to institute the Sacrament at the proper
time. They referred not to the sign, but to the thing

■ Article XXVIII.

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 289

signified by it — to grace which was not then, but which
was afterwards connected with the sign, and which
therefore is received (not ordinarily by faith at all times,
but) by faith determined to that special act of obedience
which our Lord imposed by the command, "Do this
in remembrance of me."

And in proof of this we need only to consider
together the two facts : that the Holy Communion was
not yet instituted when our Lord spoke these words ;
and that, on . the other hand, when St. John recorded
them, the Eucharist had been established, and of con-
stant weekly1 celebration in the Christian assemblies for
nearly seventy years. From the first fact it is to be in-
ferred that our Lord was not then speaking of the Eu-
charist, as such, but of the invisible grace of commu-
nion with Himself; and this is further corroborated by
His express disclaimer of a carnal eating of His flesh
and blood, such as would necessarily follow from the
Romish hypothesis of transubstantiation : "It is the
spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing : the
words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they
are life. ' ' But from the other fact we are obliged to
infer that though the body and blood of Christ are not
themselves carnally eaten, yet they are spiritually re-
ceived by means of, and in connection with, the carnal
eating of the bread and wine. It was not for nothing
that the record of this conversation was withheld by
Divine Inspiration from the earlier Gospels, and so re-

a See Freeman, "Principles of Divine Service," for the proof
that the Eucharist was of weekly and not daily celebration in the
Primitive Church.

25*

290 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

served until the constant celebration of the Eucharist
had moulded the whole Christian thought to the full
faith in its mysteries. a The men who had for seventy
years (like the saintly Polycarp) been weekly recipients
of the Sacrament, and who had at every celebration
heard the words of institution repeated, could not help
but understand St. John, when they read this chapter,
to refer to the spiritual grace of the Sacrament.
' ' Here, ' ' they would say, ' ' is the requirement, ' Except
ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood,
ye have no life in you. ' By what means can we eat
and drink, and so have life? Surely, this sacramental
participation of the bread and wine is the means ap-
pointed by which we can fulfil the requirement. In
this place, He tells us of a benefit ; in the other place,
of the means by which that benefit is secured."
Trained as they had been by constant participation,
according to the established custom of the early Church,
such would have been their instinctive reasoning, lead-
ing them to connect the sixth chapter of St. John with
the Sacrament. And this, we are compelled to believe,
was St. John's understanding of the import of the
chapter. Both writer and reader, and (with all rever-
ence we may add) the Inspiring Spirit also, agreed in
this connection ; otherwise in St. John's Gospel, the
loftiest of all the inspired writings, no allusion is made
to this central act of Christian worship and means of
Christian grace. On what grounds can we account for
the absence of all direct mention of the institution of

a St. John's Gospel is admitted to have been written near the
close of the first century.

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 291

the Lord's Supper from the Gospel of "the disciple
whom Jesus loved," except this, that the Apostle, know-
ing when and to whom he is writing, considers it to be
sufficiently alluded to in the record of the discourse
which declares so fully the nature and the necessity of
its grace ?

The sixth chapter of St. John, then, with the Evan-
gelical accounts of the Institution, and St. Paul's ac-
count of the same, and exhortations founded thereupon
in the Epistles to the Corinthians, together with a
single sentence in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "We
have an altar whereof they have no right to eat, which
serve the tabernacle," compose the sacred literature
treating directly of this Sacrament. From it we learn,
as has been said, that Christ does communicate Him-
self in a way transcending human understanding to the
members of His Church. The gift is a spiritual gift,
the food js living food. " The words that I speak unto
you, they are spirit and they are life." It is called
" His body and His blood." It is therefore a commu-
nication of Himself as one who has been dead. "I
am He that liveth, and was dead ; and behold I am
alive for evermore. ' ' He communicates Himself also,
specially as regards His humanity, to which His body
and blood belong. These are necessary inferences
from the Scripture statements under consideration.
Further than this, our thought upon the mystery is
negative ; we may be able to define in what it does not
consist, as we can say that the infinite is not finite ; but
we are, with the light afforded in this present life,
unable to grasp it in its positive being.

It is more profitable to inquire what are the effects or

292 Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity.

benefits of the communication of the body and blood
of Christ. From the above analysis of the ideas cer-
tainly contained in the Scripture language, we may
safely assert that the effect of Christ's communication
of Himself to the faithful recipients of His Holy Supper
is the transfer to them of all His communicable attri-
butes required by their necessities, — of the virtue of
His life, and death, and resurrection, and immortality
in the body. These consist in three things : first, the
saving and expiatory virtue before the Father of the
acts He performed in the body — of His meritorious
life and death as an atonement for our sins ; secondly,
the spiritual powers of His exalted nature, as a risen
and living and spiritual perfect nature, so far as they
are needed to meet the necessities of our present exist-
ence ; and thirdly, the seed of our future resurrection
and immortality, which we derive from Him, and His
indwelling in us.

These effects can be made out directly from Scrip-
ture. 1. The phrase " His body and blood," symbol-
ized separately, the one by the bread and the other by
the wine, together with St. Paul's teaching, "As often
as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the
Lord's death till He come," connects the reception of
the Sacrament with the death of Christ, at which His
. body and blood were separated, as they cannot be in a
living person. Hence He communicates Himself, as
bearing with Him the attributes of His death, and if so,
especially that attribute of vicariousness which was the
very cause and reason of His death ; and therefore it
follows that He gives the virtue of His death and all
His atoning acts as an effect of participation in Him-

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 293

self by means of the Sacrament. 2. The communica-
tion of spiritual life and power is contained in the decla-
ration : "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live
by the Father : so he that eateth me, even he shall live
by me."a 3. And so is the power of the Resurrection
in the following : ' ' Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh
my blood, hath eternal life ; and I will raise him up at
the last day."b

Now all these gifts are, in a certain sense, initially
bestowed in baptism ; but they are more fully and per-
fectly bestowed in Holy Communion. For in saying
that the Eucharist is supplementary to Baptism, we are
not to be understood as if it were but a mere addendum
to it, but rather its full growth and perfection. It is
its supplement, as being greater than it, as filling it out,
and, as it were, absorbing it into itself. Baptism is the
foundation ; Communion is the superstructure. Bap-
tism is as the root ; Communion is as the fruitful plant.
For the Christian life, which has need of communion
after baptism, is a life of growth, — the waste to be re-
paired is the waste of a developing life, — just as the
physical nourishment of the growing child is a supply
of the waste of growing limbs, which are restored to
a greater size and strength. Hence the correspondence
between Baptism and Communion, and their mutual
relation.. As the baptized communicant is penitent, he
receives continual assurance of pardon by the atone-
ment; as he is faithful,0 he is granted power to live

a John, vi. 57. b John, vi. 54.

c I would have it constantly remembered, that in speaking thus,
the faith spoken of is "faith working by love."

294 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

more truly according to his allegiance; as he is regen-
erate, he is advanced in the possession and power of
the life eternal.

The total conception of the Holy" Eucharist is three-
fold, corresponding to the threefold office to which our
Saviour was anointed. It is a Memorial, a Sacrifice,
and a Feast, — a memorial left us by our Prophet ; a
sacrifice authorized by our Priest ; a feast provided by
our King. It is in its entireness the act by which we
make good our claim of the Anointed One to be our
Prophet, our Priest, ourYAwg. We are learners in His
school ; sinners seeking His intercession and absolution ;
subjects bound to His rule, and dependent upon Him for
subsistence. Each view is full of thought, which here
can only be hinted at in passing, as we press forward to
the close of this book.

i. It was the office of Christ, our Prophet, to teach
the truth of His Father, and to take the most effectual
precautions against the quick forgetfulness of mankind.
While upon earth, He had few disciples, and they
feeble and obscure. When He ascended into heaven,
He gave promise of a second Advent to judge the
quick and dead. After His ascension, His few disci-
ples became His organized Church by the reception of
the informing Spirit ; and the term of its present or-
ganization is the interval between His first and His
second coming. In that interval it is her mission to
increase and spread, and carry over the whole earth,
her memory of her Redeemer. But in His absence
there is danger of forgetfulness which must be guarded
against. In the midst of earthly wants and pursuits,
the disciples of Christ might become absorbed in en-

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 295

grossing cares, choked with the deceitfulness of riches,
entangled in the world, and forgetful of the word of
life. Christ provided against this loss of His truth.
First, by the written word, — the records of His life,
and the Apostolic commentaries on His teaching. But
this, though invaluable to regulate faith, was not alone
sufficient to implant it, — inasmuch as a mere volume
might be treated with neglect. It could not search out
for converts; it must be sought unto. Hence, secondly,
by the ministry, who were set apart to the sole and
exclusive work of building up believers in the faith, and
urging it upon those who were not yet converted. But
even the ministry might be neglected, unless the
Christian believer were bound to them, and with them
to Christ, by some necessary bond. Hence, thirdly,
the Sacrament, instituted as a memorial, — minister and
people united thereby in the bonds of faith with the
Redeemer, of whom the one is to preach, and in whom
both are to believe. "This do in remembrance of
me." It is the distinctive worship of the Church, as
an act of faith, the constant memorial before God of
Christ, our prophet, priest, and king.

2. Correspondent to His office as Priest, it is a Sac-
rifice. Not as Rome affirms without authority, " sl
propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead;" nor
yet, as the direct opposite, the mere commemoration
of a sacrifice once made ; but a true Eucharistic sacri-
fice,— a "sacrifice of thanksgiving" for an atonement
fully made, and a propitiation perfect and sufficient.
The propitiatory sacrifices of the Law, needful as types
before the oblation of the Cross, are now and forever
abolished. ' ' The blood of bulls and goats which could

296 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

never take away sin," is no more to be sprinkled upon
the altar of burnt offering; because "Christ being
come, an high priest of good things to come, by a
greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with
hands ; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but
by His own blood, has entered in once into the Holy
Place, having obtained eternal redemption for us."
But the sacrifice of thanksgiving, the Eucharistic sacri-
fice, is not so abolished ; it is still offered up a true
sacrifice, the memorial of a completed redemption.
The priestly act of the minister in the church on earth,
the broken bread and the outpoured wine, offered up
upon that "altar whereof they have no right to eat
which serve the tabernacle," unite with the priest-
hood of our Lord and the sacrifice of His body and
blood on Mount Calvary ; the merits of which enable
us, as "a royal priesthood," to "offer ourselves, our
souls and bodies, a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice
unto God," the prayers and thanksgivings of devout
worshippers being mingled with the incense of His
intercession, who "hath an unchangeable priesthood."
Thus, as the Eucharistic memorial confirms our faith,
the Eucharistic sacrifice strengthens our hope, through
the assurance it gives of an all-sufficient ransom.

3. In its relation to the Kingly office of our Saviour,
it is a Feast. In this view, it is more especially con-
nected with the subject of these pages. What has
already been said respecting the communication, by
means of the Sacrament, of the Body and Blood of
Christ, belongs to this part of the transaction. This
appeals to our charity, as the others to our faith and
hope — the memorial, to faith ; the sacrifice, to hope ;

Sacraments in the System of Grace, 297

the feast, to charity ; — and all to earnest Christian work
for our own salvation, and the salvation of the world.

Now the Feast of the Holy Eucharist enters as a factor
into our religious life in a twofold way. It is the repara-
tion of a loss ; it is also the monitor of Christian progress.
We are continually losing, little by little, by our vol-
untary and involuntary slips and failings, our baptis-
mal grace, — and that, notwithstanding the great help
afforded by the grace of the Holy Spirit ; even though
the Christian may be actually making progress in sanc-
tification, and in the ability to bring his actions more
and more near to the Divine standard of duty. This
may seem a paradox; but, theoretically, it is strictly
true, and lies at the foundation of a correct, practical
view of the relation of the Eucharist to our spiritual
needs. The illustration before used may help the
reader to comprehend the fact the more readily. The
Christian in the present life may be likened to a grow-
ing youth, whose frame enlarges by daily increase,
while his system constantly wastes by the wear of
muscle and destruction of tissue. Were the waste
permitted to go on unchecked, notwithstanding the
growth, — nay, because of it, — death would soon super-
vene. So in the spiritual life. Every act, inasmuch as
it partakes of imperfection through the still remaining
"concupiscence" of the regenerate nature, is an ele-
ment of waste of the baptismal life ; because it taints
the soul with sin by reason of its imperfection ; while
yet, since it is done through grace more perfectly than
the last, it marks growth in grace ; just as bodily ex-
ercise promotes the waste and the growth together.
Hence, it will at once be seen, the Eucharistic partici-
26

298 Threefold Grace of tlie Holy Trinity.

pation bears the same relation to the soul that the
natural food does to the body.

Life and death are the two terms of spiritual exist-
ence. Death is not annihilation. It is not for us to
conceive the fearful ultimate reality of eternal death ;
and our prayer to God is that we may never know the
meaning of those awful words ; but we know that it is
not annihilation. The soul is immortal, and yet it
may die, — nay, without Christ, it is dead. " Dead in
trespasses and sins," it is out of God's favor, cut off
from the influences of the Holy Ghost, out of the har-
mony of all the world, corrupt with all manner of sin,
and subject to the vengeance of the Divine wrath. The
death of the soul, then, is a state of total sin, with all its
terrible consequences. On the other hand, the state
of life is the state of righteousness communicated by re-
generation in Christ, and preserved in continual and
progressive sanctification. Between these two points,
total death and perfect life, lies the interval of Christian
being j and this may be traversed from life to death,
by imperceptible steps, as well as by bold leaps. When
a person becomes regenerate, the change from condem-
nation to pardon is instantaneous, — it is God's act of a
moment ; but it would be strange indeed if persons
fell entirely from the grace of regeneration in opposi-
tion to the strivings of the Spirit, as quickly as it was
wrought in them by His power. When one sins after
regeneration, so as to die forever, that death is the sum
total of all his sins unrepented of. One sin might have
been repented of and forgiven ; but sins persisted in
and repeated bar the heart at length against repent-
ance and against mercy. A course of sin, then, is the

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 299

downward road from life to death. The great and
deadly sins are the acute diseases which lead immedi-
ately to the catastrophe ; the waste of the soul is the sum
of the imperceptible, involuntary sins of ignorance, of
omission, of commission, of nature, of carelessness,
which each of us, day by day, commits. Now, were it
not for our Lord's provision of Divine food and nour-
ishment of our regenerate life, by the grace of the Holy
Eucharist, this waste would go on without any repair
until the soul died of inanition, the baptismal life being
(as it were) entirely expended or withdrawn.

This constant waste, or tendency to death, is inhe-
rent in our fallen nature, though regenerate, and there-
fore it is, in a way, mixed up with our progressive ad-
vance in holiness of outward life. For, to recur to our
illustration, the youth, if he were in a consumption,
would continue growing in size of frame, while yet he
was wasting of the disease ; so the Christian, without the
constant nourishment of the grace ordinarily given in
the Holy Communion, might, so far as his acts of obe-
dience and endeavors after holiness of walk would
avail, be really growing in personal sanctification ;
while yet the lapses and imperfections attending even
his best efforts would have a reflex action upon his bap-
tismal life, which can only be adequately represented by
that figure of waste. It is true that to attempt to state
this, formally and scientifically, may provoke a de-
murrer ; but when we come practically to verify our ex-
perience as it exists in our own consciousness, we accept
these two apparently contradictory facts as the ground
of our religious thought and conversation. We
speak, as prompted by experience, on the one hand,

300 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

of our many faults, and failings, and lapses, we confess
them as sins, and sorrow for, and repent of them ; but,
on the other hand, we hope that we are growing in
grace, that we are gaining in sanctification, and living
daily more and more as it becometh the children of our
Father in heaven. We find, practically, no contradic-
tion in these statements ; they cohere perfectly in our
experience ; and therefore they may be accepted when
stated scientifically as well as popularly.

The explanation of the apparent contradiction con-
sists in the distinction between grace given and grace (so
to say) assimilated. We have shown that grace may re-
main, as it were, quiescent, as, for example, in baptized
infants, before they have reached the age of moral con-
sciousness. It is necessary, in order that the Divine life
may assimilate to itself the nature and being of man, that
he should act under its impulses ; the acts of the Chris-
tian life are, as it were, the kneading and compounding
into one mass of the Divine and natural life of the soul.
By this means the Divine life grows into the full-formed
plant of Christian virtue. But, in the process of the
assimilation, there are, as it were, counter-currents in
the circulation ; the perfection of the Divine life flows
into the soul's natural life, purifying and sanctifying it
under the auxiliary influence of the Holy Spirit j but,
on the other hand, the faults and imperfections of the
actions of man react upon the inflowing current, min-
gling with it the corruption of our sins, and thus, to that
extent, absorbing and destroying it, so that new sup-
plies must be drawn from the fountain of life by the
Sacrament of Communion.

It is not intended to assert that when baptized Chris-

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 301

tians are placed, by the Providence of God, in such
situations that they cannot receive the Holy Commu-
nion, their life of regeneration is subject to total decay,
and themselves to eternal loss, while yet they are en-
deavoring to grow in the grace of sanctification. It is
distinctly laid down that the Sacrament and the grace
of the Sacrament are different ; and, therefore, in such
cases, where the want of the Sacrament -is providential,
and beyond the control of the person himself, God
will convey the grace by other and invisible means,
nourishing and replenishing the, baptismal life. But
the ordinary means of this spiritual nourishment, for
the great mass of Christians who are not in excep-
tional situations, is the Sacrament of Holy Commu-
nion. By this means, received in repentance and
faith and charity, the members of the Church of
t Christ are fed with His body and blood, they receive
constant renewals of the baptismal life, they are ce-
mented more firmly, " as living stones" into the " tem-
ple of His body," they are united more closely with
Him, as their Redeemer, and obtain the gift of all the
communicable attributes which are implied in the par-
taking of His body and blood.

The benefit of the Holy Communion, therefore, as a
means of grace, is twofold : firstly, the replenishing of
the baptismal life, thus repairing our spiritual losses;
and secondly, the carrying forward our sanctification to
a higher point ; aiding in the growth, as well as restor-
ing the waste of the soul's life. For sanctification is,
as has been already shown, the assimilation of the con-
duct and the active powers of the Christian to the
Divine life,, under the influence of the grace of the Holy

302 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

Spirit, which is to the Divine seed, as air, light, heat,
and moisture are to natural plants. Hence, unless the
Divine life be replenished, as oil in a burning lamp,
it cannot advance the work of sanctification. There
will be a point where the loss in one direction will
balance the gain in the other; and then, as the waste
will continue without any correspondent gain, the life
cannot be stationary at that point, but must recede on
both lines. Hence, though sanctification is the work
of the Holy Spirit, which does not depend on Sacra-
ments for its exhibition, it cannot advance, except on
the condition that the baptismal life is fed with Eucha-
ristic nourishment. The baptismal life must be kept up
to its original vigor; and the active life must advance
beyond its former attainments, as the condition of
worthily partaking of the Lord's Supper.

By this course of remark, we arrive at the qualifica-
tions set down by the Church as requisite, in those who
come to Communion, and the reasons for them.
" What is required," it is asked in the Catechism, "of
those who come to the Lord's Supper?" The answer
is : " To examine themselves, whether they repent them
truly of their former sins, steadfastly purposing to lead
a new life ; have a lively faith in God's mercy through
Christ, with a thankful remembrance of His death ;
and be in charity with all men." It has been made
matter of objection to the Church, that she makes
Christian effort, by the doctrine of baptismal regenera-
tion, to be the effort to regain a lost innocence.3 The

a E.g. Robertson's Sermons, vol. ii. p. Si. In that sermon, it
is true, he calls it the Romish view ; but he does so to discredit it
by misnaming as well as misstating it.

Sacraments in the System of Grace. 303

representation is not a true one. It is the attempt to
replenish the baptismal graces, but it is also the en-
deavor to advance in active holiness beyond all that
we have reached hitherto. The two are inseparable.
Hence the required qualifications : firstly, repentance
for the sins which have caused the loss ; secondly, faith
and charity, the fruits of precedent sanctification, and
the ground of further advancement. For unless there
had been sin, and therefore loss, there would have been
no need of repentance ; and unless there had been a
measure of sanctification, by the grace of the Spirit,
there would be no possibility of faith and charity.

The Holy Communion, therefore, is the keystone of
the arch of Divine grace, which binds in its place all
the parts of the system. It is the means of the Chris-
tian's perfection, and has its place in the Church on
earth, as the representative of that reward which is re-
served for the saints in the heaven above. For that
reward will consist in the cleansing body and soul from
all the last remains of sin ; in perfecting sanctification ;
and in giving the soul to feast forever on the glorious
vision of God. The Holy Communion is in each par-
ticular the representative of the end. It follows, there-
fore, that as the object of life, as a whole, is the attain-
ment of final blessedness, that object will be accom-
plished if every part of life be lived in the endeavor to
be the worthy recipient of each successive Holy Com-
munion.

And thus we are brought to the last thing necessary
to be noticed in this treatise : that the grace of the
Holy Spirit is auxiliary to the grace of the Son in this
respect also.

304 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity.

It is made sufficiently plain that the prevenient grace
of the Spirit is auxiliary to the grace of the Son, in con-
verting the sinner to the right frame of mind and heart
for the reception of Holy Baptism. The aiding and
sanctifying grace of the Spirit, in like manner, has for
its object the making the Christian a worthy recipient
of the Holy Communion. For without that grace,
moulding and controlling the active life, and enabling
the baptismal grace to take root in the soil of the heart,
neither the repentance nor the faith, nor the charity
required is a possible thing. And inasmuch as the
communication of the life of Christ, in its highest de-
gree, is the gift of the title to heaven, and the power
which reconciles us to God the Father, the grace of the
Spirit has wrought its full effect when it has sanctified
the believer for the reception of the body and blood of
our crucified Lord, by which " He dwelleth in us and
we in Him."

The threefold grace of the Holy Trinity is the par-
doning, justifying grace of the Father, the redeeming
grace of the Son, and the sanctifying grace of the
Spirit. And the relation of each to the other is that
the grace of the Spirit prepares us to receive the grace
of the Son, and the grace of the Son admits us to the
grace of the Father j having attained which, we have
joy and happiness forever. The grace of the Father
enables us to become, the grace of the Son enables us
to be, and the grace of the Holy Spirit enables us to
live as the children of God.

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