Part 58

Trinitarians say, that Scripture both calls the Holy Spirit God, and assigns to Him a work which none but God could accomplish. Now in both these respects we have not a shadow of difference with the Trinitarians. We believe as firmly and we hope as fervently as they do, that the Holy Spirit is God, and that the Holy Spirit has connections with our souls which none but our God could hold. We have no controversy with the Trinitarians, when they assert the Deity, and Personality, and Operations of the Holy Spirit. It is a mere piece of controversial dexterity to put these points prominently forward as the true grounds of our difference—and, whether designedly or not, an unfair impression is produced against us, by such a mode of statement, as if we were deniers of the deity and agency of the spirit of God—if indeed any meaning could be found in such a denial, supposing we were extravagant enough to make it. To deny the deity of the Spirit of God, would be a proposition as absolutely without meaning as to deny the humanity of the spirit of man. We were told by the Lecturer in Christ Church to whom this subject was committed, that it was of no avail for Unitarians to advance passages in which the Holy Spirit signified not God himself, but his power and influence exerted upon man, for that these occasional meanings of the expression were fully conceded; and that what we have to do, is to disprove the Trinitarian interpretation of _other_ passages which attribute to the Holy Spirit, deity, personality, and operation. Now the Trinitarians must allow us the privilege of taking our faith from ourselves, not from them, and in carving out for us this employment, the Lecturer at Christ Church would set us to the task of disproving our own convictions, of overthrowing our own interpretations, of answering and opposing _ourselves_. There is only one point of difference between the Trinitarians and ourselves upon this subject, and that is the only point to which their arguments never have a reference. They maintain and we maintain that the Holy Spirit is God. They concede and we concede that the expression “Holy Spirit” in scripture frequently signifies that portion of God’s spirit which is given to man naturally or supernaturally. They maintain however that the Holy Spirit is, not the one God, but a third person in the godhead—_and here we separate from them_, maintaining that the Scripture evidence for such a distribution of the Godhead among several persons is totally imaginary, and that the theological reasons for such a distribution betray the most arbitrary and unworthy limitations assigned by man to the infinite and spiritual nature of God. Now will it be believed that when Trinitarian controversialists treat this subject they uniformly put forward those views of it which we do not deny, as if we denied them, and they as uniformly pass over the only point of difference between us, and avoid all close grappling with it, laboriously proving that the holy Spirit is God, which of course we believe, and then taking for granted that he _is a third person_ in a Trinity, leaving the argument at the very point where argument ought to have commenced? Will it be believed that the Lecturer at Christ Church exhausted his strength and time in assiduously proving that the spirit of God was God, and that it had understanding, will, and power? Will it be believed that of nearly a three hours’ lecture, certainly not more than five minutes was devoted to the only point of difference between us—that the common parts of our faith were laboriously proved—if indeed such an identical proposition, as that the spirit of God is God, can be called faith—and the single controverted part left intact? I in my turn take the liberty of declaring that it is of no avail that Trinitarians adduce passages of scripture attesting the Deity, Personality, and Operations of the Holy Spirit, for that this is conceded, if an identical proposition can be conceded,—and that what they have to do is to prove that the spirit of God is not the one God, but a third person in the godhead—and if the Lecturer had devoted his three hours to this, the only point in controversy, he might have greatly aided, or greatly injured his cause, and have afforded an opportunity for testing the mutual strength of our views in a way which is now not possible. Disappointed of finding the controversy conducted with any closeness by the Lecturer in Christ Church on the only point by us denied, namely a deity of the Holy Spirit, personally separate from the deity of our one God, I turn to a published sermon of Dr. Tattershall’s, in the hope of finding some discussion of our true difference from an associated authority. But here unfortunately again precisely the same principle is pursued of proving what is not denied, and of passing most slightly over the only point of difference. In a sermon consisting of thirty-four pages just three are devoted to the matter in controversy,[528] and these I grieve to say occupied with reasonings so verbal and unsatisfactory, that one is amazed that a manly and reverential mind could offer or could accept them as the solid and substantial proofs of a doctrine that affects to such an extent the being and nature of God. I think it not unbecoming here to declare, that with respect to the two modes of proof adopted by Trinitarians to establish the separate deity of the Holy Spirit, the Scriptural proof, and the Theological proof, I have long and laboriously sought in their own writers, for some distinct controversial statement of the scriptural and theological adjustments of this subject; I have examined their scholars and critics for the verbal part of the argument, and their divines for the theological part of it, and nowhere can I find anything definite or tangible to grapple with or oppose. It is at least my conviction that never was so serious a doctrine as that of a third person in the godhead admitted upon evidence so small, and I cannot conceal my strengthened impression, that it has glided into most minds as an easy consequence from the deity of Christ. Again we avow our belief that the Holy Spirit is God, but we declare that we cannot find any scriptural evidence that he is a separate God (personally) from God our Father, or any theological evidence that He performs a work within our souls, which work may not be performed by God our Father. If Trinitarians wish to establish their own doctrine, it is to these two points that they ought to confine themselves.

Abandoned then to our own methods of discussing this subject by opponents who assert a doctrine that we deny, and prove only those portions of it that we admit, I shall endeavour to ascertain, first, the Scriptural meaning of the expression, “the Holy Spirit” or “Spirit of God.”

I shall examine the more difficult passages which are usually appealed to in this controversy.

I shall examine what Trinitarians call “the work of the Spirit,” in order to ascertain whether it requires a third person in the godhead, or whether God our Father is not sufficient for it.

And I shall close with some statement of our own views of the connections of the spirit of God with the spirit of man.

The expression “Holy Spirit” when used in scripture will I think always be found to designate not God as he is in Himself, whom no man knoweth, but God in communication with the spirit of man. Whether the Deity holds intercourse with his creatures naturally or supernaturally, the name applied to Him in scripture, with respect to those felt or manifested connections, is that of the Holy Spirit. And there is most holy and beautiful reason for this peculiar usage. God is a spirit; and he is therefore only spiritually discerned. Through our spirits He speaks to us. In our spirits He abides with us. Eye hath not seen him; ear hath not heard him—but through that portion of his spirit which He has given us, we know Him, and are His. It is not God without us, but God _within_ us that we know and feel. Externally we know Him not; personally we conceive him not; as He is, in his own essence and perfections we cannot think of Him—but He has put His own spirit within us, and that, in proportion as we have it and cherish it, reveals Him unto us—He has lighted up from Himself a candle of the Lord in our spiritual being, and if by communion with Him we keep oil in our lamps, and our lamps trimmed and burning, His spirit which bloweth where it listeth, listeth to blow upon us and to feed our flame. And how shall the spirit of man prepare itself for fresh communications from the spirit of God? Only by removing from his own spirit whatever is at variance with the spirit of God—by cleansing the temple, that the holy one may be able to come to us and manifest himself to a nature that has reverently sought to put away all deadening impurity, and to brighten the spiritual image in which it was made—by courting the voices of the soul—by listening amid the tumults of the world to hear God speaking in our conscience—by cherishing through obedience, and inviting through prayer the intimations, that by His spirit, from which ours are derived, He gives us of His will. The spirit of God originally made the spirit of Man: the spirit of God retains its connections with the spirit of Man so long as man does not by unholiness and alien sympathies drive out that holy Spirit: and in measures more abundantly as we prepare ourselves to receive of His, does He hold communion with us through affections and affinities fitted to apprehend Him; and He transforms the will that obeys Him from glory to glory as by the spirit of the Lord. I apprehend that the preparation which was made by God for the reception of the gospel and spirit of Jesus Christ, shows the preparation which all men must make who would qualify themselves for fresh communications from the Holy Spirit of our Father. The baptism of repentance prepared the way for the baptism of the holy spirit and of fire. The heart had to be cleansed before the spirit of God could descend upon it, and hold communication with it. And ever must there be a Baptist Ministry breaking the dread repose of sin, awakening the dead heart, and creating the consciousness of want, before the Christ of God can breathe in his gentle breath upon our souls, saying unto us, “receive ye the holy spirit.” The holy spirit of God reveals itself to the spirit of man in proportion as we remove unholiness from us. What use of language then can be more affectingly elevating and solemn than that which designates God, when in communication with man, as the Holy Spirit? A spirit, he is spiritually discerned: and holy, only those that are holy have affinities with Him.

Such then is the primary signification of the expression Holy Spirit when used in the Scriptures—the Holy Spirit of God naturally or supernaturally in communication with the spirit of man, and in fuller communication in proportion as man by holiness seeks it and prepares himself for it. From this however there is derived a secondary signification, and so natural and easy is the derivative meaning, that it is a strong confirmation of its primary. That portion of his spirit which God communicates to man, may be regarded as separated from Him. It has entered into man and become his. It is a gift, an inspiration from our God. Man has become the possessor of it, but still God is the origin of it, and therefore though imparted to us it may still be spoken of as God’s holy spirit. There are therefore in Scripture two significations of the Holy Spirit—the primary one—God in communication with man—and the secondary one—that portion of his spirit which God has communicated, naturally or supernaturally, and which has become ours. We have received the Holy Spirit, when we have spiritually received what only God can communicate. These two comprise, I believe, all the meanings of the expression, Holy Spirit, _first_, God communicating to man, and _secondly_ that portion of His spirit, which, by communication, man’s spirit has received.

I shall give some instances of each of these applications of the phrase.

There can be no difficulty in all those cases in which the holy Spirit signifies God himself in spiritual communication with man.—“And when they bring you into the synagogues, and unto magistrates, and powers; take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say. For the Holy Ghost shall teach you, in that same hour, what ye ought to say.”—Luke xii. 11, 12. Now in the parallel passage in St. Matthew’s Gospel we have the expression, the Holy Ghost, explained to mean the spirit of God our Father. “But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak. For it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.”—Matt. x. 19, 20. “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men spake, as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” “As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them—so they being sent forth by the Holy Spirit departed unto Seleucia.”—Acts xiii. 2, 4.

The expression the “Spirit of God” is sometimes used with the same signification, only with this difference, that “the Spirit of God” frequently signifies the essence and being of God as He is in Himself, whilst the expression “the Holy Spirit” is I believe never employed except to designate our heavenly Father when in living communication with the spirits of his children. “What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of a man that is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man [or no one] but the spirit of God.”—1 Cor. ii. 11. Here if the spirit of man means man, the spirit of God must mean God, and how in opposition to language so precise and definite, a separate personality could be introduced into the godhead, called the spirit of God, it is difficult to imagine. “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?”—Ps. cxxxix. “By his spirit he has garnished the heavens: his hand has formed the crooked serpent (the galaxy).”—Job, xxvi. 13.

I shall now adduce some of the more remarkable cases in which the various expressions, “spirit,” “holy spirit,” and “spirit of God,” are used to designate that portion of God’s spirit which naturally or supernaturally has entered into man, and become ours, but which in reference to Him from whom it was derived, and with whom it retains blessed connections, is called the spirit of God. God being a Spirit, and man being a spirit, whatever man knows or feels of God, may, not figuratively, but with the strictest truth, be called the Holy Spirit within him. “If ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him.”—Luke, xi. 13. Now that the Holy Spirit signifies here not a third person in the godhead, but our heavenly Father’s gifts and inspirations to the soul, is clearly shown by the parallel passage in St. Matthew’s gospel—“If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give _good things_ to them that ask Him.”—Matt. vii. 11. “But as it is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his spirit: for the spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.”—1 Cor. ii. 9, 10. Now here the spirit is used first in its primary sense of God in communication with man, and immediately after in its secondary sense of that portion of His spirit communicated to man, for it is just in proportion as it partakes of His spirit that the spirit of man searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. God enlightens and man receives—but the light which has entered into man, since it came from God, may well continue to be called the Spirit of God. “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God;—but the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But we have the mind of Christ.”—1 Cor. ii. 12-16. Here the Apostle distinctly declares that our portion of the spirit of God is “the mind of Christ.” In proportion as we have that we know Him, the only true God, whom to know is life eternal. “Likewise the spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.”—Rom. viii. 26. Now nothing can be more marvellous in all the marvels of scripture interpretation, than that this spirit within us which vents itself in groanings that cannot be uttered should ever have been referred to a third personality in the godhead. How beautiful is this passage when truly and _spiritually_ considered! We know not what to pray for as we ought; our spiritual apprehension is feeble and dim; and our vague yearnings after the heavenly and the perfect are not distinct enough to present clearly-defined objects to our pursuit and love; yet we have a holy impulse within us, a divine tendency leading us towards God; God has given us this Spirit, and partaking of His nature it sighs after the perfection to which it is akin; it knows not fully its heavenly origin and end, but still true to the divine instinct it yearns after Him and tends towards Him; it sighs for a glory and a happiness which it cannot distinctly conceive or express, but God who gave it understands the prayer, and hears this intercession of His own spirit—that divine impulse planted by Himself which now supplicates Him to make bright its dim longings and to help it forwards unto that glory towards which the divinity within it tends—and He who searcheth the heart knoweth what is the mind of that spirit which He himself put there, and that it maketh intercession with Him, for all holy ones,[529] that He would fulfil the promise of the heavenly impulse that sighs for good.[530] How has Trinitarianism destroyed the spiritual power of the Scriptures, by taking all this beautiful and holy meaning out of the individual heart, and for the sighings which cannot be uttered after the immortal and the good, which God, who inspired them, comprehends and blesses, substituting a third Person in the godhead who intercedes for us to another Person, with groanings that cannot be uttered!

I believe that these two significations of the expression, “Holy Spirit,” so closely connected as scarcely to be two, will explain all the cases of its scriptural occurrence; first, God Himself in communication with the Soul, and secondly, that portion of His spirit which He has communicated to man, and which as being His, derived from Him, and a portion of the true knowledge of His Mind, is called His Holy Spirit.

I shall now examine the Scriptural evidence which is chiefly relied upon in this controversy, as proving, not the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit, for here we agree, but a personality and deity distinct from those of God our Father.

“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”—Matt. xxviii. 19; or, into the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the word, “name,” by an idiom of the Hebrew language, being redundant.

To baptize into a person was a form of expression signifying the reception of the religious ideas associated with that person. Thus the Jews were said to be baptized into Moses, because they received the religious ideas associated with the institutions of that Prophet: and on the other hand, the Samaritans were said to be baptized into Mount Gerizim, because they received the religious ideas associated with the belief that there, and not at Jerusalem, was the appointed place of the Temple. The formula then of baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, signified nothing more than the acceptance of the religious ideas associated with God in this new manifestation of Himself, revealed through the Christ, and accompanied by the operations of His Spirit, witnessing, both internally and externally, to the new light that had come into the world, the promised reign of the spirit of God. These were the words which most readily were associated with, and suggested those religious ideas which were looked upon as constituting the characteristic faith of one who was willing to enter into the gospel kingdom of Heaven, that is, to adopt the _Christian_ idea of God and of Religion. The Father, the Christ, the Spirit of God in us giving us some communion with that Father, by uniting us through spiritual sympathies with that Christ—is not this of the very soul of Christianity? God manifested in Jesus, and our souls accepting the revelation, because the spirit of our Father within us draws us towards him who had the same spirit without measure—is not this to express in a few words all the characteristic and peculiar ideas of Christianity, and therefore most fit to be used as suggesting summarily to matured converts the new faith into which they were baptized? The same set of ideas might have been as fully expressed by the shorter form of being baptized “into Christ,” for this would imply the possession and acceptance of all the religious ideas associated with his person and ministry—and accordingly we find that in every recorded case of baptism or allusion to baptism in the Acts of the Apostles, and in the Epistles, the expression simply and briefly is to “baptize into Christ,” and never once is there an allusion to the form of baptism into the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Now this demonstrates two things: first that the Apostles did not look upon these words as _a form prescribed by Christ_: and secondly, that they did not regard them as a confession of faith in a tri-personal God, else would they never have neglected all mention of the _first_ and _third_ persons, and simply baptized into Christ, that is, into the religion of the Christ. There is a remarkable confirmation of this view, if indeed it can be supposed to want confirmation, in the language of Paul to some disciples at Ephesus, who had not received the witnessing power and presence of the Holy Spirit. They declare that they had not so much as heard whether there was any Holy Spirit. To _what_, then, says the Apostle were you baptized; not into _whom_, observe, but into _what_ were you baptized,—that is, was not the manifestation and participation of God’s Spirit one of the religious ideas and expectations of your faith as converts. And they answer that they had only been baptized into the baptism of John, who had _promised_ the Holy Spirit, but had no power to _confer_ it. And then Paul baptized them into Jesus, and they received the Holy Spirit. Now can any one read this passage and believe that the Holy Ghost implies the third person in a Trinity: was it not simply a portion of God’s spirit received by the first believers as an attestation to the religion of the Christ?

Nothing can be more arbitrary than to assert that baptism implies the personality and deity of that into which a person is baptized. The Apostle Paul says that Christians were baptized into the death of Christ. Rom. vi. 3. Is the death of Christ therefore a person and a God? Is it not simply one of the religious ideas which their faith embraced?