ART. II.—THE PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

BY REV. WILLIAM C. CHILD,

Pastor of the Baptist Church, Framingham, Mass.

1. On the Discrepancy between the Sabellian and Athanasian Method of Representing the Doctrine of the Trinity. By Dr. FREDERIC SCHLEIERMACHER, late Professor in the University of Berlin. Translated, with Notes and Illustrations, by M. STUART, Prof. Sacred Lit. in the Theol. Sem., Andover. Biblical Repository, April and July, 1835.

2. God in Christ; Three Discourses delivered at New-Haven, Cambridge and Andover, with a Preliminary Dissertation on Language. By HORACE BUSHNELL. Hartford: Brown & Parsons. 1849.

THE publications placed at the head of this article have exerted, and are still exerting, a very powerful influence. They show what have been some of the workings of the human mind on theological topics, and at what points it has often labored. In every age of the Christian Church, or since the doctrines pertaining to the Divine Existence have been fully revealed, efforts have been made to comprehend the philosophy of them, and reconcile them with those conceptions, which, consistently with reason, come within the scope of man's intellect. Speculation is no novelty. A mode of conceiving a truth may be suggested to an individual by the action of his own mind, and he may suppose, consequently, that new light has been shed upon the world, through himself, as a medium; but an acquaintance with the history of opinions will overturn all his claims to originality, by informing him that his fresh, and to him new views, have, ages since, been taken by others, and have afterwards been abandoned as false. A familiarity with the history of theological thinking is attended with at least one benefit, that of satisfying us that what often passes for novelty is not such, while it tends to teach and inspire a proper humility touching matters that are beyond us.

There is a natural order in which religious opinions take a stand on the arena of human belief. Sometimes we see one extreme following another in quick succession, in obedience to the law of action and reaction, and sometimes one class of

opinions, by a legitimate process, easily and quietly_merged into another; and often, when we take into view a long period of time, they seem to constitute, and move in, a circle. It is especially true, where there is a disposition to philosophize, and where the authority of revelation is not regarded as absolute and ultimate, that there will be fluctuations in doctrinal opinions; and even where the Word of God may be acknowledged as authoritative, we often see the same fluctuations, owing to the existence of a disposition to explain revealed truths by methods that are the products of speculation. Within certain general limits, we can affirm that there have been in the Church cycles of religious opinions, all of which have borne an unmistakable resemblance to each other in many of their features. The first embraced that period which immediately succeeded the establishment of Christianity; and there have been others since. In our view, there are many points of analogy in this respect between the age of which St. Augustine was the representative, and periods subsequent to the medieval epoch. And since the settlement of New-Eng land, theological opinions have there undergone similar changes, and even now bear similar features to those which we witness in connection with earlier ages; so that, if a new doctrine is broached, or a new view of any biblical subject is taken, the student of ecclesiastical history can find, in the annals of the past, that the same point on the circumference of the wheel of doctrinal opinion has before this come in contact with the minds of men.

We can hardly believe ourselves to be in error when we express the conviction that at the present day there is a strong tendency towards the views of Sabellius among some professed Trinitarians. The statements of the Bible touching the Divine Being, as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are too rug. ged and positive to be received without qualification and explanation. The time has been, and it is not very far removed in the past,—when uniformity of opinion on this subject existed to a great extent among theologians in this country; and while there were different expositions given of the doctrine of the Trinity, there were none, or but very few, who would so treat it, as to deny the personality of each of these three distinctions in the Godhead. But now we see symptoms of a change. Rationalistic ideas are in vogue. The doctrine of the Trinity must be made to harmonize with reason; and many seem to forget that it is a doctrine far above reason, or at least human reason. Desiring to avoid Socinianism on the one hand; and on the other, feeling the force of objections

made to the personality of each of the sacred Three as constituting a perfect unity of nature, there is a disposition to choose what may seem to be a middle ground; and a middle ground in this matter is only an abandonment of plain, scriptural representations.

In confirmation of our views respecting the tendencies of the present day, we refer to the publications named at the head of this article. The first is a translation of Dr. Schleiermacher's celebrated essay on the discrepancy between the Sabellian and Athanasian method of representing the doctrine of the Trinity, and was translated and published, accompanied with extended remarks, by the late Prof. Stuart, in the Biblical Repository of 1835. In this essay, the views of Sabellius respecting the Trinity are represented as somewhat different from what is asserted by other writers; but the same illustrations that are generally ascribed to him, are retained and acknowledged to be his. At all events, Dr. Schleiermacher can be regarded as substantially an endorser of the scheme of Sabellius, while Prof. Stuart, with some slight exceptions and qualifications, agrees with the author of the essay which he has translated.

A somewhat similar view of the doctrine of the Trinity is taken by Dr. Bushnell, and he acknowledges it in the introduction to his volume, entitled "God in Christ," (page 111,) in the following language: "Thirteen or fourteen years ago, Professor Stuart translated and published, in the Biblical Repository, a translation of Schleiermacher's critique on Sabellius, adding copious remarks of his own. The general view of the Trinity, given in that article, coincides, it will be discovered, with the view I have presented; though the reasonings are not, in all points, the same. I was greatly obliged to Prof. S. for giving it to the public, and not the less, because it confirmed me in results to which I had come by my own private struggles. That article, I believe, awakened no jealousy or uneasiness on account of his orthodoxy, although it was frankly intimated by the Professor that it had given him new light, and changed the complexion of his own views," &c.

We do not declare that the translator of Schleiermacher's essay, and Dr. Bushnell, are out-and-out Sabellians; but we do seem to see, in their published views respecting the Trinity, a strong and decided leaning towards the heresy of Sabellius. And they are not alone. The positions in which they were placed by Providence were commanding ones, and they have both been strongly influencing many minds. Their writings have been eagerlyread by multitudes; and at a point where so

many have stumbled and been perplexed, it is very natural to suppose that they have reflected the same kind of light upon others which they had themselves before received.

And what we affirm in regard to the doctrine of the Trinity, as such, is true with an emphasis in relation to the Holy Spirit. His personality is brought into question by the views to which we have alluded, and, as a consequence, the whole Christian scheme, in its evangelical and saving character, is placed in peril. For to us it is evident, beyond the possibility of question, that the loss of the doctrine of the Spirit's personality so mars and emasculates the gospel, in its symmetry and its efficacy, as to make it of but little practical utility. And we see a proof of this statement in the formalism and want of vitality that prevail wherever this and its associate doctrines are denied. The history of Christianity shows conclusively, that the preservation of the evangelical scheme of belief, in substance at least, is indispensably necessary, in order that those results. which were contemplated by the founder of our holy religion may be secured. An evangelical Christianity is the means to an end. Salvation, as an end, will be labored for and attained, only as the atonement, the proper person and work of Christ, and the person and work of the Holy Spirit, are cordially received in their scriptural aspects, and depended on as possessing a peculiar adaptation to human necessities. But let the evangelical element, the distinguishing features of the gospel be removed from the Christian system, and nothing is left but a name. The shell may appear, but the kernel is gone.

The personality of the Holy Spirit is denied by both the Socinian and the Sabellian theories. The first regards the Spirit as an attribute of God; or, in the words of Dr. Dewey, "that power of God, that divine influence, by which Christianity was established through miraculous aids, and by which its spirit is still shed abroad in the hearts of men." This statement makes the Holy Spirit an efflux from God, an effect, of which God is the cause. It of course precludes the idea of a distinct existence or personality, as indicated by the phrase Holy Spirit, and makes the object spoken of only a quality of the Divine Being. The Sabellian view, representing the Trinity as designating the threefold offices filled by one person, viz., God, is equally decisive in rejecting the personality of the Holy Spirit. Different offices or manifestations are represented by this system, as connected with one person, and he, at the same time, as sustaining a variety of relations in consequence. Sabellianism, viewing the Holy Spirit as only a form in which God appears and acts, the peculiar mode of manifest

ing himself at given times and in given circumstances, takes away from the Holy Spirit his personality, and makes him a mere aspect in which the Divine Being is seen.

These theories, equally opposed to the exhibitions made on this subject in the Bible, find favor with very many at the present day. Socinianism, in our opinion, is latent in not a few minds that are ostensibly orthodox and evangelical, while those which are bolder in their character, and whose thinking is more clearly defined and distinct, openly avow it. So, on the other hand, there are many persons who have felt the power of religion, and love its evangelical energy and distinctive ness, who earnestly desire some philosophical or rational basis on which to place the sublime doctrine of the Trinity. They are troubled by its mystery, and desire to bring its incomprehensible vastness within the compass of their finite powers. And hence, what was substantially the scheme of Sabellius, seeming to be in harmony with scriptural representations, and allowing the employment of old, familiar phraseology, commends itself to them as the solution of the great problem of the Trinity.

And it is a somewhat ominous circumstance, that a looseness of expression, on this subject, is coming to exist among Christians in their devotional exercises. They often seem to have no idea of the personality of that Spirit for whom they pray. They ask God for the Spirit as they would ask for any other blessing, referring to Him as an "influence," and not as a person -as if He were passive only, and not an agent-an unconscious gift, and not the energizing Deity. Thus a virtual sanction is given to Socinian views, by using such phraseology as accords with them; while the same modes of expression are inconsistent with the idea of the personality of the Holy Spirit. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the opinion of many individuals there is a vast amount of latent Socinianism among evangelical Christians, even while their creed is orthodox and correct; and the fact may not be suspected by themselves. We are satisfied that sufficient attention has not been bestowed on the subject of the Spirit's personality by Christians generally, nor is there among them so clear a perception of the necessity for his personality, in the evangelical system, as there should be. They have not, to a wide enough extent, so incorporated this truth with their religious needs and experiences, as to shape their modes of thought and their forms of expression in regard to it. They have gradually slidden into a practice which tends more and more to diminish their sense of the importance and dignity of