sophical. Here is a broad distinction between God as he exists in himself, and God as the Creator of the world; not so broad is the distinction between God as the author of the world, and God as ever acting in the world. It may be well, in order to remove all dualistic notions, as though God and the world were entirely independent existences, to speak of him as immanent in nature, as not only the source of the powers and laws of nature, but as also ever acting in and through these powers. But, at the bast, this expresses simply a distinction in the mode of the divine operations; it does not bring into view any new attributes or powers of the Godhead; nor does it present any wholly different view of the mode in which these attributes are manifested. Under the general notion of the relation of the world to God as its creator, we are obliged to bring all the attributes of God. And when we consider God as the cause of nature, we are also obliged to consider this causality as immanent in all his works. It may be a matter of convenience, it may assist us in forming some concep tion of the universality and omnipresence of the divine agency, if we make such a distinction; but it is not a matter of philosophical necessity.

In the second place, we say, that when we make this constant presence of God in his works, this immanence of the Creator in the creation, to be the same thing as what is meant when we speak of the Holy Ghost, we are doing violence to Scriptural language and to the whole analogy of Christian faith. God as the source of all life and phenomena in nature is one thing; God as the Holy Ghost is an entirely different conception. In the Holy Ghost we have indeed the idea of the divine immanence expressed; but the specific idea is that of the dwelling of God in his children, it is the relation in which he stands to the regenerate. He who has been redeemed by Christ, and sanctified, and elevated to communion with God; of him it is said that God comes to him and dwells in him (John 14: 23); he is in God and God in him (John 17: 21); he is a temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Cor. 3: 16, 17). There are indeed passages of the Old Testament in which the operations of God in nature are described as the action of the Spirit of God; yet even there, especially in the prophetical parts, this phraseology is chiefly employed when some relation to the kingdom of God in the special sense is intended. In the New Testament, however, this word, the Spirit of God, is almost exclusively used to describe that principle of a higher life which is at work in believers. And it belongs to the

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very genius of Christianity to make here a broad distinction. The whole peculiarity of our faith rests upon the contrast between what we designate as nature, and what we designate as grace. And precisely because we acknowledge the indwelling of the Spirit of God in the regenerate, we cannot acknowledge it in what is not regenerate. The two conceptions express things wholly diverse.

In the third place, we object to this philosophical statement, that it does not express the essential points in the doctrine of the Trinity, and especially in the Christian conception of the Trinity. Even if we should concede, contrary to what the church has always maintained and enforced with the clearest consciousness, that there is nothing in the nature of God to warrant this threefold distinction, that it has no objective value, but is only a philosophical way of thinking about God; if we should grant that this doctrine was derived from a principle foreign to Christianity, or even opposed to it, that is, from the mythologizing spirit of the ancient world; still we say, that in this doctrine as held by the church, we have very different conceptions and statements in respect to the Godhead, from those which are brought to view in this philosophical analysis. The relations are different; the subjects are different. According to this philosophy we should have the following scheme: The Father, or God considered in his absolute independence, is the infinite, eternal, unconditioned substance, beyond and above the world, self-satisfying; God, considered in his relation to the world, or the Son, is the omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent and holy creator, preserver and governor of the world; God, considered in his relation to nature, or the Spirit, is omnipresent, penetrating everything, coöperating in all and with all. But are these the distinguishing predicates by which Christianity represents the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost? The conceptions which lie at the foundation of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, are wholly diverse from any such philosophical divisions and statements. It is indeed true that we believe, as the Nicene creed expresses it, that everything was created by the Son; but the Father is also declared to be the almighty maker of the heavens and the earth. Nor can we say that the Son is precisely equivalent to God revealed in the world, nor the Holy Ghost to God acting in nature; but the Son is he who has redeemed us; the Holy Ghost is he who

sanctifies us.1 In other words, we are to seek the foundation of the doctrine of the Trinity in that which constitutes the peculiarity of the Christian system, that it is a scheme of redemption. It is in our conscious experience of this redemption, considering this consciousness as connected with the whole Christian scheme, that we find the true basis for this doctrine. We cannot find it in the different relations which God sustains to the world, nor can we reach it by any philosophical division we may make of God's natural attributes, nor by any reflexion upon our natural and necessary conceptions of God. It is not in Natural Theology, it is not in the general relation of God to the world, that we are to seek the basis of the Trinity; it is found only in connection with the Christian system of redemption. In the course of our discussion we shall again recur to this point.

For a clearer view of the foundation and meaning of this doctrine, we must separately consider its biblical, its religious and its speculative aspects; or its biblical foundation, its connection with the whole Christian economy, including our experience of it, and the speculations which have been made upon it. We must always come back to the assertions of the Holy Scriptures, for without them the doctrine would not have originated, nor could it be maintained in the form in which the church has held it. We also may and must endeavor to point out its connection with the whole Christian scheme, and the foundation that there is for it in our conscious experience of this scheme; so that the doctrine shall not remain a dead letter, but shall be seen to be a necessary link in that chain of truths which constitute our Christian faith. And, finally, we ought not to overlook the attempts which philosophy has made in all periods of the church to unveil, or at least to make more clear, the mystery of the Trinity.

2. The Scriptural Basis of the Doctrine.

In the first place, the Holy Scriptures reveal God to us not only as the wise and omnipotent Creator of the heaven and the earth, not only as the holy Lawgiver, the righteous Judge, who renders to every man according to his works, but also as a merci.

1 As Luther in his Larger Catechism thus gives our Faith, "in the shortest way in so many words: I believe in God the Father who created me; I believe in God the Son who redeemed me; I believe in God the Holy Ghost who sanctifies me."

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ful and gracious Father. As such, though man became apostate, and made himself unworthy and incapable of attaining the highest good, and was exposed to temporal and eternal death, God from the beginning determined to restore our fallen race; divers times he proclaimed this decree and prepared for its execution; and at last, when the fulness of the time was come, he sent his Son into the world, that this purpose might be accomplished.

In the second place, in this Son, sent to be a Mediator and a Saviour, the Bible teaches us to recognise not a mere man, but the Word which was in the beginning with God, and which was God; the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person; higher than the angels, since he upholds all things by the word of his power, and since by him and for him all things are created. He did indeed take upon himself the form of a servant, and became like to us in all things except sin, but he was again raised to the right hand of God, and glorified with the glory which he had with the Father before the beginning of the world, since to him all power is given in heaven and upon the earth. Therefore at his name every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, that all men may honor the Son even as they honor the Father.1

But since no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost (1 Cor 12: 3), whom Christ at his departure promised to his disciples, who animated, illuminated and guided the apostles, and who dwells in all believers as the source of their assurance and joyfulness, as the pledge of everlasting life; the Scriptures do therefore, in the third place, teach us to believe in the Holy Spirit, not as an excitation, a sentiment or a disposition of our own souls, not as a quality, an active or passive state of those in whom he dwells, but as a power from above, a higher and divine principle, which is not only distinguished from, but even opposed to human personality (Rom. 8: 16. Matt. 10: 20. 1 Pet. 1: 11). His relation to God is compared with that of the human spirit to man (1 Cor. 2: 11); and he is represented as of a truly divine nature, but at the same time distinguished from the Father and the Son, as an individual subject of divine attributes and acts (Matt. 28: 19. 1 Cor. 12: 4-6. 2 Cor. 13: 13. Titus 3: 4—6. 1 Pet. 1: 2).

The general result of the declarations of the Holy Scriptures is then this: 1. That not only the Father, but also the Son and the

1 John 1: 1. Heb. 1: 3. Col. 1: 16. Phil. 2: 6. Heb. 4: 15. 12: 2. John 17: 5. Matt. 28: 18. Phil. 2: 9. John 5: 23.

Spirit have not a created, but a divine nature; 2. That the divinity of the Son and of the Spirit is not merely that of the Father, but that the Son is different from the Father, and the Holy Ghost from both; but yet, 3. That there is and remains only One God.

It does not come within our plan to investigate the objections urged against this result; this would be the province of Biblical Theology. To one point only can we allude. The Scriptures seldom or never speak of the divinity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost by themselves. In conformity with the whole character of the Bible, which is practical rather than strictly doctrinal, which is directed rather to the Christian life than to knowledge as such, it almost every where speaks of the Word in his human manifestation, and of the Spirit as acting in our minds; so that in its statements, the glory of the divinity (8óža rūs Deióryτος) appears mitigated by the human form (σχήμα ἀνθρωπίνον) in which it is exhibited. If Arian and Semi-arian conceptions thus seem to be favored, we must bear in mind that there cannot in truth be any middle term between God and a created being. If then we find that Christ and the Holy Spirit are spoken of in a way which raises them above the rank of creatures; if predicates are given to them, and a religious reverence paid to them, or sentiments and feelings expressed towards them, such as are befitting God only; we must then also regard them as having a truly divine nature.

The design of all the doctrinal statements and definitions which the church has made respecting the Trinity, is to hold fast the results which we have deduced from the Scriptures, and to exclude those views which either abandon the divinity of the Son and the Spirit, or look upon the difference between them as merely a difference in the mode of revealing or of understanding the same One God, or attribute to the Godhead three different divine natures. Hence these formulas are rather of a neg ative than a positive character, and, for the most part, only logical expositions of those fundamental relations which are referred to in the Scriptures.

We cannot be satisfied by a mere recital of these expositions. We must attempt to make them more clear by showing what religious truth is contained in them. This can only be done by an exhibition of the connection of the doctrine of Trinity with the fundamental characteristics of Christianity, considered as a matter of faith and of experience; in other words by showing the