1846.] Distinction between our natural and higher Life. 509 connection between this doctrine and what we may call the Christian consciousness. This connection between the definitions that have been given of the doctrine of the Trinity and the whole sphere of Christian doctrine and experience, is not a superficial one; the two are interwoven, fast formed together in their very roots.

§ 3. Connection of the Doctrine of the Trinity with the Christian Consciousness.

The fundamental idea of Christianity, the one which lies at the basis of all Christian experience, is that of redemption and atonement by Jesus Christ. Two elements are involved in our experience of this redemption, the consciousness of sin or of opposition to God, and the conscious reception of grace, which is the doing away of the opposition, the return to communion with God. These two states, that of nature or sin and that of grace, are in such an antagonism as does not indeed exclude a transition from the one to the other, but as does exclude the possibility of comprehending the second as a mere development of the first. Otherwise redemption were either impossible or unnecessary. Both Manichaeism and Pelagianism, therefore, must be regarded as systems in direct opposition to the fundamental idea of Christianity.

From this it also follows, that in both these states we not only refer our life to God as its last ground, but that we must first of all make such a distinction in the mode of reference as will be conformable with the difference in the two states. We derive our natural life from God as our creator and preserver; but when we have done this we have not yet come to understand the ground of our higher life. Our natural relation to God, though it does not directly include, yet it does not exclude, a state of sin and of separation from him; and from this state the opposite one of grace and of union with God cannot of itself proceed. In order to understand this latter state, we must assume a mode of the divine agency different from that manifested in our creation and preservation, and one which shall be connected with our consciousness of redemption by Christ, in whom God became united with human nature; through whom he has become united with us, and will become united with the whole world.

Nor is this all. Not only does our consciousness lead us to VOL. III. No. 11.

45

see a difference in the relations of our natural and of our higher life to God, but God himself is placed according to these relations in a different position with respect to us. By this is not meant that we do not recognize in both relations the same Being who worketh all in all; but we are obliged to form a different conception of this same Being, considered as the subject from whom the one agency proceeds, from that which we form of him as the source of the other agency. God the creator, and God the Redeemer are not ἄλλο καὶ ἄλλο, but rather ἄλλος καὶ ἄλλος. (That is, the difference is not such that we are led to attribute it to beings of entirely different or opposite natures; but it is such that we are naturally led to think of a difference in the personal agency employed.) There are those who acknowledge the dif ference of the two states of nature and of grace, but deny that the two can be referred to the same being; and they represent the Creator (the Demiurge), and that primal Deity who revealed himself in Christ (the just and merciful God), in complete opposition to one another; this is the fruit of a Manichaeising or dualistic principle. On the other hand, the denial of a different personal agency (of the allos xai alλos) has mostly been found in connection with Pelagian tendencies, with a denial of the radical distinction between the state of nature and the state of grace. Thus it would seem not to be a mere accident that Pelagianism when logically carried out (as, for example, among the Socinians) has also always led to Unitarianism.

However, clear as it is that a system which ignores the essential difference between the life of the natural man and of the regenerate, needs no other Saviour than one who acts by doctrine and example for the perfecting of our knowledge and our moral sentiments; and, hence, needs nothing more than a wise and holy man, or, at the very highest, only a man sent by God, endowed with higher powers and upheld by special grace; it may yet appear to be a matter of doubt whether it might not answer all the exigencies of the opposite evangelical system, to distinguish redemption as an act of God from the act of creation, in some such way as creation is distinguished from preservation, coöperation and government. For, then, it might be said, it would still remain true, as the Scripture declares (2 Cor. 5: 19), that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. But this very comparision may teach us that the relation, in point of fact, is wholly different.

1846.]

God's Agency in Creation and Redemption.

511

Creation, preservation and coöperation, the divine prescience and government1 may all be referred to the same sphere, or to the same conception, that of the universal dependence of all things upon God. In these terms this whole sphere of the divine agency is fully comprehended and exhausted, so that there is no room left for any conception of God's natural agency, which is not included in them; there is no need of any additional conceptions to complete the idea of God which lies at the basis of all these. And, on the other hand, they all exhibit the same fundamental relation of God to creation, only in different modes; and hence they can all be referred back to one another or to one fundamental idea, and they must be so referred when we think upon God who is the common source of all these relations, the subject from which they proceed. Coöperation can be considered as included or given in preservation, and preservation in creation; God's government of the world must be regarded as involved in the idea of coöperation, and prescience is involved in creation. The difference between primary and secondary causes, regard to or abstraction from the proper causality of what is finite, must recede or vanish in our consciousness, in proportion as we sink ourselves wholly into that Being who is the last ground and end of all things and powers; in proportion as we view all things in their necessary and entire dependence upon him. Hence there is here no occasion to assume for all these different agencies, (creation, preservation, etc.,) more than one subject from whom they proceed; since in the single idea of God as a Creator there is not anything wanting to explain all creation, nor in the creation do we find any such differences of operation as make it necessary for us to add anything to this idea, or to divide it into any parts which may not be resolved into one another, or referred back to one single conception of the Deity.

Redemption, on the other hand, with the ideas connected with it, presents to us a wholly different sphere of dependence, which also, only in another point of view, comprises all that is finite; for, manifestly, the very possibility of redemption presupposes that every being, without exception, is as it were ordained in reference to it. On this account the Redeemer, no less than the Creator, is called the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end (Rev. 1: 11; 22: 13;) without him was not anything made that was made (John 1: 3); without him, to

[To these five heads Dr. Twesten reduces his discussion respecting the divine attributes.-TR.]

whom all judgment has been committed (John 5: 22), and who in the fulness of times is to gather together all things which are in heaven and which are on the earth (Eph. 1: 10), the world cannot reach the end for which it was created. But this dependence can by no means be referred back to that general dependence which is found in nature; redemption cannot be put under the same head with creation, or be resolved into it, as can the preservation and government of the world. Much rather is it true, that when we reflect upon the author of creation and the author of redemption, there comes into our minds a decided contrast between him who, when he created all things, gave them over, as it were, to a separate and independent existence, and him who, in that he redeemed created beings from death and sin, called them back from the struggle they were making to live without God and for themselves alone, to a life of union with God, to a life which comes from God. And so, when we restrict our thoughts to the work of redemption alone, we feel and see a contrast between him to whom the world was to be reconciled, and him who made the reconciliation; between the Father who conceived the purpose of bringing back a sinful race to blessedness by means of the merits of his Son received by faith, and the Son, who was sent by the Father, and who by his life and doctrine, by his sufferings and work, by his death and resurrection, carried that purpose into effect and wrought out salvation for us.

Accordingly we say, that the religious consciousness of the Christian seems to demand, not only that we refer our redemption to God, but also that we make a distinction between God so far as we owe to him our redemption, and God so far as we consider him as the author of our natural existence. But at the same time we will not deny, that apart from the difficulty of exhibiting this view with a clearness corresponding to our inward perception of it, there might still remain such objections to it, as can only be set aside by the decisive declarations of the Holy Scriptures. The Scriptures, however, exclude every modalistic (or Sabellian) view of this doctrine, since they not only reveal to us in Christ, a being who is one with the Father, so that whoever sees him sees the Father also; but they likewise represent him as distinguished in the most precise manner from the Father, and that, too, not merely in his human or temporal manifestation, but as one who was before Abraham, who, even before the world was, had an eternal glory with the Father.

1846.]

The Doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit.

513

To come to a clear perception of the relation in which the fact of our redemption stands to God, of the new relation in which the Godhead is thus presented to us, is the first and necessary impulse of our minds when we begin to reflect upon the Christian scheme, and upon our conscious experience of that scheme; and the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ is the first fruit of such reflection.1

But as the Holy Scripture, to the confession of the Father and the Son, also adds that of the Holy Ghost, so likewise Christian reflection does not stop with the author of our redemption, but necessarily directs itself to the manner in which, and to the principle by which, we attain to the redemption made by Christ. The way and end, however, are already prescribed; the doctrine respecting the Holy Ghost, must shape itself after the analogy of the doctrine respecting the Son of God.

If our redemption is to be referred back to Christ, and in an especial manner to the indwelling of the eternal Word in him, then the indwelling of the Spirit in us is to be considered as a consequence of this, and as similar to it; here we find that union of the divine with the human, which was originally realized in Christ as the head, and is to pass over from him to the members. But although it is to be viewed as a consequence, it must also be viewed as a special and separate element, as a special divine agency, and is to be distinguished from the redeeming work of Christ; for, while the latter always remains the same, we both know that we ourselves have been in a state in which we had not yet attained to fellowship with him and through him with God, and we also see many around us who have not experienced that drawing of the Father without which no one comes to Christ (John 6:44). But the Father draws us by the Spirit proceeding

This view is confirmed by history. The doctrine of Christ's relation to the Father was a very early and earnest subject of doctrinal discussion, and even after this had been described and decided in definite formulas, the doctrine respecting the Holy Spirit was left for a time without any more definite description than was found in the declarations of the Scriptures or in the expres sions of ordinary Christian experience; and then, yet without any struggle or opposition such as can be compared with those upon the Christology, was defined in a corresponding manner. And not only is this so in the history of the church, but in the Bible also, God and the Lord, the Father and the Son, are more frequently brought together as two, than the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost as three; so that the doctrine of the second person in the Godhead seem to be more clearly and undeniably contained in the Scriptures, than that of the third person.