__________________________________________________________________ Title: The Work of the Holy Spirit Creator(s): Kuyper, Abraham (1837-1920) Print Basis: New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1900 Rights: Public Domain CCEL Subjects: All LC Call no: BX9422 LC Subjects: Christian Denominations Protestantism Post-Reformation Other Protestant denominations Reformed or Calvinistic Churches __________________________________________________________________ THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT BY ABRAHAM KUYPER, D.D., LL.D PROFESSOR OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM. TRANSLATED FROM THE DUTCH WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY REVEREND HENRI DE VRIES WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY PROFESSOR BENJAMIN B. WARFIELD, D.D., LL.D. OF PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY WM. B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING CO. GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. 1946 COPYRIGHT, 1900 BY FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY [Registered at Stationers' Hall, London.] Printed in the United States of America. __________________________________________________________________ PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR. __________________________________________________________________ Special treatises on the Person of the Holy Spirit are comparatively few, and systematic treatment of His Work is still more uncommon. In dogmatics, it is true, this subject is introduced, developed, and explained, but special treatment is exceptional. As much as there is written on Christ, so little is there written on the Holy Spirit. The work of John Owen on this subject is most widely known and still unsurpassed. In fact, John Owen wrote three works on the Holy Spirit; published in 1674, 1682, and 1693. He was naturally a prolific writer and theologian. Born in 1616, he died at the good old age of seventy-five years, in 1691. From 1642, when he published his first book, he continued writing books until his death. In 1826 Richard Baynes reissued the works of John Owen, D.D., edited by Thomas Russell, A.M., with memoirs of his life and writings (twenty-one volumes). This edition is still in the market, and offers a treasury of sound and thorough theology. Besides Owen's works I mention the following: David Rungius, "Proof of the Eternity and Eternal Godhead of the Holy Spirit," Wittenberg, 1599. Seb. Nieman, "On the Holy Spirit," Jena, 1655. Joannes Ernest Gerhard, "On the Person of the Holy Spirit," Jena, 1660. Theod. Hackspann, "Dissertation on the Holy Spirit," Jena, 1655. J. G. Dorsche, "On the Person of the Holy Spirit," Koeningsberg, 1690. Fr. Deutsch, "On the Personality of the Holy Spirit," Leipsic, 1711. Gottfr. Olearius (John F. Burgius), "On the Adoration and Worship of the Holy Spirit," Jena, 1727. J. F. Buddeuss, "On the Godhead of the Holy Spirit," Jena, 1727. J. C. Pfeiffer, "On the Godhead of the Holy Spirit," Jena, 1740. G. F. Gude, "On the Martyrs as Witnesses for the Godhead or the Holy Spirit," Leipsic, 1741. J. C. Danhauer, "On the Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son," Strasburg, 1663. J. Senstius, Rostock, 1718, and J. A. Butstett, Wolfenbuettel, 1749. John Schmid, John Meisner, P. Havercorn, G. Wegner, and C. M. Pfaff. The Work of the Holy Spirit has been discussed separately by the following: Anton, "The Holy Spirit Indispensable." Carsov, "On the Holy Spirit in Conviction." Wensdorf, "On the Holy Spirit as a Teacher." Boerner, "The Anointing of the Holy Spirit." Neuman, "The Anointing which Teaches All Things." Fries, "The Office of the Holy Spirit in General." Weiss, "The Holy Spirit Bringing into Remembrance." Foertsch, "On the Holy Spirit's Leading of the Children of God." Hoepfner, "On the Intercession of the Holy Spirit." Beltheim, Arnold, Gunther, Wendler, and Dummerick, "On the Groaning of the Holy Spirit." Meen, "On the Adoration of the Holy Spirit." Henning and Crusius, "On the Earnest of the Holy Spirit." The following Dutch theologians have written on the same subject: Gysbrecht Voetius in his "Select-Disput," I, p. 466. Sam, Maresius, "Theological Treatise on the Personality and Godhead of the Holy Spirit," in his "Sylloge-Disput," I, p. 364. Jac. Fruytier, "The Ancient Doctrine Concerning God the Holy Spirit, True, Proven, and Divine"; exposition of John xv. 26, 27. Camp, Vitringa, Jr., "Duae Disputationes Academicae de Notione Spiritus Sancti," in his Opuscula. Works on the same subject during the present century can scarcely be compared with the studies of John Owen. We notice the following: Herder, "Vom Paraclet." Kachel, "Von der Laesterung wider den Heiligen Geist," Nuernberg, 1875. E. Guers, "Le Saint-Esprit, Etude doctrinale et pratique sur Sa Personne et Son OEuvre," Toulouse, 1865. A. J. Gordon, "Dispensation of the Spirit." This meager bibliography shows what scant systematic treatment is accorded to the Person of the Holy Spirit. Studies of the Work of the Holy Spirit are still more scanty. It is true there are several dissertations on separate parts of this Work, but it has never been treated in its organic unity. Not even by Guers, who acknowledges that his little book is not entitled to a place among dogmatics. In fact, Owen is still unsurpassed and is therefore much sought after by good theologians, both lay and clerical. And yet Owen's masterpiece does not seem to make a closer study of this subject superfluous. Although invincible as a champion against the Arminians and Semi-Arminians of the latter part of the seventeenth century, his armor is too light to meet the doctrinal errors of the present time. For this reason the author has undertaken to offer the thinking Christian public an exposition of the second part of this great subject, in a form adapted to the claims of the age and the errors of the day. He has not treated the first part, the Person of the Holy Spirit. This is not a subject for controversy. The Godhead of the Holy Spirit is indeed being confessed or denied, but the principles of which confession or denial is the necessary result are so divergent that a discussion between confessor and denier is impossible. If they ever enter the arena, they should cross lances on the point of first principles and discuss the Source of Truth. And when this is settled, they might come to discuss a special subject like that of the Holy Spirit. But until then such a discussion with them that deny the Revelation would almost be sacrilegious. But with the Work of the Holy Spirit, it is different. For although professing Christians acknowledge this Work, and all that it includes, and all that flows from it, yet the various groups into which they divide represent it in very divergent ways. What differences on this point between Calvinists and Ethicals, Reformed, Kohlbruggians, and Perfectionists! The representations of the practical Supernaturalists, Mystics, and Antinomians can scarcely be recognized. It seemed to me impracticable and confusing to attack these deviating opinions on subordinate points. These differences should never be discussed but systematically. He that has not first staked off the entire domain in which the Holy Spirit works can not successfully measure any part of it, to the winning of a brother or to the glory of God. Hence leaving out polemics almost entirely, I have made an effort to represent the Work of the Holy Spirit in its organic relations, so that the reader may be enabled to survey the entire domain. And in surveying, who is not surprised at the ever-increasing dimensions of the Work of the Holy Spirit in all the things that pertain to God and man? Even though we honor the Father and believe on the Son, how little do we live in the Holy Spirit! It even seems to us sometimes that for our sanctification only, the Holy Spirit is added accidentally to the great redemptive work. This is the reason why our thoughts are so little occupied with the Holy Spirit; why in the ministry of the Word He is so little honored; why the people of God, when bowed in supplication before the Throne of Grace, make Him so little the object of their adoration. You feel involuntarily that of our piety, which is already small enough, He receives a too scanty portion. And since this is the result of an inexcusable lack of knowledge and appreciation of His glorious Work in the entire creation, holy enthusiasm constrained me, in the power of God, to offer my fellow champions for the faith once delivered by the fathers, some assistance in this respect. May the Holy Spirit, whose divine Work I have uttered in human words and with stammering tongue, crown this labor with such blessing that you may feel His unseen Presence more closely, and that He may bring to your disquieted heart more abundant consolation. --Amsterdam, April 10, 1888-- Postscript for American readers, I add one more observation. This work contains occasional polemics against Methodism which to the many ministers and members of the churches called "Methodist" may appear unfair and uncalled for. Be it, therefore, clearly stated that my controversy with Methodism is never with these particular churches. The Methodism that I contend with prevailed until recently in nearly all the Protestant churches as an unhealthy fruit of the Reveil in the beginning of this century. Methodism as here intended is identical with what Mr. Heath, in The Contemporary Review (May, 1898), criticized as woefully inadequate to place Protestantism again at the head of the spiritual movement. Methodism was born out of the spiritual decline of the Episcopal Church of England and Wales. It arose as the reaction of the individual and of the spiritual subjective against the destructive power of the objective in the community as manifested in the Church of England. As such the reaction was precious and undoubtedly a gift of God, and in its workings it would have continued just as salutary if it had retained its character of a predominant reaction. It should have supposed the Church as a community as an objective power, and in this objective domain it should have vindicated the significance of the individual spiritual life and of the subjective confessing. But it failed to do this. From vindicating the subjective rights of the individual it soon passed into antagonism against the objective rights of the community. This resulted dogmatically in the controversy about the objective work of God, viz., in His decree and His election, and ecclesiastically in antagonism against the objective work of the office through the confession. It gave supremacy to the subjective element in man's free will and to the individual element in the deciding of unchurchly conflicts in the Church. And so it retained no other aim than the conversion of individual sinners; and for this work it abandoned the organic and retained only the mechanical method. As such it celebrated in the so-called Reveil its most glorious triumph and penetrated nearly all the Protestant churches, and even the Episcopal Church, under the name of Evangelicalism or Low Churchism. As a second reaction against the second decline of the Protestant churches of that time, this triumph undoubtedly brought a great blessing. But when the necessity arose to reduce this new spiritual life to a definite principle, and upon this to construct a Protestant-Christian life and world-view in opposition to the unchristian philosophies and to the essentially pantheistic life and world-view, and to give these position and to maintain it, then it pitiably failed. It lacked conscious, sharply defined principles; with its individualism and subjectivity, it could not reach the social questions, and by reason of its complete lack of organic unity, it could not formulate an independent life and world-view; yea, it stood everywhere as an obstacle to such formations. For this reason it is absolutely necessary to teach the Protestant churches clearly to see this dark shadow of Methodism, while at the same time they should continue to study its precious significance as a spiritual reaction. Hence my contending with Methodism and my persistent pointing to the imperative necessity of vindicating, over against and alongside of the purely mechanical subjectivity, the rights of the organic social in all human life, and of satisfying the need of the power of objectivity in presence of the extravagant statements of subjectivity. This presses all the more since in the Methodist theology of America the modern tendency is gaining ground. The Work of the Holy Spirit may not be displaced by the activity of the human spirit. Kuyper. Amsterdam, April 21, 1899. __________________________________________________________________ EXPLANATORY NOTES TO THE AMERICAN EDITION __________________________________________________________________ Dr. Kuyper's work on the Holy Spirit first appeared in the Heraut in weekly installments, after which it was published in book form (Amsterdam, 1888). This explains the object of the author in writing the book, viz., the instruction of the people of the Netherlands. Written in the ordinary language of the people, it meets the need of both laity and clergy. However, depth of thought was not sacrificed to simplicity of speech. On the contrary, the latter was only the instrument to make the former lucid and transparent. The Heraut is a religious weekly of which Dr. Kuyper has been the editor-in-chief for more than twenty years. It is published on Friday and forms the Sunday reading of a large constituency. Through its columns Dr. Kuyper has taught again the people of the Netherlands, in city and country, the principles of the Reformed faith, and how to give these principles a new development in accordance with the modern conscience of our time. Dr. Kuyper is not an apologist, but an earnest and conscientious reconstructionist. He has made the people acquainted with the symbols of the Reformed faith, and by expounding the Scriptures to them, he has maintained and defended the positions of those symbols. His success in this respect appears conspicuously in the reformation of the Reformed Churches in 1886 and in the subsequent development of marvelous energy and activity in Church and State, which are products of revived and reconstructed Calvinism. Without the patient toil and labor of this quarter of a century, that reformation would have been impossible. In his religious and political reformations, Dr. Kuyper proceeded from the personal conviction that the salvation of Church and State could be found only in a return to the deserted foundations of the national Reformed theology; but not to reconstruct it in its worn-out form. "His fresh, brave spirit is entirely free from all conservatism" (Dr. W. Geesink). He is a man of his time, as well as for his time. The new superstructure, which he has been rearing upon the carefully reuncovered foundations of the Reformed theology, he seeks to adapt to all the needs, demands, and distresses of the present. In how far he has succeeded time only can tell. Since 1871 he has published in the columns of the Heraut and afterward in book form the following: "Out of the Word," Bible studies, four volumes; "The Incarnate Word," "The Work of the Holy Spirit," three volumes, and "E Voto Dordraceno," an explanation of the Heidelberg Catechism, four volumes. This last work is a rich treasury of sound and thorough theology, dogmatic and practical. He has published several other treatises which have not yet appeared in book form. Among these we notice especially "On Common Grace," which, still in process of publication, is full of most excellent reading. The number of his works amounts already to over one hundred and fifty, a partial list of which is to be found following this introduction. The following works have been translated into English: "Encyclopaedia of Sacred Theology" (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1898); "Calvinism and Art"; "Calvinism and Our Constitutional Liberties"; "Pantheism and Destruction of the Boundaries"; "The Stone Lectures." For the better understanding of the work, the translator begs to offer the following explanations: "Ethical Irenical," or simply "Ethical," is the name of a movement in the Netherlands that seeks to mediate between modern Rationalism and the orthodox confession of the old Reformed Church. It seeks to restore peace and tranquillity not by a return to the original church order, nor by the maintenance of the old Confession and the removal of deviating ministers through trial and deposition (Judicial Treatment), but by making efforts to find a common ground for both parties. It proceeds from the idea that that which is diseased in the Church can and will return to health: partly by letting the disease alone to run its course (Doorzieken)--forgetting that corruption in the Church is not a disease, but a sin (Dr. W. Geesink)--and partly by a liberal diffusion of Bible knowledge among the people (Medical Treatment). Dr. Chantepie de la Saussaye, a disciple of Schleiermacher, was the spiritual father of this Ethical theology. Born in 1818, Dr. De la Saussaye entered the University of Leyden in 1836. Dissatisfied with the rational supernaturalism of a former generation, unable to adapt himself to the vagueness and ambiguousness of the so-called Groningen school, or to find a basis for the development of his theological science in the treasures of the Calvinistic theology, he felt himself strongly attracted to the school of Schelling, and through him he came under the influence of Pantheism. During the years of his pastorate in Leeuwarden (1842-48) and in Leyden to 1872, he modified and developed the ideas of Schleiermacher in an independent way. The Ethical theology was the result. Its basic thought may be comprehended as follows: "Transcendent above nature, God is also immanent in nature. This immanence is not merely physical, but also, on the ground of this, ethical. This ethical immanence manifests itself in the religious moral life, which is the real and true life of man. It originates in the heathen world, and through Israel ascends to Christ, in whom it attains completion. Among the heathen it manifests itself especially in the conscience with its two elements of fear and hope; among Israel in Law and Prophecy; and in Christ in His perfect union with God and humanity. For this reason He is the Word par excellence, the Central Man, in whom all that is human is realized. However, while until Christ it proceeded from circumference to center, after Christ it proceeds in ever-widening circles from center to circumference. Life flows from Christ into the Church which, having temporarily become an institution for the education of the nations, became through the Reformation and the French Revolution what it should be, a confessing Church. Its power lies no more in ecclesiastical organization, neither in authoritative creed and confession, but in moral activity and influence. The divine Word in the conscience begins to work and to govern; Christianity is being transferred into the moral domain. "However; the perfect ethical immanence of God is not attained in this dispensation; being always possible, it may be realized in the succeeding eons." [1] It is not surprising that this theology, obliterating with its pantheistic current the boundary-lines between the Creator and the creature, should have come in hostile contact with the Reformed theology, which most zealously guards these boundary lines. In fact, instead of uniting the two existing parties on one common ground, the Ethical movement added a third, which in the subsequent conflict was much more bitter, arbitrary, and tyrannical than the moderns and which has already abandoned the Holy Scriptures in the manner of Wellhausen and Kuenen. In 1872 Dr. Chantepie de la Saussaye was appointed professor of theology in the University of Groningen, succeeding Hofstede de Groot. He filled this position but thirteen months. He fell asleep February 13, 1874. His most excellent disciple is the highly gifted Dr. J. H. Gunning, till 1899 professor of theology at the University of Leyden. The name of Dr. Kohlbrugge is frequently found in the following pages. Born a Lutheran, a graduate of the seminary of Amsterdam, a candidate for the Lutheran ministry, Dr. Kohlbrugge became acquainted with the Reformed theology through the study of its earlier exponents. Known and feared as an ardent admirer of the doctrine of predestination, the authorities first of the Lutheran then of the State Church refused him admission to the ministry. He left Holland for Germany, where for the same reason he was debarred from the pulpits of the German Reformed churches. At last he was called to the pulpit of a Free Reformed church at Elberfeld, established by himself. He was a profound theologian, a prolific writer, and one zealous for the honor of his Master. His numerous writings--half Lutheran, half Reformed--were spread over Holland, the Rhenish provinces, the cantons of Switzerland, and even among some Reformed churches of Bohemia. Some of his disciples fell into Antinomianism, and occupy pulpits in the State Church at the present time. They are called Neo-Kohlbruggians. Professor Boehl, of Vienna, is the learned representative of the Old Kohlbruggians. Both the old and the new school are strongly opposed to Calvinism. The translation of "The Work of the Holy Spirit" was undertaken by appointment of the author, to whom the proof sheets of almost all the first volume were submitted for correction. Being overwhelmed with work and being fully satisfied with the translation so far as he had seen it, the author decided not to delay the work for the reading of the remaining volumes, but to leave that to the discretion of the translator. A question of the omission of matter referring to local conditions and to current theological discussions was also left to the translator's judgment. Grateful thanks are due to Rev. Thomas Chalmers Straus, A. M., of Peekskill, N. Y., for valuable assistance in preparing this work for the press. Translator Peekskill, N. Y., January 27, 1900 The following is a partial list of the works of Dr. Kuyper: "J. Calvini et J. a Lasco: De Ecclesia Sententiarum inter se Compositio Acad. Diss." 1862. "Joannis a Lasco: Opera tum Edita quam Inedita." Two vols., 1866. "Wat moeten wy doen, het stemrecht aan ons zelven houden of den Kerkeraad machtigen?" (What Are We to Do: Retain the Right of Voting, or Authorize the Consistory?) 1867. "De Menschwording Gods Het Levensbeginsel der Kerk." Intreerede to Utrecht. (The Incarnation of God the Vital Principle of the Church. Inaugural discourse at Utrecht.) 1867. "Het Graf." Leerrede aan den avond van Goede-Vrydag. (The Tomb. Sermon on Good Friday night.) 1869. "Zestal Leerredenen." (Six Sermons.) 1869. "De Kerkelyke Goederen." (Church Property.) 1869. "Vrymaking der Kerk." (The Emancipation of the Church.) 1869. "Het Beroep op het Volksgeweten." (An Appeal to the National Conscience. ) 1869. "Eenvormigheid de Vloek van het Moderne Leven." (Uniformity the Curse of Modern Life.) 1869. "De Schrift het Woord Gods." (Scripture the Word of God.) 1870. "Kerkeraadsprotocollen der Hollandsche Gemeente te London." 1569-1571. (The Consistorial Minutes of the Dutch Church in London.) 1870. "De Hollandsche Gemeente te London," 1570-1571. (The Dutch Church in London.) 1870. "Conservatisme en Orthodoxie. Valsche en Ware Behoudzucht." (Conservatism and Orthodoxy, the True and the False Instinct of Self-Preservation.) 1870. "Geworteld en Gegrond, de Kerk als Organisme en Institute." (Rooted and Grounded, the Church as Organism and Institute.) Inaugural at Amsterdam. 1870. "De Leer der Onsterfelykheid en de Staats School." (The Doctrine of Immortality and the State School.) 1870. "Een Perel in de Verkeerde Schelp." (A Pearl in the Wrong Shell.) 1871. "Het Modernisme een Fata Morgana op Christelyk Gebied" (Modernism a Fata Morgana in the Christian Domain.) 1871. "De Zending Naar de Schrift." (Missions According to Scripture.) 1871. "Tweede Zestal Leerredenen." (Another Six Sermons.) 1851. "O God Wees My Zondaar Genadig!" Leerrede op den Laatsten Dag van Het Jaar; 1870. (O God be Merciful to Me a Sinner! Sermon on Old Year's night, 1870. ) 1871. "De Bartholomeusnacht." (The Bartholomew Night.) 1872. "De Sneeuw van den Libanon." (The Snow of Lebanon.) 1872. "Bekeert u Want het Koningryk Gods is Naby." (Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven Is at Hand). Sermon on the last day of the year 1871. 1872. "Het Vergryp der Zeventien Ouderlingen." (The Mistake of the Seventeen Elders. Memoir of the Consistory of Amsterdam.) 1872. "Uit het Woord." (Out of the Word.) Devotional Bible studies. 1873. "Het Calvinisme, Oorsprong en Waarborg onzer Constitutioneele Vryheden." (Calvinism, the Origin and Surety of Our Constitutional Liberties.) 1874. "Uit het Woord." (Out of the Word.) Second volume, 1875. "De Schoolquestie." (The School Question.) Six brochures, 1875. "Liberalisten en Joden." (Liberalists and Jews.) 1879. "Uit het Woord." (Out of the Word.) Third volume, 1879. "Ons Program." (Our Program.) 1879. "De Leidsche Professoren en de Executeurs der Dordtsche Nalatenschap". (The Leyden Professors and the Executors of the Inheritance of Dordt.) 1879. "Revisie der Revisielegende:" (Revision of the Revision Legend.) 1879. "De Synode der Nederlandsche Revormde Kerk uit Haar Eigen Vermaanbrief Geoordeeld." (The Synod of the Reformed Church in the Netherlands Judged by Its Own Epistle of Exhortation.) 1879. "Antirevolutionair ook in uw Gezin." (Anti-Revolutionary Even in the Family.) 1880. "Bede om een Dubbel Corrigendum." (Prayer for a Double Corrigendum.) 1880. "Strikt Genomen." (Taken Strictly. The Right to Found a University, Tested by Public Law and History.) 1880. "Souvereiniteit in Eigen Kring." (Sovereignty in Our Own Circle.) 1880. "Honig uit den Rottsteen." (Honey Out of the Rock.) 1880. "De Hedendaagsche Schrifteritiek in Hare Bedenkelyke Strekking voor de Gemeente des Levenden Gods." (Modern Criticism and Its Dangerous Influence upon the Church of the Living God.) Discourse. 1882. "D. Franscisci Junii: Opuscula Theologica." 1882. "Alexander Comrie." Translated from The Catholic Presbyterian Review. 1882. "Ex Ungue Leonem." Dr. Doedes's Method of Interpretation Tested on One Point. 1882. "Welke zyn de Vooruitzchten voor de Studenten der vrye Universiteit?" (What Are the Prospects for the Students of the Free University?) 1882. "Tractaat van de Reformatie der Kerken." (Tractate of the Reformation of the Churches.) 1883. "Honig uit den Rottsteen." (Honey Out of the Rock.) Second volume, 1883. "Uit het Woord." (Out of the Word.) Second series, first volume: That Grace Is Particular. 1884. "Yzer en Leem." (Iron and Clay.) Discourses. 1885. "Uit het Woord." (Out of the Word.) Second volume: The Doctrine of the Covenants. 1885. "Uit het Woord." Third volume: The Practise of Godliness. 1886. "Het Dreigend Conflict." (The Conflict Threatening.) 1886. "Het Conflict Gekomen." (The Conflict Come.) Three vols., 1886. "Dr. Kuyper voor de Synode." (Dr. Kuyper Before the Synod.) 1886. "Laatste Woord tot de Conscientie van de Leden der Synode." (Last Word to the Conscience of the Members of Synod.) On behalf of the persecuted members of the Consistory of Amsterdam. 1886. "Afwerping van het Juk der Synodale Hierarchie. "(The Throwing Off of the Yoke of the Synodical Hierarchy.) 1886. "Alzoo zal het onder u niet zyn." (It Shall Not be So Among You.) 1886. "Eene ziel die zich Nederbuigt." (A Prostrate Soul.) Opening address of the Reformed Church Congress at Amsterdam. 1887. "De Verborgen Dingen zyn voor den Heere Onzen God." (The Secret Things Belong to the Lord Our God.) 1887. "Sion Door Recht Verlost." (Zion Saved through Judgment.) 1887. "De Vleeschwording des Woords." (The Incarnation of the Word.) 1887. "Dagen van Goede Boodschap." (Days of Glad Tidings.) 1887. "Tweederlei Vaderland." (Two Fatherlands.) 1887. "Het Calvinisme en de Kunst." (Calvinism and Art.) 1888. "Dr. Gisberti Voetii Selectarum Disputationum Fasciculus." In the Bibliotheca Reformata. 1888. "Het Work des Heiligen Geestes." (The Work of the Holy Spirit.) Three vols., 1889. "Homer voor den Sabbath." (Homer for the Sabbath.) Meditations on the Sabbath. 1889. "Niet de Vryheidsboom Maar het Kruis." (Not the Tree of Liberty, but the Cross.) Opening address at the tenth annual meeting of the Deputies. 1889. "Eer is Teer." (Honor Is Tender.) 1889. "Handenarbeid." (Manual Labor.) 1889. "Scolastica." (The Secret of True Study.) 1889. "Tractaat van den Sabbath." (Tractate on the Sabbath.) A historical dogmatic study. 1890. "Separatie en Doleantie." ("Secession and Doleantie." "Doleantie" from doleo, to suffer pain, to mourn--is in Holland the historic name adopted by a body of Christians to designate the fact that they are either being persecuted by the State Church or have been expelled from its communion on account of their adherence to the orthodox confession.) 1890. "Zion's Roem en Sterkte." (Zion's Strength and Glory.) 1890. "De Twaalf Patriarchen." (The Twelve Patriarchs.) A study of Bible characters. 1890. "Eenige Kameradviezen." (Chamber Advices.) Of the years 1874, 1875, 1890. "Is er Aan de Publieke Universiteit ten onzent Plaats voor eene Faculteit der Theologie?" (Is there Room in Our Public Universities for a Theological Faculty?) 1890. "Calvinism and Confessional Revision." In The Presbyterian and Reformed Review, July, 1891. "Voor een Distel een Mirt." (Instead of a Brier, a Myrtle-Tree.) 1891. "Maranatha." Opening address at the meeting of Deputies. 1891. "Gedrachtslyn by de Stembus." (Line of Conduct at the Polls.) 1891. "Het Sociale Vraagstuk en de Christelyke Religie." (The Social Question and the Christian Religion.) Opening address at the Social Congress. 1891. "De Verflauwing der Grenzen." (The Destruction of the Boundaries.) Address at the transfer of the Rectorate of the Free University. 1892. "In de Schaduwe des Doods." (In the Shadows of Death.) Meditations for the sick-chamber and death-bed. 1893. "Encyclopaedie der Heilige Godgeleerdheid." (Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology.) Three vols., 1894. "E Voto Dordraceno." Explanation of the Heidelberg Catechism. Four vols., 1894-95. Levinus W. C. Keuchenius, LL.D. Biography. 1896. "De Christus en de Sociale Nooden, en de Democratische Klippen." (Christ and the Social Needs and Democratic Dangers.) 1895. "Uitgave van de Statenvertaling van den Bybel." (Edition of the Authorized Version of the Bible.) 1895. "De Zegen des Heeren over Onze Kerken." (The Blessing of the Lord upon Our Churches.) 1896. "Vrouwen uit de Heilige Schrift." (Women of the Bible.) 1897. "Le Parti Antirevolutionaire." (The Anti-Revolutionary Party.) In Les Pay-Pas. Presented by the Dutch Society of Journalists to the foreign journalists at the inauguration of the Queen. 1898. "By de Gratie Gods." (By the Grace of God.) Address. 1898. "Calvinism." Six lectures delivered at Princeton, N. J., October, 1898. "Calvinism in History," "Calvinism and Religion," "Calvinism and Politics," "Calvinism and Science," "Calvinism and Art," "Calvinism and the Future." Published in Dutch, January, 1899. "Als gy in uw Huis Zit." (When Thou Sittest in Thine House.) Meditations for the Family. July, 1899. "Evolutie." (Evolution.) Oration at the transfer of the rectorate of the Free University, October 20, 1899. __________________________________________________________________ [1] Dr. Bavink __________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTORY NOTE. By PROF. BENJAMIN B. WARFIELD, D.D., LL D., Of Princeton Theological Seminary. It is fortunately no longer necessary to formally introduce Dr. Kuyper to the American religious public. Quite a number of his remarkable essays have appeared of late years in our periodicals. These have borne such titles as "Calvinism in Art," "Calvinism the Source and Pledge of Our Constitutional Liberties," "Calvinism and Confessional Revision," "The Obliteration of Boundaries," and "The Antithesis between Symbolism and Revelation"; and have appeared in the pages of such publications as Christian Thought, Bibliotheca Sacra, The Presbyterian and Reformed Review--not, we may be sure, without delighting their readers with the breadth of their treatment and the high and penetrating quality of their thought. The columns of The Christian Intelligencer have from time to time during the last year been adorned with examples of Dr. Kuyper's practical expositions of Scriptural truth; and now and again a brief but illuminating discussion of a topic of present interest has appeared in the columns of The Independent. The appetite whetted by this taste of good things has been partially gratified by the publication in English of two extended treatises from his hand--one discussing in a singularly profound way the principles of "The Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology" (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1898), and the other expounding with the utmost breadth and forcefulness the fundamental principles of "Calvinism" (The Fleming H. Revell Company, 1899). The latter volume consists of lectures delivered on "The L. P. Stone Foundation," at Princeton Theological Seminary in the autumn of 1898, and Dr. Kuyper's visit to America on this occasion brought him into contact with many lovers of high ideas in America, and has left a sense of personal acquaintance with him on the minds of multitudes who had the good fortune to meet him or to hear his voice at that time. It is impossible for us to look longer upon Dr. Kuyper as a stranger, needing an introduction to our favorable notice, when he appears again before us; he seems rather now to be one of our own prophets, to whose message we have a certain right, and a new book from whose hands we welcome as we would a new gift from our near friend, charged in a sense with care for our welfare. The book that is at present offered to the American public does not indeed come fresh from his hands. It has already been within the reach of his Dutch audience for more than a decade (it was published in 1888). It is only recently, however, that Dr. Kuyper has come to belong to us also, and the publication of this book in English, we may hope, is only another step in the process which will gradually make all his message ours. Certainly no one will turn over the pages of this volume--much less will he, as our Jewish friends would say, "sink himself into the book"--without perceiving that it is a very valuable gift which comes to us in it from our newly found teacher. It is, as will be at once observed, a comprehensive treatise on the Work of the Holy Ghost--a theme higher than most which could occupy the attention of the Christian man, and yet one on which really comprehensive treatises, are comparatively rare. It is easy, to be sure, to exaggerate the significance of the latter fact. There never was a time, of course, when Christians did not confess their faith in the Holy Ghost; and there never was a time when they did not speak to one another of the work of the Blessed Spirit, the Executor of the Godhead not only in the creation and upholding of the worlds and in the inspiration of the prophets and apostles, but also in the regenerating and sanctifying of the soul. Nor has there ever been a time when, in the prosecution of its task of realizing mentally the treasures of truth put in its charge in the Scriptural revelation, the Church has not busied itself also with the investigation of the mysteries of the Person and work of the Spirit; and especially has there never been a time since that tremendous revival of religion which we call the Reformation when the whole work of the Spirit in the application of the redemption wrought out by Christ has not been a topic of the most thorough and loving study of Christian men. Indeed, it partly arises out of the very intensity of the study given to the saving activities of the Spirit that so few comprehensive Treatises on the work of the Spirit have been written. The subject has seemed so vast, the ramifications of it have appeared so far reaching, that few have had the courage to undertake it as a whole. Dogmaticians have, to be sure, been compelled to present the entire range of the matter in its appropriate place in their completed systems. But when monographs came to be written, they have tended to confine themselves to a single segment of the great circle; and thus we have had treatises rather on, say, Regeneration, or Justification, or Sanctification, or the Anointing of the Spirit; or the Intercession of the Spirit, or the Sealing of the Spirit, than on the work of the Spirit as a whole. It would be a great mistake to think of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as neglected, merely because it has been preferably presented under its several rubrics or parts, rather than in its entirety. How easily one may fall into such an error is fairly illustrated by certain criticisms that have been recently passed upon the Westminster Confession of Faith--which is (as a Puritan document was sure to be) very much a treatise on the work of the Spirit--as if it were deficient, in not having a chapter specifically devoted to "the Holy Spirit and His Work." The sole reason why it does not give a chapter to this subject, however, is because it prefers to give nine chapters to it; and when an attempt was made to supply the fancied omission, it was found that pretty much all that could be done was to present in the proposed new chapter a meager summary of the contents of these nine chapters. It would have been more plausible, indeed, to say that the Westminster Confession comparatively neglected the work of Christ, or even the work of God the Father. Similarly the lack in our literature of a large number of comprehensive treatises on the work of the Holy Spirit is in part due to the richness of our literature in treatises on the separate portions of that work severally. The significance of Dr. Kuyper's book is, therefore, in part due only to the fact that he has had the courage to attack and the gifts successfully to accomplish a task which few have possessed the breadth either of outlook or of powers to undertake. And it is no small gain to be able to survey the whole field of the work of the Holy Spirit in its organic unity under the guidance of so fertile, so systematic, and so practical a mind. If we can not look upon it as breaking entirely new ground, or even say that it is the only work of its kind since Owen, we can at least say that it brings together the material belonging to this great topic with a systematizing genius that is very rare, and presents it with a penetrating appreciation of its meaning and a richness of apprehension of its relations that is exceedingly illuminating. It is to be observed that we have not said without qualification that the comparative rarity of such comprehensive treatises on the work of the Holy Spirit as Dr. Kuyper's is due simply to the greatness and difficulty of the task. We have been careful to say that it is only in part due to this cause. It is only in the circles to which this English translation is presented, to say the truth, that this remark is applicable at all. It is the happiness of the Reformed Christians of English speech that they are the heirs of what must in all fairness be spoken of as an immense literature upon this great topic; it may even be said, with some justice, that the peculiarity of their theological labor turns just on the diligence and depth of their study of this locus. It is, it will be remembered, to John Owen's great "Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit" that Dr. Kuyper points as hitherto the normative treatise on the subject. But John Owen's book did not stand alone in his day and generation, but was rather merely symptomatic of the engrossment of the theological thought of the circle of which he was so great an ornament in the investigation of this subject. Thomas Goodwin's treatise on "The Work of the Holy Ghost in Our Salvation" is well worthy of a place by its side, and it is only the truth to say that Puritan thought was almost entirely occupied with loving study of the work of the Holy Spirit, and found its highest expression in dogmatico-practical expositions of the several aspects of it--of which such treatises as those of Charnock and Swinnerton on Regeneration are only the best-known examples among a multitude which have fallen out of memory in the lapse of years. For a century and a half afterward, indeed, this topic continued to form the hinge of the theologizing of the English Nonconformists. Nor has it lost its central position even yet in the minds of those who have the best right to be looked upon as the successors of the Puritans. There has been in some quarters some decay, to be sure, in sureness of grasp and theological precision in the presentation of the subject; but it is possible that a larger number of practical treatises on some element or other of the doctrine of the Spirit continue to appear from the English press annually than on any other branch of divinity. Among these, such books as Dr. A. J. Gordon's "The Ministry of the Spirit," Dr. J. E. Cumming's "Through the Eternal Spirit," Principal H. C. G. Moule's "Veni Creator," Dr. Redford's "Vox Dei," Dr. Robson's "The Holy Spirit, the Paraclete," Dr. Vaughan's "The Gifts of the Holy Spirit"--to name only a few of the most recent books--attain a high level of theological clarity and spiritual power; while, if we may be permitted to go back only a few years, we may find in Dr. James Buchanan's "The Office and Work of the Holy Spirit," and in Dr. George Smeaton's "The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit," two treatises covering the whole ground--the one in a more practical, the other in a more didactic spirit--in a manner worthy of the best traditions of our Puritan fathers. There has always been a copious stream of literature on the work of the Holy Spirit, therefore, among the English-speaking churches, and Dr. Kuyper's book comes to us not as something of a novelty, but as a specially finely conceived and executed presentation of a topic on which we are all thinking. But the case is not the same in all parts of Christendom. If we lift our eyes from our own special condition and view the Church at large, it is a very different spectacle that greets them. As we sweep them down the history of the Church, we discover that the topic of the work of the Holy Spirit was one which only at a late date really emerged as the explicit study of Christian men. As we sweep them over the whole extent of the modern Church, we discover that it is a topic which appeals even yet with little force to very large sections of the Church. The poverty of Continental theology in this locus is, indeed, after all is said and done, depressing. Note one or two little French books, by E. Guers and G. Tophel, [2] and a couple of formal studies of the New Testament doctrine of the Spirit by the Dutch writers Stemler and Thoden Van Velzen, called out by The Hague Society--and we have before us almost the whole list of the older books of our century which pretend in any way to cover the ground. Nor has very much been done more recently to remedy the deficiency. The amazing theological activity of latter day Germany has, to be sure, not been able to pass so fruitful a theme entirely by, and her scholars have given us a few scientific studies of sections of the Biblical material. The two most significant of these appeared, indeed, in the same year with Dr. Kuyper's book--Gloel's "Der heilige Geist in des Heilsverkuendigung des Paulus," and Gunkel's "Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes nach d. populaer. Anschauung der apostolischen Zeit and der Lehre d. A. Paulus" (2d ed.; 1899); these have been followed in the same spirit by Weienel in a work called "Die Wirkungen des Geistes und der Geister im nachapostolischen Zeitalter" (1899); while a little earlier the Dutch theologian Beversluis issued a more comprehensive study, "De Heilige Geest en zijne werkingen volgens de Schriften des Nieuwen Verbonds" (1896). Their investigation of the Biblical material, however, is not only very formal, but it is also dominated by such imperfect theological presuppositions that it can carry the student scarcely a step forward. Very recently something better in this respect has appeared in such books as Th. Meinhold's "Der heilige Geist und sein Wirken am einzelnen Menschen, mit besonderer Beziehung auf Luther" (1890, 12mo, pp. 228); [3] W. Koelling's "Pneumatologie, oder die Lehre von der Person des heiligen Geistes" (1894, 8vo, pp. 368); Karl von Lechler's "Die biblische Lehre vom heiligen Geiste" (1899, 8vo, pp. 307); and K. F. Noesgen's "Geschichte von der Lehre vom heiligen Geiste" (1899, 8vo, pp. 376)--which it is to be hoped are the beginnings of a varied body of scholarly works from the Lutheran side, out of which may, after a while, grow some such comprehensive and many-sided treatment of the whole subject as that which Dr. Kuyper has given our Dutch brethren, and now us in this English translation. But none of them provides the desired treatise itself, and it is significant that no one even professes to do so. Even where, as in the case of the books of Meinhold and von Lechler, the treatment is really topical, the author is careful to disclaim the purpose to provide a well compacted, systematic view of the subject, by putting on his title page a hint of a historical or exegetical point of view. In fact, only in a single instance in the whole history of German theological literature--or, we may say, prior to Dr. Kuyper in the entire history of continental theological literature--has any one had the courage or found the impulse to face the task Dr. Kuyper has so admirably executed. We are referring, of course, to the great work on "Die Lehre vom heiligen Geiste," which was projected by that theological giant, K. A. Kahnis, but the first part of which only was published--in a thin volume of three hundred and fifty-six pages, in 1847. It was doubtless symptomatic of the state of feeling in Germany on the subject that Kahnis never found time or encouragement in a long life of theological pursuits to complete his book. And, indeed, it was greeted in theological circles at the time with something like amused amazement that any one could devote so much time and labor to this theme, or expect others to find time and energy to read such a treatise. We are told that a well known theologian remarked caustically of it that if things were to be carried out on that scale, no one could expect to live long enough to read the literature of his subject; and the similar remark made by C. Hase in the preface to the fifth edition of his "Dogmatic," tho it names no names, is said to have had Kahnis's book in view. [4] The significance of Kahnis's unique and unsuccessful attempt to provide for German Protestantism some worthy treatment of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is so great that it will repay us to fix the facts concerning it well in our minds. And to this end we extract the following account of it from the introduction of the work of von Lechler which we have just mentioned (p. 22 sqq.) "We have to indicate, in conclusion, another circumstance in the history of our doctrine, which is in its way just as significant for the attitude of present day science toward this topic as was the silence of the first Ecumenical Council concerning it for the end of the first theological age. It is the extraordinary poverty of monographs on the Holy Spirit. Altho there do exist some, and in some instances important, studies dealing with the subject, yet their number is out of all proportion to the greatness and the extent of the problems. We doubtless should not err in assuming that vital interest in a scientific question will express itself not merely in comprehensive handbooks and encyclopedic compendiums, the latter of which are especially forced to see to the completeness of the list of subjects treated, but of necessity also in those separate investigations in which especially the fresh vigor of youth is accustomed to make proof of its fitness for higher studies. What lacunoe we should have to regret in other branches of theological science if a rich development of monographic literature did not range itself by the side of the compendiums, breaking out here and there new paths, laying deeper foundations, supplying valuable material for the constructive or decorative completion of the scientific structure! All this, in the present instance, however, has scarcely made a beginning. The sole separate treatise which has been projected on a really profound and broad basis of investigation--the "Lehre vom heiligen Geiste" of K. A. Kahnis (then at Breslau), 1847--came to a standstill with its first part. This celebrated theologian, who had certainly in his possession in surprising measure the qualities and acquisitions that fitted him to come forward as a preparer of the way in this uncertain and little worthily studied subject, had set before himself the purpose of investigating this, as he himself called it, `extraordinarily neglected' topic, at once on its Biblical, ecclesiastical, historical, and dogmatic sides. The history of his book is exceedingly instructive and suggestive with respect to the topic itself. He found the subject, as he approached it more closely, in a very special degree a difficult one, chiefly on account of the rnanifoldness of the conception. At first his results became ever more and more negative. A controversy with the `friends of light' of the time helped him forward. Testium nubes magis juvant, quam luciferorum virorum importuna lumina. But God, he says, led him to greater clearness: the doctrine of the Church approved itself to him. Nevertheless it was not his purpose to establish the Scriptural doctrine in all its points, but only to exhibit the place which the Holy Spirit occupies in the development of the Word of God in the Old and New Testaments. There was a feeling that came to him that we were standing upon the eve of a new outpouring of the Spirit. But the wished-for dawn, he says, still held back. His wide survey, beyond his special subject, of the whole domain of science in the corporate life of the Church is characteristic no less of the subject than of the man. It was not given to him, however, to see the longed-for flood poured over the parched fields. His exegetical `foundation' (chaps. i.-iii.) moves in the old tracks. Since he shared essentially the subjective point of view of Schleiermacher and committed the final decision in the determining conceptions to philosophy, in spite of many remarkable flashes of insight into the Scriptures he remained fixed in the intellectualistic and ethical mode of conceiving the Holy Ghost, though this was accompanied by many attempts to transcend Schleiermacher, but without the attaining of any unitary conception and without any effort to bring to a Scriptural solution the burning question of the personality or impersonality of the Spirit. The fourth chapter institutes a comparison between the Spirit of Christianity and that of heathenism. The second book deals first with the relation of the Church to the Holy Spirit in general, and then enters upon a history of the doctrine which is carried, however, only through the earliest fathers, and breaks off with a survey of the scanty harvest which the first age supplied to the succeeding epochs, in which the richest development of the doctrine took place. Here the book closes. . . ." [5] Thus the only worthy attempt German theology has made to produce a comprehensive treatise on the work of the Holy Ghost remains a neglected torso till today. If we will gather up the facts to which we have thus somewhat desultorily called attention into a propositional statement, we shall find ourselves compelled to recognize that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit was only slowly brought to the explicit consciousness of the Church and has even yet taken a firm hold on the mind and consciousness of only a small section of the Church. To be more specific, we shall need to note that the early Church busied itself with the investigation within the limits of this locus of only the doctrine of the person of the Holy Ghost--His deity and personality--and of His one function of inspirer of the prophets and apostles, while the whole doctrine of the work of the Spirit at large is a gift to the Church from the Reformation; [6] and we shall need to note further that since its formulation by the Reformers this doctrine has taken deep root and borne its full fruits only in the Reformed churches, and among them in exact proportion to the loyalty of their adherence to and the richness of their development of, the fundamental principles of the Reformed theology. Stated in its sharpest form, this is as much as to say that the developed doctrine of the work of the Holy Spirit is an exclusively Reformation doctrine, and more particularly a Reformed doctrine, and more particularly still a Puritan doctrine. Wherever the fundamental principles of the Reformation have gone, it has gone, but it has come to its full rights only among the Reformed churches, and among them only where what we have been accustomed to call "the Second Reformation" has deepened the spiritual life of the churches and cast back the Christian with special poignancy of feeling upon the grace of God alone as his sole dependence for salvation and all the goods of this life and the life to come. Indeed, it is possible to be more precise still. The doctrine of the work of the Holy spirit is a gift from John Calvin to the Church of Christ. He did not, of course, invent it. The whole of it lay spread out on the pages of Scripture with a clearness and fulness of utterance which one would think would secure that even he who ran should read it; and doubtless he who ran did read it, and it has fed the soul of the true believer in all ages. Accordingly, hints of its apprehension are found widely scattered in all Christian literature, and in particular the germs of the doctrine are spread broadcast over the pages of Augustine. Luther did not fail to lay hold upon them; Zwingli shows time and again that he had them richly in his mind; they constituted, in very fact, one of the foundations of the Reformation movement, or rather they provided its vital breath. But it was Calvin who first gave them anything like systematic or adequate expression, and it is through him and from him that they have come to be the assured possession of the Church of Christ. There is no phenomenon in doctrinal history more astonishing than the commonly entertained views as to the contribution made by John Calvin to the development of Christian doctrine. He is thought of currently as the father of doctrines, such as that of predestination and reprobation, of which he was the mere heir, taking them as wholes over from the hands of his great master Augustine. Meanwhile his real personal contributions to Christian doctrine are utterly forgotten. These are of the richest kind and can not be enumerated here. But it is germane to our present topic to note that at their head stand three gifts of the first value to the Church's thought and life, which we should by no means allow to pass from our grateful memory. It is to John Calvin that we owe that broad conception of the work of Christ which is expressed in the doctrine of His threefold office of Prophet, Priest, and King; he was the first who presented the work of Christ under this schema, and from him it was that it has passed into a Christian commonplace. It is to John Calvin that we owe the whole conception of a science of "Christian Ethics"; he was the first to outline its idea and develop its principles and contents, and it remained a peculium of his followers for a century. And it is to John Calvin that we owe the first formulation of the doctrine of the work of the Holy Ghost; he himself gave it a very rich statement, developing it especially in the broad departments of "Common Grace" "Regeneration," and "the Witness of the Spirit"; and it is, as we have seen, among his spiritual descendants only that it has to this day received any adequate attention in the churches. We must guard ourselves, of course, from exaggeration in such a matter; the bare facts, when put forth without pausing to allow for the unimportant shadings, sound of themselves sufficiently like an exaggeration. [7] But it is simply true that these great topics received their first formulation at the hands of John Calvin; and it is from him that the Church has derived them and to him that it owes its thanks for them. And if we pause to ask why the formulation of the doctrine of the work of the Spirit waited for the Reformation and for Calvin, and why the further working out of the details of this doctrine and its enrichment by the profound study of Christian minds and meditation of Christian hearts has come down from Calvin only to the Puritans, and from the Puritans to their spiritual descendants like the Free Church teachers of the Disruption era and the Dutch contestants for the treasures of the Reformed religion of our own day, the reasons are not far to seek. There is, in the first place, a regular order in the acquisition of doctrinal truth, inherent in the nature of the case, which therefore the Church was bound to follow in its gradual realization of the deposit of truth given it in the Scriptures; and by virtue of this the Church could not successfully attack the task of assimilating and formulating the doctrine of the work of the Spirit until the foundations had been laid firmly in a clear grasp on yet more fundamental doctrines. And there are, in the next place, certain forms of doctrinal construction which leave no or only a meager place for the work of the personal Holy Spirit in the heart; and in the presence of these constructions this doctrine, even where in part apprehended and acknowledged, languishes and falls out of the interest of men. The operation of the former cause postponed the development of the doctrine of the work of the Spirit until the way was prepared for it; and this preparation was complete only at the Reformation. The operation of the second cause has retarded where it has not stifled the proper assimilation of the doctrine in many parts of the Church until today. To be more specific, the development of the doctrinal system of Christianity in the apprehension of the Church has actually run through--as it theoretically should have run through--a regular and logical course. First, attention was absorbed in the contemplation of the objective elements of the Christian deposit and only afterward were the subjective elements taken into fuller consideration. First of all it was the Christian doctrine of God that forced itself on the attention of men, and it was not until the doctrine of the Trinity had been thoroughly assimilated that attention was vigorously attracted to the Christian doctrine of the God-man; and again, it was not until the doctrine of the Person of Christ was thoroughly assimilated that attention was poignantly attracted to the Christian doctrine of sin--man's need and helplessness; and only after that had been wrought fully out again could attention turn to the objective provision to meet man's needs in the work of Christ; and again, only after that to the subjective provision to meet his needs in the work of the Spirit. This is the logical order of development, and it is the actual order in which the Church has slowly and amid the throes of all sorts of conflicts--with the world and with its own slowness to believe all that the prophets have written--worked its way into the whole truth revealed to it in the Word. The order is, it will be observed, Theology, Christology, Anthropology (Hamartialogy), Impetration of Redemption, Application of Redemption; and in the nature of the case, the topics that fall under the rubric of the application of redemption could not be solidly investigated until the basis had been laid for them in the assimilation of the preceding topics. We have connected the great names of Athanasius and his worthy successors who fought out the Christological disputes, of Augustine and of Anselm, with the precedent stages of this development. It was the leaders of the Reformation who were called on to add the capstone to the structure by working out the facts as to the application of redemption to the soul of man through the Holy Spirit. Some elements of the doctrine of the Spirit are indeed implicated in earlier discussions. For example, the deity and personality of the Spirit--the whole doctrine of His person--was a part of the doctrine of the Trinity, and this accordingly became a topic for early debate, and patristic literature is rich in discussions of it. The authority of Scripture was fundamental to the whole doctrinal discussion, and the doctrine of the inspiration of the prophets and apostles by the Spirit was therefore asserted from the beginning with great emphasis. In the determination of man's need in the Pelagian controversy much was necessarily determined about "Grace,"--its necessity, its prevenience, its efficacy, its indefectibility,--and in this much was anticipated of what was afterward to be more orderly developed in the doctrine of the interior work of the Spirit; and accordingly there is much in Augustine which readumbrates the determination of later times. But even in Augustine there is a vagueness and tentativeness in the treatment of these topics which advises us that while the facts relative to man and his needs and the methods of God's working upon him to salvation are firmly grasped, these same facts relative to the personal activities of the Spirit as yet await their full assimilation. Another step had yet to be taken; the Church needed to wait yet for Anselm to set on foot the final determination of the doctrine of a vicarious atonement; and only when time had been given for its assimilation, at length men's minds were able to take the final step. Then Luther rose to proclaim justification by faith, and Calvin to set forth with his marvelous balance the whole doctrine of the work of the Spirit in applying salvation to the soul. In this matter, too, the fulness of the times needed to be waited for; and when the fulness of the times came, the men were ready for their task and the Church was ready for their work. And in this collocation we find a portion of the secret of the immense upheaval of the Reformation. Unfortunately, however, the Church was not ready in all its parts alike for the new step in doctrinal development. This was, of course, in the nature of the case: for the development of doctrine takes place naturally in a matrix of old and hardened partial conceptions, and can make its way only by means of a conflict of opinion. All Arians did not disappear immediately after the Council of Nice; on the contrary, for an age they seemed destined to rule the Church. The decree of Chalcedon did not at once quiet all Christological debate, or do away with all Christological error. There were remainders of Pelagianism that outlived Augustine; and indeed that after the Synod of Orange began to make headway against the truth. Anselm's construction of the atonement only slowly worked its way into the hearts of men. And so, when Calvin had for the first time formulated the fuller and more precise doctrine of the work of the Spirit, there were antagonistic forces in the world which crowded upon it and curtailed its influence and clogged its advance in the apprehension of men. In general, these may be said to be two: the sacerdotal tendency on the one hand and the libertarian tendency on the other. The sacerdotal tendency was entrenched in the old Church, from which the Reformers were extruded indeed by the very force of the new leaven of their individualism of spiritual life. That Church was therefore impervious to the newly formulated doctrine of the work of the Spirit. To it the Church was the depository of grace, the sacraments were its indispensable vehicle, and the administration of it lay in the hands of human agents. Wherever this sacramentarianism went, in however small a measure, it tended so far to distract men's attention from the Spirit of God and to focus it on the media of His working; and wherever it has entrenched itself, there the study of the work of the Spirit has accordingly more or less languished. It is easy indeed to say that the Spirit stands behind the sacraments and is operative in the sacraments; as a matter of fact, the sacraments tend, in all such cases, to absorb the attention, and the theoretical explanations of their efficacy as vested in the Spirit's energy tend to pass out of the vivid interest of men. The libertarian tendency, on the other hand, was the nerve of the old semi-Pelagianism which in Thomism and Tridentinism became in a modified form the formal doctrine of the Church of Rome; and in various forms it soon began to seep also into and to trouble the churches of the Reformation--first the Lutheran and after that also the Reformed. To it, the will of man was in greater or less measure the decisive factor in the subjective reception of salvation; and in proportion as it was more or less developed or more or less fully applied, interest in the doctrine of the subjective work of the Spirit languished, and in these circles too men's minds were to that degree distracted from the study of the doctrine of the work of the Spirit and tended to focus themselves on the autocracy of the human will and its native or renewed ability to obey God and seek and find communion with Him. No doubt here too it is easy to point to the function which is still allowed the Spirit, in most at least of the theological constructions on this basis. But the practical effect has been that just in proportion as the autocracy of the human will in salvation has been emphasized, the interest in the internal work of the Spirit has declined. When we take into consideration the widespread influence that has been attained even in the Protestant world by these two antagonistic tendencies, we shall cease to wonder at the widespread neglect that has befallen the doctrine of the work of the Spirit. And we shall have prosecuted our inquiry but a little way before we become aware how entirely these facts account for the phenomena before us: how completely it is true that interest in the doctrine of the work of the Spirit has failed just in those regions and just in those epochs in which either sacramentarian or libertarian opinions have ruled; and how true it is that engagement with this doctrine has been intense only along the banks of that narrow stream of religious life and thought the keynote of which has been the soli Deo gloria in all its fulness of meaning. With this key in hand the mysteries of the history of this doctrine in the Church are at once solved for us. One of the chief claims to our attention which Dr. Kuyper's book makes, therefore, is rooted in the fact that it is a product of a great religious movement in the Dutch churches. This is not the place to give a history of that movement. We have all watched it with the intensest interest, from the rise of the Free Churches to the union with them of the new element from the Doleantie. We have lacked no proof that it was a movement of exceptional spiritual depth; but had there lacked any such proof, it would be supplied by the appearance of this book out of its heart. Wherever men are busying themselves with holy and happy meditations on the Holy Ghost and His work, it is safe to say the foundations of a true spiritual life are laid, and the structure of a rich spiritual life is rising. The mere fact that a book of this character offers itself as one of the products of this movement attracts us to it; and the nature of the work itself--its solidity of thought and its depth of spiritual apprehension--brightens our hopes for the future of the churches in which it has had its birth. Only a spiritually minded Church provides a soil in which a literature of the Spirit can grow. There are some who will miss in the book what they are accustomed to call "scientific" character; [8] it has no lack certainly of scientific exactitude of conception, and if it seems to any to lack "scientific" form, it assuredly has a quality which is better than anything that even a "scientific" form could give it--it is a religious book. It is the product of a religious heart, and it leads the reader to a religious contemplation of the great facts of the Spirit's working. May it bring to all, into whose hands it finds its way in this fresh vehicle of a new language, an abiding and happy sense of rest on and in God the Holy Ghost, the Author and Lord of all life, to whom in our heart of hearts we may pray: "Veni, Creator Spiritus, Spiritus recreator, Tu deus, tu datus coelitus, Tu donum, tu donator." Princeton Theological Seminary, April 23, 1900. __________________________________________________________________ [2] Guers' "Le Saint-Esprit: Etude Doctrinale et Practique " (1865); G. Tophel's "The Work of the Holy Spirit in Man" (E. T., 1882), and also more recently "Le Saint-Esprit; Cinq Nouvelles Etudes Bibliques" (1899). [3] Meinhold's book is mainly a Lutheran polemic in behalf of fundamental principles, against the Ritschlian rationalism on this subject. As such its obverse is provided in the recent treatise of Rudolf Otto, "Die Anschauung vom heiligen Geiste bei Luther" (1898). [4] See Holtzmann in the Theolog. Literaturzeitung of 1896, xxv., p. 646. [5] Compare the remarks of Dr. Smeaton, op. cit., ed. 2, p. 396. [6] For the epoch-making character of the Reformation in the history of this doctrine cf. also Noesgen, op. cit., p. 2. "For its development, a division line is provided simply and solely by the Reformation, and this merely because at that time only was attention intensely directed to the right mode of the application of salvation. Thus were the problems of the specially saving operation of the Holy Spirit, of the manner of His working in the congregation of believers cast into the foreground, and the theological treatment of this doctrine made of ever increasing importance to the Church of Christ," etc. [7] So, for example, a careless reading of pp. 65-77 of Pannier's "Le Temoignage du Saint-Esprit "Gives the impression of exaggeration, whereas it is merely the suppression of all minor matters to emphasize the salient facts that is responsible for this effect. [8] Thus Beversluis, op. cit., speaks of it as Dr. Kuyper's bulky book, which "has no scientific value," tho it is full of fine passages and treats the subject in a many-sided way. __________________________________________________________________ PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR. SPECIAL treatises on the Person of the Holy Spirit are comparatively few, and systematic treatment of His Work is still more uncommon. In dogmatics, it is true, this subject is introduced, developed, and explained, but special treatment is exceptional. As much as there is written on Christ, so little is there written on the Holy Spirit. The work of John Owen on this subject is most widely known and still unsurpassed. In fact, John Owen wrote three works on the Holy Spirit; published in 1674, 16821 and 1693. He was naturally, a prolific writer and theologian. Born in I6I6, he died at the good old age of seventy-five years, in 16gi. From 1642, when he published his first bpok, he continued writing books until his death. In 1826 Richard Baynes reissued the works of John Owen, D.D., edited by Thomas Russell, A.M., with memoirs of his life and writings (twenty-one volumes). This edition is still in the market, and offers a treasury of sound and thorough theology. Besides Owen's works I mention the following: David Rungius, " Proof of the Eternity and Eternal Godhead pf the Holy Spirit," Wittenberg, 1599. Seb. Nieman, "On the Holy Spirit," Jena, 1655. Joannes Ernest Gerhard, " On the Person of the Holy Spirit," Jena, 1660. Theod. Hackspann, " Dissertation on the Holy Spirit," Jena, I6_f 5. J. G. Dorsche, " On the Person of the Holy Spirit," Konings-berg, 1690. Fr. Deutsch, " On the Personality of the Holy Spirit," Leipsic, 1711. Gottfr. Olearius (John F. Burgius), " On the Adoration and Wor. ship of the Holy Spirit," Jena, 1727. J. F. Buddeuss, " On the Godhead of the Holy Spirit," Jena; 1727. __________________________________________________________________ THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT __________________________________________________________________ VOLUME ONE The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Church as a Whole shall not see life, but the wrath of God abiding on him," this must be the only true standpoint. If we subscribe this awful statement; not having lost our way in the labyrinth of a so-called conditional immortality, which actually annihilates man, then how can we dream of a state of perfect bliss for the elect as long as the lost ones are being tormented by the worm that dieth not? Is there no more love or compassion in our hearts? Can we fancy ourselves for a single moment enjoying heaven's bliss while the fire is not quenched and no lighted torch is carried into the outer darkness? To make the bliss of the elect the final end of all things while Satan still roars in the bottomless pit is to annihilate the very thought of such bliss. Love suffers not only when a human being is in pain, but even when an animal is in distress; how much more when an angel gnashes his teeth in torture, and that angel beautiful and glorious as Satan was before his fall. And yet the very mention of Satan unconsciously lifts from our hearts the burden of fellow pain, suffering, and compassion; for we feel immediately that the knowledge of Satan's suffering in the pit does not in the least appeal to our compassion. On the contrary, to believe that. Satan exists but not in utter misery were a wound to our profound sense of justice. And this is the point: to conceive of the blessedness of a soul not in absolute union with Christ is unholy madness. No one but Christ is blessed, and no man can be blessed but he who is vitally one with Christ-Christ in him and he in Christ. Equally, it is unholy madness to conceive of man or angel lost in hell unless he has identified himself with Satan, having become morally one with him. The conception of a soul in hell not morally one with Satan is the most appalling cruelty from which every noble heart recoils with horror. Every child of God-is furious at Satan. Satan is simply unbearable to him. In his inward man (however unfaithful his nature may be) there is bitter enmity, implacable hatred against Satan. Hence it satisfies our holiest conscience to know that Satan is in the bottomless pit. To encourage a plea for him in the heart were treason against God. Sharp agony may pierce, his soul like a dagger for the unspeakable depth of his fall, yet as Satan, author of all that is demoniac and fiendish, who has bruised the heel of the Son of God, he can never move our hearts. __________________________________________________________________ First Chapter. INTRODUCTION. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ I. Careful Treatment Required. "Who hath also given unto us His Holy Spirit."--1 Thess. iv. 8. The need of divine guidance is never more deeply felt than when one undertakes to give instruction in the work of the Holy Spirit--so unspeakably tender is the subject, touching the inmost secrets of God and the soul's deepest mysteries. We shield instinctively the intimacies of kindred and friends from intrusive observation, and nothing hurts the sensitive heart more than the rude exposure of that which should not be unveiled, being beautiful only in the retirement of the home circle. Greater delicacy befits our approach to the holy mystery of our soul's intimacy with the living God. Indeed, we can scarcely find words to express it, for it touches a domain far below the social life where language is formed and usage determines the meaning of words. Glimpses of this life have been revealed, but the greater part has been withheld. It is like the life of Him who did not cry, nor lift up nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. And that which was heard was whispered rather than spoken--a soul-breath, soft but voiceless, or rather a radiating of the soul's own blessed warmth. Sometimes the stillness has been broken by a cry or a raptured shout; but there has been mainly a silent working, a ministering of stern rebuke or of sweet comfort by that wonderful Being in the Holy Trinity whom with stammering tongue we adore as the Holy Spirit. Spiritual experience can furnish no basis for instruction; for such experience rests on that which took place in our own soul. Certainly this has value, influence, voice in the matter. But what guarantees correctness and fidelity in interpreting such experience? And again, how can we distinguish its various sources--from ourselves, from without, or from the Holy Spirit? The twofold question will ever hold: Is our experience shared by others, and may it not be vitiated by what is in us sinful and spiritually abnormal? Altho there is no subject in whose treatment the soul inclines more to draw upon its own experience, there is none that demands more that our sole source of knowledge be the Word given us by the Holy Spirit. After that, human experience may be heard, attesting what the lips have confessed; even affording glimpses into the Spirit's blessed mysteries, which are unspeakable and of which the Scripture therefore does not speak. But this can not be the ground of instruction to others. The Church of Christ assuredly presents abundant spiritual utterance in hymn and spiritual song; in homilies hortatory and consoling; in sober confession of outbursts of souls wellnigh overwhelmed by the floods of persecution and martyrdom. But even this can not be the foundation of knowledge concerning the work of the Holy Spirit. The following reasons will make this apparent: First, The difficulty of discriminating between the men and women whose experience we consider pure and healthy, and those whose testimony we put aside as strained and unhealthful. Luther frequently spoke of his experience, and so did Caspar Schwenkfeld, the dangerous fanatic. But what is our warrant for approving the utterances of the great Reformer and warning against those of the Silesian nobleman? For evidently the testimony of the two men can not be equally true. Luther condemned as a lie what Schwenkfeld commended as a highly spiritual attainment. Second, The testimony of believers presents only the dim outlines of the work of the Holy Spirit. Their voices are faint as coming from an unknown realm, and their broken speech is intelligible only when we, initiated by the Holy Spirit, can interpret it from our own experience. Otherwise we hear, but fail to understand; we listen, but receive no information. Only he that hath ears can hear what the Spirit has spoken secretly to these children of God. Third, Among those Christian heroes whose testimony we receive, some speak clearly, truthfully, forcibly, others confusedly as tho they were groping in the dark. Whence the difference? Closer examination shows that the former have borrowed all their speech from the Word of God, while the others tried to add to it something novel that promised to be great, but proved only bubbles, quickly dissolved, leaving no trace. Last, When, on the other hand, in this treasury of Christian testimony we find some truth better developed, more clearly expressed, more aptly illustrated than in Scripture; or, in other words, when the ore of the Sacred Scripture has been melted in the crucible of the mortal anguish of the Church of God, and cast into more permanent forms, then we always discover in such forms certain fixed types. Spiritual life expresses itself otherwise among the earnest-souled Lapps and Finns than among the light-hearted French. The rugged Scotchman pours out his overflowing heart in a different way from that of the emotional German. Yea, more striking still, some preacher has obtained a marked influence upon the souls of men of a certain locality; an exhorter has got hold of the hearts of the people; or some mother in Israel has sent forth her word among her neighbors; and what do we discover? That in that whole region we meet no other expressions of spiritual life than those coined by that preacher, that exhorter, that mother in Israel. This shows that the language, the very words and forms in which the soul expresses itself, are largely borrowed, and spring but rarely from one's own spiritual consciousness; and so do not insure the correctness of their interpretation of the soul's experience. And when such heroes as Augustine, Thomas, Luther, Calvin, and others present us something strikingly original, then we encounter difficulty in understanding their strong and vigorous testimony. For the individuality of these choice vessels is so marked that, unless sifted and tested, we can not fully comprehend them. All this shows that the supply of knowledge concerning the work of the Holy Spirit, which, judging superficially, was to gush forth from the deep wells of Christian experience, yields but a few drops. Hence for the knowledge of the subject we must return to that wondrous Word of God which as a mystery of mysteries lies still uncomprehended in the Church, seemingly dead as a stone, but a stone that strikes fire. Who has not seen its scintillating sparks? Where is the child of God whose heart has not been kindled by the fire of that Word? But Scripture sheds scant light on the work of the Holy Spirit. For proof, see how much the Old Testament says of the Messiah and how comparatively little of the Holy Spirit. The little circle of saints, Mary, Simeon, Anna, John, who, standing in the vestibule of the New Testament, could scan the horizon of the Old Testament revelation with a glance--how much they knew of the Person of the Promised Deliverer, and how little of the Holy Spirit! Even including all the New Testament teachings, how scanty is the light upon the work of the Holy Spirit compared with that upon the work of Christ! And this is quite natural, and could not be otherwise, for Christ is the Word made Flesh, having visible, well-defined form, in which we recognize our own, that of a man, whose outlines follow the direction of our own being. Christ can be seen and heard; once men's hands could even handle the Word of Life. But the Holy Spirit is entirely different. Of Him nothing appears in visible form; He never steps out from the intangible void. Hovering, undefined, incomprehensible, He remains a mystery. He is as the wind! We hear its sound, but can not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth. Eye can not see Him, ear can not hear Him, much less the hand handle Him. There are, indeed, symbolic signs and appearances: a dove, tongues of fire, the sound of a rushing, mighty wind, a breathing from the holy lips of Jesus, a laying on of hands, a speaking with foreign tongues. But of all this nothing remains; nothing lingers behind, not even the trace of a footprint. And after the signs have disappeared, His being remains just as puzzling, mysterious, and distant as ever. So almost all the divine instruction concerning the Holy Spirit is likewise obscure, intelligible only so far as He makes it clear to the eye of the favored soul. We know that the same may be said of Christ's work, whose real import is apprehended solely by the spiritually enlightened, who behold the eternal wonders of the Cross. And yet what wonderful fascination is there even for a little child in the story of the manger in Bethlehem, of the Transfiguration, of Gabbatha and Golgotha. How easily can we interest him by telling of the heavenly Father who numbereth the hairs of his head, arrayeth the lilies of the field, feedeth the sparrows on the house-top. But is it possible so to engage his attention for the Person of the Holy Spirit? The same is true of the unregenerate: they are not unwilling to speak of the heavenly Father; many speak feelingly of the Manger and of the Cross. But do they ever speak of the Holy Spirit? They can not; the subject has no hold upon them. The Spirit of God is so holily sensitive that naturally He withdraws from the irreverent gaze of the uninitiated. Christ has fully revealed Himself. It was the love and divine compassion of the Son. But the Holy Spirit has not done so. It is His saving faithfulness to meet us only in the secret place of His love. This causes another difficulty. Because of His unrevealed character the Church has taught and studied the Spirit's work much less than Christ's, and has attained much less clearness in its theological discussion. We might say, since He gave the Word and illuminated the Church, He spoke much more of the Father and the Son than of Himself; not as tho it had been selfish to speak more of Himself--for sinful selfishness is inconceivable in regard to Him--but He must reveal the Father and the Son before He could lead us into the more intimate fellowship with Himself. This is the reason that there is so little preaching on the subject; that text-books on Systematic Theology rarely treat it separately; that Pentecost (the feast of the Holy Spirit) appeals to the churches and animates them much less than Christmas or Easter; that unhappily many ministers, otherwise faithful, advance many erroneous views upon this subject--a fact of which they and the churches seem unconscious. Hence special discussion of the theme deserves attention. That it requires great caution and delicate treatment need not be said. It is our prayer that the discussion may evince such great care and caution as is required, and that our Christian readers may receive our feeble efforts with that love which suffereth long. __________________________________________________________________ II. Two Standpoints. "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth."-- Psalm xxxiii. 6. The work of the Holy Spirit that most concerns us is the renewing of the elect after the image of God. And this is not all. It even savors of selfishness and irreverence to make this so prominent, as tho it were His only work. The redeemed are not sanctified without Christ, who is made to them sanctification; hence the work of the Spirit must embrace the Incarnation of the Word and the work of the Messiah. But the work of Messiah involves preparatory working in the Patriarchs and Prophets of Israel, and later activity in the Apostles, i.e., the foreshadowing of the Eternal Word in Scripture. Likewise this revelation involves the conditions of man's nature and the historical development of the race; hence the Holy Spirit is concerned in the formation of the human mind and the unfolding of the spirit of humanity. Lastly, man's condition depends on that of the earth: the influences of sun, moon, and stars; the elemental motions; and no less on the actions of spirits, be they angels or demons from other spheres. Wherefore the Spirit's work must touch the entire host of heaven and earth. To avoid a mechanical idea of His work as tho it began and ended at random, like piece-work in a factory, it must not be determined nor limited till it extends to all the influences that affect the sanctification of the Church. The Holy Spirit is God, therefore sovereign; hence He can not depend on these influences, but completely controls them. For this He must be able to operate them; so His work must be honored in all the host of heaven, in man and in his history, in the preparation of Scripture, in the Incarnation of the Word, in the salvation of the elect. But this is not all. The final salvation of the elect is not the last link in the chain of events. The hour that completes their edemption will be the hour of reckoning for all creation. The Biblical revelation of Christ's return is not a mere pageant closing this preliminary dispensation, but the great and notable event, the consummation of all before, the catastrophe whereby all that is shall receive its due. In that great and notable day the elements with commotion and awful change shall be combined into a new heaven and earth, i.e., out of these burning elements shall emerge the real beauty and glory of God's original purpose. Then all ill, misery, plague, everything unholy, every demon, every spirit turned against God shall become truly hellish; that is, every thing ungodly shall receive its due, i.e., a world in which sin has absolute sway. For what is hell other than a realm in which unholiness works without restraint in body and soul? Then man's personality will recover the unity destroyed by death, and God will grant His redeemed the fruition of that blest hope confessed on earth amid conflict and affliction in the words "I believe in the resurrection of the body.'' Then shall Christ triumph over every power of Satan, sin, and death, and thus receive His due as the Christ. Then wheat and tares shall be separated; the mingling shall cease, and the hope of God's people become sight; the martyr shall be in rapture and his Executioner in torment. Then, too, shall the veil be drawn from the Jerusalem that is above. The clouds shall, be dispelled that kept us from seeing that God was righteous in all His judgments; then the wisdom and glory of all His counsels shall be vindicated both by Satan and his own in the pit, and by Christ and His redeemed in the city of our God, and the Lord be glorious, in all His works. Thus radiating from the sanctification of the redeemed, we see the work of the Spirit embracing in past ages the Incarnation, the preparation of Scripture, the forming of man and the universe; and, extending into the ages, the Lord's return, the final judgment, and that last cataclysm that shall separate heaven from hell forever. This standpoint precludes our viewing the work of the Spirit from that of the salvation of the redeemed. Our spiritual horizon widens; for the chief thing is not that the elect be fully saved, but that God be justified in all His works and glorified through judgment. To all who acknowledge that "He that believeth not on the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abiding on him," (John iii. 36) this must be the only true standpoint. If we subscribe this awful statement; not having lost our way in the labyrinth of a so-called conditional immortality, which actually annihilates man, then how can we dream of a state of perfect bliss for the elect as long as the lost ones are being tormented by the worm that dieth not? Is there no more love or compassion in our hearts? Can we fancy ourselves for a single moment enjoying heaven's bliss while the fire is not quenched and no lighted torch is carried into the outer darkness? To make the bliss of the elect the final end of all things while Satan still roars in the bottomless pit is to annihilate the very thought of such bliss. Love suffers not only when a human being is in pain, but even when an animal is in distress; how much more when an angel gnashes his teeth in torture, and that angel beautiful and glorious as Satan was before his fall. And yet the very mention of Satan unconsciously lifts from our hearts the burden of fellow pain, suffering, and compassion; for we feel immediately that the knowledge of Satan's suffering in the pit does not in the least appeal to our compassion. On the contrary, to believe that Satan exists but not in utter misery were a wound to our profound sense of justice. And this is the point: to conceive of the blessedness of a soul not in absolute union with Christ is unholy madness. No one but Christ is blessed, and no man can be blessed but he who is vitally one with Christ--Christ in him and he in Christ. Equally it is unholy madness to conceive of man or angel lost in hell unless he has identified himself with Satan, having become morally one with him. The conception of a soul in hell not morally one with Satan is the most appalling cruelty from which every noble heart recoils with horror. Every child of God is furious at Satan. Satan is simply unbearable to him. In his inward man (however unfaithful his nature may be) there is bitter enmity, implacable hatred against Satan. Hence it satisfies our holiest conscience to know that Satan is in the bottomless pit. To encourage a plea for him in the heart were treason against God. Sharp agony may pierce his soul like a dagger for the unspeakable depth of his fall, yet as Satan, author of all that is demoniac and fiendish, who has bruised the heel of the Son of God, he can never move our hearts. Why? What is the sole, deep reason why as regards Satan compassion is dead, hatred is right, and love would be blameworthy? Is it not that we never can look upon Satan without remembering that he is the adversary of our God, the mortal enemy of our Christ? Were it not for that we might weep for him. But now our allegiance to God tells us that such weeping would be treason against our King. Only by measuring the end of things by what belongs to God can we stand right in this matter. We can view the matter of the redeemed and the lost from the right standpoint only when we subordinate both to that which is highest, i.e., the glory of God. Measured by Him, we can conceive of the redeemed in a state of bliss, enthroned, yet not in danger of pride; since it was and is and ever shall be by His sovereign grace alone. But also measured by Him, we can think of those identified with Satan, joyless and miserable, without once hurting the sense of justice in the heart of the upright; for to be mercifully inclined toward Satan is impossible to him who loves God with love deep and everlasting. And such is the love of the redeemed. Considered from this far superior standpoint, the work of the Holy Spirit necessarily assumes a different aspect. Now we can no more say that His work is the sanctification of the elect, with all that precedes and follows; but we confess that it is the vindication of the counsel of God with all that pertains thereto, from the creation and throughout the ages, unto the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and onward throughout eternity, both in heaven and in hell. The difference between these two viewpoints can easily be appreciated. According to the first, the work of the Holy Spirit is only subordinate. Unfortunately man is fallen; hence he is diseased. Since he is impure and unholy, even subject to death itself, the Holy Spirit must purify and sanctify him. This implies, first, that had man not sinned the Holy Spirit would have had no work. Second, that when the work of sanctification is finished, His activity will cease. According to the correct viewpoint, the work of the Spirit is continuous and perpetual, beginning with the creation, continuing throughout eternity, begun even before sin first appeared. It may be objected that some time ago the author emphatically opposed the idea that Christ would have come into the world even if sin had not entered in; and that now he affirms with equal emphasis that the Holy Spirit would have wrought in the world and in man if the latter had remained sinless. The answer is very simple. If Christ had not appeared in His capacity of Messiah, He would have had, as the Son, the Second Person in the Godhead, His own divine sphere of action, seeing that all things consist through Him. On the contrary, if the work of the Holy Spirit were confined to the sanctification of the redeemed, He would be absolutely inactive if sin had not entered into the world. And since this would be equal to a denial of His Godhead, it can not for a moment be tolerated. By occupying this superior viewpoint, we apply to the work of the Holy Spirit the fundamental principle of the Reformed churches: "That all things must be measured by the glory of God." __________________________________________________________________ III. The Indwelling and Outgoing Works of God. "And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth."--Psalm xxxiii. 6. The thorough and clear-headed theologians of the most flourishing periods of the Church used to distinguish between the indwelling and outgoing works of God. The same distinction exists to some extent in nature. The lion watching his prey differs widely from the lion resting among his whelps. See the blazing eye, the lifted head, the strained muscles and panting breath. One can see that the crouching lion is laboring intensely. Yet the act is now only in contemplation. The heat and the ferment, the nerve-tension are all within. A terrible deed is about to be done, but it is still under restraint, until he pounces with thundering roar upon his unsuspecting victim, burying his fangs deep into the quivering flesh. We find the same distinction in finer form among men. When a storm has raged at sea, and the fate of the absent fishing-smacks that are expected to return with the tide is uncertain, a fisherman's awe-stricken wife sits on the brow of the sand-hill watching and waiting in speechless suspense. As she waits, her heart and soul labor in prayer; the nerves are tense, the blood runs fast, and breathing is almost suspended. Yet there is no outward act; only labor within. But on the safe return of the smacks, when she sees her own, her burdened heart finds relief in a cry of joy. Or, taking examples from the more ordinary walks of life, compare the student, the scholar, the inventor thinking out his new invention, the architect forming his plans, the general studying his opportunities, the sturdy sailor nimbly climbing the mast of his ship, or yonder blacksmith raising the sledge to strike the glowing iron upon the anvil with concentrated muscular force. Judging superficially, one would say the blacksmith and sailor work, but the men of learning are idle. Yet he that looks beneath the surface knows better than this. For if those men perform no apparent manual labor, they work with brain, nerve, and blood; yet since those organs are more delicate than hand or foot, their invisible, indwelling work is much more exhausting. With all their labor the blacksmith and sailor are pictures of health, while the men of mental force, apparently idle among their folios, are pale from exhaustion, their vitality being almost consumed by their intense application. Applying this distinction without its human limitations to the works of the Lord, we find that the outgoing works of God had their beginning when God created the heavens and the earth; and that before that moment which marks the birth of time, nothing existed but God working within Himself. Hence this twofold operation: The first, externally manifest, known to us in the acts of creating, upholding, and directing all things--acts that, compared to those of eternity, seem to have begun but yesterday; for what are thousands of years in the presence of the eternal ages? The second, behind and underneath the first--an operation not begun nor ended, but eternal like Himself; deeper, richer, fuller, yet not manifested, hidden within Him, which we therefore designate indwelling. Altho these two operations can scarcely be separated--for there never was one manifest without which was not first completed within--yet the difference is strongly marked and easily recognized. The indwelling works of God are from eternity, the outgoing belong to time. The former precede, the latter follow. The foundation of that which becomes visible lies in that which remains invisible. The light itself is hidden, it is the radiation only that appears. The Scripture, speaking of the indwelling works of God, says: "The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, and the thoughts of His heart to all generations" (Psalm xxiii. 11). Since in God heart and thought have no separate existence, but His undivided Essence thinks, feels, and wills, we learn from this significant passage that the Being of God works in Himself from all eternity. This answers the oft-repeated and foolish question, "What did God do before He created the universe?" which is as unreasoning as to ask what the thinker did before he expressed his thoughts, or the architect before he built the house! God's indwelling works, which are from everlasting to everlasting, are not insignificant, but surpass His outgoing works in depth and strength as the student's thinking and the sufferer's anguish surpass their strongest utterances in intensity. "Could I but weep," says the afflicted one, "how much more easily could I bear my sorrow!" And what are tears but the outward expression of grief, relieving the pain and strain of the heart? Or think of the child-bearing of the mother before delivery. It is said of the decree that it hath "brought forth" (Zeph. ii. 2), which signifies that the phenomenon is only the result of preparation hidden from the eye, but more real than the production, and without which there would be nothing to bring forth. Thus the expression of our earlier theologians is justified, and the difference between the indwelling and the outgoing works is patent. Accordingly the indwelling works of God are the activities of His Being, without the distinction of Persons; while His outgoing works admit and to some extent demand this distinction: e.g., the common and well-known distinguishing of the Father's work as that of creation, the Son's as that of redemption, and the Holy Spirit's as that of sanctification relates only to God's outgoing works. While these operations--creation, redemption, and sanctification--are hidden in the thoughts of His heart, His counsel, and His Being, it is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost who creates, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost who redeems, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost who sanctifies, without any division or distinction of activities. The rays of light hidden in the sun are indivisible and indistinguishable until they radiate; so in the Being of God the indwelling working is one and undivided; His personal glories remain invisible until revealed in His outgoing works. A stream is one until it falls over the precipice and divides into many drops. So is the life of God one and undivided while hidden within Himself; but when it is poured out into created things its colors stand revealed. As, therefore, the indwelling works of the Holy spirit are common to the three Persons of the Godhead, we do not discuss them, but treat only those operations that bear the personal marks of His outgoing works. But we do not mean to teach that the distinction of the personal attributes of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost did not exist in the divine Being, but originated only in His outward activities. The distinction of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the divine characteristic of the Eternal Being, His mode of subsistence, His deepest foundation; to think of Him without that distinction would be absurd. Indeed, in the divine and eternal economy of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each of the divine Persons lives and loves and lauds according to His own personal characteristics, so that the Father remains Father toward the Son, and the Son remains Son toward the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from both. It is right to ask how this agrees with the statement made above; that the indwelling works of God belong, without distinction of Persons, to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and are therefore the works of the divine Being. The answer is found in the careful distinction of the twofold nature of the indwelling works of God. Some operations in the divine Being are destined to be revealed in time; others will remain forever unrevealed. The former concern the creation; the latter, only the relations of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Take, for instance, election and eternal generation. Both are indwelling operations of God, but with marked difference. The Father's eternal generation of the Son can never be revealed, but must ever be the mystery of the Godhead; while election belongs as decree to the indwelling works of God, yet is destined in the fulness of time to become manifest in the call of the elect. Regarding the permanently indwelling works of God that do not relate to the creature, but flow from the mutual relation of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the distinctive characteristics of the three Persons must be kept in view. But with those that are to become manifest, relating to the creature, this distinction disappears. Here the rule applies that all indwelling works are activities of the divine Being without distinction of Persons. To illustrate: In the home there are two kinds of activities one flowing from the mutual relation of parents and children, another pertaining to the social life. In the former the distinction between parents and children is never ignored; in the latter, if the relation be normal, neither the father nor the children act alone, but the family as a whole. Even so in the holy, mysterious economy of the divine Being, every operation of the Father upon the Son and of both upon the Holy Spirit is distinct; but in every outgoing act it is always the one divine Being, the thoughts of whose heart are for all His creatures. On that account the natural man knows no more than that he has to do with a God. The Unitarians, denying the Holy Trinity, have never reached anything higher than that which can be seen by the light of the darkened human understanding. We often discover that many baptized with water but not with the Holy Spirit speak of the Triune God because others do. For themselves they know only that He is God. This is why the discriminating knowledge of the Triune God can not illuminate the soul until the light of redemption shines within, and the Day-star arises in man's heart. Our Confession correctly expresses this, saying: "All this we know as well from the testimony of Holy Writ as from their operations, and chiefly by those we feel in ourselves" (art. ix.). __________________________________________________________________ IV. The Work of the Holy Spirit Distinguished. "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."--Gen. i. 2. What, in general, is the work of the Holy Spirit as distinguished from that of the Father and of the Son? Not that every believer needs to know these distinctions in all particulars. The existence of faith does not depend upon intellectual distinctions. The main question is not whether we can distinguish the work of the Father from that of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, but whether we have experienced their gracious operations. The root of the matter, not the name, decides. Must we then slightly value a clear understanding of sacred things? Shall we deem it superfluous and call its great matters hair-splitting questions? By no means. The human mind searches every department of life. Scientists deem it an honor to spend their lives in analyzing the minutest plants and insects, describing every particular, naming every member of the dissected organism. Their work is never called "hair-splittings," but is distinguished as "scientific research." And rightly so, for without differentiation there can be no insight, and without insight there can be no thorough acquaintance with the subject. Why, then, call this same desire unprofitable when it directs the attention not to the creature, but to the Lord God our Creator? Can there be any worthier object of mental application than the eternal God? Is it right and proper to insist upon correct discrimination in every other sphere of knowledge, and yet regarding the knowledge of God to be satisfied with generalities and confused views? Has God not invited us to share the intellectual knowledge of His Being? Has He not given us His Word? And does not the Word illumine the mysteries of His Being, His attributes, His perfections, His virtues, and the mode of His subsistence? If we aspired to penetrate into things too high for us, or to unveil the unrevealed, reverence would require us to resist such audacity. But since we aim in godly fear to listen to Scripture, and to receive the proffered knowledge of the deep things of God, there can be no room for objection. We would say rather to those who frown upon such effort: "Ye can discern the face of the sky, but ye can not discern the face of your Father in heaven." Hence the question concerning the work of the Holy Spirit as distinguished from that of the Father and of the Son is quite legitimate and necessary. It is deplorable that many of God's children have confused conceptions in this respect. They can not distinguish the works of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Even in prayer they use the divine names indiscriminately. Altho the Holy Spirit is explicitly called the Comforter, yet they seek comfort mostly from the Father or the Son, unable to say why and what in sense the Holy Spirit is especially called Comforter. The early Church already felt the need of clear and exact distinctions in this matter; and the great thinkers and Christian philosophers whom God gave to the Church, especially the Eastern Fathers, expended their best powers largely upon this subject. They saw very clearly that unless the Church learned to distinguish the works of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, its confession of the Holy Trinity could be but a dead sound. Compelled not by love of subtleties, but by the necessity of the Church, they undertook to study these distinctions. And God let heretics vex His Church so as to arouse the mind by conflict, and to lead it to search God's Word. So we are not pioneers exploring a new field. The writing of these articles can so impress those alone who are ignorant of the historical treasures of the Church. We propose simply to cause the light, which for so many ages shed its clear and comforting rays upon the Church, to reenter the windows, and thus by deeper knowledge to increase its inward strength. We begin with the general distinction: That in every work effected by Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in common, the power to bring forth proceeds from the Father: the power to arrange from the Son; the power to perfect from the Holy Spirit. In 1 Cor. viii. 6, St. Paul teaches that: "There is but one God the Father, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things." Here we have two prepositions: of whom, and by whom. But in Rom. xi. 38 he adds another: "For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things." The operation here spoken of is threefold: first, that by which all things are originated (of Him); second, that by which all things consist (through Him); third, that by which all things attain their final destiny (to Him). In connection with this clear, apostolic distinction the great teachers of the Church, after the fifth century, used to distinguish the operations of the Persons of the Trinity by saying that the operation whereby all things originated proceeds from the Father; that whereby they received consistency from the Son; and that whereby they were led to their destiny from the Holy Spirit. These clear thinkers taught that this distinction was in line with that of the Persons. Thus the Father is father. He generates the Son. And the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Hence the peculiar feature of the First Person is evidently that He is the Source and Fountain not only of the material creation, but of its very conception; of all that was and is and ever shall be. The peculiarity of the Second Person lies evidently not in generating, but in being generated. One is a son by being generated. Hence since all things proceed from the Father, nothing can proceed from the Son. The source of all things is not in the Son. Yet He adds a work of creation to that which is coming into existence; for the Holy Spirit proceeds also from Him; but not from Him alone, but from the Father and the Son, and that in such a way that the procession from the Son is due to His sameness of essence with the Father. The Scripture agrees with this in teaching that the Father created all things by the Son, and that without Him was nothing made that was made. For the difference between "created by" and "created from," we refer to Col. i. 17: "By Him all things consist," i.e., by Him they hold together. Heb. i. 3 is even clearer, saying that the Son upholds all things by the Word of His power. This shows that as the essentials of the creature's existence proceed from the Father as Fountain of all, so the forming, putting together, and arranging of its constituents are the proper work of the Son. If we were reverently to compare God's work to that of man we would say: A king proposes to build a palace. This requires not only, material, labor, and plans, but also putting together and arranging of the materials according to the plans. The king furnishes the materials and plans, the builder constructs the palace. Who, then, built it? Neither the king nor the builder alone; but the builder erects it out of the royal treasure. This expresses the relation between Father and Son in this respect as far as human relations can illustrate the divine. In the construction of the universe two operations appear: first, the causative, which produces the materials, forces, and plans; second, the constructive, which with these forces forms and orders the materials according to the plan. And as the first proceeds from the Father, so does the second from the Son. The Father is the Royal Source of the necessary materials and powers; and the Son as the Builder constructs all things with them according to the counsel of God. If the Father and the Son existed independently, such cooperation would be impossible. But since the Father generates the Son, and by virtue of that generation the Son contains the entire Being of the Father, there can be no division of Being, and only the distinction of Persons remains. For the entire wisdom and power whereby the Son gives consistency to all is generated in Him by the Father; while the counsel which designed all is a determination by the Father of that divine wisdom which He as Father generates in the Son. For the Son is forever the effulgence of the Father's glory, and the express image of His Person--Heb. i. 3. This does not complete the work of creation. The creature is made not simply to exist or to adorn some niche in the universe like a statue. Rather was everything created with a purpose and a destiny; and our creation will be complete only when we have become what God designed. Hence Gen. ii. 3 says: "God rested from all His work which He had created to make it perfect" (Dutch translation). Thus to lead the creature to its destiny, to cause it to develop according to its nature, to make it perfect, is the proper work of the Holy Spirit. __________________________________________________________________ Second Chapter. THE CREATION. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ V. The Principle of Life in the Creature. "By His Spirit He hath garnished the heavens; His hand hath formed the crooked serpent."-- Job xxvi. 13. We have seen that the work of the Holy Spirit consists in leading all creation to its destiny, the final purpose of which is the glory of God. However, God's glory in creation appears in various degrees and ways. An insect and a star, the mildew on the wall and the cedar on Lebanon, a common laborer and a man like Augustine, are all the creatures of God; yet how dissimilar they are, and how varied their ways and degrees of glorifying God. Let us therefore illustrate the statement that the glory of God is the ultimate end of every creature. Comparing the glory of God to that of an earthly king, it is evident that nothing can be indifferent to that glory. The building material of his palace, its furniture, even the pavement before its gate, either enhance or diminish the royal splendor. Much more, however, is the king honored by the persons of his household, each in his degree, from the master of ceremonies to his prime minister. Yet his highest glory is his family of sons and daughters, begotten of his own blood, trained by his wisdom, animated by his ideals, one with him in the plans, purposes, and spirit of his life. Applying this in all reverence to the court of the King of heaven, it is evident that while every flower and star enhance His glory, the lives of angels and men are of much greater significance to His Kingdom; and again, while among the latter they are most closely related to His glory whom He has placed in positions of authority, nearest of all are the children begotten by His Spirit, and admitted to the secret of His pavilion. We conclude, then, that God's glory is reflected most in His children; and since no man can be His child unless he is begotten of Him, we confess that His glory is most apparent in His elect or in His Church. His glory is not, however, confined to these; for they are related to the whole race, and live among all nations and peoples with whom they share the common lot. We neither may nor can separate their spiritual life from their national, social, and domestic life. And since all differences of national, social, and domestic life are caused by climate and atmosphere, meat and drink, rain and drought, plant and insect--in a word, by the whole economy of this material world, including comet and meteor, it is evident that all these affect the outcome of things and are related to the glory of God. Hence as connected with the task of leading creation to its destiny, the whole universe confronts the mind as a mighty unit organically related to the Church as the shell to the kernel. In the accomplishment of this task the question arises in what way the fairest, noblest, and holiest part of the creation is to attain its destiny; for to this all other parts must be made subservient. Hence the question, How are the multitude of the elect to attain their final perfection? The answer to this will indicate what is the Holy Spirit's action upon all other creatures. The answer can not be doubtful. God's children can never accomplish their glorious end unless God dwell in them as in His temple. It is the love of God that constrains Him to live in His children, by their love for Him to love Himself, and to see the reflection of His glory in the consciousness of His own handiwork. This glorious purpose will be realized only when the elect know as they are known, behold their God face to face, and enjoy the felicity of closest communion with the Lord. Since all this can be wrought in them only by His indwelling in their hearts, and since it is the Third Person in the Holy Trinity who enters the spirits of men and of angels, it is evident that God's highest purposes are realized when the Holy Spirit makes man's heart His dwelling-place. Who or what ever we are by education or position, we can not attain our highest destiny unless the Holy Spirit dwell in us and operate upon the inward organism of our being. If this His highest work had no bearing upon anything else, we might say that it consists merely in finishing the perfection of the creature. But this is not so. Every believer knows that there is a most intimate connection between his life before and after conversion; not as tho the former determined the latter, but in such a way that the life in sin and the life in the beauty of holiness are both conditioned by the same character and disposition, by similar circumstances and influences. Wherefore, to bring about our final perfection the Holy Spirit must influence the previous development, the formation of character, and the disposition of the whole person. And this operation, altho less marked in the natural life, must also be traced. However, since our personal life is only a manifestation of human life in general, it follows that the Holy Spirit must have been active also in the creation of man, altho in a less marked degree. And finally, as the disposition of man as such is connected with the host of heaven and earth, His work must touch the formation of this also, tho to a much less extent. Hence the Spirit's work reaches as far as the influences that affect man in the attaining of his destiny or in the failure to attain it. And the measure of the influence is the degree in which they affect his perfecting. In the departure of the redeemed soul every one acknowledges a work of the Holy Spirit; but who can trace His work in the star-movements? Yet the Scripture teaches not only that we are born again by the power of the Spirit of God, but that: "by the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath [Spirit] ofHis mouth." (Psa. xxxiii. 6) Wherefore the Spirit's work leading the creature to its destiny, includes an influence upon all creation from the beginning. And, if sin had not come in, we might say that this work is done in three successive steps: first, impregnating inanimate matter; second, animating the rational soul; third, taking up His abode in the elect child of God. But sin entered in, i.e., a power appeared to keep man and nature from their destiny. Hence the Holy Spirit must antagonize sin; His calling is to annihilate it, and despite its opposition to cause the elect children of God and the entire creation to reach their end. Redemption is therefore not a new work added to that of the Holy Spirit, but it is identical with it. He undertook to bring all things to their destiny either without the disturbance of sin or in spite of it; first, by saving the elect, and then by restoring all things in heaven and on earth at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. Things incidental to this, such as the inspiration of Scripture, the preparation of the Body of Christ, the extraordinary ministration of grace to the Church, are only connecting-links, connecting the beginning with its own predetermined end; that in spite of sin's disturbance the destiny of the universe to glorify God might be secured. Condensing all into one statement, we might say: Sin having once entered, a factor which must be taken into account, the Holy Spirit's work shines most gloriously in gathering and saving the elect; prior to which are His operations in the work of redemption and in the economy of the natural life. The same Spirit who in the beginning moved upon the waters has in the dispensation of grace given us the Holy Scripture, the Person of Christ, and the Christian Church; and it is He who, in connection with the original creation and by these means of grace, now regenerates and sanctifies us as the children of God. Regarding these mighty and comprehensive operations, it is of first importance to keep in view the fact that in each He effects only that which is invisible and imperceptible. This marks all the Holy Spirit's operations. Behind the visible world lies one invisible and spiritual, with outer courts and inner recesses; and underneath the latter are the unfathomable depths of the soul, which the Holy Spirit chooses as the scene of His labors--His temple wherein He sets up His altar. Christ's redemptive work also has visible and invisible parts. Reconciliation in His blood was visible. The sanctification of His Body and the adorning of His human nature with manifold graces were invisible. Whenever this hidden and inward work is specified the Scripture always connects it with the Holy Spirit. Gabriel says to Mary: "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee." (Luke i. 35) It is said of Christ: "That He had the Spirit without measure." We observe also in the host of heaven a life material, outward, tangible which in thought we never associate with the Holy Spirit. But, however weak and impalpable, the visible and tangible has an invisible background