minds, as occasion requires, to discern those gracious fruits and effects which God hath wrought in us. "The Spirit of God, which in the first beginning of things moved upon the face of the great deep, and invigorated the chaos, or dark and confused heap of things, and caused light to shine out of that darkness, can, with the greatest ease, when he pleases, cause the light of divine consolation to arise and shine upon the dark and disconsolate soul. And this he often doth. I may here appeal to the experience of many good Christians, who sometimes find a sudden joy coming into their minds, enlightening their understandings, dispelling all clouds from thence, warming and enlivening their affections, and enabling them to discern the graces of God shining in their brightness, and to feel them vigorously acting in their souls, so that they have been, after a sort, transfigured with their Saviour, and wished, with St. Peter, that they might always dwell on that mount Tabor. * * * Man may be considered in a double relation; first, in relation to the natural, animal, and earthly life; and so he is a perfect man, that hath only a reasonable soul and body adapted to it; for the powers and faculties of these are sufficient to the exercise of the functions and operations belonging to such a life. But secondly, man may be considered in order to a supernatural end, and as designed to a spiritual and celestial life; and of this life the Spirit of God is the principle. For man's natural powers and faculties, even as they were before the fall, entire, were not sufficient or able of themselves to reach such a supernatural end, but needed the power of the Divine Spirit to strengthen, elevate, and raise them. He that denies this, opposes himself against the stream and current of the Holy Scriptures, and the consent of the Catholic church. Therefore to the perfect constitution of man, considered in this relation, a reasonable soul and a body adapted thereunto are not sufficient; but there is necessarily required an union of the Divine Spirit with both, as it were a third essential principle. This, as it is a certain truth, so it is a great mystery of Christianity. * * "The great Basil, in his homily entitled, Quod Deus non est Author peccati, speaking of the nature of man, as it was at first created, hath these words: What was the chief or principal good it enjoyed? the accession of God and its conjunction with him by love; from which, when it fell, it became depraved with various and manifold evils.' So in his book, De Spiritu Sancto,' cap. xv. he plainly tells us, 'The dispensation of God and our Saviour towards man, is but the recalling of him from the fall, and his return into the friendship of that God, from that alienation which sin had caused. This was the end of Christ's coming in the flesh, of his life and conversation described in the gospel, of his passion, cross, burial, and resurrection; that man, who is saved by the imitation of Christ, might regain that ancient adoption." Where he plainly · Τὶ δὲ ἦν αὐτῇ τὸ προηγέμενον ἀγαθὸν; ἡ προσεδρεία του Θεῖ, καὶ ἡ διὰ τῆς ἀγάπης συνάφεια· ἧς ἐκπεσᾶσα, τοῖς ποικίλοις καὶ πολυτρόποις ἀῤῥωςήμασιν ἐκακώθη. * Η του θεξ καὶ σωτῆρος ἡμων περὶ τὸν ἄνθρωπον οικονομία ἀνάκλησίς έσιν ἀπὸ τῆς ἐκπτωτώσεως, καὶ ἐπάνοδος εἰς οικείωσιν θεᾶ, ἀπὸ τῆς διὰ τὴν παρακοὴν γενομενης αλλοτρι ώσεως· διὰ τῦτο, ἡ μετὰ σαρκὸς ἐπιδημία Χρισε· ἡ τῶν ἐυαγγελικῶν πολιτευμάτων ὑποτύπωσις, τὰ πάθη, ὁ σαυρὸς, supposeth that man, before his fall, had the adoption of a son, and consequently the Spirit of adoption. And so he expressly interprets himself afterwards in the same chapter: By the Holy Spirit we are restored into paradise, we regain the kingdom of heaven, we return to the adoption of sons.' Again, Homil. advers. Eunomium, v. p. 117, which have these express words: We are called in the sanctification of the Spirit, as the apostle teacheth. This (Spirit) renews us, and makes us again the image of God, and by the laver of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, we are adopted to the Lord, and the new creature again partakes of the Spirit, of which being deprived, it had waxed old. And thus man becomes again the image of God, who had fallen from the divine similitude, and was become like the beasts that perish.'" "St. Cyril (7th Dial. de Trin. p. 653) delivers the same doctrine with great perspicuity and elegancy, in these words: 'For when the animal (viz. man) had turned aside unto wickedness, and out of too much love of the flesh had superinduced on himself the disease of sin, that Spirit which formed him after the divine image, and as a seal was ἡ ταφὴ, ἡ ἀνάτασις· ὥσε τὸν σωζόμενον ἄνθρωπον διὰ μι μήσεως Χρισᾶ, τὴν ἀρχαίαν ἐκείνην υιοθεσίαν ἀπολαβεῖν. · Διὰ πνεύματος αγίε, ἡ εἰς παράδεισον ἀποκατάστασις· ἡ εἰς βασιλείαν ἐρανῶν ἄνοδος· ἡ εἰς υἱοθεσίαν ἐπάνοδος. Vide ejusdem Lib. cap. 9. * Ἐν ἀγιασμῶ τῷ πνεύματος ἐκλήθημεν, ὡς ὁ ἀπόστολος διδάσκει, τῦτο ἡμᾶς ἀνοκαινοῖ· καὶ πάλιν εἰκόνας αναδεί κνυσι θεῖ, διὰ λετρᾶ παλιγγενεσίας καὶ ἀνακαινώσεως πνεύματος ἁγία υἱοθετώμεθα κυρίῳ· καινὴ πάλιν κτίσις μεταλαμβάνεσα του πνεύματος, ὦ περ ἐπερημενη πεπαλαίωτο· εἰκὼν πάλιν πεῖ ὁ ἄνθρωπος ἐκπεσῶν τῆς ὁμοιότητος τῆς θείας, καὶ παρασυμβληθεὶς κτήνεσιν ἀνοήτοις καὶ ὁμοιωθεὶς αὐτοῖς. secretly impressed on his soul, was separated from him, and so he became corruptible and deformed, and every way vicious. But after that the Creator of the universe had designed to restore to its pristine firmness and beauty that which was fallen into corruption, and was become adulterated and deformed by sin superinduced, he sent again into it that divine and holy Spirit which was withdrawn from it, and which hath a natural aptitude and power to change us into the celestial image, viz. by transforming us into his own likeness.” And in the fourth book of the same work, When the only begotton Son was made man, finding man's nature bereft of its ancient and primitive good, he hastened to transform it again into the same state, out of the fountain of his fulness, sending forth (the Spirit), and saying, Receive the Holy Ghost."2 · Διανενευκότος γὰρ τῇ ζώς πρός τὸ πλημμελὲς, καὶ τὴν εἰσποίητον ἁμαρτίαν ἐκ τῆς εἰσάπαν φιλοσαρκίας ήῤῥωσηκότος, τὸ πρὸς θείαν εἰκόνα διαμορφᾶν αὐτόν, καὶ σημάντρε δίκην ἀποῤῥήτως ἐντεθειμενον ἀπενοσφίζετο πνεύμα, φθαρτόν τε ἔτω, καὶ ἀκαλλὲς, καὶ τί γὰρ ἐχὶ τῶν ἐκτόπων συνειλοχὸς ἀναπέφανται; ἐπεὶ δὲ ὁ τῶν ὅλων γενεσιεργὸς ἀνακομίζειν ἔθελεν εἰς ἑδραιότητα, καὶ ἐυκοσμίαν τὴν ἐν ἀρχαῖς τὸ διολισθῆσαν εἰς φθορὰι, παράσημόντε, καὶ ἀκαλλὲς διὰ τὴν εἰσποίητον γεγονὸς ἁμαρτίαν, ἐνῆκεν αὖθις αὐτῶ τὸ ἀποφοιτῆσαν ποτε θεῖον τε, καὶ ἅγιον πνεῦμα, μεταποιον εὖ μάλα πρὸς τὴν ὑπερκόσμιον εἰκόνα, καὶ πεφυκὸς καὶ δυνάμενον διὰ τὸ πρὸς ἰδίαν ἡμᾶς μεταῤῥυθμίζειν ἐμφέρειαν.” * Οτέ γέγονεν ἄνθρωπος ὁ μονογενῆς, ἐρήμην το πάλαι, καὶ ἐν ἀρχαῖς ἀγαθῆ τήν ἀνθρώπε φυσιν εὑρὼν, πάλιν αὐ τὴν εἰς ἐκεῖνο μετατοιχειἕν ἠπείγετο, καθάπερ ἀπό πηγῆς του ἰδία πληρώματος ἐνιεὶς τε καὶ λέγων· λαβετε πνεῦμα ἅγιον. SECTION X. The opinions of Bishop Pearson and Doctor Scott, author of the Christian Life, and an Advocate for natural Religion, against spiritual Preten sions. BISHOP PEARSON is in the highest esteem as a divine. His book on the Creed is recommended by tutors, by bishops' chaplains, and by bishops, to young students in the course of their reading preparatory to holy orders. It has been most accurately examined and universally approved by the most eminent theologues of our church, as an orthodox exposition of the Christian creed. Let us hear him on the subject of the Spirit's evidence, which now engages our attention. "As the increase or perfection, so the original or initiation of faith is from the Spirit of God, not only by an external proposal in the word, but by an internal illumination in the soul, by which we are inclined to the obedience of faith, in assenting to those truths which unto a natural and carnal man are foolishness. And thus we affirm not only the revelation of the will of God, but also the illumination of the soul of man, to be part of the office of the Spirit of God." Dr. Scott, an orthodox divine, a zealous teacher of morality, celebrated for a book entitled the Christian Life, says, "That without the Holy 'Bishop Pearson on the Creed, Art. 8. |