The Paraclete/Lecture 1

by William Robinson Clark

LECTURE I.

 

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THE HOLY GHOST OF VERY GOD

 

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Man's need of God. God may be known. God one and three. 1. The Doctrine of the Trinity gradually revealed. II. Divinity and Personality of the Holy Spirit. 1. Divinity.—(1) Name of God given; (2) Divine attributes and actions ascribed; (3) Worker of Miracles. 2. Personality.—(1)Testimony of Gospels, specially words of Christ. (2) Acts of Apostles; (3) Epistles. III. History of the Doctrine; Council of Constantinople. IV. Procession of Holy Spirit. Double Procession. Importance of the docrine.

 

ALL history testifies to the existence, in the human race, of an inextinguishable longing for a knowledge of God. Oftentimes the enquiry may seem to be abandoned in despair. Men have been ready to confess that the mystery of the Godhead was unsearchable, and to cry out: "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?"^[1] And the answer has come back: "We cannot find Him out unto perfection. This mystery is 'higher than heaven' and 'deeper than hell:' how then can we know it?" In the grand language of Hooker:^[2] "Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the doings of the Most High; whom although to know be life, and joy to make mention of His name; yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know Him not as indeed He is, neither can know Him. . . . . . . . .He is above, and we upon earth; therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and few."

Such thoughts should ever be with us when we take in hand to explore the mysteries of the Godhead. Yet they should never be suffered to press so heavily upon us as to paralyse our spiritual energies and drive us to hopelessness. Man is himself divine, although finite, and therefore he may know something of the Divine. Although no man hath seen God at any time, yet the only begotten Son hath declared Him; and that Son has said: "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father."^[3] To refuse the revelation which God has given, therefore, is no proof of humility, but of arrogance. The agnostic is merely interposing his own wilfulness in order to shut out the light which descends from heaven. God has truly revealed Himself; and, although our knowledge of Him can never be complete, yet, as far as it goes, it may be true and adequate.

Now, the revelation of God which we have received is a revelation at once of Unity and Trinity. "Our God," says the same great writer, "is One, or rather very Oneness, and mere unity, having nothing but itself in itself, and not consisting (as all things do besides God) of many things. In which essential Unity of God, a Trinity personal nevertheless subsisteth, after a manner far exceeding the possibility of man's conceit."

Here, then, is our starting point: the unity of God, the central truth of Holy Scripture and of the Christian Church, and the principle of all true religious worship. That there is one Being above all others, in whom all things subsist, uncreated, self-existent, eternal, infinite, is not only the faith which is consciously held by all who worship the living and true God, but it is a belief which has always been shared, although dimly and indistinctly, even by polytheists and idolaters. It has been remarked that men who professed to believe in "gods many and lords many," have yet in their hours of danger invoked the one God and Lord of all; and one of the greatest minds of the Church of Christ has told us that the heathen had never fallen so utterly under the belief of false gods as to have lost the idea of the one God from whom all things proceed.^[4]

If, however, we accept the testimony of the Christian Scriptures, we shall conclude that God is not only Unity, but Trinity in Unity. They tell us of a Father who reveals Himself through the Son and by the Holy Spirit. The writers of the New Testament employ language concerning the Son and the Holy Spirit which is intelligible only on the supposition that each of these Persons is, equally with the Father, Very and Eternal God. The Holy Scriptures set before us the history of those events in the development of the human race, and in the dealings of Almighty God with His creatures, in which He has revealed and declared His own Name and Nature and Attributes. The revelation of the Holy Ghost was, so to speak, the last word in the series of disclosures. It completed the revelation of the doctine of the Holy Trinity.

For many years there has been a wide–spread feeling in the Church that the doctrine of the Holy Ghost does not hold its due place either in the teaching of the Church of in the life of its members. During the last few years a good deal has been done to wipe away this reproach. The deepening of the study of theology has brought conviction that the ignoring of the work of the Spririt is the mutilating of the doctrine of Christ; and treatises not a few have been put forth giving the evidence of deep meditation and enlightened thought on this great subject. Nevertheless, there is still much to be done. There are still many religious and devout minds who are unable to rise above the conception of the Divine Spirit as an influence or energy; and this undeniable fact is an evidence of the need of more careful instruction on the subject. On the importance of the doctrine it is not necessary to insist. Either the Holy Ghost is very God, of one substance with the Father and the Son, or the Church Universal has been in error for many centuries. It is sufficient merely to state such an alternative in order to point out the greatness of the question now before us.

The Holy Ghost is very God—we have deemed it best to take this fundamental doctrine as our starting point; and, before proceeding to deal directly with the doctrine itself, it may be helpful first to say something on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which is inseparably connected with it. Indeed it is obvious that the demonstration of the doctrine of the Trinity necessarily involves the proof of the Godhead of the Holy Ghost; and, on the other hand, we cannot completely satisfy ourselves on the doctrine of the third Person in the Holy Trinity without having regard to the relations of the Three Persons. As, however, our principal concern here is with the truth of the Divine Spirit, the general doctrine will receive somewhat brief consideration.

i. Now, in considering a doctrine so mysterious and so awful as that of the Holy Trinity in the Unity of the Godhead, we must bear in mind that we are dealing not with mathematical truth which is the subject of demonstration, nor with observed fact which can be definitely proved by testimony, but with spiritual truth which needs a certain moral and spiritual preparedness for its reception, and with a particular truth which, after being obscurely intimated, was gradually made known as men were prepared for its reception.

As regards the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, it is beyond question that it was not clearly revealed to mankind for a long period of time, whilst it is hardly possible to deny that there were certain anticipations of the doctrine in the beliefs of earlier ages. It is not difficult in some degree to understand what we may call the reticence of Divine Revelation on this subject. It is not merely that all the nations of antiquity were afflicted with polytheism, and that the chosen people themselves were frequently falling into the superstitions and idolatries of the nations round about them. For these reasons alone it might have been judged expedient to keep back, for a season, a doctrine which might have fostered such errors among a people whose spiritual education was necessarily imperfect. But there were other reasons. If the truth concerning the Divine Nature had been made known in earlier times, it must have been revealed nakedly, and apart from those facts which alone could give it significance and power, and apart from that prolonged religious discipline and education by which it was actually introduced to the knowledge of men. Almighty God makes truth known to his creatures as they are able to receive it, to turn it to practical account, to profit by it, and so it was in the revelation of the Holy Trinity.

On these principles we can understand what is the kind of evidence which may reasonably be expected in support of this mysterious doctrine. It would obviously be quite unreasonable to expect, in the earlier periods of Divine Revelation, such clear intimations of the doctrine as we find in the fully developed teaching of the apostles of Christ. Those who call in question the truth of the doctrine because it was unknown to patriarchs and Hebrews, can hardly have apprehended the principle of Divine Revelation or even of the natural and providential government of the world. In all spheres the Divine processes are gradual, and it would not be reasonable to expect that the Most High should flash upon the eyes of His creatures the full blaze of a complete revelation of Himself without a previous prolonged and careful preparation.

At the same time, if these doctrines are true, we might certainly expect some dim traces or obscure intimations of them in the earlier records of Divine Revelation, and at least we should be sure that in the earlier stages there would be nothing inconsistent with the fuller revelation afterwards to be afforded. We should be sure that these earlier teachings, although themselves incomplete, would yet adapt themselves to the later and fuller disclosures of Divine truth. Like an outline map, they might teach us but little, but that little would be accurate as far as it went, and it would prepare the mind for the more complete revelation afterwards to be given. We might also expect that we should find the revelation brightening onwards from its first dim twilight to the perfect day of full truth and knowledge. We may say that these expectations have not been disappointed. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity, although it is not clearly revealed until the descent of the Holy Ghost of the Day of Pentecost, may yet be traced in the very earliest records of the sacred collections and even in the beliefs of the heathen. To some it appears to be reflected in the constitution of the nature of man, and even in the structure of the material world.

It has been well said that we must not quarrel with the evidences of the Being of God which have brought satisfaction to other minds, nor lay too much stress upon those which approve themselves to our own judgment. In the same way, we may not deny that there may be validity in the illustrations of the Holy Trinity which pious and thoughtful men say they have discovered; at the same time that we must beware of laying too great stress upon proofs which are of doubtful value. It may be that the Creator of all things intended us to see in the sun, with its central fire and the light and heat proceeding from it, a material image of that spiritual Reality by which all things subsist. The tree with its root, its trunk, and its branches, may to many minds a striking symbol of the same truth.^[5] If we are to see God in everything, we must not quarrel with those who believe that in these works of His hands they behold the manifestations of His Being. Yet it may be safer to employ such analogies as illustrations of the doctrine and not to depend upon them as arguments for its truth. When, again, some of the deepest thinkers of the Church have seen in the powers of the human mind a reflection of the Holy Trinity, they not unreasonably assume that, inasmuch as God has made man in His own image, these essential distinctions in the Godhead may be expected to be in some manner and to some extent reproduced in that created being who was made in His likeness. For example, S. Augustine finds a Trinity in the mind—memory, understanding, and love—and in this trinity beholds the image of God.^[6] So Leibnitz discovers in man power, knowledge, and goodness, which in us are partial, but in God are complete;^[7] whilst more modern writers^[8] discover a correspondence between man's will, thought, and feeling and the three Persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Interesting, however, as the pursuit of such analogies must be considered, and helpful as they may be to devout meditation, it may be wiser to abstain from introducing them as evidences of doctrinal truth.^[9]

It may be well, however, to dwell for a moment on the well known fact, that the doctrine of a Trinity in the Godhead has been held and taught by heathen people, and those too, who, as far as we know, were uninfluenced by the revelation which was made to the chosen people, the children of Israel. The instances are somewhat numerous. It is well known that the Hindoos believe in a Divine Trinity, whom they designate by the names of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, and to whom they ascribe attributes and qualities not unlike those by which the three Persons in the Holy Trinity, confessed by the Christian Church, are distinguished.^[10]The most ancient of the Grecian mythologies, the Orphic, spoke of the Supreme Being under the threefold character of Light, Counsel, and Life; and Plato also taught a doctrine of the Trinity. It is freely admitted that such facts cannot be regarded as a proof of the doctrine; nor are they adduced for this purpose. But at least they may be used to rebut the charges of incredibility or improbability.^[11]

When we turn to the contents of the Old and New Testaments, we are on surer ground. As has already been remarked, we must not expect to find any clear testimonies to the doctrine in the Old Testament, whilst at the same time we shall find there many expressions which entirely harmonize with the doctrine taught in the Creeds of the Church.

Thus, on the very first page of the Book of Genesis, we have an account of the creation of the world, which not merely corresponds with later narratives, but which may reasonably suggest to us the doctrine of the Trinity. We cannot, indeed, go so far as to say that the words, "Let us make man in our own image," and other similar expressions can be held to suggest a plurality in the Godhead. Such inferences are manifestly unsafe and may even tend to create a prejudice against the doctrine. But we may reasonably find an indirect testimony to it in the language employed to describe the creation, especially when it is compared with the first chapter of the Gospel according to S. John.

In both of these passages we have God the Creator, God creating by His Word, in Genesis implicitly and in S. John explicitly; and in Genesis also the Spirit of God hovering or brooding upon the face of the waters. So again, in the history of the baptism of our Lord in the river Jordan, we are irresistibly drawn to similar reflections. It would perhaps be indefensible to say that this scene proves the doctrine of the Trinity; but it is impossible to deny that it is very impressively suggested and represented by the incidents here recorded. The Son, incarnate to do the will of the Father, stands in the water; the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove hovers over the Son; whilst the voice of the Eternal Father issues from the clouds.

It is not too much to say that the doctrine is at least suggested by the appearance of the three angels to Abraham, when we notice the manner of speech adopted by the mysterious visitants, and the fact that Abraham addresses them either individually or collectively as Jehovah^[12]. As regards the testimony of the New Testament, we cannot doubt that the doctrine is plainly declared in the baptismal formula: "Make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost;"^[13] and also in the apostolic benediction: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the Communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all."^[14] But such passages may be best considered under the special doctrine of the Holy Ghost.

ii. It is with this subject, the Divinity and Personality of the Holy Spirit that we are here more immediately concerned; and to this subject we must now direct more particular attention. But first let us ask what we mean when we assert the proper Godhead of the Holy Spirit. One of our Creeds declares "The Holy Ghost is God," by which we assert not merely that He is Divine, but that He is a Divine Person; that He is not merely of one substance with the Father and the Son, but that He is also personally distinct—not separate, but distinct—from the Father and the Son. We assert that He is not a mere attribute, influence, or energy, but a distinct subsistence; in perfect harmony with the other two Persons, but not identical with them. In short, we declare that, while the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are One God, the Holy Ghost is not the Father, or the Son, or a mere influence proceeding from Them.

1. With regard to the Divinity of the Holy Spirit as distinguished from His personality, we do not suppose that there will be any difference of opinion among professing Christians, who are believers in the authority of the New Testament. Indeed it is somewhat difficult to understand how any of those who profess dependence for divine knowledge upon the canonical Scriptures can deny the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. We do not mean to say that any individual Christian who might take up his Bible without previous knowledge of these doctrines would at once discover them there. As a matter of fact, we know that it was only after three centuries and many anxious controversies that the Church promulgated these doctrines in the form in which they are now received. But we must hold it for certain that whoever does sincerely, devoutly, and without prejudice search the Scriptures will find sufficient and convincing testimony to the Divinity and Personality of the Holy Ghost, as these doctrines are set forth in the Catholic Creeds.

We shall find, in the Old Testament as well as the New, names assigned to the Holy Ghost which belong to God alone; and we shall find Divine attributes and Divine works distinctly ascribed to Him. If this is true, and if we further find sufficient testimony to assure us that He is not a mere influence proceeding from the Father, but is spoken of as possessed of the same Personality with the Father and the Son, then we are justified in asserting that no other theory of His nature and character will account for these statements but that which declares Him to be very God.

(1) Remark, in the first place, that the Name of God or Jehovah is frequently employed interchangeably with that of the Holy Spirit. Two or three examples may suffice. Thus (2 Sam. xxiii, 2) King David says: "The Spirit of the Lord spake by me," and in the next verse he adds, "The God of Israel said." In Isaiah vi. 9, we read that the voice of Jehovah said to the prophet, "Go and tell this people, hear ye indeed, but understand not" and S. Paul (Acts xxviii. 25) ascribes those words to the Blessed Spirit; "well spake the Holy Ghost by Isaiah the prophet unto your fathers," quoting the words of Isaiah. So, in the prophetic song of Zacharias we are told generally that God "spake by the mouth of His holy prophets," and, in the beginning of the Epistle to the Hebrews, that God of old times spoke to the fathers; whilst S. Peter declares that "holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."^[15] So, when Ananias was rebuked by S. Peter for his falsehood, the Apostle declared that he had lied "to the Holy Ghost," and again, that he had "not lied unto men, but unto God."^[16]

(2) In the next place, we remark that Divine attributes and actions are ascribed to the Holy Spirit. Thus the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (ix. 14) speaks of Him as the "Eternal Spirit;" and in Genesis (i. 2) the work of creation is attributed to Him:" The Spirit of God moved upon the waters." So in Psalm xxxiii. 6, we read, "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath [Spirit] of His mouth." Here the work of creation is ascribed first to the Word of God, who is by S. John identified with the second Person in the Blessed Trinity, and secondly to the Spirit who proceeds from God and the Word. To the same effect we read in Psalm civ. 30; "When Thou lettest Thy breath [Spirit] go forth, they shall be made; and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth." (3) The Divine Spirit is also spoken of as the worker of miracles. He is the Agent of the miraculous conception of our Lord. The angel who appeared to S. Joseph told him concerning his betrothed, "that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost." Our Blessed Lord Himself professed to work miracles by the power of the Holy Ghost: If I by the Spirit of God cast out devils, then is the Kingdom of God come upon you;"^[17]and S. Paul, when speaking of the diversities of gifts which God bestows upon men, declares: "All these worketh the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally as He will."^[18]

These passages, and many others of like character which might be adduced, prove sufficiently the Divine nature of the Blessed Spirit. On this aspect of the subject, however, there is the less need to dwell from the fact that, in some sense, it is commonly admitted. That which we are more particularly required to consider, and to give satisfactory reasons for believing, is the Personality of the Spirit, a doctrine which is but loosely held by a considerable number of devout and reverent Christians.^[19]Now, we must repeat, this is no unimportant question, but one which strikes at the very foundations of the Catholic faith.

2. The arguments for the Personality of the Holy Spirit are naturally sought in the New Testament, and we may conveniently consider them separately as they occur in the Gospels, in the Acts of the Apostles, and in the Epistles.

(1) The testimony of the Gospels, and especially that of our Blessed Lord, recorded in the Gospels, will demand our first attention. Here we believe the evidence is complete, and will satisfy any one who acknowledges the authority of the Speaker and is willing to take His language in its simple, natural meaning.

Reference has already been made to the incidents connected with the Baptism of our Lord and their significance. Without dwelling longer on this subject and some others which bear a meaning in harmony with it, we would direct attention to the more formal teaching of our Lord with reference to the mission and office of the Holy Spirit, especially as contained in the valedictory address to His disciples, as recorded by S. John, and more particularly in the passages relating to the Comforter.

With regard to the exact meaning of the word, Paraclete, here translated Comforter and elsewhere Advocate, we shall hereafter have something to say. At present we are concerned only with the Personality of the Paraclete. On this point let us consider the force of our Lord’s teaching as recorded by S. John, in the fourteenth and sixteenth chapters of his Gospel, "I will pray the Father," He says, "and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth: Whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: ye know Him; for He abideth with you, and shall be in you." Again, "The Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you." Further on in the same address, He says, "It is expedient for you that I go away; for, if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you, but if I go I will send Him unto you." And again, "When He,^[20] the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall guide you into all the truth .... and He shall declare unto you the things that are to come. He shall glorify me."^[21] Such language needs no minute analysis in order that we may ascertain its meaning. No words could express more clearly the personality of the subject concerning whom the testimony is given. Our Lord contrasts Him with Himself as "another Paraclete" a strange manner of speech if the other Paraclete were a mere influence. Then personal acts and attributes are assigned to Him: He will teach, He will bring to remembrance; when the Lord Jesus departs, He will come in His place; and he will guide into truth, and declare things to come. If such language does not signify the personality of the subject, no language could certainly do so. In the same way, the baptismal formula already quoted must be held to imply the personality of the Spirit, seeing that He is connected with the Father and the Son as co-ordinate with Them. It would be difficult indeed to imagine that we have, in these passages, merely strong personifications of an energy, power, or influence, unless we should find that such an interpretation was necessitated by other passages in the New Testament. We venture to assert that no such passages will be found.

(2) Let us pass on to the Acts of the Apostles. Early in the book we come upon the history of the sin of Ananias, and we find S. Peter charging Page:The Paraclete.djvu/36 Page:The Paraclete.djvu/37 Page:The Paraclete.djvu/38 Page:The Paraclete.djvu/39 Page:The Paraclete.djvu/40 Page:The Paraclete.djvu/41 Page:The Paraclete.djvu/42 Page:The Paraclete.djvu/43 Page:The Paraclete.djvu/44 Page:The Paraclete.djvu/45 Page:The Paraclete.djvu/46 die; which will be our strength and our shield in prosperity and adversity, in health and in sickness, in life and in death.

It is indeed a doctrine of vital importance. It is no mere open question respecting which men may hold harmlessly differences of opinion. It is an essential part of the faith of the Catholic Church. It affects our relation to Christian truth in many ways. How can we understand aright the nature of the Church of Christ itself, if we are ignorant of Him who dwells in the Church as a living temple; who is the very life of the mystical Body of Christ? How can we know the nature, significance or effect of the Sacraments, if we know not Him from whom they derive their life and their power? Or how shall our spiritual life be duly fostered and strengthened if we are in error concerning the Giver of life, who is with us to lead us into all truth, and is the Author of every grace and of every gift?

1. Job xi, 7.
2. "Eccles. Pol.," i. 2, 2.
3. St. John, xiv, 9.
4. "Gentes non usque adeo ad falsos deos esse delapsas, ut opinonem amitterent unius veri Dei, ex quo est omnis qualiscunque natura." S. August. C. Faust. 1. 20, n. 19, Cf. Hooker, 1. c.
5. Tertullian, Adv. Praxeam, viii.
6. De Trin. x 14, 10-12.
7. Théodicée, Preface.
8. Delitzsch, Bibl. Psychol. Sec. iv.
9. Of the Holy Trinity Itself it has been strikingly observed: The Father is the Principle, the Fountain of Deity; the Word is the Wisdom, the engendered Light; and the Holy Ghost is the Bond, the infinite Love of the two first persons. The Holy Spirit is as the breath of love of the Father and the Son.
10. See Professor Max Muller’s recently published work on the "Six Systems of Indian Philosophy."
11. "The Socinians may do well to reflect whether that opinion, which was espoused by the deepest thinkers of the ancient world, can be, in itself, so repugnant to natural reason or natural religion as its opponents would have us believe." Heber, Bampton Lectures, Ed. 2, page 122.
12. Gen. xviii, 1, 13, 17, 20, 26, 27, 30, 33
13. S. Matt, xxviii, 19.
14. 2 Cor. xiii, 14.
15. St. Luke i. 70; Heb. i. i; 2 Pet. i. 21.
16. Acts v. 3, 4.
17. S. Matthew xii. 28.
18. Cor. xii. II.
19. Kahnis (Die Lehre vom heiligen Geist) roundly declares that "modern (der neuere) Protestantism has given up the Personality of the Holy Spirit."
20. Note here and elsewhere the masculine pronoun (Ekeinos). whereas the Greek for Spirit (Pneuma) is neuter.
21. S. John xiv. 16; xiv. 26; xvi. 7, 13, 14.