Chapter III

. sets forth the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and the Divine

Operation. The Holy Spirit is the Divine Truth, and also the Divine Virtue and Operation, proceeding from the One God, in whom there is the Divine Trinity, thus from the Lord God the Saviour, Jesus Christ. The Divine Virtue and Operation in and on humanity, signified by the Holy Spirit, consists, in general, in reformation and regeneration; and, in proportion as these are effected, in renovation, vivification, sanctification, and justification; and in proportion as these are effected, in purification from evils, remission of sins, and finally salvation. The Holy Spirit being the efflux of Jehovah through the glorified humanity, did not exist until after the incarnation. Hence it is nowhere said in the Old Testament, that the prophets spoke from the Holy Spirit, but from Jehovah God. We have a beautiful and irresistible confirmation of this truth in these words, “for the Holy Spirit was not _yet, because_ that Jesus was not yet glorified.” John vii. 39.

In this chapter he also speaks of the Trinity. There is a Divine Trinity, consisting of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and these three are the three _Essentials_ of One God,—which make a One, like soul, body, and operation in man. To conceive of a Trinity of Divine _persons_ from eternity, is to think of three Gods; and no amount of word-playing and creed-making can prevent the mind from falling into Tritheism, as long as a Trinity of _persons_ and not of _essentials_ is spoken and thought of. A Trinity of persons was unknown in the Apostolic Church. The doctrine was first broached by the Council of Nice, and thence received into the Roman Catholic Church, and thus propagated among the Reformed Churches. The Nicene and Athanasian doctrines concerning a Trinity, have, together, given rise to a faith which has entirely perverted the Christian Church; and hence has come that “abomination of desolation, and that affliction, such as was not in all the world, neither shall be,” which the Lord has foretold in Daniel, the Evangelists, and the Revelation. For when the Church ceases to know its God, the central point of all faith and doctrine, all subsidiary points must necessarily become involved in darkness. And thus it is that the Athanasian creed has given rise to so many absurd notions about God, and hence, also, to an innumerable brood of heresies and phantasies on every point of doctrine and life, so much so, that had not the Lord effected a Last Judgment in 1757, and established a New Heaven and a New Church, no flesh could have been saved. The “healing of the nations,” the new life, light and heat, that have coursed through humanity during the past century, attest the working of Omnipotence for the salvation and restoration of what is most valuable and precious in man.

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