ward ? For both these are promised Indefinitely to believers. To
the Inward, that speech of Christ seems to pertain. He that helieveth
on Me, out of His belly shall /low rivers of living waters ; where, the
helhj denoting the heart or Inward part of the man, the flowing of
the living water from thence denotes some effect of the Holy Spir-
it's descent upon and in the hearts of believers. — What this inward
gift Is, appears In several places, wisdom (Acts vi. 3), knowledge
(1 Cor. xll. 8) ; and so likewise the assistances of God's Spirit,
joined with His word, enabling humble, sincere Christians for the
duties of Christian life, which are required of them. — Now for the
resolving of the query, what sort of gift Is here meant, the surest
way will be, not so to define of either as to exclude the other ;
not that both, and every branch of each should be poured on each
believer, but that they all should be scattered among them, the
inward by baptism or confirmation signed on all, and the outward
bestowed on some of them."
In Bull's Harmonia Apostolica there is a chapter, the 11th of
the second Dissertation, treating on the want of the Spirit under
the Law, and on the grant of the Spirit under what he calls the
Evangelical Covenant with Abraham. On our Immediate cpiestloa
NOTE H. 287
however he scarcely touches, taking no notice of our Lord's
declaration that the comlug of the Comforter must be subsequent
to His Ascension, and merely citing the passage we have been
considering (John vii. 38), without any reference to its contents.
As to the general worth of Bull's Treatise, which has been a good
deal overpraised, I shall have occasion to speak, God wilhng, in
the notes on the Victory of Faith. In the chapter on the gift of
the Spirit, his conclusions are not very satisfactorily established.
He tries to make out that the Covenant spoken of in the 29th and
30th chapters of Deuteronomy is wholly distinct from that on
Sinai, and identical with the Gospel : but in so doing he passes
over the marks which prove it to be essentially and totally differ-
ent from the Gospel, namel}-, that it is a Covenant, that the bless-
ings are promised on certain conditions, so as to make it a Cov-
enant of works, and that the blessings themselves are mainly tem-
poral. Wherefore Davison has well observed in his fourth Dis-
course on Prophecy, when speaking of this latter portion of the
book of Deuteronomy, " that there is a perfect conformity between
the Law and the Prophecy of Moses. The Law was founded on
explicit temporal sanctions : his prophecy dilates explicitly upon
the temporal subject, the scheme of earthly blessings and earthly
evils. The prophecy indeed is no more than a full and graphic
exemplification of the actual sanctions of the Law."
Again Bull applies the great jirophecy of Jeremiah concerning
the outpouring of the Spirit to what he here terms " the Moabite
Covenant ; " whereas that i^rophecy, according to the very nature
of prophecy, speaks of that which was to be in times to come, not
of a Covenant which had been made long before. In fact It proves
the very reverse of that which It is adduced to prove ; Inasmuch
as it announces a future dispensation, which was to be wholly
unlike the past. In this respect more especially, that it was to be a
dispensation of the Spirit.
A farther defect in this chapter, and one connected with the
main argument of Bull's whole treatise, is the stress laid on the
word Foedus, or Covenant, by which dia&riy.T], when applied to
the Gospel, has been so inappropriately and unfortunately ren-
dered. For every scholar knows that 8iu&^y.i] Is a word of
much more extensive signification than covenant, — which In
Greek would rather be expressed bycrvv^^xTj, — and that It
corresponds more nearly to disj^osition or dispensation, embracing
288 NOTE H.
testamentary dispositions, and all otliers, without implying any
kind of reciprocity or condition, â– \vlilch is necessarily involved in
a covenant. Hence St. Paul, In bis Ejilstle to the Galatiang,
strongly urges the difFerence between the Covenant of the Law,
— Tlie man that doeth these things shall live in them, — and the
free dispensation of Grace, hy promise, £| inuyyeXlag, without a
mediator, as coming solely ft-om One, that Is, God. Yet In this
very passage, where St. Paul Is expressly denying that the evan-
gelical dispensation is a covenant, dia&^xrj Is twice rendered a
covenant, in vv. 15, 17. Nor Is this a mere verbal error. Long
trains of reasoning have been grounded upon It ; and It has sadly
obscured the perception of the freedom of the Gospel.
"With regard to our present question Bull says, that the Sjilrlt
was given under the Law, but not through the Law, and that
under the Law He was given " In a sparing and restricted man-
ner, under the Gospel freely and bountifully." But when he
comes to the manner of this abundant outpouring, he too dwells
chiefly on the miraculous operations of the Spirit, even saying
that St. Paul makes use of this argument, " argumento jjlane apo-
dictico," * to establish his doctrine of Justification by Faith, with-
out the works of the Mosaic Law. By a strange mistake In the
new Oxford Translation, Bull's words, " Apostolum alicuhi doc-
trlnam suam — stabllitum ire, etc." are rendered, " The Apostle
always endeavors to establish his doctrine of Justification by
Faith, — by those conspicuous and miraculous gifts of the Spirit,
which ever followed faith in the Gospel" f (p. 140). Any thing
* " An argument plainly demonstrative.'"
t If always in this passage is meant to represent alicuhi, the bhmder is
so gross that one is tempted to suppose tlie Translator miist have liad some
other word in tlie test before him. But tlie fact, and the context, — in
which onlj' one passage of St. Paul is adduced, — seem to preclude such
a supposition; and if I may judge from the few sentences in this one chap-
ter, in which I have compared the translation with the original, no marks
of ignorance in it need surjirise us. For instance, where Bull saj-s that
the Spirit was given iinder the Law, but not through the Law, " quippe
hoec gi'atia muiuo erat accepta ac sumpta de gratia Evangelica," that is,
" inasmuch as this gi'ace was borrowed and taken (by a sort of anticipa-
tion) from the grace of the Gospel," the translation gives, "since this grace
%cas mutually given and received as derived from the grace of the Gospel"
(p. 138); making utter nonsense of the passage; — for how can divine
grace be mutually given and received^ we caimot give it to God; nor can
NOTE H. 289
so utterly contrary to the fact Bull could not say: he did not
write semper, always, but aliciibi, somewhere : and he refers to a
single instance, Gal. iii. 2 : which, however, no way bears him out.
For St. Paul there is not using an argument to jDrove the truth of
his doctrine, but appealing to a fact in order to stir his readers.
Nor is there any ground for supposing that the gift of the Spirit to
the Galatians had conveyed any miraculous power to them : but it
conveyed what was far more precious, a power which, as he says
two verses after, enabled them to suffer many things for the sake
of the Gospel, and which made them receive him as an angel of
God, and filled them with blessedness. It is a curious instance
how a prepossession will blind a man, that a candid, laborious,
thoughtful writer like Bishop Bull, though thoroughly familiar with
the Epistles to the Galatians and to the Romans, should have jier-
suaded himself that the miraculous outward gifts of the Spirit are
the clenching argument, 'â– 'â– argumentwn plane apodicticum," by
God receive it from us : — and showing that the Translator is ignorant of
the idiomatic use of muiuo with accijiere and dare. A few lines fui-ther on,
where Bull states that, under the Old Covenant, God gave the grace of His
Spirit "puree admoduni et resfricte,''^ the Translator says that He gave it
" ill small and moderate jiorfions ; " where it is plain that he did not know
the meaning of so common a word as admodum, but fancied it was some-
how equivalent to moderate. Again, where Bull says that, though there is
no promise of the Holy Spirit in the Law, we often read of the Holy Spirit,,
as being promised and obtained, " in Hagiograplds ei Scrijjtis proijJieticis,
quae nomine Legis et Veteris Testamenti laxius sumi^to non rare veniuni,^'
the Translator renders these words thus: "for in the Holy Sc)-iptures icJncJi
go under the general name of the Old Testament, etc." That is to sav, not'
knowing how the name ayioyqaefot, was appUed to designate those books
of the Old Testament, which were not comprehended under the name of the
Law and the Prophets, he fancied in JIagiographis meant iri the Holy Scrip-
tures ; and was not even startled out of this fancy by seeing his authoi-
mention the Scripta prophetica along with them, as distinct from them, but
quietly omitted these words ; and then, being puzzled to find out the gist
of the next clause, he resolved to leave out half the words, and cut it down
to quae nomine Veteris Testamenti veniunt, rendering it utterly unmeaning.
These blunders picked out of about a dozen sentences, in which I have
been led to examine the translation, may be attributable to the former
Translator; but the Editor, who professes to have "revised it very care-
fully," ought to have corrected them. Else, if those sentences are any
sample of the work, it would have been better to leave Bishop Bull in
his old Latin dress, where his words have a meaning, and well express what-
he intended.
25
290 NOTE H.
"which St Paul demonstrates the truth of his doctrine concerning
Justification by Faith. To so few is it given to see any thing, ex-
cept what they are looking for. Nevertheless in this very chapter
Bull recognizes the moral working of the Spirit as the great bless-
ing which He confers upon mankind : " For without the divine
and efficient povv'er of the Holy Spirit, it could not happen at all
that any one should be purged from his vices, or relieved from the
reigning power and tyranny of sin, nor yet that he should be
excited with alacrity and perseverance to that eminent holiness, to
those truly heroic deeds which correspond in some measure to so
great a reward as the gift of eternal life." * He further recognizes
that, in this very respect, although some persons under the Law
had been favored with high gifts of the Spirit, yet " to those few
who have gone forth under the Law, how many are there under the
Gospel who are equal, yea, even superior, in the gifts of the Spirit
and in the admirable holiness of life." Indeed, if such supernat-
ural powers, as that of working miracles, and that of prophecy,
were the highest gifts of the Spirit, we should be forced to confess
that He was given far more abundantly to the Jewish Church,
than He ever has been to the Christian since the age of the
Apostles : and this of itself would be argumentum plane apodicti-
ciini, though only cumulative over and above many others, to
prove that the rivers of living water promised by our Lord to
faith are the inward gifts of the Spirit, not the outward.
Many divines of this age were indeed led by their dislike of the
Puritans aud the Sectaries to look with jealousy and disfavor on
all assertions of spiritual influences. This however was not the
case with Bull, although his writings are a good deal tinged with the
* The latter half of this sentence also is very poorly rendered in the Ox-
ford Translation: "Without the — power — of the Si^irit, no man can be
freed from liis lusts, — far less be excited u-ith any constant cheerfulness to
those truly heroic actions which are in some degree suitable to so great a re-
ward as eternal Ufe." Here the words ad egregiam illam sanctitatem are
entirely omitted, though they are reqiiisite, both as denoting the great
work of the Spirit, aud because without them it becomes ambiguous what
the opera vere heroica are meant to be. Xor is alacri constantique animo a
hendj'adys, corresponding to "constant cheerfulness:" each of the two
words is important; and thej^ would be better rendered " with alacrity aud
perseverance." Alas, it would seem as though the spirit which led schol-
ars to strive after truth aud accuracy even in the minutest things, alacri
constantique animo, were ahnost extinct.
NOTE n. 291
Arrainianism, â– whicli in his days had become the prevalent doc-
trine in our Church. In his third Discourse he gives a clear and
judicious account of the workings of the Sjiirit : and these Dis-
courses, which were published along with his Sermons after his
death, must be taken to express the opinions which he held in the
latter part of his life, when his wisdom was the maturest, and the
heats of controversy were allayed.
Very different from the tenor of this Discourse is South's Ser-
mon on the Comforter (Vol. vi. Serm. xxix), in which this hard
logician and unsparing polemic will hardly admit any direct ope-
ration of the Spirit, since the miraculous ones in the days of the
Apostles ; except indeed the restoration of Charles the Second.
Of this he says, that " the Holy Ghost must be acknowledged the
cause of this great transaction ; " and that he " knows no argu-
ment from metaphysics or natural philosophy, that to his reason
proves the existence of a Deity more fully, than the consideration
of this prodigious revolution." An age of weakness and darkness
was coming over our Church, when one of her ablest teachers
could speak thus concerning the operation of the Comforter.
Scarcely less strange is it to find StilHngfleet preaching a Ser-
mon, the 9th in his first Volume, on this very verse of St. John, —
.But this spake He of the Spirit, ichich they that believe in Him
should receive ; for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that
Jesus was not yet glorified; — and interpreting these words as
referring to " the effusion of the Spirit under the times of the Gos-
pel ; by which (he says) we mean those extraordinary gifts and
abilities, which the Apostles had after the Holy Ghost is said to
descend upon them. — The tw o most remarkable, which do com-
prehend under them most of the rest, are the power of working
miracles, Avhether in healing diseases, or any other way, and the
gift of tongues, either in speaking or interpreting: they who will
acknowledge that the Apostles had these, will not have reason
to question any of the rest." Hereby, he argues, according to
prophecy, the Spirit ivas poured out upon all flesh. " These rivers
of waters — soon overflowed the Christian Church in other parts
of the world. The sound of that rushing mighty wind was soon
heard in the most distant places ; and the fiery tongues inflamed
the hearts of many Avho never saw them. These gifts being
propagated Into other Churches, many other tongues were kindled
from them, as we see how much this gift of tongues obtained in
292 NOTE H.
the ChurcL of Corinth : and so in the History of the Acts of the
Apostles "we find after this day how the Holy Ghost fell upon
them that believed, and what mighty signs and wonders were
done by them." He then broaches a notion, which has been
wrought out elaborately by Warburton, and others since. After
quoting Isaiah xllv. 3. and xh. 18, he says, "These are some of
the lofty expressions whereby the courtly Prophet," — he was
preaching at Whitehall, — " sets forth the great promise of the
Spirit ; none better befitting the mighty advantages the Church
of God hath ever since enjoyed by the pouring out of the Spirit.
For the fountain was opened in the Apostles ; but the streams of
those 7-ivers of living icater have run down to our age, — pre-
served pure and unmixed in that sacred doctrine contained in the
Holy Scripture." Yet the rivers of living water, of which our
Lord speaks, are not those which are to run down to believers ;
they are to spring out of them, out of the heart of every believer.
Stillingfleet does not deny the inward working of the Spirit of
sanctification : nay, a few words occur here and there, implying a
sort of recognition of it. Indeed no honest man could be a minis-
ter of our Church, and use our Litui'gy, who was conscious that
he did not believe in the continual working of the Holy Ghost,
not merely through the inspired Scriptures, but immediately, both.
in the sacraments, and in governing and sauctifjing the whole
body of the Church, in comforting and exalting believers, in re-
newing them daily, and in enabling them to do such things as
shall please God. He who disbelieved these propositions, and
yet officiated in our church-services, would be lying to God. To
many hearts however such words do not come home with any
living force. They have no deep feeling of the want implied in
them, no conception of the only manner in which that want can
be relieved : and one way in which this manifests itself, is, that,
when such persons have to preach on Whitsunday, their whole
Gcrmon will be on the miraculous works of the Si)irit, which, per- -
taining to long-past ages, are merely matters of historical belief.
How far this may have been the case with Stillingfleet, it would
be presumption to pronounce, unless upon a careful examination
of the Avide circle of his writings : but it is someAvhat remarkable
that two other Whitsunday Sermons of his, — on St. Paul's decla-
ration (1 Cor. ii. 4) that his preaching had not been with enticing
words of maris wisdom, hut in demonstration of the Sjiirit and of
NOTE n. 293
power, — are little else than an expansion of a part of the argu-
ment in the one before referred to, their object being to prove
that " the demonstration of the Spirit and of power ^ or the wonder-
ful gifts of the Holy Ghost, (that is, the gift of tongues and the
power of miracles,) showed that the Gospel came from God."
Even these few words of Calvin should have taught him to inter-
pret St. Paul's e.xpression better : " many restrict this to miracles ;
but I take it in a broader sense, viz. : for the hand of God exert-
ing itself powerfully in every way by the Apostle ; " namely, by
the various workings of the Spirit spoken of in the twelfth and
fourteenth chapters of the same E})istle, and among the rest by
the spiritual conviction described in xiv. 24, 25.
In many of our divines, both of this age, as has been observed
already, and subsequently, the reluctance to recognize spiritual
influences was aggi'avated by their repugnance to the parties that
made the chief pretensions thereto. This however was not the
case with Stlllingfleet, whose disposition toward the Puritans was
conciliatory. His narrow views concerning the operations of the
Spirit are the result of that Arminian scheme of doctrine, Avhich
had gained much ground in our Church prior to the Civil Wars,
and which, after the expulsion of the bulk of its opponents by the
Act of Uniformity, became almost exclusively predominant. For,
since every truth has a contiguous error, men have perpetually
overrun the boundary between them, from their fondness both for
exalting their own convictions, and for depreciating those of their
opponents : and thus, while Calvinism has been too j^rone to lapse
into Antinomian and Manlchean exaggerations, Arminianism has
always had a Pelagian tendency, and been apt to reduce the work
of the Spirit to a minimum, to a single initiative act, — be it with
reference to individuals, at their baptism, or, in their ministerial
capacity, at their ordination, — or, with reference to the whole
Church, in the miracles wrought at its foundation. This is analo-
gous to the mechanical systems of philosophy, which are unwilling
to admit any divine agency in the physical universe, except at the
Creation. Stilling-fleet however belonged to the age of our great
divines, and stood in the foremost rank of them : and among those
immediately around him were several men, who, while they kept
aloof from Calvinism, wrote with full acknowledgment of our
25 *
294 NOTE II.
continual nocd of divine grace, and of the sanctifying Avork of the
Spirit.
Pearson, for instance, docs so in the latter part of his treatise on
the eiglith Article of the Creed. So does Barrow, with his charac-
teristic power and exhaustive fulness of thought and language, in
his Exposition of the Creed (which part recurs in the same words
in his 34:th Sermon on the Creed), and in his admirable Whi'siin-
day Sermon, Of ilie Gift of the Holy Ghost. In the Sermon on
the Creed indeed he seems to restrict the promise in the 7th
Chapter of St. John to the miraculous gifts ; but at the end of his
"Whitsunday Sermon he applies it as a promise " to impart tins
living stream to every one that thirstcth after it." The AVhitsun-
day Sermon is a solid ingot of gold, too massy to be transferred to
this Note. Therefore, recommending the reader to seek it in its
place, I will quote a passage from the Exposition of the Creed.,
â– which well sets forth what the gift of the Holy Ghost, as the pecu-
liar blessing of the Christian dispensation, was, and how it was
indeed expedient that Christ should go away, to the end that the
Comforter should come. " We are naturally void of those good
â– dispositions of understanding, of will, of affection, which are ne-
cessary to make us anywise acceptiible to God, fit to serve and
please Him, capable of any favor from Him, of any true happiness
in ourselves : our minds, I say, are blind and stupid, ignorant and
l^rone to error, especiallj' in things supernatural, — our wills stub-
born and froward, vain and unstable, inclining to evil, and averse
from what is most truly good, our affections very irregular and
unsettled; — to remove which bad dispositions, inconsistent with
God's friendship and favor, — and to beget those contrary to
them, the knowledge and belief of divine truth, a love of and wil-
ling compliance with goodness, a well-composed, orderly, and
steady frame of spirit, — God in mercy hath appointed the Holy
Spirit ; who, first opening our hearts, so as to let in and appre-
hend the light of divine truth propounded to us, then l)y repre-
sentation of proper arguments persuading us to embrace it, begets
â– divine knowledge and faith in our minds (Avhich is the work of
illumination and instruction, the first part of His office), then by
continual impressions bends our inclinations and mollifies our
hearts and subdues our affections to a willing compliance with, a
cheerful complacence in that which is good and pleasing to God ;
NOTE II. 295
so begetting all pious and virtuous inclinations in us, reverence to
God, charity to men, sobriety and purity and the rest of those
amiable and heavenly virtues (which is the work of sanctification,
another great part of His office) : botli wjiich together (illumina-
tion of our mind, sanctification of our will and allections), do con-
stitute that work, which is styled the Regeneration, Renovation,
Vivijication, New-creation, Resurrection of a man, putting off the
old, putting on the new man ; the faculties of our souls being so
much changed, and we made, as it were, other men thereby, able
and apt to do that, to which before we were altogether indisposed
and unfit. Neither only doth lie alter and constitute our disposi-
tions, but He directs and governs our actions, leading and moving
us in the ways of obedience to God's will and law. As we live by
Him (have a new spiritual life implanted in us), so we walk by
Iliui, by His continual guidance and assistance. He reclaims us
from sin and error, supports and strengthens us in temptation, ad-
vises, excites, encourages us to works of virtue and piety ; particu-
larlv He guides and quickens us in devotion, showing us what we
should ask, raising in us holy desires and comfortal^lc hopes there-
of, disposing us to approach God with fit dispositions of love and
reverence and humble confidence. It is also a notable part of the
Holy Spirit's office to comfort and sustain us, as in all our religious
practice, so particularly in our doubts, difficulties, distresses, and
afflictions, to beget joy, peace, and satistiiction in us, in all our
doings and all our sufferings; whence He has the title of Com-
forter. It is also a great part thereof to assure us of God's love
and favor, that we are His children, and to confirm us in the hopes
of our everlasting inheritance. We, feeling ourselves to live by
Him, to love God and goodness, to desire and delight in pleasing
God, are thereby raised to hope God loves and favors us, and that
He, having by so authentic a seal ratified His Avord and promise,