Sermon XIII. A fast sermon:— Christian duty under the hidings of God’s face.- January 1, 1676.

 

LET'S TAKE A BREAK FROM THE NICENE POSTS

The end of our meeting here this day is to bemoan, if God would help us, the withdrawing of God from among us, and to beg his returning unto us. It is not about any particular or any small occasion; but it is about the greatest concern of the glory of God and our own souls that we can ever be engaged or concerned in this world. Whether our spirits are suited and prepared to meet the Lord in such a work or no, we may do well to consider. Something I shall offer, if God bring it to mind, that may be of use unto us on the present occasion, from Isa. viii. 17, —

“And I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.”

You may remember that my way is, upon these occasions, to speak some plain words unto you, that are not only of your special but of your present concern. I shall not, therefore, open the context here, but only tell you (which you will see by reading the chapter at any time) it was a time of great sin, of great darkness, of great danger; and yet there was a promise of Christ, that kept life in the church in the midst of all.

For the opening of the words, I would inquire into these four or five things:— 1. Whom it is that God hideth his face from; 2. What it is for God to hide his face; 3. How we may know when God hideth his face; 4. What are the reasons why God hideth his face; 5. How we may distinguish between God’s hiding his face and God’s departing; and, lastly, What is our duty in such a state and case, when God doth hide his face: “I will wait upon the Lord, who hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.”

I shall speak very plainly, and I fear somewhat briefer than I intended, by reason of my infirmities, unto these things.

First, Whom is it that the Lord hideth his face from? It is from “the house of Jacob.” God never hideth his face from the world, because his face never shines upon them. The face of God’s providence alters towards the world. It is sometimes filled with more frowns and anger than at other times, and he works great alterations accordingly; but the face of God’s grace, that neither shines upon nor can be said to be hid from the world.

God hides his face from “the house of Jacob.” And two things are considerable herein:— 1. That it is the true church of God that is intended; 2. That it is the church of God in some special state and condition that is intended, that is “Jacob.”

1. It is the true church of God that is intended. Jacob is he that received the promises, with whom God made a covenant, to whom God engaged his truth: Mic. vii. 20, “Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.” Jacob being he that God had entered into covenant withal, took into covenant with himself, “the house of Jacob” are those, that are in covenant with God.

2. There is a twofold circumstance of the church comprised in this term, “Jacob:” — (1.) That it is in a low, poor, afflicted condition. So was Jacob all his days He was a man of sorrow, a man of affliction, a man of temptation. “Few and evil were the days of his pilgrimage.” And the church is nowhere called “Jacob” but with reference unto its low estate: Isa. xli. 14, “Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel,” saith he. When the church is as a contemptible worm, when there are but few that belong unto it, then it is called “Jacob.” The church in a low, tempted, oppressed, sorrowful and mean condition, is “the house of Jacob.” (2.) It is in a wrestling condition. This was the character of Jacob above all the patriarchs, — he was the great wrestler with God; and he got nothing but by wrestling through great difficulties. You all know so that know the story of Jacob from first to last. So that the church is called “the house of Jacob when it is in a wrestling condition, contending with God and man for the blessing. And many repulses he had, and came off lame at last, with the unjointing of his bones.

Brethren, you see who it is that in here intended, — the true church of God, in a low, weak, distressed condition; and there are some at least among them eminently wrestling with God and eminently wrestling with men for the great blessing of Jesus Christ and the gospel. Pray take notice that God can, and sometimes doth, hide himself from the church in this state and condition. Now, a man would think, now if ever is the time for God to shine upon the house of Jacob. But there may be such things found in the church, when it is in a low, wrestling condition, that God is compelled to hide his face from them.

Thus we have stated the subject. I desire to know whether it falls upon us or no? whether we are this “house of Jacob,” whose condition is low, that, through infinite, free grace, God hath taken into covenant with himself? I do not speak absolutely in reference to ourselves, but to our brethren in the world, whose condition is low, distressed, tempted, oppressed. And yet there are remaining those that wrestle with God. If this be so, then the subject is rightly stated, and we are concerned in the text.

Secondly, Our second inquiry is, What it is for God to “hide his face”? To know that, we must inquire what it is for the face of God to shine upon any. You may observe that the shining of God’s face upon any is, in Scripture, comprehensive of all mercies and of all blessings whatsoever. I will mention but one place, Num. vi. 24–26, the blessing of God when he put his name upon the people: “The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: the Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.” Grace, preservation, and peace, they are the sum of all we receive from God in this world. And how cloth this come? “The Lord cause his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: the Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace: the Lord cause his face to shine and bless thee.” In a word, there the shining of God’s face is, where the grace and favour of God in Christ Jesus evidences and communicates itself to the church and the souls of men. The grace and favour of God evidencing and communicating itself unto the souls of men is the shining of God’s face and the lifting up of God’s countenance.

And there are four things that do always accompany the shining of God’s face upon any people or upon any person. The peculiar way of the communication and evidence of the grace and favour; which is the shining of his face, hath these four effects:—

1. It gives them light and guidance. “In thy light,” saith the psalmist, Ps. xxxvi. 9, “we shall see light,” — in the light of God’s countenance. When the face of God shines upon men, they are not at a loss to find their way. It is as the sun unto our natural occasions. Let a man be in his way, let him know it never so well, while the sun shines upon him, how pleasantly doth he travel! Though he be in the same way, if the sun go down and darkness come, what a loss is the man at! I know not what you have done, but I know what some others have done; — they have found sometimes pleasantness, plainness, satisfaction, in the same ways that afterwards they have been ready to stumble in, and could scarce find how to take one step before another. The sun was gone down! While God’s face shines upon us, we shall not be at a loss nor in the dark about any of our ways.

2. Where God’s face shines there is the communication of spiritual strength; for, as I told you, this face of God is his grace and favour, which is the fountain of all our spiritual life, of all spiritual strength, of all spiritual vigour. I need not stay to prove these things, which you know are acknowledged. All our spiritual life is from the fountain of God’s grace and favour; and the shining of the face of God is the actual communication, of spiritual strength from that grace and favour. Whenever God’s face shines, — and let us please ourselves with any other apprehension, — We shall have spiritual life, strength, vigour, quickening, as to all duties, as to all occasions, as to all trials and sufferings, whatsoever, we are called unto.

3. The shining of God’s face is, in a peculiar manner, the cause of spiritual joy and refreshment; for by the shining of God’s countenance he doth give in pledges unto our hearts that he is our reconciled God and Father. Spiritual joy is a most peculiar effect and an infallible evidence of the shining of God’s face. Wherever it is, there God’s face shines; and where it is not, there God hides his face.

4. And lastly, Deliverance from trouble is an effect of the shining of God’s face: “Cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.” Such is the prayer of the psalmist.

These four effects do constantly accompany the lifting up of God’s countenance, and the shining of his face upon us Wherefore the hiding of God’s face must respect these effects, — light and guidance, spiritual strength, joy, and deliverance.

1. The hiding of God’s face respects light and guidance: Hos. v. 6, “They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the Lord; but they shall not find him.” Why? “He hath withdrawn himself from them.” God hath hid himself. For God to hide himself, and for God to hide his face, are the same: Isa. xlv. 15, “Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself.” And when God withdraws and hides himself, men cannot find their way. They went with their flocks and with their herds to find the way to God, — with their church-assemblies, with all their concerns, — and could not find the way to God. When God hides his face, we shall be left under darkness as unto our churches, ways, and walking.

Pray, brethren, let us now inquire whether it is so with us or no. Consider these few things in the fear of the Lord:—

(1.) Do you see the beauty and the glory of the ways of God? Do you see the glorious goings of God in the sanctuary, as may be you have seen them? Do you see a desirableness and a beauty in the ways of God’s worship in the church? Or, are these things grown unto you a very common thing? You are in a good way; hut is not the sun gone down? You are in the same path as formerly; but are your hearts so delighted, so refreshed? Do we really see a beauty and a glory in the ways and worship of the house of God? I am afraid we can scarce say so. And if it be so, it is through the want of the light of God’s countenance. We are in the same way still, but darkness is round about us; we see not the beauty and glory of the ways and worship of God. Our very walking, our very actings, the very course we most of us take in the ways of the church, do manifest the hiding of God’s face, — that God hath so far withdrawn the light of his countenance from us that we do not see a glory in the same way that once we saw before.

(2.) Are we not at a great loss as unto the ways themselves, and in the least difficulty we cannot find our way, but we are bewildered? Every trivial exception, that hath been answered a hundred times, will turn us out of the way, and keep us from the discharge of our duty, and from what God calls us unto. God hideth his face and leaves us much in the dark. When we would go about our duty, we do not find our way. All things have not been plain and clear.

(3.) Are we not in the dark as to the way of love, — the life, the soul, the cement of church-communion, — without which the best of us, as unto any church-order, are but as “sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal”? Whatever sweet or pleasant noise we make by our way or walk, without the exercise of love, we are as “sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.” Is there not darkness come upon all professors herein? Is there that love among professors in general that either hath been or ought to be? Is there that love among churches, one church to another? They are scarce concerned in one another. I did little think ever to have lived to see the day wherein the churches of Christ should have so little concern in one another as they have. There is not that love among ourselves which there ought to be. Do not the paths of love mourn because none walk in them? Doth joy arise in our hearts and pleasantness in our countenances when we behold the faces one of another? 

Why, then, do some complain that none visit, none confirm, none help, none relieve, none seek after their spiritual or outward condition? Who among us seeks to make himself an example of love? Is there a duty wherein men may exercise and show their gifts and parts? — there is a pretty readiness for it. Is there any thing wherein men may act severity of spirit? — they will be prepared for that. Who among us endeavours, in meekness, in condescension, in self-denial, in being little in his own eyes, to make himself an example of love? And all our church order and relation is a thing of no value without it. One person who is filled with love, which is a charitable grace, it will make him have low thoughts of himself, condescend greatly to others, forego temptation to provocations, and let go all these things. And who among us endeavours to make himself an example hereof? One such person would bring more honour and glory to Christ, and make a more glorious representation of him in the world, than a thousand of us do at this kind of rate of walking. The ways of God are the same, the worship of God the same, the saints of God the same also, — a company of poor tempted sinners: but we have not the same light, we have not the same guidance, we have not the same love; we live upon gifts, and not upon grace. God doth hide his face from us in this thing.

2. When God hides his face, there will be a decay as to spiritual strength, as to the flourishing and vigour of grace. I have spoken so much and so often to you upon this head, in this place, in our inquiry wherefore the Lord doth harden the hearts of his people from his fear, and in conference among ourselves, that I shall say no more 520to it, to manifest that we have this evidence of God’s hiding his face, that there is a decay of spiritual strength as to the flourishing of grace among us. And truly, brethren, I am verily persuaded that if God do not give us an understanding of it by his word, he will give us an understanding of it by his sword, by his judgments, that will follow us till we are consumed.

3. When God hides his face, there will be a decay of spiritual joys. Spiritual joys are the immediate effect of the shining of God’s countenance, the most proper pledge of it unto our hearts. And how is it with us, brethren? Pray remember my design, which is to speak familiarly unto you, and so bear with my manner of speaking at this time. How is it with us, brethren, as to this matter of spiritual joy? It is a thing that was purchased by the blood of Christ. It is more worth than all this world, and it is that without which we shall never greatly honour God, in this world or when we go out of it.

I cannot toll how to judge any of your hearts, nor what stock you have of this spiritual joy, but I will give you two or three outward signs, and one or two inward trials, whereby we may know whether there be not a decay among us in spiritual joy; and (which is the worst part of the story) we are content that so it should be.

(1.) This is certain, that carnal joys and spiritual joys are inconsistent; that where carnal joy is predominant, let men pretend what they will, and speak with the tongue of men and angels, there is no spiritual joy. By carnal joy I understand the prevalent satisfaction of the minds of men in present enjoyments, whether in relations, or in outward state and condition, or in the succeeding of their affairs. Where there is a predominant satisfaction in these things, there is no spiritual joy. “Many say, Who will show us any good? Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.” These things are absolutely opposed. The gladness of heart arising from the shining of God’s countenance is absolutely opposed unto that good which men find in the increase of their corn, and wine, and oil. A predominancy of carnal joy in present satisfaction as to things here below is inconsistent with spiritual joy.

(2.) Earthly cares prevailing are inconsistent with heavenly joys. God hath brought many of us into that state and condition that it may be we will say we are free upon that account: ‘We have nothing here to rejoice in; we are poor; we are low, disconsolate, afflicted.’ Well, then, but have we not, on the other side, earthly cares and desires prevalent in us? We are not rich, but we would be rich; we are not healthy, but we would be healthy and strong; we have not provision for our lusts, but we would have it. Where there is this frame of spirit there is no spiritual joy.

NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH—SECOND SERIES—The Theology of St. Hilary of Poitiers. Part 23

 

When he is enunciating revealed truths, or arguing onward from them to conclusions towards which they point, he has the company of the Creeds, or at least they indicate the way he must go. But in explaining the connection between doctrine and doctrine he is left to his own guidance. It is as though a traveller, not content to acquaint himself with the highroads, should make his way over hedge and ditch from one of them to another; he will not always hit upon the best and straightest course. But at least Hilary’s conclusions, though sometimes erroneous, were reached by honest and reverent reasoning, and neither ancient nor modern theology can afford to reproach him. The tendency of the former, especially offer the rise of Nestorius, was to exaggerate some of his errors; and the latter has failed to develope and enforce some of his highest teaching.

This is, indeed, worthy of all admiration. On the moral side of Christianity we see him insisting upon the voluntary character of Christ’s work; upon His acts of will, which are a satisfaction to God and an appeal to us. On the intellectual side we find the Unity in Trinity so luminously declared that Bishop French of Lahore, one of the greatest of missionaries, had the works of Hilary constantly in his hands, and contemplated a translation of the De Trinitate into Arabic for the benefit of Mohammedans. This was not because Hilary’s explanation of our Lord’s sufferings might seem to commend the Gospel to their prejudices; such a concession would have been repugnant to French’s whole mode of thought. It was because in the central argument on behalf of the Godhead of Christ, where he had least scope for originality of thought, Hilary has never suffered himself to become a mere mechanical compiler. The light which he has cast upon his subject, though clear, is never hard; and the doctrine which, because it was attractive to himself, he has made attractive to his readers, is that of the unity of God, the very doctrine which is of supreme importance in Mohammedan eyes.

But, above all, it is Hilary’s doctrine concerning the Incarnation as the eternal purpose of God for the union of the creature with the Creator, that must excite our interest and awaken our thoughts. He renders it, on the one hand, impossible to rate too highly the dignity of man, created to share the nature and the life of God; impossible, on the other hand, to estimate highly enough the condescension of Christ in assuming humanity. It is by His humiliation that we are saved; by the fact that the nature of man was taken by his Maker, not by the fact that Christ, being man, remained sinless. For sin began against God’s will and after His counsel was formed; it might deflect the march of His purpose towards fulfilment, but could no more impede its consummation than it could cause its inception. The true salvation of man is not that which rescues him, when corrupt, from sin and its consequences, but that which raises him, corruptible, because free, even though he had not become corrupt, into the safety of union with the nature of God. 

Human life, though pure from actual sin, would have been aimless and hopeless without the Incarnation. And the human body would have had no glory, for its glory is that Christ has taken it, worn it awhile in its imperfect state, laid it aside and finally resumed it in its perfection. All this He must have done, in accordance with God’s purpose, even though the Fall had never occurred. Hence the Incarnation and the Resurrection are the facts of paramount interest; the death of Christ, corresponding as it does to the hypothetical laying aside of the unglorified flesh, loses something of its usual prominence in Christian thought. It is represented as being primarily for Christ the moment of transition, for the Christian the act which enables him to profit by the Incarnation; but it is the Incarnation itself whereby, in Hilary’s words, we are saved into the nature and the name of God. But though we may feel that this great truth is not stated in its full impressiveness, we must allow that the thought which has taken the foremost place is no mere academic speculation. And, after all, sin and the Atonement are copiously treated in his writings, though they do not control his exposition of the Incarnation. 

Yet even in this there are large spaces of his argument where these considerations have a place, though only to give local colour, so to speak, and a sense of reality to the description of a purpose formed and a work done for man because he is man, not because he is fallen. But if Hilary has somewhat erred in placing the Cross in the background, he is not in error in magnifying the scope of the reconciliation which includes it as in a wider horizon. Man has in Christ the nature of God; the infinite Mind is intelligible to the finite. The Creeds are no dry statement of facts which do not touch our life; the truths they contain are the revelation of God’s self to us. Not for the pleasure of weaving theories, but in the interests of practical piety, Hilary has fused belief and conduct into the unity of that knowledge which Isaiah foresaw and St. John possessed; the knowledge which is not a means towards life, but life itself.

NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH—SECOND SERIES—The Theology of St. Hilary of Poitiers. Part 22

 

We have now completed the survey of Hilary’s thoughts. Many of these were strange and new to his contemporaries, and his originality, we may be sure, deprived him of some of the influence he wished to exert in the controversies of his day. Yet he shared the spirit and entered heartily into the interests and conflicts of his age, and therefore his thoughts in many ways were different from our own. To this we owe, no doubt, the preservation of his works; writings which anticipated modern opinion would have been powerless for good in that day, and would not have survived to ours. Thus from his own century to ours Hilary has been somewhat isolated and neglected, and even misunderstood. Yet he is one of the most notable figures in the history of the early Church, and must be numbered among those who have done most to make Christian thought richer and more exact. If we would appreciate him aright as one of the builders of the dogmatic structure of the Faith, we must omit from the materials of our estimate a great part of his writings, and a part which has had a wider influence than any other. His interpretation of the letter, though not of the spirit, of Scripture must be dismissed; interesting as it always is, and often suggestive, it was not his own and was a hindrance, though he did not see it, to the freedom of his thought. 

Yet his exegesis in detail is often admirable. For instance, it would not be easy to overpraise his insight and courage in resisting the conventional orthodoxy, sanctioned by Athanasius in his own generation and by Augustine in the next, which interpreted St. Paul’s ‘first-born of every creature’ as signifying the Incarnation of Christ, and not His eternal generation. We must omit also much that Hilary borrowed without question from current opinion; it is his glory that he concentrated his attention upon some few questions of supreme importance, and his strength, not his weakness, that he was ready to adopt in other matters the best and wisest judgments to which he had access. An intelligent, and perhaps ineffective, curiosity may keep itself abreast of the thought of the time, to quote a popular phrase; Hilary was content to survey wide regions of doctrine and discipline with the eyes of Origen and of Cyprian. This limitation of the interests of a powerful mind has enabled him to penetrate further into the mysteries of the Faith than any of his predecessors; to points, in fact, where his successors have failed to establish themselves. We cannot blame him that later theologians, starting where he left off, have in some directions advanced further still.

 The writings of Hilary are the quarry whence many of the best thoughts of Ambrose and of Leo are hewn. Eminent and successful as these men were, we cannot rank them with Hilary as intellectually his equals; we may even wonder how many of their conclusions they would have drawn had not Hilary supplied the premises. It is a greater honour that the unrivalled genius of Augustine is deeply indebted to him. Nor may we blame him, save lightly, for some rashness and error in his speculations. He set out, unwillingly, as we know, but not half-heartedly, upon his novel journey of exploration. He had not, as we have, centuries of criticism behind him, and could not know that some of the xcvavenues he followed would lead him astray. It may be that we are sober because we are, in a sense, disillusioned; that modern Christian thought which starts from the old premises tends to excess of circumspection. And certainly Hilary would not have earned his fame as one of the most original and profound of teachers, whose view of Christology is one of the most interesting in the whole of Christian antiquity, had he not been inspired by a sense of freedom and of hope in his quest. 

Yet great as was his genius and reverent the spirit in which he worked, the errors into which he fell, though few, were serious. There are instances in which he neglects his habitual balancing of corresponding infinities; as when he shuts his eyes to half the revelation, and asserts that Christ could not be ignorant and could not feel pain. And there is that whole system of dispensations which he has built up in explanation of Christ’s life on earth; a system against which our conscience and our common sense rebel, for it contradicts the plain words of Scripture and attributes to God ‘a process of Divine reserve which is in fact deception.’ We may compare Hilary’s method in such cases to the architecture of Gloucester and of Sherborne, where the ingenuity of a later age has connected and adorned the massive and isolated columns of Norman date by its own light and graceful drapery of stonework. We cannot but admire the result; yet there is a certain concealment of the original design, and perhaps a perilous cutting away of the solid structure. But, in justice to Hilary, we must remember that in these speculations he is venturing away from the established standards of doctrine. 

NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH—SECOND SERIES—The Theology of St. Hilary of Poitiers. Part 21

 

Thus the thought of salvation by works greatly preponderates over that of salvation by grace. Hilary is fearful of weakening man’s sense of moral responsibility by dwelling too much upon God’s work which, however, he does not fail to recognise. Of the two great dangers, that of faith and that of life, the former seemed to him the more serious. God’s requirements in that respect were easy of fulfilment; He had stated the truth and He expected it to be unhesitatingly accepted. But if belief, being an exertion of the will, was easy, misbelief must be peculiarly and fatally wicked. The confession of St. Peter, the foundation upon which the Church is built, is that Christ is God; the sin against the Holy Ghost is denial of this truth. These are the highest glory and the deepest shame of man. It does not seem that Hilary regarded any man, however depraved, as beyond hope so long as he did not dispute this truth; he has no code of mortal sins. 

But heresy concerning Christ, whatever the conduct and character of the heretic, excludes all possibility of salvation, for it necessarily cuts him off from the one Faith and the one Church which are the condition and the sphere of growth towards perfection; and the severance is just, because misbelief is a wilful sin. Since, then, compliance or non-compliance with one of God’s demands, that for faith in His revelation, depends upon the will, it was natural that Hilary should lay stress upon the importance of the will in regard to God’s other demand, that for a Christian life. This was, in a sense, a lighter requirement, for various degrees of obedience were possible. Conduct could neither give nor deny faith, but only affect its growth, while without the frank recognition of the facts of religion no conduct could be acceptable to God. Life presents to the will a constantly changing series of choices between good and evil, while the Faith must be accepted or rejected at once and as a whole. 

It is clear from Hilary’s insistence upon this that the difficulties, apart from heresy, with which he had to contend resembled those of Mission work in modern India. There were many who would accept Christianity as a revelation, yet had not the moral strength to live in conformity with their belief. Of such persons Hilary will not despair. They have the first essential of salvation, a clear and definite acceptance of doctrinal truth; they have also the offer of sufficient grace, and the free will and power to use it. And time and opportunity are granted, for the vicissitudes of life form a progressive education; they are, if taken aright, the school, the training-ground for immortality. This is because all Christians are in Christ, by virtue of His Incarnation. They are, as St. Paul says, complete in Him, furnished with the faith and hope they need. But this is only a preparatory completeness; hereafter they shall be complete in themselves, when the perfect harmony is attained and they are conformed to his glory. 

Thus to the end the dignity and responsibility of mankind is maintained. But it is obvious that Hilary has failed to correlate the work of Christ with the work of the Christian. The necessity of His guidance and aid, and the manner in which these are bestowed, is sufficiently stated, and the duty of the Christian man is copiously and eloquently enforced. But the importance of Christ’s work within Himself, in harmonising the two natures, has withdrawn most of Hilary’s attention from His work within the believing soul; and the impression which Hilary’s writings leave upon the mind concerning the Saviour and redeemed mankind is that of allied forces seeking the same end but acting independently, each in a sphere of its own.

There still remains to be considered Hilary’s account of the future state. The human soul, being created after the image of God, is imperishable; resurrection is as inevitable as death. And the resurrection will be in the body, for good and bad alike. The body of the good will be glorified, like that of Christ; its substance will be the same as in the present life, its glory such that it will be in all other respects a new body. Indeed, the true life of man only begins when this transformation takes place. No such change awaits the wicked; we shall all rise, but we shall not all be changed, as St. Paul says. They remain as they are, or rather are subjected to a ceaseless process of deterioration, whereby the soul is degraded to the level of the body, while this in the case of others is raised, either instantly or by a course of purification, to the level of the soul. Their last state is vividly described in language which recalls that of Virgil; crushed to powder and dried to dust they will fly for ever before the wind of God’s wrath. For the thoroughly good and the thoroughly bad the final state begins at the moment of death. 

There is no judgment for either class, but only for those whose character contains elements of both good and evil. But perfect goodness is only a theoretical possibility, and Hilary is not certain of the condemnation of any except wilful unbelievers. Evil is mingled in varying proportions with good in the character of men at large; God can detect it in the very best. All therefore need to be purified after death, if they are to escape condemnation on the Day of Judgment. Even the Mother of our Lord needs the purification of pain; this is the sword which should pierce through her soul. All who are infected by sin, the heretic who has erred in ignorance among them, must pass through cleansing fires after death. Then comes the general Resurrection. To the good it brings the final change to perfect glory; the bad will rise only to return to their former place. The multitude of men will be judged, and after the education and purification of suffering to which, by God’s mercy, they have been submitted, will be accepted by Him. Hilary’s writings contain no hint that any who are allowed to present themselves on the Day of Judgment will then be rejected.

NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH—SECOND SERIES—The Theology of St. Hilary of Poitiers. Part 20

 

No harm was done, rather a benefit was conferred upon mankind, if a false teacher could be discredited in a summary and effective manner; such was certainly a thought which presented itself to the minds of combatants, both orthodox and heterodox. Apart from these exceptions, which, however, Hilary would not have regarded as such, his standard of life, as has been said, is a high one both in faith and in practice, and his exhortation is full of strong common sense. It is, however, a standard set for educated people; there is little attention paid to those who are safe from the dangers of intellect and wealth. The worldliness which he rebukes is that of the rich and influential; and his arguments are addressed to the reading class, as are his numerous appeals to his audience in the Homilies on the Psalms to study Scripture for themselves. Indeed, his advice to them seems to imply that they have abundant leisure for spiritual exercises and for reflection. But he does not simply ignore the illiterate, still mostly pagans, for the work of St. Martin of Tours only began, as we saw, in Hilary’s last days; in one passage at least he speaks with the scorn of an ancient philosopher of ‘the rustic mind,’ which will fail to find the meaning of the Psalms

Hilary is not content with setting a standard which his flock must strive to reach. He would have them attain to a higher level than is commanded, and at the same time constantly remember that they are failing to perform their duty to God. This higher life is set before his whole audience as their aim. He recognises the peculiar honour of the widow and the virgin, but has singularly little to say about these classes of the Christian community, or about the clergy, and no special counsel for them. The works of supererogation—the word is not his—which he preaches are within the reach of all Christians. They consist in the more perfect practice of the ordinary virtues. King xciiDavid ‘was not content henceforth to be confined to the express commands of the Law, nor to be subject to a mere necessity of obedience.’ ‘The Prophet prays that these free-will offerings may be acceptable to God, because the deeds done in compliance to the Law’s edict are performed under the actual compulsion of servitude.’ As an instance he gives the character of David. His duty was to be humble; he made himself humble exceedingly, thus doing more than he was legally bound to do. He spared his enemies so far as in him lay, and bewailed their death; this was a free service to which he was bound by no compulsion. 

Such conduct places those who practice it on the same level with those whose lives are formally consecrated; the state of the latter being regarded, as always in early times, as admirable in itself, and not as a means towards higher things. Vigils and fasts and acts of mercy are the methods advocated by Hilary for such attainment. But they must not stand alone, nor must the Christian put his trust in them. Humility must have faith for its principle, and fasting be combined with charity. And the Christian must never forget that though he may in some respects be doing more than he need, yet in others he is certainly falling short. For the conflict is unceasing; the devil, typified by the mountains in the Psalm, has been touched by God and is smoking, but is not yet burning and powerless for mischief.

 Hence there is constant danger lest the Christian fall into unbelief or unfruitfulness, sins equally fatal; he must not trust in himself, either that he can deserve forgiveness for the past or resist future temptations. Nor may he dismiss his past offences from his memory. It can never cease to be good for us to confess our former sins, even though we have become righteous. St. Paul did not allow himself to forget that he had persecuted the Church of God. But there is a further need than that of penitence. Like Cyprian before him and Augustine after him, Hilary insists upon the value of alms in the sight of God. The clothing of the naked, the release of the captive plead with God for the remission of our sins; and the man who redeems his faults by alms is classed among those who win His favour, with the perfect in love and the blameless in faith.

NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH—SECOND SERIES—The Theology of St. Hilary of Poitiers. Part 19

 

We must first premise that Christ’s work as our Example as well as our Saviour is fully recognised. Many of his deeds on earth were done by way of dispensation, in order to set us a pattern of life and thought. Christian life has, of course, its beginning in the free gift of Baptism, with the new life and the new faculties then bestowed, which render possible the illumination of the soul. Hilary, as was natural at a time when Baptism was often deferred by professed Christians, and there were many converts from paganism, seems to contemplate that of adults as the rule; and he feels it necessary to warn them that their Baptism will not restore them to perfect innocence. In fact, by a strange conjecture tentatively made, he once suggests that our Baptism is that wherewith John baptized our Lord, and that the Baptism of the Holy Ghost awaits us hereafter, in cleansing fires beyond the grave or in the purification of martyrdom. 

Hilary nowhere says in so many words that while Baptism abolishes sins previously committed, alms and other good deeds perform a similar office for later offences, but his view, which will be presently stated, concerning good works shews that he agreed in this respect with St. Cyprian; neither, however, would hold that the good works were sufficient in ordinary cases without xcthe further purification. Martyrdoms had, of course, ceased in Hilary’s day throughout the Roman empire, but it is interesting to observe that the old opinion, which had such power in the third century, still survived. The Christian, then, has need for fear, but he has a good hope, for all the baptized while in this world are still in the land of the living, and can only forfeit their citizenship by wilful and persistent unworthiness. The means for maintaining the new life of effort is the Eucharist, which is equally necessary with Baptism. But the Eucharist is one of the many matters of practical importance on which Hilary is almost silent, having nothing new to say, and being able to assume that his readers and hearers were well informed and of one mind with himself. His reticence is never a proof that he regarded them with indifference.

The Christian life is thus a life of hope and of high possibilities. But Hilary frankly and often recognises the serious short-comings of the average believers of his day. Sometimes, in his zeal for their improvement and in the wish to encourage his flock, he even seems to condone their faults, venturing to ascribe to God what may almost be styled mere good-nature, as when he speaks of God, Himself immutable, as no stern Judge of our changefulness, but rather appeased by the wish on our part for better things than angry because we cannot perform impossibilities. But in this very passage he holds up for our example the high attainment of the Saints, explaining that the Psalmist’s words, ‘There is none that doeth good, no not one,’ refer only to those who are altogether gone out of the way and become abominable, and not to all mankind. Indeed, holding as he does that all Christians may have as much grace from God as they will take, and that the conduct which is therefore possible is also necessary to salvation, he could not consistently maintain the lower position. In fact, the standard of life which Hilary sets in the Homilies on the Psalms is very high. Cleanness of hand and heart is the first object at which we must aim, and the Law of God must be our delight. This is the lesson inculcated throughout his discourses on Psalm cxix. He recognises the complexity of life, with its various duties and difficulties, which are, however, a privilege inasmuch as there is honour to be won by victory over them; and he takes a common-sense view of our powers and responsibilities. But though his tone is buoyant and life in his eyes is well worth living for the Christian, he insists not merely upon a general purity of life, but upon renunciation of worldly pleasures. 

Like Cyprian, he would apparently have the wealthy believer dispose of his capital and spend his income in works of charity, without thought of economy. Like Cyprian, again, he denounces the wearing of gold and jewellery, and the attendance at public places of amusement. Higher interests, spiritual and intellectual, must take the place of such dissipation. Sacred melody will be more attractive than the immodest dialogue of the theater, and study of the course of the stars a more pleasing pursuit than a visit to the racecourse. Yet strictly and even sternly Christian as Hilary is, he does not allow us altogether to forget that his is an age with another code than ours. Vengeance with him is a Christian motive. He takes with absolute literalness the Psalmist’s imprecations. Like every other emotion which he expresses, that of delight at the punishment of evil doers ought to have a place in the Christian soul. This was an inheritance from the days of persecution, which were still within the memory of living men. Cyprian often encourages the confessors to patience by the prospect of seeing the wrath of God upon their enemies; but he never gives so xcistrong expression to the feeling as Hilary does, when he enforces obedience to our Lord’s command to turn the other cheek by the consideration that fuller satisfaction will be gained if the wrong be stored up against the Day of Judgement. There is something hard and Puritan in the tone which Hilary has caught from the men of the times of persecution; and his conflict with heretics gave him ample opportunity for indulgence in the thought of vengeance upon them. 

This was no mere pardonable excitement of feeling; it was a Christian duty and privilege to rejoice in the future destruction of his opponents. But there is an even stranger difference between his standard and ours. Among the difficulties of keeping in the strait and narrow way he reckons that of truthfulness. A lie, he says, is often necessary, and deliberate falsehood sometimes useful. We may mislead an assassin, and so enable his intended victim to escape; our testimony may save a defendant who is in peril in the courts; we may have to cheer a sick man by making light of his ailment. Such are the cases in which the Apostle says that our speech is to be ‘seasoned with salt.’ It is not the lie that is wrong; the point of conscience is whether or no it will inflict injury upon another. Hilary is not alone in taking falsehood lightly, and allowance must be made for the age in which he lived. And his words cast light upon the history of the time. The constant accusations made against the character and conduct of theological opponents, which are so painful a feature of the controversies of the early centuries, find their justification in the principle which Hilary has stated. 

NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH—SECOND SERIES—The Theology of St. Hilary of Poitiers. Part 18

 

The reason is that it does not belong to the course of the Incarnation as fore-ordained by God, but is only a modification of it, rendered necessary by the sinful self-will of man. Had there been no Fall, the visible, palpable flesh would still have been laid aside, though not by death upon the Cross, when Christ’s work in the world was done; and there would have been some event corresponding to the Ascension, if not to the Resurrection. The body, laid aside on earth, would have been resumed in glory; and human flesh, unfallen and therefore not corrupt, yet free and therefore corruptible, would have entered into perfectly harmonious union with His Divinity, and so have been rendered safe from all possibility of evil. The purpose of raising man to the society of God was anterior to the beginnings of sin; and it is this broader conception that renders the Passion itself intelligible, while relegating it to a secondary place. But Hilary, though as a rule he mentions the subject not for its own sake but in the course of argument, has as firm a faith in the efficacy of Christ’s death and of His continued intercession in His humanity for mankind as he has in His triumphant Resurrection.

In regard to the manner in which man is to profit by the Atonement, Hilary shews the same inconsistency as in the case of sin. On the one hand, he lays frequent stress on knowledge concerning God and concerning the nature of sin as the first conditions of salvation; on the other, he insists, less often yet with equal emphasis, upon its being God’s spontaneous gift to men, to be appropriated only by faith. We have already seen that one of Hilary’s positions is that man must take the first step towards God; that if we will make the beginning He will give the increase. This increase is the knowledge of God imparted to willing minds, which lifts them up to piety. He states strongly the superiority of knowledge to faith;—“There is a certain greater effectiveness in knowledge than in faith. Thus the writer here did not believe; he knew. For faith has the reward of obedience, but it has not the assurance of ascertained truth. The Apostle has indicated the breadth of the interval between the two by putting the latter in the lower place in his list of the gifts of graces. ‘To the first wisdom, to the next knowledge, to the third faith’ is his message; for he who believes may be ignorant even while he believes, but he who has come to know is saved by his possession of knowledge from the very possibility of unbelief.” This high estimation of sound knowledge was due, no doubt, to the intellectual character of the Arian conflict, in which each party retorted upon the other the charge of ignorance and folly; and it must have been confirmed by the observation that some who were conspicuous for the misinterpretation of Scripture were notorious also for moral obliquity.

There was, however, that deeper reason which influenced all Hilary’s thought; the conviction that if there is to be any harmony, any understanding between God and the soul of man, it must be a perfect harmony and understanding. And knowledge is pre-eminently the sphere in which this is possible, for the revelation of God is clear and precise, and unmistakable in its import. But there was another, a directly practical lxxxix reason for this insistence. Apprehension of Divine truths is the unfailing test of a Christian mind; conduct changes and faith varies in intensity, but the facts of religion remain the same, and the believer can be judged by his attitude towards them. Hence we cannot be surprised that Hilary maintains the insufficiency of ‘simplicity of faith,’ and ranks its advocates with heathen philosophers who regard purity of life as a substitute for religion. God, he says, has provided copious knowledge, with which we cannot dispense. But this knowledge is to embrace not only the truth concerning God, but also concerning the realities of human life. It is to be a knowledge of the fact that sins have been committed and an opening of the eyes to their enormity. This will be followed by confession to God, by the promise to Him that we will henceforth regard sin as He regards it, and by the profession of a firm purpose to abandon it. Here again the starting-point is human knowledge. When the right attitude towards sin, intellectually and therefore morally, has been assumed, when there is the purpose of amendment and an earnest and successful struggle against sensual and worldly temptations, then we shall become ‘worthy of the favour of God.’

In this light confession is habitually regarded; it is a voluntary moral act, a self-enlightenment to the realities of sin, necessarily followed by repugnance and the effort to escape, and antecedent to Divine pardon and aid. But in contrast to this, Hilary’s normal judgment, there are passages where human action is put altogether in the background. Forgiveness is the spontaneous bounty of God, overflowing from the riches of His loving-kindness, and faith the condition of its bestowal and the means by which it is appropriated. Even the Psalmist, himself perfect in all good works, prayed for mercy; he put his whole trust in God, and so must we. And faith precedes knowledge also, which is unattainable except by the believer. Salvation does not come first, and then faith, but through faith is the hope of salvation; the blind man believed before he saw. Here again, as in the case of sin, we have two groups of statements without attempt at reconciliation; but that which lays stress upon human initiative is far more numerous than the other, and must be regarded as expressing Hilary’s underlying thought in his exhortations to Christian conduct, to his doctrine of which we may now turn.

NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH—SECOND SERIES—The Theology of St. Hilary of Poitiers. Part 17

 

Against these, the expressions of Hilary’s usual opinion, must be set others in which he anticipates the language of St. Augustine in the Pelagian controversy. But certain deductions must be made, before we can rightly judge the weight of his testimony on the side of original sin. Passages where he is merely amplifying the words of Scripture must be excluded, as also those which are obviously exhibitions of unguarded rhetoric. For instance such words as these, ‘Ever since the sin and unbelief of our first parent, we of later generations have had sin for the father of our body and unbelief for the mother of our soul,’ contradicting as they do Hilary’s well-known theory of the origin of the soul, cannot be regarded as giving his deliberate belief concerning sin. Again, we must be careful not to interpret strong language concerning the body (e.g. Tr. in Ps. cxviii, Caph, 5 fin.), as though it referred to our whole complex manhood. But after all deductions a good deal of strong Augustinianism remains. In the person of Adam God created all mankind, and all are implicated in his downfall, which was not only the beginning of evil but is a continuous power. 

Not only as a matter of experience, is no man sinless, but no man can, by any possibility, be free from sin. Because of the sin of one sentence is passed upon all; the sentence of slavery which is so deep a degradation that the victim of sin forfeits even the name of man. But Hilary not only states the doctrine; he approaches very nearly, on rare occasions, to the term ‘original sin.’ It follows that nothing less than a regeneration, the free gift of God, will avail; and the grace by which the Christian must be maintained is also His spontaneous lxxxvii and unconditional gift. Faith, knowledge, Christian life, all have their origin and their maintenance from Him. Such is a brief statement of Hilary’s position as a forerunner of St. Augustine. The passages cited are scattered over his writings, from the earliest to the latest, and there is no sign that the more modern view was gaining ground in his mind as his judgment ripened. He had no occasion to face the question, and was content to say whatever seemed obviously to arise from the words under discussion, or to be most profitable to his audience. 

His Augustinianism, if it may be called so, is but one of many instances of originality, a thought thrown out but not developed. It is a symptom of revolt against the inadequate views of older theologians; but it had more influence upon the mind of his great successor than upon his own. Dealing, as he did, with the subject in hortatory writings, hardly at all, and only incidentally, in his formal treatise on the Trinity, he preferred to regard it as a matter of morals rather than of doctrine. And the dignity of man, impressed upon him by the great Alexandrians, seemed to demand for humanity the fullest liberty. We may now turn to the Atonement, by which Christ has overcome sin. Hilary’s language concerning it is, as a rule, simply Scriptural. He had no occasion to discuss the doctrine, and his teaching is that which was traditional in his day, without any such anticipations of future thought as we found in his treatment of sin. Since the humanity of Christ is universal, His death was on behalf of all mankind, ‘to buy the salvation of the whole human race by the offering of this holy and perfect Victim.’ 

His last cry upon the cross was the expression of His sorrow that some would not profit by His sacrifice; that He was not, as He had desired, bearing the sins of all. He was able to take them upon Him because He had both natures. His manhood could do what His Godhead could not; it could atone for the sins of men. Man had been overcome by Satan; Satan, in his turn, has been overcome by Man. In the long conflict, enduring through Christ’s life, of which the first pitched battle was the Temptation, the last the Crucifixion, the victory has been won by the Mediator in the flesh. The devil was in the wrong throughout. He was deceived, or rather deceived himself, not recognising what it was for which Christ hungered. The same delusion as to Christ’s character led him afterwards to exact the penalty of sin from One Who had not deserved it. Thus the human sufferings of Christ, unjustly inflicted, involve His enemy in condemnation and forfeit his right to hold mankind enslaved. Therefore we are set free, and the sinless Passion and death are the triumph of the flesh over spiritual wickedness and the vengeance of God upon it. 

Man is set free, because he is justified in Christ, Who is Man. But the fact that Christ could do the works necessary to this end is proof that He is God. These works included the endurance of such suffering—in the sense, of course, which Hilary attaches to the word—as no one who was not more than man could bear. Hence he emphasises the Passion, because in so doing he magnifies the Divine nature of Him Who sustained it. He sets forth the sufferings in the light of deeds, of displays of power, the greatest wonder being that the Son of God should have made Himself passible. Yet though it was from union with the Godhead that His humanity possessed the purity, the willingness, the power to win this victory, and thought, in Hilary’s words, it was immortal God Who died upon the Cross, still it was a victory won not by God but by the flesh. 

But the Passion must not be regarded simply as an attack, ending in his own overthrow, made by Satan upon Christ. It is also a free satisfaction offered to God by Christ as Man, in order that His sufferings might release us from the punishment we had deserved, being accepted instead of ours. This latter was a thought peculiarly lxxxviii characteristic of the West, and especially of St. Cyprian’s teaching; but Hilary has had his share in giving prominence to the propitiatory aspect of Christ’s self-sacrifice. Yet it must be confessed that the death of Christ is somewhat in the background; that Hilary is less interested in its positive value than in its negative aspect, as the cessation from earthly life and the transition to glory. Upon this, and upon the evidential importance of the Passion as a transcendent exertion of power, whereby the Son of God held Himself down and constrained Himself to suffer and die, Hilary chiefly dwells. The death has not, in his eyes, the interest of the Resurrection.

NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH—SECOND SERIES—The Theology of St. Hilary of Poitiers. Part 16

 

We may now turn to the practical teaching of Hilary. Henceforth he will be no longer the compiler of the best Latin handbook of the Arian controversy, or the somewhat unsystematic investigator of unexplored regions of theology. We shall find him lxxxvoften accepting the common stock of Christian ideas of his age, without criticism or attempt at improvement upon them; often paraphrasing in even more emphatic language emphatic and apparently contradictory passages of Scripture, without any effort after harmony or balance. Yet sometimes we shall find him anticipating on one page the thoughts of later theologians, while on another he is content to repeat the views upon the same subject which had satisfied an earlier generation. His doctrine, where it is not traditional, is never more than tentative, and we must not be surprised, we must even expect, to find him inconsistent with himself.

No subject illustrates this inconsistency better than that of sin, of which Hilary gives two accounts, the one Eastern and traditional, the other an anticipation of Augustinianism. These are never compared and weighed the one against the other. In the passages where each appears, it is adduced confidently, without any reservation or hint that he is aware of another explanation of the facts of experience. The more usual account is that which is required by Hilary’s doctrine of the separate creation of every human soul, which is good, because it is God’s immediate work, and has a natural tendency to, and fitness for, perfection. Because God, after Whose image man is made, is free, therefore man also is free; he has absolute liberty, and is under no compulsion to good or to evil. The sin which God foresees, as in the case of Esau, He does not foreordain. Punishment never follows except upon sin actually committed; the elect are they who show themselves worthy of election. 

But the human body has defiled the soul; in fact, Hilary sometimes speaks as though sin were not an act of will but an irresistible pressure exerted by the body on the soul. If we had no body, he says once, we should have no sin; it is a ‘body of death’ and cannot be pure. This is the spiritual meaning of the ancient law against touching a corpse. When the Psalmist laments that his soul cleaveth to the ground, his sorrow is that it is inseparably attached to a body of earth; when Job and Jeremiah cursed the day of their birth, their anger was directed against the necessity of living surrounded by the weaknesses and vices of the flesh, not against the creation of their souls after the image of God. Such language, if it stood alone, would convict its author of Manicheanism, but Hilary elsewhere asserts that the desire of the soul goes half-way to meet the invitation of sin, and this latter in his normal teaching. Man has a natural proclivity to evil, an inherited weakness which has, as a matter of experience, betrayed all men into actual sin, with the exception of Christ. Elsewhere, however, Hilary recognises the possibility, under existing conditions, of a sinless life. For David could make the prayer, ‘Take from me the way of iniquity;’ of iniquity itself he was guiltless, and only needed to pray against the tendency inherent in his bodily nature. But such a case is altogether exceptional; ordinary men must confide in the thought that God is indulgent, for He knows our infirmity. 

He is propitiated by the wish to be righteous, and in His judgment the merits of good men outweigh their sins. Hence a prevalent tone of hopefulness about the future state of the baptized; even Sodom and Gomorrah, their punishment in history having satisfied the righteousness of God, shall ultimately be saved. Yet God has a perfect, immutable goodness of which human goodness, though real, falls infinitely short, because He is steadfast and we are driven by varying impulses. This Divine goodness is the standard and the hope set before us. It can only be attained by grace, and grace is freely offered. But just as the soul, being free, advances to meet sin, so it must advance to meet grace. Man must take the first step; he must wish and pray for grace, and then perseverance in lxxxvi faith will be granted him, together with such a measure of the Spirit as he shall desire and deserve. He will, indeed, be able to do more than he need, as David did when he spared and afterwards lamented Saul, his worst enemy, and St. Paul, who voluntarily abstained from the lawful privilege of marriage. Such is Hilary’s first account, ‘a naive, undeveloped mode of thought concerning the origin of sin and the state of man.’ Its inconsistencies are as obvious as their cause, the unguarded homiletical expansion of isolated passages. 

There is no attempt to reconcile man’s freedom to be good with the fact of universal sin. The theory, so far as it is consistent, is derived from Alexandria, from Clement and Origen. It may seem not merely inadequate as theology, but philosophical rather than Christian; and its aim is, indeed, that of strengthening man’s sense of moral responsibility and of heightening his courage to withstand temptation. But we must remember that Hilary everywhere assumes the union between the Christian and Christ. While this union exists there is always the power of bringing conduct into conformity with His will. Conduct, then, is, comparatively speaking, a matter of detail. Sins of action and emotion do not necessarily sever the union; a whole system of casuistry might be built upon Hilary’s foundation. But false thoughts of God violate the very principle of union between Him and man. However abstract they may seem and remote from practical life, they are an insuperable barrier. For intellectual harmony, as well as moral, is necessary; and error of belief, like a key moving in a lock with whose wards it does not correspond, forbids all access to the nature and the grace of God. A good example of his relative estimate of intellectual and moral offences occurs in the Homily on Psalm i. 6–8, where it is noteworthy that he does not trace back the former to moral causes.

NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH—SECOND SERIES—The Theology of St. Hilary of Poitiers. Part 15,

 

It was a constant taunt of the Arians that the Catholics worshipped a plurality of Gods. The frequency and emphasis with which Hilary denies that Christians have either two Gods or one God in solitude proves that he regarded this plausible assertion as one of the most dangerous weapons wielded by heresy. It was his object, as a skilful disputant, to bring his whole forces to bear upon them, and this in a precisely limited field of battle. To import the question of the Holy Spirit into the controversy might distract his reader’s attention from the main issue, and afford the enemy an opening for that evasion which he constantly accuses them of attempting. Hence, in part, the small space allowed to so important a theme; and hence the avoidance, which we noticed, of the very word ‘Trinity.’ The Arians made the most of their argument about two Gods; Hilary would not allow them the opportunity of imputing to the faithful a belief in three. This might not have been a sufficient inducement, had it stood alone, but the encouragement which he received from Origen’s vagueness, representative as it was of the average theology of the third century, must have predisposed him to give weight to the practical consideration. 

Yet Hilary has not avoided a formal statement of his belief. In Trin. ii. 29–35, which is, as we saw, part of a summary statement of the Christian Faith, he sets it forth with Scripture proofs. But he shows clearly, by the short space he allows to it, that it is not in his eyes of co-ordinate importance with the other truths of which he treats. And the curious language in which he introduces the subject, in  29, seems to imply that he throws it in to satisfy others rather than from his own sense of its necessary place in such a statement. The doctrine, as he here defines it, is that the Holy Spirit undoubtedly exists; the Father and the Son are the Authors of His being, and, since He is joined with Them in our confession, lxxxiv He cannot, without mutilation of the Faith, be separated from Them. The fact that He is given to us is a further proof of His existence. Yet the title ‘Spirit’ is often used both for Father and for Son; in proof of this St. John iv. 24 and 2 Cor. iii. 17 are cited. Yet the Holy Spirit has a personal existence and a special office in relation to us. It is through Him that we know God. 

Our nature is capable of knowing Him, as the eye is capable of sight; and the gift of the Spirit is to the soul what the gift of light is to the eye. Again, in xii the subject is introduced, as if by an after thought, and even more briefly than in the second book. As he has refused to style the Son a creature, so he refuses to give that name to the Spirit, Who has gone forth from God, and been sent by Christ. The Son is the Only-begotten, and therefore he will not say that the Spirit was begotten; yet he cannot call Him a creature, for the Spirit’s knowledge of the mysteries of God, of which He is the Interpreter to men, is the proof of His oneness in nature with God. The Spirit speaks unutterable things and is ineffable in His operation. Hilary cannot define, yet he believes. It must suffice to say, with the Apostle, simply that He is the Spirit of God. The tone of 56 seems that of silent rebuke to some excess of definition, as he would deem it, of which he had heard. To these passages must be added another in Trin. viii. 19 f., where the possession by Father and Son of one Spirit is used in proof of their own unity. But in this passage there occur several instances of Hilary’s characteristic vagueness. As in ii. 30, so here we are told that ‘the Spirit’ may mean Father or Son as well as Holy Ghost, and instances are given where the word has one or other of the two first significations. 

Thus we must set a certain number of passages where a reference in Scripture to the Holy Spirit is explained away against a number, certainly no greater, in which He is recognised, and in the latter we notice a strong tendency to understate the truth. For though we are expressly told that the Spirit is not a creature, that He is from the Father through the Son, is of one substance with Them and bears the same relation to the One that He bears to the Other, yet Hilary refuses with some emphasis and in a conspicuous place, at the very end of the treatise, to call Him God. But both groups of passages, those in which the Holy Ghost is recognised and those in which reason is given for non-recognition, are more than counterbalanced by a multitude in which, no doubt for the controversial reason already mentioned, the Holy Spirit is left unnamed, though it would have been most natural that allusion should be made to Him. We find in Hilary ‘the premises from which the Divinity of the Holy Ghost is the necessary conclusion;’ and there is reason to believe that he would have stated the doctrine of the Procession in the Western, not in the Eastern, form; but we find a certain willingness to keep the doctrine in the background, which sufficiently indicates a failure to grasp its cardinal importance, and is, however natural in his circumstances and however interesting as evidence of his mode of thought, a blemish to the De Trinitate, if we seek in it a balanced exposition of the Faith.