The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 447

XXXIX. Defective Learning. "

St.

Paul

words,

"And

word

the

A new

declares that faith

is

He

that believeth on Him shall not be confounded." — I Peter ii. 6.

the gift of

that not of yourselves,

it is

God (Ephes.

ii.

8),

His

the gift of God," refer to

"faith."

generation of youthful expositors confidently assert that "by grace are ye saved." The majority of

these words refer to

them are evidently ignorant of the history of the exegesis of the They only know that the pronoun " that" in the clause " and that not of yourselves "is a Greek neuter. And without further examination they consider it settled that the neuter pronoun can not refer to " faith," which is a Greek feminine. Allow us to put our readers on their guard against the thoughtless prattle of shallow school-learning. It should be remembered that while our exegesis is and always has been the one accepted text.

almost without exception, the opposite opinion

is shared by only a Nearly all the church fathers and almost all the theologians eminent for Greek scholarship judged that the words " it is the gift of God" refer io faith.

few expositors

1.

of later times.

This was the exegesis, according to the ancient tradition, of St. Paul had labored.

the churches in which 2.

Of those

that spoke the

Greek language and were familiar

with the peculiar Greek construction. 3.

Of the Latin church

fathers,

who maintained

close contact

with the Greek world. 4.

Of such scholars as Erasmus, and

philologists were without peers,

Grotius, in

them

and all

others,

the

who

as

more remark-

able, since personally they favored the exposition that faith is the

work 5.

man. Of Beza, Zanchius, Piscator, Voetius, Heidegger, and even

of

of Wolf,

Bengel, Estius, Michaelis,

Rosenmiiller,

Flatt,

Meier,

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