The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 36

— INTRODUCTORY NOTE

xxxvi

attention turn to the objective provision to

meet man's needs

in

the work of Christ; and again, only after that to the subjective provision to ical

meet

his needs in the

order of development, and

work it

is

of the Spirit.

This

is

the log-

the actual order in which the

Church has slowly and amid the throes of all sorts of conflicts with the world and with its own slowness to believe all that the prophets have written worked its way into the whole truth revealed to it in the Word. The order is, it will be observed, Theology, Christology, Anthropology (Hamartialogy), Impetration of Redemption, Application of Redemption; and in the nature of the case the topics that fall under the rubric of the application of redemption could not be solidly investigated until the basis had been laid for them in the assimilation of the preceding topics. We have connected the great names of Athanasius and his worthy successors who fought out the Christological disputes, of Augustine and of Anselm, with the precedent stages of this development. It was the leaders of the Reformation who were called on to add the capstone to the structure by working out the facts as to the application of redemption to the soul of man through the Holy Spirit. Some elements of the doctrine of the Spirit are indeed implicated in earlier discussions. For example, the deity and personality of the Spirit the whole doctrine of His person was a part of the doctrine of the Trinity, and this accordingly became a topic for early debate, and patristic literature is rich in discussions of it. The authority of Scripture was fundamental to the whole doctrinal discussion, and the doctrine of the inspiration of the prophets and apostles by the Spirit was therefore asserted from the beginning with great emphasis. In the determination of man's need in the Pelagian controversy much was necessarily determined about " Grace," its necessity, its prevenience, its efficacy, its indefectibility, and in this much was anticipated of what was afterward to be more orderly developed in the doctrine of the interior work of the Spirit and accordingly there is much in Augustine which preadumbrates the determination of later times. But even in Augustine there is a vagueness and tentativeness in the treatment of these topics which advises us that while the facts relatively to man and his needs and the methods of God's working upon him to salvation are firmly grasped, these same

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;

facts relatively to the personal activities of the Spirit as yet await

their full assimilation.

Church needed

Another step had yet to be taken the Anselm to set on foot the final de-

to wait yet for

:

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