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towards God, charity to men, sobriety and purity as to ourselves, with the rest of those amiable and heavenly virtues of soul, which is the work of sanctification, another great part of his office.

"Both these operations together (enlightening our minds, sanctifying our wills and affections) do constitute and accomplish that work, which is styled the regeneration, renovation, vivification, new creation, resurrection of a man; the faculties of our souls being so improved, that we become, as it were, other men thereby; able and apt to do that for which before we were altogether indisposed and unfit.

"He also directeth and governeth our actions, continually leading and moving us in the ways of obedience to God's holy will and law. As we live by him, (having a new spiritual life implanted in us,) so we walk by him, are continually led and acted by his conduct and help. He reclaimeth us from error and sin; he supporteth and strengtheneth us in temptation; he adviseth and admonisheth, exciteth and encourageth us to all works of piety and virtue.

"Particularly he guideth and quickeneth us in devotion, showing us what we should ask, raising in us holy desires and comfortable hopes, disposing us to approach unto God with firm dispositions of mind, love, and reverence, and humble confidence.

"It is also a notable part of the Holy Spirit's office to comfort and sustain us in all our religious practice, so particularly in our doubts, difficulties, distresses, and afflictions; to beget joy, peace, and satisfaction in us, in all our performances, and in all our sufferings, whence the title of Comforter belongeth to him.

"It is also another part thereof to assure us of God's gracious love and favour, and that we are his children; confirming in us the hopes of our everlasting inheritance. We, feeling ourselves to live spiritually by him, to love God and goodness, to thirst after righteousness, and to delight in pleasing God, are thereby raised to hope God loves and favours us; and that he having by so authentic a seal, ratified his word and promise, having already bestowed so pure a pledge, so precious an earnest, so plentiful first-fruits, will not fail to make good the remainder designed and promised us, of everlasting joy and bliss."

Let no man be afraid or ashamed of maintaining opinions on the divine energy, which are thus supported by the first of scholars and philosophers, Isaac Barrow.

SECTION IX.

Bishop Bull's opinion on the Evidence of the Spirit of God on the Mind of Man, and its union with it; the loss of that Spirit by Adam's fall, and the recovery of it by Christ.

"THE second way," says Bishop Bull, " by which the Spirit of God witnesseth with our spirit, that we are the sons of God, is by enlightening our understandings and strengthening the eyes of our

minds, as occasion requires, to discern those gracious fruits and effects which God hath wrought in

us.

"The Spirit of God, which in the first beginning of things moved upon the face of the great deep, and invigorated the chaos, or dark and confused heap of things, and caused light to shine out of that darkness, can, with the greatest ease, when he pleases, cause the light of divine consolation to arise and shine upon the dark and disconsolate soul. And this he often doth. I may here appeal to the experience of many good Christians, who sometimes find a sudden joy coming into their minds, enlightening their understandings, dispelling all clouds from thence, warming and enlivening their affections, and enabling them to discern the graces of God shining in their brightness, and to feel them vigorously acting in their souls, so that they have been, after a sort, transfigured with their Saviour, and wished, with St. Peter, that they might always dwell on that mount Tabor.

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Man may be considered in a double relation ; first, in relation to the natural, animal, and earthly life; and so he is a perfect man, that hath only a reasonable soul and body adapted to it; for the powers and faculties of these are sufficient to the exercise of the functions and operations belonging to such a life. But secondly, man may be considered in order to a supernatural end, and as designed to a spiritual and celestial life; and of this life the Spirit of God is the principle. For man's

natural powers and faculties, even as they were before the fall, entire, were not sufficient or able of themselves to reach such a supernatural end, but

needed the power of the Divine Spirit to strengthen, elevate, and raise them. He that denies this, opposes himself against the stream and current of the Holy Scriptures, and the consent of the Catholic church. Therefore to the perfect constitution of man, considered in this relation, a reasonable soul and a body adapted thereunto are not sufficient; but there is necessarily required an union of the Divine Spirit with both, as it were a third essential principle. This, as it is a certain truth, so it is a great mystery of Christianity.

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"The great Basil, in his homily entitled, Quod Deus non est Author peccati, speaking of the nature of man, as it was at first created, hath these words: What was the chief or principal good it enjoyed? the accession of God and its conjunction with him by love; from which, when it fell, it became depraved with various and manifold evils.' So in his book, De Spiritu Sancto,' cap. xv. he plainly tells us, 'The dispensation of God and our Saviour towards man, is but the recalling of him from the fall, and his return into the friendship of that God, from that alienation which sin had caused. This was the end of Christ's coming in the flesh, of his life and conversation described in the gospel, of his passion, cross, burial, and resurrection; that man, who is saved by the imitation of Christ, might regain that ancient adoption." Where he plainly

· Τὶ δὲ ἦν αὐτῇ τὸ προηγέμενον ἀγαθὸν; ἡ προσεδρεία του θεῖ, καὶ ἡ διὰ τῆς ἀγάπης συνάφεια· ἧς ἐκπεσέσα, τοῖς ποικίλοις καὶ πολυτρόποις ἀῤῥωςήμασιν ἐκακώθη.

2 Ἡ του Θεξ καὶ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν περὶ τὸν ἄνθρωπον οικονομία ἀνάκλησίς έσιν ἀπὸ τῆς ἐκπτωτώσεως, καὶ ἐπάνοδος εἰς οικείωσιν θεᾶ, ἀπὸ τῆς διὰ τὴν παρακοὴν γενομενης αλλοτρι ώσεως· διὰ τῆτο, ἡ μετὰ σαρκὸς ἐπιδημία Χρισέ ἡ τῶν ἐυαγγελικῶν πολιτευμάτων ὑποτύπωσις, τὰ πάθη, ὁ σαυρὸς,

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supposeth that man, before his fall, had the adoption of a son, and consequently the Spirit of adoption. And so he expressly interprets himself afterwards in the same chapter: By the Holy Spirit we are restored into paradise, we regain the kingdom of heaven, we return to the adoption of sons.' Again, Homil. advers. Eunomium, v. p. 117, which have these express words: We are called in the sanctification of the Spirit, as the apostle teacheth. This (Spirit) renews us, and makes us again the image of God, and by the laver of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, we are adopted to the Lord, and the new creature again partakes of the Spirit, of which being deprived, it had waxed old. And thus man becomes again the image of God, who had fallen from the divine similitude, and was become like the beasts that perish.'"

"St. Cyril (7th Dial. de Trin. p. 653) delivers the same doctrine with great perspicuity and elegancy, in these words: ‘For when the animal (viz. man) had turned aside unto wickedness, and out of too much love of the flesh had superinduced on himself the disease of sin, that Spirit which formed him after the divine image, and as a seal was

ἡ ταφὴ, ἡ ἀνάτασις· ὥσε τὸν σωζόμενον ἄνθρωπον διὰ μήσεως Χρισᾶ, τὴν ἀρχαίαν ἐκείνην ὑιοθεσίαν ἀπολαβεῖν.

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· Διὰ πνεύματος αγίε, ἡ εἰς παράδεισον ἀποκατάστασις· ἡ εἰς βασιλείαν ἐρανῶν ἄνοδος· ἡ εἰς υἱοθεσίαν ἐπάνοδος. Vide ejusdem Lib. cap. 9.

* Εν ἀγιασμῶ τῷ πνεύματος ἐκλήθημεν, ὡς ὁ ἀπόστολος διδάσκει, τῖτο ἡμᾶς ἀνοκαινοῖ· καὶ πάλιν εἰκόνας αναδεί κνυσι θεῖ, διὰ λετρο παλιγγενεσίας καὶ ἀνακαινώσεως πνεύματος ἁγίς υἱοθετώμεθα κυρίῳ· καινὴ πάλιν κτίσις μεταλαμβάνεσα του πνεύματος, ὦ περ ἐπερημενη πεπαλαίωτο· εἰκὼν πάλιν θεῖ ὁ ἄνθρωπος ἐκπεσῶν τῆς ὁμοιότητος τῆς θείας, καὶ παρασυμβληθεὶς κτήνεσιν ἀνοήτοις καὶ ὁμοιωθεὶς αὐτοῖς.

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