hear the voice of the living God within them; 1 Cor. xii. 1. He thought that he should assume too much to himself, if, in relation to a church already grounded in spiritual things, he represented himself only as giving; for in this respect there was only one general giver, the Saviour himself, as the source of all life in the church, while all others, as members of the spiritual body animated by him the Head, stood to each other in the mutual relation of givers and receivers. Hence it was, that after he had written to the Romans that he longed to come to them in order to impart some spiritual gift for their establishment, he added, lest he should seem to arrogate too much to himself, "that is, that I may be comforted, together with you, by the mutual faith both of you and me;" Rom. i. 12.

Christianity, on the one hand, by the Holy Spirit as the common higher principle of life, gave to the church a unity, more sublime than any other principle of union among men, destined to subordinate to itself, and in this subordination to level, all the varieties founded in the development of human nature. But, on the other hand, mental peculiarities were not annihilated by this divine life; since, in all cases, it followed the laws of the natural development of man, but only purified, sanctified, and transformed them, and promoted their freer and more complete expansion. The higher unity of life exhibited itself in a multiplicity of individualities, animated by the same spirit, and forming reciprocal complements to each other as parts of one vast whole in the kingdom of God. Consequently, the manner in which this divine life manifested its efficiency in each, was determined by the previous mental individuality of each. The apostle Paul says, indeed, “But all these worketh that one and self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will," 1 Cor. xii. 11; but it by no means follows, that he supposes an operation of the Divine Spirit totally unconditional. In this passage, he is simply opposing an arbitrary human valuation, which would attribute a worth to only certain gifts of grace, and refused to acknowledge the manifoldness in their distribution. The analogy to the members of the human body, of which the apostle avails himself, betokens the not arbitrary but regulated development of the new creation in a sanctified natural order; for it is evident from this analogy, that as, among the members of the human body, each has its determinate place

assigned by nature, and its appropriate function, so also the divine life, in its development, follows a similar law, grounded on the natural relations of the individualities animated by it. From what has just been said, we are prepared for rightly understanding the idea of charisma, so very important for the history of the development of the Christian life, and of the constitution of the Christian church in the first ages. In the apostolic age, it denoted nothing else than the predominant capability of an individual in which the power and operation of the Holy Spirit that animated him was revealed;1 whether this capability appeared as something communicated in an immediate manner by the Holy Spirit, or whether it was already existing in the individual before his conversion, which, animated, sanctified, and raised by the new principle of life, would contribute to one common and supreme object, the inward and outward development of the kingdom of God, or the church of Christ.2 That which is the soul of the whole Christian's life, and forms its inward unity, the faith working by love, can never appear as a particular charism; for as this it is which forms the essence of the whole Christian dispoșition, so it is this which must govern all the particular Christian capabilities; and it is because they are all regulated by this common principle of the Christian disposition, that the particular capabilities become charisms; 1 Cor. xiii.

That by which the developed natural endowment becomes a charism, and which is common to all, is always something elevated above the common course of nature, something divine. But the forms of manifestation in which this higher principle exhibited itself, were marked by a diversity, according as it was the result of an original creative operation of the Holy Spirit, making use of the course of nature, and

· The φανέρωσις τοῦ πνεύματος peculiar to each person.

2 The word most generally used, whereby (since Paul has used it in this sense) is signified, all that concerns the internal advancement of the kingdom of God--whether in reference to the church in general, or to individuals-is olkodoμeiv. This use of the word arises from the practice of comparing the Christian life of the whole church, and its individual members, to a building, a temple of God which is built on the foundation on which this building necessarily rests, 1 Cor. iii. 9, 10, and is in a state of continual progress towards completion. On this progressive building of the temple of God, both in general and individually, see the admirable remarks in Nitzch's Observationes ad Theologiam practicam felicius excolendam. Bonn, 1831, p. 24.

evincing its presence by some immediate effect, (though even here a hidden connexion might exist between the natural peculiarities of the individual and such a special acting of the Holy Spirit); these are charisms which, in the New Testament, are called δυνάμεις, σημεῖα, τέρατα ; or the manifestations might be deduced from the development of natural talents under the animating influence of the Holy Spirit. The first kind of charisms belong more to the peculiar operation of the Holy Spirit in the apostolic age, that peculiarly creative epoch of Christianity on its first appearance in the world; the second kind belonged to the operation of the Holy Spirit through all succeeding ages of the church, by which human nature, in its essential qualities and its whole course of development, will be progressively penetrated and transformed. These two forms of charism admit therefore of being clearly distinguished, as they were manifested in the apostolic church. The gifts by which such effects were produced in the visible world, which could not proceed from the existing powers and laws of nature, the gift of durúμɛis, and one still more definite, that of curing diseases, the xápioμa lapárov, are mentioned as special gifts; 1 Cor. xii. 9, 10. Yet these gifts are only ranked with others; we find no division of gifts into two classes, extraordinary and ordinary, supernatural and natural; for we contemplate the apostolic church from the right point of view, only when we consider the essential in all these gifts to be the supernatural principle, the divine element of life itself.

The charisms which appeared in the apostolic church, may be most naturally divided into such as relate to the furtherance of the kingdom of God or the edification of the church by the word, and such as relate to the furtherance of the kingdom of God by other kinds of outward' agency. As to the first class, a distinction may be made, founded on the relation in which the mental self-activity developed in the various powers of the soul and their performances bears to the inworking of the Holy Spirit: in proportion as the immediate force of inspiration predominated in the higher selfconsciousness (the vous or veuμa), and the lower self-consciousness (the Lux), the medium of the soul's intercourse with the outward world, retired; or as the communications

1 Compare 1 Pet. iv. 11.

of the Divine Spirit were received during the harmonious co-operation of all the powers of the soul, and developed and applied by the sober exercise of the understanding.1 ́ Hence the gradations in the charisms of which we have already spoken, the charism of γλώσσαις λαλεῖν, οι προφητεύειν, and of διδασκαλία. Men who were prepared by the early cultivation of the intellect, and the aptitude for mental communication by means of it, hence knew how to develop and communicate in logical consecutiveness what the illumination of the Divine Spirit revealed to their higher self-consciousness. The diddoraλo are therefore teachers possessed of Christian knowledge (yvoic), who had gained it by means of self-activity animated by the Holy Spirit, through the development and elaboration of truth known in the divine light. The prophet, on the contrary, spoke, as he was carried away by the power of inspiration suddenly seizing him, an instantaneous elevation of his higher self-consciousness, according to a light that then gleamed upon him, (an añoкáλv↓ıç.) The prophet might be distinguished from the didáσraλos in reference to his mental peculiarity and formation, by the predominance, in general, of the feelings and intuitive perceptions over the activity of the understanding. Yet the two charisms were not always found separate in different persons. The διδάσκαλος in many a moment of inspiration might become a πроhτns. The prophet might pronounce, under the influence of inspiration, some impressive address, to awaken, to admonish, to warn, or to console the assembled believers; or make appeals to those who were not yet decided in the faith, by which he alarmed their consciences, and thus opened their hearts for the instructions of the didάokaλos. It is evident what influence the power of inspired discourse operating on the heart must have had for the spread of the gospel during this period. Persons who wished for once to inform themselves respecting what occurred in Christian assemblies, or to become acquainted with the Christian doctrine, of whose divine origin they were not yet convinced, sometimes came into the assemblies of the Church. 2

1 We can here make use of what Synesius in his Dion says of the relation of the βακχεῖα, of the ἅλμα μανικόν, of the θεοφόρητον, to the forma tion of the μέση καὶ ἐπιστατικὴ δύναμις.

2 The ǎICTOS, 1 Cor. xiv. 24, means a person not yet a believer, but yet not unsusceptible of faith, the Infidelis negative. Such a one might

On these occasions, Christian men came forward who testified of the corruption of human nature, and of the universal need be awakened to believe by the gоøηTeíα. The ǎлιOTOS, 1 Cor. xiv. 22, is an obstinate unbeliever, wholly unsusceptible of faith, and hence utterly unsusceptible of the influence of the go¶nτela, an infidelis privative. For such persons there could be no awakening, but only condemnatory onμeîa. I am not induced by what Meyer has said, in his Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, to give up this interpretation. The connexion makes it absolutely necessary, to give a different meaning to OTOS in 1 Cor. xiv. 23 and 24, from what it bears in v. 22, and the collocation of idiŵTai and áriσTo confirms this explanation. The idiŵrαι were those who knew only a little of Christianity, the miσTo those who had not yet attained to faith, and as not believing, were akin to the class mentioned in v. 22, but distinguished from them by the direction of their disposition, and its relation to believing, inasmuch as they were not in the position of decided enmity to Christianity. The fact of their attending Christian assemblies, bore evidence of their seeking after truth, that there was at least the germ of susceptibility. A person of this class came to the Christian assemblies, in order to learn, whether it was really a matter worth attending to, "accensus inquirere quid sit in causa," as Tertullian says. The train of thought is as follows: v. 21, God speaks by people using a strange language (the revelation of his judgment) to the Jews, who would not listen to the prophets speaking to them in their own language; v. 22, Thus the unintelligible tongues are for signs (signs of merited divine judgments, condemnatory signs) not for believers, (which idea is amplified in verses 23, 24, in order to be applied to those who are susceptible of faith, whose minds are somewhat moved to believe,) but for unbelievers (by which is here indicated what is absolutely contrary to believing-the standing-point of those who have obstinately rejected the opportunities of attaining faith). But prophecy is not for the unbelieving (in consequence of the contrariety of their disposition), but for believers. This general position, that not the gift of unintelligible tongues, but prophecy speaking intelligibly to them, was designed for such, the apostle lays down in v. 23, as an inference from what he had said before. But instead of taking an example from those who already belonged to the church as decided believers, he takes the example of such who were in their progress towards believing; since in these the truth of what they had asserted was more strikingly evident, and show how many such persons might be won by prophecy, while on the contrary, the sight of an assembly in which they heard nothing but ecstatic unintelligible discourses must operate injuriously upon them; in the latter case, they would feel themselves compelled to suppose that there was nothing in Christianity but delusion and enthusiasm. But if the same unbelievers were intended in verse 23 as in verse 22, then for such even the discourses of the prophets would be nothing that could profit them, since there was no point of connexion in their dispositions. To them even what they heard spoken by the prophets would appear nothing but enthusiasm. It would be a punishment merited by them, to be addressed in unintelligible language, since they would not understand-they should not understand.