should not only not be excluded from the work of creation, but their relation to it should not even be considered as subordinate; they should not, for example, be regarded as mere instruments or organs of the Father, since this would conflict with the consubstantiality and the essential unity of their ἐνέργεια 1

In the opera oeconomica the distinction of the persons is much more apparent. The restitution of the human race is indeed a work of the whole Trinity, which is achieved by the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit-according to the principle of the or der and mode of the operation of the Persons, which is here, too, of valid application. But since, to the execution of this work through the Son, that is, to our redemption, the incarnation of God is necessary, which can be attributed terminative only to the Son; and, to the completion of this work in the Holy Spirit, that is, to our sanctification, the indwelling of God in believers is necessary, which can be attributed terminative only to the Spirit; to which elements, then, as a third, the eternal purpose of the Father from which the whole work of redemption proceeds, is to be coördinated; it is clear from this, that the participation of the three per

to maintain the equal participation of the Son and the Spirit in the work of creation, than to prove that it is to be attributed to the Father. Conf. Quenst. 1. c. διάλ. VI.

1 Quenst. de Trin. Sect. I. thes. 32: "The work of creation is attributed to the Father, not exclusively, nor ¿5oxikūs, nor as proper to him alone, much less as to one originating cause, so that the Son can only be an instrument; but on account of the order in the persons of the Trinity." He considers it as an ȧkvpoλoyía, or a popular mode of speech, when some of the Fathers of the church designate the Father as causam creationis πрокатарKтIKýν, the Son as causam δημιουργικήν, the Holy Ghost as causam τελειωτικήν; or when Luther, in the interpretation of Genesis, calls the Son the instrument of the Father in creation; at least, he thinks, he is to be considered only as a conjoint or integral instrument, somewhat as the hand may be called an instrument of the man; but, properly speaking, the Father created all things by the Son, not as by an instrument, sed tanquam per suam sapientiam et virtutem væоσтаTIKην, Prov. 8: 30." Quenst, de creat. s. II. qu. III. diáλ. 2—5.

These constitute the three principin salutis according to which, in the analytical method of treating theology, the first half of the doctrine respecting salvation was divided. This division shows a correct feeling of the importance of these principles for the Christian consciousness, and of the right connection of Christian doctrines. Conf. Hollaz, P. III. cp. 1. qu, 2: “The principles of salvation are three; first, there is the benevolence of God the Father in his purpose to restore and bless a fallen world; secondly, there is the paternal redemption of us by Christ from sin and its penalty; thirdly, there is the gracious and, through certain media, efficacious operation of the Holy Spirit, by which the salvation obtained by Christ is offered and conferred."

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sons in this work of restitution, which is designated by the prepositions from, through and in, expresses a wholly different relation from that of their participation in the work of creation, which is also designated by the same prepositions. On this account, the opera oeconomica are called personalia and minus communia; but yet only minus communia, (not as the internal works, divisa,) and personalia only secundum quid, (not absolutely personal, as are generation and procession); for it is not so much the efficiency itself as its result, its terminus, in which the separation of the persons is revealed. And even terminative we cannot make this separation valid, without taking precautions for again holding fast the union of the persons in some other manner; this is done, as we shall see, by means of the conception of the sending (the missio) of the Son.

In the application of these principles we find no entire agreement, even among our older divines; the ideas of redemption and sanctification are too general; and all depends upon this, what elements of them are made prominent, or especially regarded; and also in distinguishing the points which are to be referred to the whole Trinity or to some one person, there may be a difference in the degree of acuteness and precision; but these differences are of no detriment to the validity of the principles themselves.

For illustration let us take the opus oeconomicum of the second person, that is, the redemption of the human race. One who has no occasion or call to enter into more exact investigation will simply hold to this, that the Son has redeemed the world from sin and death; and, as to the relation of this to the Trinity, will say that it was brought about according to a divine purpose, and that for this end the Son was sent by the Father into the world. Another, who feels himself compelled to discuss with more precision the leading elements of redemption, and its relation to the divine nature, or to the individual persons, will perhaps say with Quenstedt: "That redemption is a work of the whole Trinity, partly in view of the divine ordering of it, partly in view of the acceptance of the ransom paid by Christ; but that it is a work of

According to a rule which Calovius gives: Communia sunt ratione efficientiae s. principii et inchoative, personalia vero s. propria uni alicui personae ratione termini s. terminative, quia in certa persona terminantur.

*The most exact and complete division is to be found in Baumgarten, Th. I. S. 477 sq. S. 491 sq. S. 499 sq.

the second person alone in respect of merit and attainment." But, properly speaking, it is the assumption of human nature made in behalf of redemption, which is to be specially attributed to the Son; yet even from this, the Father and Spirit are not to be absolutely excluded. The Son alone became flesh, but God prepared for him the body (Heb. 10: 6), and he was conceived by the Holy Ghost (Luke 1: 35). Considered as an act, according to Thomas Aquinas,2 the incarnation is the work of the whole Trinity; but in respect to its terminus, that is the personal union of the divine and human nature, it belongs only to the Son; since, according to the doctrine of the church, it is first and properly not the nature but a person, and that the second person, which has assumed humanity.3 But that which is ascribed, terminative, to the Son must at the same time be also ascribed in another way to the Father: the Word became flesh, and the Son of God as sumed the form of a servant, because he was sent by the Father into the world, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem us from the curse of the law, and make us the children of God. And so, too, God has sent his Spirit into our hearts, to make us perfect in childlike obedience and trust in him (Gal. 6: 4—6).

The notion of the Sending is, thus, that by which the separation of the persons in reference to the opera ad extra is done away with, although, at the same time, it is that by which this separation is also reëstablished; that is, he who sends and he who is sent must be conceived of as two, no less than he who begets and

1 Quenstedt de Trin. Sect. I. vec. 53. not.

2 Summae P. III. qu. 3. art. 4: Tres enim personae fecerunt, ut humana natura uniretur uni personae Filii. Conf. Quenstedt de Christi persona et naturis, Sect. 1. thes. 24: Causa efficiens unitionis est tota S. S. Trinitas, inchoative scil. s. ratione initii et effectionis s. productionis humanae naturae; terminative vero solus λóyos est, utpote qui solus incarnatus est.

3 According to the Confession of Faith of the eleventh council at Toledo (anno 675): "The whole Trinity effected the incarnation, yet the Son alone received the form of a servant in the singleness of his person, not in the unity of the divine nature, in that, which is peculiar to the Son, not what is common to the Trinity; which form is conjoined with him in a unity of person, that is, so that the Son of God and the Son of man are one Christ." Conf. Petav. theol. Dogin. de Incarn. L. II. cp. 4. § 7. Quenst. 1. c. thes. 26.—But why just the second person? This is a question which the church doctrine does not venture to answer, and even the Scholastic theology answers it only timidly; as is natural, since, according to the opinion of the most esteemed Scholastics, the Father also or the Holy Spirit might have assumed humanity. Conf. Thomae Aq. Summ. III. qu. 3. art. 5 and 8.

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he who is begotten. Thus this separation of the persons is done away with in all that concerns the unity of the efficiency (¿végyea) in the work of redemption (opera oeconomica); the separation holds in reference to the relation of this work to the different modes of subsistence (modi subsistendi) of the divine nature. That the Father sent the Son, and that the Father and Son have sent and send the Holy Spirit, is expressly taught in the Holy Scriptures (John 14: 24, 26. 16: 5, 7). The further statements which the Evangelical theology has here made, are rather of a negative than positive character; for example, that the sending does not involve any separation in space, or any inequality. We may say that there is in the very notion of sending a twofold relation, one to that which sends, and another to that to which the sending is made. In the last respect the sending of the Son and the Spirit consists in this, that, although they were present with men from the beginning, yet in the fulness of time they entered into a new and closer fellowship with them, the Son by a personal union with Jesus, the Holy Spirit by his indwelling in the Christian church, which was the result of the incarnation. In respect to the first of these relations, the sending expresses nothing else but an order of operations (ordo operandi) in the divine persons, corresponding with their order of subsistence (ordo subsistendi), ο τρόπος αποκαλύψεως analogous to their τρόπος ὑπάρξε

; the sending is the consequent (consequens) of the generation and procession, and is the manifestation or revelation of these internal relations of the Godhead in time, or in the world.4 We may even say that the sending thus viewed, is the same relation as that expressed by generation and procession; only the former is this relation viewed in its temporal aspect, the latter is

1

Qui enim ut mittens et missus distinguuntur, illi ut personae differunt. Calov. III. p. 194.

1Quenst. de Trin. sect. thes. 50. not. "The sending of the Son of God, 1. is not a banishment and separation in respect to space, as though he had been banished from the highest heavens, and separated from his celestial Father; for this would be repugnant to the infinite and intimate identity of the persons of the Father and the Son; 2. The mission is not of command, but of free consent, and therefore argues no inequality of him that sends and him that is sent, --but only supposes an order of origination; 3. the sending is not coerced but spontaneous, John 4: 34. 5: 30."

Thomas in Summ. 1. qu. 43. art.

'So everywhere where the sending is spoken of; e. g. Quenstedt 1. c. thes. 29, 31, 50, 52, 62. Quenst. distinguishes the sending, as the consequent and manifestation of the opera ad intra, from the proper opera ad extra, redemption and sanctification. Hollaz, de myst. Trin. qu. 30 and 52.

the relation comprehended as an eternal act. Thus is the conception of the sending (missio) the bond between the internal and the external characteristics of the persons of the Trinity, between the opera ad intra and extra, and forms the fitting conclusion of the doctrine, since it brings back the end to the beginning.

The statement as to the coïncidence of the processio and missio which we have above made is the view which Petavius maintains (De Trin. Lib. VIII. cp. 1. § 1-10), after Manuel Kalekas, to whom it gave a firm foundation for his polemics against the Greek church in his books, de processione Spiritus S. Petavius declares (1. c. § 10): Mitti a patre Filium, est gigni naturam hominis assumpturum et suo tempore assumentem; mitti Spiritum Sanctum, est procedere externum opus aliquod efficientem. Calov indeed contests this (tom. III. p. 195), yet without reason, and because he gives Petavius' meaning incorrectly, as if he held that the missio was the aeterna processio itself. In the sense of Petavius only this can be said, that the missio considered in its eternal relation to God as the one who sends, coincides with the processio, viewed in its relation to the manifestation in time of him who proceeds. But just here may perhaps lie the highest tension, and the possibility of an adjustment, of the antagonism between the Orthodox and the Sabellian view of the Trinity. Here is the highest variance, so far as we can call it a tendency of Sabellianism, that it knows nothing of any other processio than that which exists in the missio, while according to Petavius the missio coincides with the processio. Here, too, may be the possibility of an adjustment of the difference, because, if the missio and processio are comprehended in their unity, the whole conflict The difference between the two, according to Schleiermacher,1 runs out into this, "that Sabellius maintains that the threeness is something which has relation only to the different modes and spheres of action of the Deity,-considered as governing the world, in its general action upon all finite existence, it is the Father, considered as redeeming, however, and in its special action in the person of Christ, and through him, it is the Son,but, viewed as sanctifying, in its likewise special action in the body of believers, and as the unity of the same, it is the Spirit:

ceases.

1 Schleiermacher on the Contrast between the Sabellian and Athanasian view of the Trinity-translated by Professor Stuart in the Biblical Repository, vols. 5 and 6.