3. From Works: α. Both of Nature, of which sort is Creation, Genesis 1:2, where the Spirit of God is found,וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים מְרַחֶ֖פֶת עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הַמָּֽיִם׃, and the Spirit of God brooded upon the face of the waters, with the similitude taken from birds, which either brood over their eggs, so that they might hatch their chicks from them; or move themselves over their recently hatched chicks, so that by brooding with the most tender affection they might foster the same, just as it is related concerning the eagle, Deuteronomy 32:11, עַל־גּוֹזָלָ֖יו יְרַחֵ֑ף, she broodeth/fluttereth over her young. Thus in the beginning the Spirit of God was brooding over the Waters, not yet separated from dry land, being about to foster by His power those first rudiments of these, and from those things being about to separate His own distinct works. By a nurturing motion He was carried over the waters, the Most Illustrious VRIEMOET translates it, whom see in his Adnotationibus ad Dicta classica Veteris Testamenti, tome I, chapter IV, pages 196, 197; compare GLASSIUS’ Grammatica Sacra, book III, tractate III, canon XXVI, pages 314, 315. Neither by that Spirit is Air or Wind able to be understood, as it is by Hobbes and some Jews, but also by THEODORET in question VIII on Genesis, opera, tome I, pages 8, 9; because no Wind was yet created, and no distinction of things was yet made. Air did not exist before the Expanse, created on the second day; hence neither did Wind exist, since it is nothing other than moving Air: see COCQUIUS’ Anatomen Hobbesianismi, locus III, chapter VII, pages 63, 64. Nor a Fire, invisibly enclosed in a terraqueous sphere, which, among other things, was warming the waters and making them fluid, lest they condense by the cold, as it is in Vallesius’[1] Philosophia Sacra, page 22; for nowhere in Scripture does Fire go by the name of the Spirit of God. Nor some Angel, as Abarbanel[2] maintains, of whose ministry in Creation God is not read to have made use; just as also the work of Creation does not leave a place for Instruments operating upon malleable matter: see Chapter VIII, § 7, 8. Neither is the Spirit some power and efficacy of God in general, which was the cause of the fecundity of things; because such a force and efficacy is denoted by the brooding, and is distinguished from the Spirit, as the effect from the cause, since actions belong to supposita. By this Spirit of God, therefore, is to be understood a suppositum or a Person, and not any other than the third Person of the Trinity, which, a. goes constantly by this name in Scripture: which, b. also elsewhere is set forth as the author of Creation, Psalm 33:6; compare § 15 above: and which, c. is elegantly set forth to us here in the first work of nature, operating under the emblem of a Bird, as afterwards He descends upon Christ under the visible form of a Dove, to communicate most abundantly the Gifts of His Grace with His human Nature. While, d. this Brooding over the Waters or the warming of the same, so that they might be rendered apt to produce whatever singular bodies that then came forth from this rude and disordered terraqueous mass, is no less a divine work than the first production of the mass: compare WITTICH’S Causam Spiritus Sancti, § III, pages 3-7; CLOPPENBURG’S Exercitationes theologicas, locus III, disputation III, section II, § 4, 5, opera, tome I, pages 770, 771; JOHANN HEINRICH HOTTINGER’S Examen Historiæ Creationis, chapter I, question 31-33, pages 40-48; ANTONIUS HULSIUS’ Nucleum Prophetiæ, on this passage, pages 13-15; LAMPE’S Dissertationum philologico-theologicarum, volume II, Disputation VIII, chapter IX, § 10, page 295; BUDDEUS’ Historiam ecclesiasticam Veteris Testamenti, period I, section I, § 2, tome I, pages 56b, 57.
Preservation, Psalm 104:30, where the word for creating, יִבָּרֵאוּן, they are created, is used of the work of Providence, which is the Creation continued, as it were.
The working of Miracles: LAMPE’S Dissertationum philologico-theologicarum, volume II, Disputation VIII, chapter IX, de Spiritu Sancto, § 37-39, pages 319, 320.
1 Corinthians 12:4, 7-11, where the speech concerning the distribution of Gifts truly divine; and the Spirit does not appear here merely as accidental Power, whereby God is wont to work, but as a true Person, divine, and the first Cause operating independently: see ARNOLDI, refutatione Catecheseos Racovianæ on chapter I de Cognitione Dei, question 37, § CLXIII-CLXXII, pages 149-153; add PLACÆUS, opera, tome 2, pages 1005-1012.
β. And of Grace; compare CALVIN’S Institutes of the Christian Religion, book III, chapter I. For example, the Anointing of Christ, Isaiah 61:1, 2; compare § 15. The Sending of Ministers, etc. All the Works of Grace here enumerated in the case of the Holy Spirit suppose and imply both divine Honor, like the Anointing of Christ, the divine Mediator; and divine Authority, like the Sending of Ministers, agreeing only with the Lord of the house, which is the house of God, the church of the living God, 1 Timothy 3:15; and divine Wisdom and Power, like Regeneration, in which by spiritual Creation a man passes from a state of spiritual nothingness to the life of grace, and is made a new creature in Christ, 2 Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 2:10, for which work a no less infinite power is required than for the first Creation: neither are we said to be regenerated by the Holy Spirit only instrumentally, but the Holy Spirit is set forth as the principal author of our Regeneration, John 3:5, 6, 8, as ARNOLDI evinces against the Socinians in his refutatione Catecheseos Racovianæ on chapter I de Cognitione Dei, questions 35, 36, § CL-CLIV, pages 144, 145. Sanctification, through which the old corruption and spot of sin is gradually wiped away, and the elect man is daily rendered more like unto the divine image: but for this renewal total impotence obtains in fallen man, Jeremiah 13:23; Romans 8:7; Ephesians 2:1: but a return from total privation to habit is not granted by natural strength; and so a hyperphysical and divine Power is altogether necessary in order to sanctify man. Preservation, through which elect believers are made immune to the ruin threatening them through the enemies of their salvation: but to evade, and to avert and overcome the πανουργίαν/ craftiness,[3]μεθοδείας/wiles,[4]βάθη/depths,[5]κράτος/power,[6] and all the power of these enemies, among whom the Devil and all the evil Angels are not the least, more than finite Wisdom and Power is required. For the Resurrection of the dead divine Omnipotence is no less required; whence the same is mentioned as an eminent demonstration of divine Power, Romans 4:17, and as a work to be performed by God alone, whereby the Son was able to prove His Deity and Unity with the Father, John 5:21: but this is also attributed to the Holy Spirit, says our AUTHOR, Romans 8:11, according to many: whom I believe thus to judge truly, as I will show at length below, Chapter XXXIV, § 14.
[1] Francisco Valles (1524-1592) was a Spanish physician and a Renaissance scholar. [2] Isaac Abarbanel (1437-1508) was one of the great rabbis of his age and a stalwart opponent of Christianity, in spite of the danger. He holds fast to a literal interpretation of the Scripture, over against Maimonides’ philosophical allegorizing. [3] See, for example, 2 Corinthians 11:3: “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty (ἐν τῇ πανουργίᾳ αὐτοῦ), so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” [4] See, for example, Ephesians 6:11: “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil (πρὸς τὰς μεθοδείας τοῦ διαβόλου).” [5] See Revelation 2:24: “But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan (τὰ βάθη τοῦ Σατανᾶ), as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden.” [6] See Hebrews 2:14: “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death (τὸν τὸ κράτος ἔχοντα τοῦ θανάτου), that is, the devil…”