This brief section (pp. 358-59) of the second volume of William Burt Pope’s 3-volume systematic theology, A Compendium of Christian Theology, is part of his treatment of the doctrine of salvation in that volume and fits into a series of posts on our website that are laying out that treatment. Links to the entries in that series of posts and where this post fits in that chronology are laid out at the end of this post after Pope’s comments on the preliminaries or conditions of the state of salvation. Here is that brief section:
The Preliminaries or Conditions of the State of Salvation
Conditions of Salvation
The work of the Holy Spirit must now be viewed as preparing the soul for admission into the consummate blessings of the covenant of grace: a work which He accomplishes, not absolutely as He imparts those blessings themselves, but as quickening, aiding .and directing the energies of the free will of man to seek them. The preparation, when viewed in relation to His agency, is Preliminary Grace; in respect to man, it tends to secure compliance with the conditions of the covenant. In all sound doctrine on this subject there must be a certain combination of the Divine element and the human. The result is seen in Conversion, Repentance, and Faith, in their unity, distinctness, and mutual relations, all which belong to the sphere of the Spirit’s prevenient influence.
The Holy Ghost
The Holy Ghost is here the Author of preliminary grace: that is, of the kind of preparatory influence which is imparted outside of the temple of Christ’s mystical body, or rather in the outer court of that temple. When He bestows the full blessings of personal salvation, as they are the result of a union with Christ, He is simply and solely the Administrator and Giver: the object of this grace in the nature of things can only receive. Forgiveness, adoption, sanctification are necessarily Divine acts: nothing can be more absolute than the prerogative of God in conferring these blessings. This does not imply that the influences which prepare the soul for these acts of perfect grace are not from a Divine source alone.
2 Corinthians 13:14
It must be remembered that it is the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ flowing from and revealing the Love of God that is dispensed even to the outer world in the Communion of the Holy Ghost. But it must also be remembered that this prevenient influence is literally bound up with the human use of it being without meaning apart from that use; and, moreover, that of itself it is not saving, though it is unto salvation. The present department of theology is beset with peculiar difficulties, and has been the arena of some of the keenest controversies. Hence,
it will be important to establish our points by the evidence of Scripture; and, only after this is done, turn aside to the polemics of the question.
The Spirit of Grace
The Spirit of Grace is the Author of every movement of man’s soul towards salvation; but His influence requires and indeed implies a certain co-operation of man as its object. Here then we have three topics to be considered: grace prevenient, human co-operating agency, and the relation between grace and free will.
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The series laying out Pope’s discussion of the doctrine of salvation up to the time of the present post:
William Burt Pope’s Introduction to the Doctrine of Salvation and His Treatment of the Role of the Holy Spirit in It (pp. 319-34)
William Burt Pope’s Treatment of the Gospel Vocation/Call (pp. 335-47)
William Burt Pope’s Discussion of the History of Controversy Over Calling and Election (pp. 348-57)
William Burt Pope, “The Preliminaries or Conditions of the State of Salvation” (pp. 358-59) — No link for this one; it is this post
William Burt Pope, “Prevenient Grace” in A Compendium of Christian Theology, Vol. II (1877) (pp. 359-62)
William Burt Pope on Prevenient Grace and Free Will (pp. 363-67)
