HIRAM, king of Tyre, and son of Abibal, is mentioned by profane authors as distinguished for his magnificence, and for adorning the city of Tyre. When David was acknowledged king by all Israel, Hiram sent ambassadors with artificers, and cedar, to build his palace. Hiram also sent ambassadors to Solomon, to congratulate him on his accession to the crown Solomon desired of him timber and stones for building the temple, with labourers. These Hiram promised, provided Solomon would furnish him with corn and oil. The two princes lived on the best terms with each other.
HIRELING. Moses requires that the hireling should be paid as soon as his work is over: “The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night unto the morning,” Lev. xix, 19. A hireling’s days or year is a kind of proverb, signifying a full year, without abating any thing of it: “His days are like the days of a hireling,” Job vii, 1; the days of man are like those of a hireling; as nothing is deducted from them, so nothing, likewise is added to them. And again: “Till he shall accomplish as a hireling his day,” Job xiv, 6; to the time of death, which he waits for as the hireling for the end of the day. The following passage from Morier’s Travels in Persia, illustrates one of our Lord’s parables: “The most conspicuous building in Hamadan is the Mesjid Jumah, a large mosque now falling into decay, and before it a maidan or square, which serves as a market place. Here we observed, every morning before the sun rose, that a numerous band of peasants were collected with spades in their hands, waiting, as they informed us, to be hired for the day to work in the surrounding fields. This custom, which I have never seen in any other part of Asia, forcibly struck me as a most happy illustration of our Saviour’s parable of the labourers in the vineyard in Matt. xx; particularly when, passing by the same place late in the day, we still found others standing idle, and remembered his words, ‘Why stand ye here all the day idle?’ as most applicable to their situation; for in putting the very same question to them, they answered us, ‘Because no man hath hired us.’”
HITTITES, the descendants of Heth, Gen. xv, 20.
HIVITES, a people descended from Canaan, Gen. x, 17. They are also mentioned, Deut. ii, 23. The inhabitants of Shechem, and the Gibeonites, were Hivites, Joshua xi, 19; Gen. xxxiv, 2. Mr. Bryant supposes the Hivites to be the same as the Ophites, or ancient worshippers of the sun under the figure of a serpent; which was, in all probability, the deity worshipped at Baal-Hermon.
HOLY GHOST, the third person in the Trinity. The orthodox doctrine is, that as Christ is God by an eternal filiation, so the Spirit is God by procession from the Father and the Son. “And I believe in the Holy Ghost,” says the Nicene Creed, “the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who, with the Father and the Son together, is worshipped and glorified.” And with this agrees the Athanasian Creed, “The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.” In the Articles of the English church it is thus expressed: “The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God.” The Latin church introduced the term spiration, from spiro, “to breathe,” to denote the manner of this procession: on which Dr. Owen remarks, “As the vital breath of a man has a continual emanation from him, and yet is never separated utterly from his person, or forsaketh him, so doth the Spirit of the Father and the Son proceed from them by a continual divine emanation, still abiding one with them.” On this refined view little can be said which has clear Scriptural authority; and yet the very term by which the Third Person in the Trinity is designated, Wind or Breath, may, as to the Third Person, be designed, like the term Son applied to the Second, to convey, though imperfectly, some intimation of that manner of being by which both are distinguished from each other, and from the Father; and it was a remarkable action of our Lord, and one certainly which does not discountenance this idea, that when he imparted the Holy Ghost to his disciples, “He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost,” John xx, 22.
2. But, whatever we may think as to the doctrine of spiration, the procession of the Holy Ghost rests on more direct Scriptural authority, and is thus stated by Bishop Pearson: “Now this procession of the Spirit, in reference to the Father, is delivered expressly in relation to the Son, and is contained virtually in the Scriptures. 1. It is expressly said, that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father, as our Saviour testifieth, ‘When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me,’ John xv, 26. And this is also evident from what hath been already asserted; for being the Father and the Spirit are the same God, and, being so the same in the unity of the nature of God, are yet distinct in the personality, one of them must have the same nature from the other; and because the Father hath been already shown to have it from none, it followeth that the Spirit hath it from him. 2. Though it be not expressly spoken in the Scripture, that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and Son, yet the substance of the same truth is virtually contained there; because those very expressions which are spoken of the Holy Spirit in relation to the Father, for that reason, because he proceedeth from the Father, are also spoken of the same Spirit in relation to the Son; and therefore there must be the same reason presupposed in reference to the Son, which is expressed in reference to the Father. Because the Spirit proceedeth from the Father, therefore it is called ‘the Spirit of God,’ and ‘the Spirit of the Father.’ ‘It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you,’ Matt. x, 20. For by the language of the Apostle, ‘the Spirit of God’ is the Spirit which is of God, saying, ‘The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. And we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God,’ 1 Cor. ii, 11, 12. Now the same Spirit is also called ‘the Spirit of the Son:’ for ‘because we are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,’ Gal. iv, 6. ‘The Spirit of Christ:’ ‘Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his,’ Romans viii, 9; ‘Even the Spirit of Christ which was in the prophets,’ 1 Peter i, 11. ‘The Spirit of Jesus Christ,’ as the Apostle speaks: ‘I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,’ Phil. i, 19. If then the Holy Ghost be called ‘the Spirit of the Father,’ because he proceedeth from the Father, it followeth that, being called also ‘the Spirit of the Son,’ he proceedeth also from the Son. Again: because the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father, he is therefore sent by the Father, as from him who hath, by the original communication, a right of mission; as, ‘the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send,’ John xiv, 26. But the same Spirit which is sent by the Father, is also sent by the Son, as he saith, ‘When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you.’ Therefore the Son hath the same right of mission with the Father, and consequently must be acknowledged to have communicated the same essence. The Father is never sent by the Son, because he received not the Godhead from him; but the Father sendeth the Son, because he communicated the Godhead to him: in the same manner, neither the Father nor the Son is ever sent by the Holy Spirit; because neither of them received the divine nature from the Spirit: but both the Father and the Son sendeth the Holy Ghost, because the divine nature, common to the Father and the Son, was communicated by them both to the Holy Ghost. As therefore the Scriptures declare expressly, that the Spirit proceedeth from the Father; so do they also virtually teach, that he proceedeth from the Son.”
3. Arius regarded the Spirit not only as a creature, but as created by Christ, κτίσμα κτίϛματος, the creature of a creature. Some time afterward, his personality was wholly denied by the Arians, and he was considered as the exerted energy of God. This appears to have been the notion of Socinus, and, with occasional modifications, has been adopted by his followers. They sometimes regard him as an attribute; and at others, resolve the passages in which he is spoken of into a periphrasis, or circumlocution, for God himself; or, to express both in one, into a figure of speech.
4. In establishing the proper personality and deity of the Holy Ghost, the first argument may be drawn from the frequent association, in Scripture, of a Person under that appellation with two other Persons, one of whom, the Father, is by all acknowledged to be divine; and the ascription to each of them, or to the three in union, of the same acts, titles, and authority, with worship, of the same kind, and, for any distinction that is made, of an equal degree. The manifestation of the existence and divinity of the Holy Spirit may be expected in the law and the prophets, and is, in fact, to be traced there with certainty. The Spirit is represented as an agent in creation, “moving upon the face of the waters;” and it forms no objection to the argument, that creation is ascribed to the Father, and also to the Son, but is a great confirmation of it. That creation should be effected by all the three Persons of the Godhead, though acting in different respects, yet so that each should be a Creator, and, therefore, both a Person and a divine Person, can be explained only by their unity in one essence. On every other hypothesis this Scriptural fact is disallowed, and therefore no other hypothesis can be true. If the Spirit of God be a mere influence, then he is not a Creator, distinct from the Father and the Son, because he is not a Person; but this is refuted both by the passage just quoted, and by Psalm xxxiii, 6: “By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath (Heb. Spirit) of his mouth.” This is farther confirmed by Job xxxiii, 4: “The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life;” where the second clause is obviously exegetic of the former: and the whole text proves that, in the patriarchal age, the followers of the true religion ascribed creation to the Spirit, as well as to the Father; and that one of his appellations was, “the Breath of the Almighty.” Did such passages stand alone, there might, indeed, be some plausibility in the criticism which resolves them into a personification; but, connected as they are with the whole body of evidence, as to the concurring doctrine of both Testaments, they are inexpugnable. Again: If the personality of the Son and the Spirit be allowed, and yet it is contended that they were but instruments in creation, through whom the creative power of another operated, but which creative power was not possessed by them; on this hypothesis, too, neither the Spirit nor the Son can be said to create, any more than Moses created the serpent into which his rod was turned, and the Scriptures are again contradicted. To this association of the three Persons in creative acts, may be added a like association in acts of preservation, which has been well called a continued creation, and by that term is expressed in the following passage: “These wait all upon thee, that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to dust: thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the face of the earth,” Psalm civ, 27–30. It is not surely here meant, that the Spirit by which the generations of animals are perpetuated, is wind; and if he be called an attribute, wisdom, power, or both united, where do we read of such attributes being “sent,” “sent forth from God?” The personality of the Spirit is here as clearly marked as when St. Paul speaks of God “sending forth the Spirit of his Son,” and when our Lord promises to “send” the Comforter; and as the upholding and preserving of created things is ascribed to the Father and the Son, so here they are ascribed, also, to the Spirit, “sent forth from” God to “create and renew the face of the earth.”
5. The next association of the three Persons we find in the inspiration of the prophets: “God spake unto our fathers by the prophets,” says St. Paul, Heb. i, 1. St. Peter declares that these “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” 2 Peter i, 21; and also that it was “the Spirit of Christ which was in them,” 1 Peter i, 11. We may defy any Socinian to interpret these three passages by making the Spirit an influence or attribute, and thereby reducing the term Holy Ghost into a figure of speech. “God,” in the first passage, is, unquestionably, God the Father; and the “holy men of God,” the prophets, would then, according to this view, be moved by the influence of the Father; but the influence, according to the third passage, which was the source of their inspiration, was the Spirit, or the influence of “Christ.” Thus the passages contradict each other. Allow the trinity in unity, and you have no difficulty in calling the Spirit, the Spirit of the Father, and the Spirit of the Son, or the Spirit of either; but if the Spirit be an influence, that influence cannot be the influence of two persons,--one of them God, and the other a creature. Even if they allowed the pre-existence of Christ, with Arians, these passages are inexplicable by the Socinians; but, denying his prëexistence, they have no subterfuge but to interpret, “the Spirit of Christ,” the spirit which prophesied of Christ, which is a purely gratuitous paraphrase; or “the spirit of an anointed one, or prophet;” that is, the prophet’s own spirit, which is just as gratuitous and as unsupported by any parallel as the former. If, however, the Holy Ghost be the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, united in one essence, the passages are easily harmonized. In conjunction with the Father and the Son, he is the source of that prophetic inspiration under which the prophets spoke and acted. So the same Spirit which raised Christ from the dead, is said by St. Peter to have preached by Noah while the ark was preparing;--in allusion to the passage, “My Spirit shall not always strive (contend, debate) with man.” This, we may observe, affords an eminent proof, that the writers of the New Testament understood the phrase, “the Spirit of God,” as it occurs in the Old Testament, personally. For, whatever may be the full meaning of that difficult passage in St. Peter, Christ is clearly declared to have preached by the Spirit in the days of Noah; that is, he, by the Spirit, inspired Noah to preach. If, then, the Apostles understood that the Holy Ghost was a Person, a point which will presently be established, we have, in the text just quoted from the book of Genesis, a key to the meaning of those texts in the Old Testament where the phrases, “My Spirit,” “the Spirit of God,” and “the Spirit of the Lord,” occur; and inspired authority is thus afforded us to interpret them as of a Person; and if of a Person, the very effort made by Socinians to deny his personality, itself, indicates that that Person must, from the lofty titles and works ascribed to him, be inevitably divine. Such phrases occur in many passages of the Hebrew Scriptures; but, in the following, the Spirit is also eminently distinguished from two other Persons: “And now the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me,” Isaiah xlviii, 16; or, rendered better, “hath sent me and his Spirit,” both terms being in the accusative case. “Seek ye out of the book of the Lord, and read: for my mouth it hath commanded, and his Spirit it hath gathered them,” Isaiah xxxiv, 16. “I am with you, saith the Lord of Hosts, according to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so my Spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not. For thus saith the Lord of Hosts, I will shake all nations, and the Desire of all nations shall come,” Hag. ii, 4–7. Here, also, the Spirit of the Lord is seen collocated with the Lord of Hosts and the Desire of all nations, who is the Messiah.
6. Three Persons, and three only, are associated also, both in the Old and New Testament, as objects of supreme worship; and form the one “name” in which the religious act of solemn benediction is performed, and to which men are bound by solemn baptismal covenant. In the plural form of the name of God, each received equal adoration. This threefold personality seems to have given rise to the standing form of triple benediction used by the Jewish high priest. The very important fact, that, in the vision of Isaiah, the Lord of hosts, who spake unto the prophet, is, in Acts xxviii, 25, said to be the Holy Ghost, while St. John declares that the glory which Isaiah saw was the glory of Christ, proves, indisputably, that each of the three Persons bears this august appellation; it gives also the reason for the threefold repetition, “Holy, holy, holy!” and it exhibits the prophet and the very seraphs in deep and awful adoration before the Triune Lord of hosts. Both the prophet and the seraphim were, therefore, worshippers of the Holy Ghost and of the Son, at the very time and by the very acts in which they worshipped the Father; which proves that, as the three Persons received equal homage in a case which does not admit of the evasion of pretended superior and inferior worship, they are equal in majesty, glory, and essence.