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| That the Holy Spirit Brings Us to God.
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Chapter VII.—That the Holy Spirit
Brings Us to God.
8. Hence let him that is able now follow Thy
apostle with his understanding where he thus speaks, because Thy
love “is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is
given unto us;”1182
and where, “concerning spiritual
gifts,” he teacheth and showeth unto us a more excellent way of
charity;1183
and where
he bows his knees unto Thee for us, that we may know the
super-eminent knowledge of the love of Christ.1184
And, therefore, from the beginning
was He super-eminently “borne above the waters.” To whom shall
I tell this? How speak of the weight of lustful desires, pressing
downwards to the steep abyss? and how charity raises us up again,
through Thy Spirit which was “borne over the waters?” To whom
shall I tell it? How tell it? For neither are there places in which
we are merged and emerge.1185
| 1185 “Neque enim loca sunt quibus mergimur et
emergimus.” | What can be more like, and yet
more unlike? They be affections, they be loves; the filthiness of
our spirit flowing away downwards with the love of cares, and the
sanctity of Thine raising us upwards by the love of freedom from
care; that we may lift our hearts1186
| 1186 Watts remarks here: “This sentence was generally
in the Church service and communion. Nor is there scarce any one
old liturgy but hath it, Sursum corda, Habemus ad
Dominum.” Palmer, speaking of the Lord’s Supper, says, in
his Origines Liturgicæ., iv. 14, that “Cyprian, in the
third century, attested the use of the form, ‘Lift up your
hearts,’ and its response, in the liturgy of Africa (Cyprian,
De Orat. Dom. p. 152, Opera, ed. Fell). Augustin, at the
beginning of the fifth century, speaks of these words as being used
in all churches” (Aug. De Vera Relig. iii. ). We
find from the same writer, ibid. v. 5, that in several
churches this sentence was used in the office of baptism. | unto Thee where Thy Spirit is
“borne over the waters;” and that we may come to that
pre-eminent rest, when our soul shall have passed through the
waters which have no substance.1187
| 1187 “Sine substantia,” the Old Ver.
rendering of Ps. cxxiv. 5. The Vulgate gives “aquam
intolerabilem.” The Authorized Version, however, correctly
renders the Hebrew by “proud waters,” that is, swollen.
Augustin, in in Ps. cxxiii. 5, sec. 9, explains the “aqua
sine substantia,” as the water of sins; “for,” he says,
“sins have not substance; they have weakness, not substance;
want, not substance.” |
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