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| In What Way We Must Inquire Concerning the Trinity.
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Chapter 1.—In What Way We
Must Inquire Concerning the Trinity.
1. We
certainly seek a trinity,—not any trinity, but that Trinity which
is God, and the true and supreme and only God. Let my hearers then
wait, for we are still seeking. And no one justly finds fault with
such a search, if at least he who seeks that which either to know
or to utter is most difficult, is steadfast in the faith. But
whosoever either sees or teaches better, finds fault quickly and
justly with any one who confidently affirms concerning it. “Seek
God,” he says, “and your heart shall live;”696
and lest any one should rashly
rejoice that he has, as it were, apprehended it, “Seek,” he
says, “His face evermore.”697
And the apostle: “If any man,”
he says, “think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet
as he ought to know. But if any man love God, the same is known of
Him.”698
He has not
said, has known Him, which is dangerous presumption, but “is
known of Him.” So also in another place, when he had said, “But
now after that ye have known God:” immediately correcting
himself, he says, “or rather are known of God.”699
And above
all in that other place, “Brethren,” he says, “I count not
myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting
those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things
which are before, I press in purpose700
| 700 In purpose, om. in
A.V. | toward the mark, for the prize of
the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many
as be perfect, be thus minded.”701
Perfection in this life, he tells
us, is nothing else than to forget those things which are behind,
and to reach forth and press in purpose toward those things which
are before. For he that seeks has the safest purpose, [who seeks]
until that is taken hold of whither we are tending, and for which
we are reaching forth. But that is the right purpose which starts
from faith. For a certain faith is in some way the starting-point
of knowledge; but a certain knowledge will not be made perfect,
except after this life, when we shall see face to face.702
Let us
therefore be thus minded, so as to know that the disposition to
seek the truth is more safe than that which presumes things unknown
to be known. Let us therefore so seek as if we should find, and so
find as if we were about to seek. For “when a man hath done, then
he beginneth.”703
Let us doubt
without unbelief of things to be believed; let us affirm without
rashness of things to be understood: authority must be held fast in
the former, truth sought out in the latter. As regards this
question, then, let us believe that the Father, and the Son, and
the Holy Spirit is one God, the Creator and Ruler of the whole
creature; and that the Father is not the Son, nor the Holy Spirit
either the Father or the Son, but a trinity of persons mutually
interrelated, and a unity of an equal essence. And let us seek to
understand this, praying for help from Himself, whom we wish to
understand; and as much as He grants, desiring to explain what we
understand with so much pious care and anxiety, that even if in any
case we say one thing for another, we may at least say nothing
unworthy. As, for the sake of example, if we say anything
concerning the Father that does not properly belong to the Father,
or does belong to the Son, or to the
Holy Spirit, or to the
Trinity itself; and if anything of the Son which does not properly
suit with the Son, or at all events which does suit with the
Father, or with the Holy Spirit, or with the Trinity; or if, again,
anything concerning the Holy Spirit, which is not fitly a property
of the Holy Spirit, yet is not alien from the Father, or from the
Son, or from the one God the Trinity itself. Even as now our wish
is to see whether the Holy Spirit is properly that love which is
most excellent which if He is not, either the Father is love, or
the Son, or the Trinity itself; since we cannot withstand the most
certain faith and weighty authority of Scripture, saying, “God is
love.”704
And yet we
ought not to deviate into profane error, so as to say anything of
the Trinity which does not suit the Creator, but rather the
creature, or which is feigned outright by mere empty
thought.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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