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| What It is that Suffices Here to Solve the Question Why the Spirit is Not Said to Be Begotten, and Why the Father Alone is Unbegotten. What They Ought to Do Who Do Not Understand These Things.
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Chapter 27.—What
It is that Suffices Here to Solve the Question Why the Spirit is
Not Said to Be Begotten, and Why the Father Alone is Unbegotten.
What They Ought to Do Who Do Not Understand These
Things.
48. But because it is most
difficult to distinguish generation from procession in that
co-eternal, and equal, and incorporeal, and ineffably unchangeable
and indivisible Trinity, let it suffice meanwhile to put before
those who are not able to be drawn on further, what we said upon
this subject in a sermon to be delivered in the ears of Christian
people, and after saying wrote it down. For when, among other
things, I had taught them by testimonies of the Holy Scriptures
that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both, I continue: “If, then,
the Holy Spirit proceeds both from the Father and from the Son, why
did the Son say, ‘He proceedeth from the Father?’1070
Why, think
you, except as He is wont to refer to Him, that also which is
His own, from whom also He Himself is? Whence also is that
which He saith, ‘My doctrine is not mine own, but His that sent
me?’1071
If,
therefore, it is His doctrine that is here understood, which yet He
said was not His own, but His that sent Him, how much more is it
there to be understood that the Holy Spirit proceeds also from
Himself, where He so says, He proceedeth from the Father, as not to
say, He proceedeth not from me? From Him, certainly, from whom the
Son had his Divine nature, for He is God of God, He has also, that
from Him too proceeds the Holy Spirit; and hence the Holy Spirit
has from the Father Himself, that He should proceed from the Son
also, as He proceeds from the Father. Here, too, in some way may
this also be understood, so far as it can be understood by such as
we are, why the Holy Spirit is not said to be born, but rather to
proceed;1072
| 1072 [Generation and procession are
each an emanation of the essence by which it is modified. Neither
of them is a creation ex nihilo. The school-men attempted to
explain the difference between the two emanations, by saying that
the generation of the Son is by the mode of the intellect—hence
the Son is called Wisdom, or Word (Logos); but the procession of
the Spirit is by the mode of the will—hence the Spirit is called
Love. Turrettin distinguishes the difference by the following
particulars: 1. In respect to the source. Generation is from the
Father alone; procession is from Father and Son. 2. In respect to
effects. Generation yields not only personality, but resemblance.
The Son is the “image” of the Father, but the Spirit is not the
image of the Father and Son. Generation is accompanied with the
power to communicate the essence; procession is not. 3. In respect
to order of relationship. Generation is second, procession is
third. In the order of nature, not of time (for both generation and
procession are eternal, therefore simultaneous), procession is
after generation. Institutio III. xxxi.
3.—W.G.T.S.] | since if
He, too, was called a Son, He would certainly be called the Son of
both, which is most absurd, since no one is son of two, save of
father and mother. But far be it from us to surmise any such thing
as this between God the Father and God the Son. Because not even
the son of men proceeds at the same time from both father and
mother; but when he proceeds from the father into the mother, he
does not at that time proceed from the mother; and when he proceeds
from the mother into this present light, he does not at that time
proceed from the father. But the Holy Spirit does not proceed from
the Father into the Son, and from the Son proceed to sanctify the
creature, but proceeds at once from both; although the Father has
given this to the Son, that He should proceed, as from Himself, so
also from Him. For we cannot say that the Holy Spirit is not life,
while the Father is life, and the Son is life: and hence as the
Father, while He has life in Himself, has given also to the Son to
have life in Himself; so has He given also to Him that life should
proceed from Him, as it also proceeds from Himself.”1073
| 1073 Serm. in Joh. Evang.
tract.. 99, n. 8, 9. | I have
transferred this from that sermon into this book, but I was
speaking to believers, not to unbelievers.
49. But if they are not competent
to gaze upon this image, and to see how true these things are which
are in their mind, and yet which are not so three as to be three
persons, but all three belong to a man who is one person; why do
they not believe what they find in the sacred books respecting that
highest Trinity which is God, rather than insist on the clearest
reason being rendered them, which cannot be comprehended by the
human mind, dull and infirm as it is? And to be sure, when they
have steadfastly believed the Holy Scriptures as most true
witnesses, let them strive, by praying and seeking and living well,
that they may understand, i.e. that so far as it can be
seen, that may be seen by the mind which is held fast by faith. Who
would forbid this? Nay, who would not rather exhort them to it? But
if they think they ought to deny that these things are, because
they, with their blind minds, cannot discern them, they, too, who
are blind from their birth, ought to deny that there is a sun. The
light then shineth in darkness; but if the darkness comprehend it
not,1074
let them
first be illuminated by the gift of God, that they may be
believers, and let them begin to be light in comparison with the
unbelievers; and when this foundation is first laid, let them be
built up to see what they believe, that at some time they may be
able to see. For some things are so believed, that they cannot be
seen at all. For Christ is not to be seen a second time on the
cross; but unless this be believed which has been so done and seen,
that it is not now to be hoped for as about to be and to be seen,
there is no coming to Christ, such as without end He is to be seen.
But as far as relates to the discerning in some way by the
understanding that highest, ineffable, incorporeal, and
unchangeable nature the sight of the human mind can nowhere better
exercise itself, so only that the rule of faith govern it, than in
that which man himself has in his own nature better than the other
animals, better also than the other parts of his own soul, which is
the mind itself, to which has been assigned a certain sight of
things invisible, and to which, as though honorably presiding in a
higher and inner place, the bodily senses also bring word of all
things, that they may be judged, and than which there is no higher,
to which it is to be subject, and by which it is to be governed,
except God.
50. But among these many things
which I have now said, and of which there is nothing that I dare
to profess myself to have said worthy of the ineffableness of that
highest Trinity, but rather to confess that the wonderful knowledge
of Him is too great for me, and that I cannot attain1075
to it: O
thou, my soul, where dost thou feel thyself to be? where dost thou
lie? where dost thou stand? until all thy infirmities be healed by
Him who has forgiven all thy iniquities.1076
Thou perceivest thyself assuredly
to be in that inn whither that Samaritan brought him whom he found
with many wounds inflicted by thieves, half-dead.1077
And yet
thou hast seen many things that are true, not by those eyes by
which colored objects are seen, but by those for which he prayed
who said, “Let mine eyes behold the things that are equal.”1078
Certainly,
then, thou hast seen many things that are true, and hast
distinguished them from that light by the light of which thou hast
seen them. Lift up thine eyes to the light itself, and fix them
upon it if thou canst. For so thou wilt see how the birth of the
Word of God differs from the procession of the Gift of God, on
account of which the only-begotten Son did not say that the Holy
Spirit is begotten of the Father, otherwise He would be His
brother, but that lie proceeds from Him. Whence, since the Spirit
of both is a kind of consubstantial communion of Father and Son, He
is not called, far be it from us to say so, the Son of both. But
thou canst not fix thy sight there, so as to discern this lucidly
and clearly; I know thou canst not. I say the truth, I say to
myself, I know what I cannot do; yet that light itself shows to
thee these three things in thyself, wherein thou mayest recognize
an image of the highest Trinity itself, which thou canst not yet
contemplate with steady eye. Itself shows to thee that there is in
thee a true word, when it is born of thy knowledge, i.e.
when we say what we know: although we neither utter nor think of
any articulate word that is significant in any tongue of any
nation, but our thought is formed by that which we know; and there
is in the mind’s eye of the thinker an image resembling that
thought which the memory contained, will or love as a third
combining these two as parent and offspring. And he who can, sees
and discerns that this will proceeds indeed from thought (for no
one wills that of which he is absolutely ignorant what or of what
sort it is), yet is not an image of the thought: and so that there
is insinuated in this intelligible thing a sort of difference
between birth and procession, since to behold by thought is not the
same as to desire, or even to enjoy will. Thou, too, hast been able
[to discern this], although thou hast not been, neither art, able
to unfold with adequate speech what, amidst the clouds of bodily
likenesses, which cease not to flit up and down before human
thoughts, thou hast scarcely seen. But that light which is not
thyself shows thee this too, that these incorporeal likenesses of
bodies are different from the truth, which, by rejecting them, we
contemplate with the understanding. These, and other things
similarly certain, that light hath shown to thine inner eyes. What
reason, then, is there why thou canst not see that light itself
with steady eye, except certainly infirmity? And what has produced
this in thee, except iniquity? Who, then, is it that healeth all
thine infirmities, unless it be He that forgiveth all thine
iniquities? And therefore I will now at length finish this book by
a prayer better than by an argument.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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