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| Chapter VI. The passages of Scripture above cited are taken as an occasion for a digression, wherein our Lord's freedom of action is proved from the ascription to the Spirit of such freedom, and from places where it is attributed to the Son.
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Chapter VI.
The passages of Scripture above cited are taken as an
occasion for a digression, wherein our Lord’s freedom of action
is proved from the ascription to the Spirit of such freedom, and from
places where it is attributed to the Son.
47. Let us now, for
the present, explain more fully why our Lord said, “If it be
possible,” and so call a truce, as it were, while we show that He
possessed freedom of will. Ye deny—so far are ye gone in
the way of iniquity—that the Son of God had a free will.
Moreover, it is your wont to detract from the Holy Spirit, though you
cannot deny that it is written: “The Spirit doth breathe,
where He will.”1962
| 1962 S. John iii. 8. The same word in Greek at
least, serves to denote “wind” and
“spirit”—the invisible and yet sensible and real air,
wind, or breath being taken as the best emblem of the spirit, which is
known and its presence realized only by its effects.
Spiritus, “spirit,” primarily means
“breath.” |
“Where He will,” saith the Scripture, not “where He
is ordered.” If, then, the Spirit doth breathe where He
will, cannot the Son do what He will? Why, it is the very same
Son of God Who in His Gospel saith that the Spirit has power to breathe
where He will. Doth the Son, therefore, confess the Spirit to be
greater, in that He has power to do what is not permitted to
Himself?
48. The Apostle also saith that “all
is the work of one and the same Spirit, distributing to each according
to His will.”1963
“According to His will,” mark you—that is, according
to the judgment of a free will, not in obedience to compulsion.
Furthermore, the gifts distributed by the Spirit are no mean gifts, but
such works as God is wont to do,—the gift of healing and of
working deeds of power. While the Spirit, then, distributes as He
will, the Son of God cannot set free whom He will. But hear Him
speak when He does even as He will: “I have willed to do
Thy will, O my God;”1964
and again:
“I will offer Thee a freewill offering.”1965
49. The holy Apostle later knew that Jesus
had it in His power to do as He would, and therefore, seeing Him walk
upon the sea, said: “Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come to
Thee over the waters.”1966
Peter
believed that if Christ commanded, the natural conditions could be
changed, so that water might support human footsteps, and things
discrepant be reduced to harmony and agreement. Peter asks of
Christ to command, not to request: Christ requested not, but
commanded, and it was done—and Arius denies it!
50. What indeed is there that the Father
will have, but the Son will not, or that the Son will have, but the
Father will not? “The Father quickeneth whom He
will,” and the Son quickeneth whom He will, even as it is
written.1967
Tell me
now whom the Son hath quickened, and the Father would not
quicken. Since, however, the Son quickeneth whom He will, and the
action [of Father and Son] is one, you see that not only doeth the Son
the Father’s will, but the Father also doeth the
Son’s. For what is quickening but quickening through the
passion of Christ? But the passion of Christ is the
Father’s will. Whom, therefore, the Son quickeneth, He
quickeneth by the will of the Father; therefore their will is
one.
51. Again, what was the will of the Father, but
that Jesus should come into the world
and cleanse us from our sins? Hear
the words of the leper: “If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me
clean.”1968
Christ
answered, “I will,” and straightway health, the effect,
followed. See you not that the Son is master of His own will, and
Christ’s will is the same as the Father’s. Indeed,
seeing that He hath said, “All things that the Father hath are
Mine,”1969
nothing of a
certainty being excepted, the Son hath the same will that the Father
hath.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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