Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| On Whitsuntide, III.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Sermon LXXVII.
(On Whitsuntide, III.)
I. The Holy Ghost’s work did not
begin at Pentecost, but was continued because the Holy Trinity is One
in action and in will.
To-day’s festival, dearly-beloved, which is
held in reverence by the whole world, has been hallowed by that advent
of the Holy Ghost, which on the fiftieth day after the Lord’s Resurrection, descended on the Apostles and
the multitude of believers1149
| 1149 Bright (n. 133)
quotes Aug. (in Joan. Evan. Tr. 92, c. 1 and Serm. 267, 1) for the
opinion, which Leo here seems to follow, that the “all” of
Acts ii. 1 includes the 120 (cf. Acts i. 20) as well as the Twelve. | , even as it was
hoped. And there was this hope, because the Lord Jesus had promised that He should come, not then
first to be the Indweller of the saints, but to kindle to a greater
heat, and to fill with larger abundance the hearts that were dedicated
to Him, increasing, not commencing His gifts, not fresh in operation
because richer in bounty. For the Majesty of the Holy Ghost is
never separate from the Omnipotence of the Father and the Son, and
whatever the Divine government accomplishes in the ordering of
all things, proceeds from the
Providence of the whole Trinity. Therein exists unity of mercy
and loving-kindness, unity of judgment and justice: nor is there
any division in action where there is no divergence of will.
What, therefore, the Father enlightens, the Son enlightens, and the
Holy Ghost enlightens: and while there is one Person of the Sent,
another of the Sender, and another of the Promiser, both the Unity and
the Trinity are at the same time revealed to us, so that the Essence
which possesses equality and does not admit of solitariness is
understood to belong to the same Substance but not the same Person.
II. Each Person in the Trinity took part
in our Redemption.
The fact, therefore, that, with the co-operation
of the inseparable Godhead still perfect, certain things are performed
by the Father, certain by the Son, and certain by the Holy Spirit, in
particular belongs to the ordering of our Redemption and the method of
our salvation. For if man, made after the image and likeness of
God, had retained the dignity of his own
nature, and had not been deceived by the devil’s wiles into
transgressing through lust the law laid down for him, the Creator of
the world would not have become a Creature, the Eternal would not have
entered the sphere of time, nor God the Son,
Who is equal with God the Father, have assumed
the form of a slave and the likeness of sinful flesh. But because
“by the devil’s malice death entered into the
world1150
,” and captive humanity could not
otherwise be set free without His undertaking our cause, Who without
loss of His majesty should both become true Man, and alone have no
taint of sin, the mercy of the Trinity divided for Itself the work of
our restoration in such a way that the Father should be propitiated,
the Son should propitiate1151
| 1151 “The
Atonement is a reconciling not merely of man to God but of God to man,”
says Archbp. Trench, and that, as S. Thomas Aquinas explains, in regard
to our sins not in regard to our nature, in which regard He always
loves us (passages quoted by Bright, n. 54). | , and the Holy Ghost
enkindle. For it was necessary that those who are to be saved
should also do something on their part, and by the turning of their
hearts to the Redeemer should quit the dominion of the enemy, even as
the Apostle says, “God sent the Spirit
of His Son into our hearts, crying Abba, Father1152
,” “And where the Spirit of the
Lord is, there is liberty1153
,” and “no one can call Jesus
Lord except in the Holy Spirit1154
.”
III. But this apportionment of functions
does not mar the Unity of the Trinity.
If, therefore, under guiding grace,
dearly-beloved, we faithfully and wisely understand what is the
particular work of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and
what is common to the Three in our restoration, we shall without doubt
so accept what has been wrought for us by humiliation and in the body
as to think nothing unworthy about the One and Selfsame Glory of the
Trinity. For although no mind is competent to think, no tongue to
speak about God, yet whatever that is which
the human intellect apprehends about the essence of the Father’s
Godhead, unless one and the selfsame truth is held concerning His
Only-begotten or the Holy Spirit, our meditations are disloyal, and
beclouded by the intrusions of the flesh, and even that is lost, which
seemed a right conclusion concerning the Father, because the whole
Trinity is forsaken, if the Unity therein is not maintained; and That
Which is different by any inequality can in no true sense be
One.
IV. In thinking upon God, we must put aside all material
notions.
When, therefore, we fix our minds on confessing
the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, let us keep far from our
thoughts the forms of things visible, the ages of beings born in time,
and all material bodies and places. Let that which is extended in
space, that which is enclosed by limit, and whatever is not always
everywhere and entire be banished from the heart. The conception
of the Triune Godhead must put aside the idea of interval or of
grade1155
| 1155 See Serm. LXXV. chap.
3, n. 3. | , and if a man has attained any worthy
thought of God, let him not dare to withhold
it from any Person therein, as if to ascribe with more honour to the
Father that which he does not ascribe to the Son and Spirit. It
is not true Godliness to put the Father before the Only-begotten:
insult to the Son is insult to the Father: what is detracted from
the One is detracted from Both. For since Their Eternity and
Godhead are alike common, the Father is not accounted either Almighty
and Unchangeable, if He begot One less than Himself or gained by having
One Whom before He had not1156
| 1156 See Serm. XXIII.
chap. 2. | .
V. Christ as Man is less than the Father,
as God co-equal.
The Lord Jesus does,
indeed, say to His disciples, as was read in the Gospel lection,
“if ye loved Me, ye would assuredly rejoice, because I go to the
Father, because the Father is greater than I1157
| 1157 S. John xiv. 28; x. 30; xiv. 9. In the English Church, the Gospel
for Whitsunday is still the same as it was in Leo’s time at
Rome. | ;” but those ears,
which have often heard the
words, “I and the Father are One1158
| 1158 S. John xiv. 28; x. 30; xiv. 9. In the English Church, the Gospel
for Whitsunday is still the same as it was in Leo’s time at
Rome. | ,” and “He that sees Me, sees
the Father also1159
| 1159 S. John xiv. 28; x. 30; xiv. 9. In the English Church, the Gospel
for Whitsunday is still the same as it was in Leo’s time at
Rome. | ,” accept the
saying without supposing a difference of Godhead or understanding it of
that Essence which they know to be co-eternal and of the same nature
with the Father. Man’s uplifting, therefore, in the
Incarnation of the Word, is commended to the holy Apostles also, and
they, who were distressed at the announcement of the Lord’s departure from them, are incited to eternal
joy over the increase in their dignity; “If ye loved Me,”
He says, “ye would assuredly rejoice, because I go to the
Father:” that is, if, with complete knowledge ye saw what
glory is bestowed on you by the fact that, being begotten of
God the Father, I have been born of a human
mother also, that being invisible I have made Myself visible, that
being eternal “in the form of God”
I accepted the “form of a slave,” “ye would rejoice
because I go to the Father.” For to you is offered this
ascension, and your humility is in Me raised to a place above all
heavens at the Father’s right hand. But I, Who am with the
Father that which the Father is, abide undivided with My Father, and in
coming from Him to you I do not leave Him, even as in returning to Him
from you I do not forsake you. Rejoice, therefore, “because
I go to the Father, because the Father is greater than I.”
For I have united you with Myself, and am become Son of Man that you
might have power to be sons of God. And
hence, though I am One in both forms, yet in that whereby I am
conformed to you I am less than the Father, whereas in that whereby I
am not divided from the Father I am greater even than Myself. And
so let the Nature, which is less than the Father, go1160
| 1160 Vadat (subj.);
others read vadit (indic.) = goes, in which case Christ is still
imagined to be speaking. If we read vadat, His utterance
ends with the last sentence. | to the Father, that the Flesh may be where
the Word always is, and that the one Faith of the catholic Church may
believe that He Whom as Man it does not deny to be less, is equal as
God with the Father.
VI. And this equality which the Son has
with the Father, the Holy Ghost also has.
Accordingly, dearly-beloved, let us despise the
vain and blind cunning of ungodly heretics, which flatters itself over
its crooked interpretation of this sentence, and when the Lord says, “All things that the Father hath are
Mine1161
,” does not understand that it takes
away from the Father whatever it dares to deny to the Son, and is so
foolish in matters even which are human as to think, that what is His
Father’s has ceased to belong to His Only-begotten, because He
has taken on Him what is ours. Mercy in the case of God does not lessen power, nor is the reconciliation of
the creature whom He loves a falling off of Eternal glory. What
the Father has the Son also has, and what the Father and the Son have,
the Holy Ghost also has, because the whole Trinity together is One
God. But this Faith is not the discovery
of earthly wisdom nor the conviction of man’s opinion: the
Only-begotten Son has taught it Himself, and the Holy Ghost has
established it Himself, concerning Whom no other conception must be
formed than is formed concerning the Father and the Son. Because
albeit He is not the Father nor the Son, yet He is not separable from
the Father and the Son: and as He has His own personality in the
Trinity, so has He One substance in Godhead with the Father and the
Son, filling all things, containing all things, and with the Father and
the Son controlling all things, to Whom is the honour and glory for
ever and ever. Amen.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
