But it may be questioned, what about their power ? Is their power that of Person or of essence ?—I answer that, the three are one God, no one is before or after the other: all three Persons are one first in the unity of their essential nature. Hence we speak of the activity of the blessed Trinity not of their essence. This is silence. Now speech, remember, beats into silence. In this sense the Persons are the hypostasis of essence.—But why call it a beat ?—Because it is neither a coming nor a going. In this impulse the Trinity has equal power to act and has wrought its work entirely unmoved and undisturbed.
Examine, again, the statement, ‘ the Persons are the hypostasis.’ This reveals two things. From the word are we gather that each Person is distinct in the Personality. But saying ‘ the hypostasis ’ argues the three Persons and one nature to possess one property. The Persons are the hypostasis of the essence since their unity and personality have like power to act. This power the holy Trinity possesses in the unity of its natural essence. There you
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have the argument in full for the blessed Trinity having power in the unity of its divine nature. ‘
Two things we attribute to God, essence and nature.—‘ I should much like to know the difference.-—Essence attracts and nature is common to the Persons: they are one.—‘ For God’s sake, Sir, explain.’—Then follow with enlightenment, with mind attuned to the highest pitch. You see, God, whatever he is, has essence and essence is absolute stillness; it is immoveable. It speaks not, loves not, gets not; but it moves moveable things like creatures. Immoveability and motion do not represent (the divine nature) and the divine Persons: Persons and nature have one property. (Immoveability) distinguishes the essence. But what the divine nature is, of that no single drop did ever fall within the ken of any creature. According to one philosopher, ‘ God’s nature is God’s beauty.’ And to this I add that in this same beauty there is play of light and its reflection, each Person radiant to the rest as to itself. This illumination is the perfection of beauty.— ‘Good. I am quite satisfied with that. But now I want to ask about the eternal Word of the Father : is it to be taken as abiding within in his essence ? —No.— Is it to be taken in his Person ? ’— No.—* Then is it to be taken as being in the abstract nature of the Father ? ’—St Augustine, speaking as it were in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, gives for it five analogies: ‘I am come as a word from the heart that is spoken therefrom; I am come as the light from the sun; I am come as the heat from the fire; I am come like the fragrance of a flower; I am come like the stream from its perennial spring.’ Even so is the eternal Word uttered in the Person of the Son while remaining God by nature in his nature. That is the answer. -
—‘ Now another question. Theologians say God is in every- thing. Is God in everything in his nature ? ’—No.— Is God in everything in Person ? ’—No.—‘ Then how is he in everything ?’ —As preserving their unity of nature, Persons and nature have but one property and this property is the divine essence as a whole. As such God is in all places and in each place. God is all at once. For since God is impartible, all things and all places are the place of God. So everything is full of God, of his divine essence, continually. .
Three things are to be noted about the divine essence. First and foremost, it is the principle preserving all things; in his divine essence God is in all things upholding them. But he is in the soul innately. Witness our Lord Jesus Christ : he was God and man. He has given us his sacred body: whoso receives it worthily receives at once the Person of the Son and divine nature; he receives human nature joined with divine nature. For he is
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really present where he is worthily received. This accounts for God’s loving himself in the soul.
It may be asked, how does God love himself ?—God is in all things, for he is with himself. God is with himself for love of himself. Hence God loves himself with himself in all things.— Secondly, God is one alone; hence it is from itself not from another. Were it from another it would reveal the thing from whence it came. Not so: it is by itself in stillness so profound it cannot of itself reveal anything at all. And here it may be noted that although God is potent for good yet it may be main- tained that his greatest power is his impotence. The argument runs thus. The impartible essence of divine nature is unity. Now unity cannot reveal itself to itself. That is its impotence and this impotence is the unity itself: the unity which is God’s chief potentiality. Whence also the deduction that the three Persons have like power in their natural essence. And since this cannot manifest itself therefore the three Persons have manifested it and to none more than to themselves, for it is their own essential nature.—Thirdly, it unifies and embraces all things in itself and in this embrace the Father loses his name although he preserves his paternity of Person. That is one Person. And the same with the other Persons. In this embrace all is dissolved in all for all encloses all. But in itself it is self-disclosed.
Here arises the question how the first embraces all? The answer is this. Things flowed forth finite into time while abiding infinite in eternity. There they are God in God. Take an illus- tration. Suppose some master of the arts. If he produce a work of art he none the less preserves his arts within himself: the arts are the artist in the artist. Even so the first contains the idea of all things, which is God in God.
Then there is the question of how all things return into their first source? The answer is this. Creatures all change their names in human nature and become ennobled ; in human nature they lose their own particular nature and find their way back into their cause. There are two ways of doing this. First, it is feasible for human nature to scale the heights by ghostly toil, for in spiritual travail the soul ascends to whence it came. That is one way. But there is another. The meat and drink a man consumes turns into flesh and blood. Now it is the Christian faith that this actual body will rise at the last day. Then things shall all arise, not as themselves but in him who has changed them into himself. He, spiritualised and turned to spirit, shall flow in spirit back to his first cause. From this it may be argued that every single creature has, in human nature, a stake in the eternal. Furthermore it argues the faithfulness and kindness and perfect
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love of God who refuses to shut out any belonging of his faithful servant: he takes him all together to himself. All embraces all, for all is one and one is all in all.
Then there is the question how the Person of the Son was sent into Mary’s virgin body and took on human nature without his ever quitting the shelter of his Father’s bosom ? The answer is as follows : The bosom of the Father is the throne of God. The Father has given birth to his Son, is now giving him birth and shall go on giving him birth without stopping. This birth has been taking place in him for ever. At the very instant when the Son was donning human nature the Father was bringing him to birth. That is one explanation. Or take it in another way: the Son is the understanding of the Father and the architect of all things in his Father. Had this architect not wrought in his Father without ceasing the Father had not wrought at that particular point. So God’s Son while taking on man’s nature in Mary’s body was the architect of all things in his Father. That is another explanation. Or take it, thirdly, in yet another sense. The Son has no less of the essence than the Father or the Holy Ghost, with whom he possesses it in common. And in the com- munity of their essential nature the Son himself is the encloser. Unity is the close, the Persons what the one encloses. Each Person in the utterance keeps his individual nature. But within this close the three Persons have one nature. The Son has his nature in common with the Father and with the Holy Ghost so that as therein contained he has with them one common property. It follows that the Son has never for one instant left the Father. And herewith I conclude this threefold argument. It demon- strates conclusively that God has never waxed or waned in divine glory.—So much of theology and of the noble lineage of the soul.
Now we will speak about the union of the soul with God. There - are those who say, nothing unites the soul so much as knowledge. Others again aver the same of love. And yet a third school teaches that nothing unites like use (i.e. actual enjoyment). Now I put one question regarding these three things. What is the property of each? Each is its own peculiar property. But at the summit of its property (its nature) each of them approaches so closely to the rest that they are virtually the same: threefold yet one in nature. This, to be sure, is not strictly true, but in the higher reaches of their nature, where they are verging on each other, knowledge enhances love and love enjoyment. Each one, however, does its own appropriate work. Knowledge raises the soul to the rank of God; love unites the soul with God; use perfects the soul to God. These three transport the soul right out of time into eternity. There the spirit in perfect freedom
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enjoys in its origin the height of bliss. Love and the sweetness of its uses have lured forth the soul to its naked spark. What is her fortune there? All I can say is this: the glance, out of the spirit, which pierces without stop into naked Godhead; the flow, out of the Godhead, into the naked spirit, these are but one form which conforms and unites the spirit to’God in form and oneness so that it receives as like from like. How spirit fares in this exalted state I know not, nor can I tell at all more than to say that the spirit is then at the summit of its power and its welfare is supreme. .
Peradventure you will say, ‘ It is all very well to talk, my friend, but how do I arrive at this exalted state you have described ? ’— See. God is what he is and what he is is mine and what is mine I love and what I love loves me and absorbs me and what absorbs me that I am rather than my own self. By loving God therefore ye may become God with God. But I will not pursue this subject further.
Now I want to say a little about the virtuous life so that you may have some guide to its attainment. Whosoever would attain to God must make him some return for all his godly works. He who would atone to God must needs possess one virtue : righteous- ness (or justice). This is the epitome of all the virtues. He must be bare and free within and without. What is the freedom of a godly man? Being absolutely nothing to and wanting abso- lutely nothing for himself but only the glory of God in all his works. Mark two degrees of freedom in the willing poor. First they abandon friends and worldly goods and honours and descend into the valley of humility. There the willing poor find outward freedom and dwell unsolaced by perishable things. Follow the scorn and bitterness of the world. Courage, my children, establish yourselves in the valley into which ye have gone down. If the sons of the world revile you waver not; stand fast in Christ remembering and acting on his words, ‘ The servant is not greater than his lord; if the world hate you, know, it hated me before it hated you!’ Accept it all from God with hearty thanks and’ deem yourselves all unworthy of it; then, only then, have ye renounced yourselves.