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The eternal Father seeing the infinite goodness and
beauty of His own essence, so perfectly, essentially
and substantially expressed in His Son, and the Son
seeing reciprocally that His same essence, goodness
and beauty is originally in His Father as in its
source and fountain, ah! can it possibly be that this
Divine Father and His Son should not mutually love
one another with an infinite love, since Their will
by which They love, and Their goodness for which They
love are infinite in each of Them.
Love not finding us equal, equalizes us, not
finding us united, unites us. Now the Father and the
Son finding Themselves not only equal and united, but
even one same God, one same goodness, one same
essence and one same unity, how much must They needs
love one another. But this love does not act like the
love which intellectual creatures have amongst
themselves, or towards their Creator; for created
love is exercised by many and various movements,
aspirations, unions and joinings which immediately
succeed one another, and make a continuation of love
with a grateful vicissitude of spiritual movements,
but the divine love of the eternal Father towards His
Son is practised in one only spiration (souspir)
mutually from Them both, Who in this sort remain
united and joined together.
Yes, Theotimus; for the goodness of the Father and
Son being but one sole most perfectly singular
goodness, common to Them both, the love of this
goodness can be but one only love; for though there
be two lovers, to wit, the Father and the Son, yet
seeing it is only Their most singular goodness common
to Them both which is loved, and Their most unique
will which loves, it is therefore but one love
exercised by one amorous apiration.
The Father breathes this love and so does the Son;
but because the Father only breathes this love by
means of the same will and for the same goodness
which is equally and singularly in Him and His Son:
the Son again only breathes this spiration of love
for this same goodness and by thin same will, -
therefore this spiration of love is but one spiration,
or one only spirit breathed out by two breathers.
And because the Father and the Son Who breathe, have
an infinite essence and will by which They breathe,
and because the goodness for which They breathe is
infinite, it is impossible Their breathing should not
be infinite; and forasmuch as it cannot be infinite
without being God, therefore this Spirit breathed
from the Father and the Son is true God: and since
there neither is, nor can be, more than one only God,
He is one only true God with the Father and the Son.
Moreover, as this love is an act which proceeds
mutually from the Father and the Son, it can neither
be the Father, nor the Son, from whom it proceeds,
though it has the same goodness and substance of the
Father and the Son, but must necessarily be a third
person, Who with the Father and the Son is one only
God. And because this love is produced by manner of
breathings or spirations, it is called the Holy
Spirit.
Now, Theotimus, King David, describing the
sweetness of the friendship of God's servants, cries
out: Behold how good and how pleasant it is for
brethren to dwell together an unity: like the
precious ointment on the head, that ran down upon the
beard, the beard of Aaron, which ran down to the
skirt of his garment: as the dew of Hermon, which
descendeth upon Mount Sion.(1)
But, O God! if human friendship be so agreeably
lovely, and spread so delicious an odour on them that
contemplate it, what shall it be, my well-beloved
Theotimus, to behold the sacred exercise of mutual
love between the eternal Father and the Son.
S. Gregory Nazianzen recounts that the
incomparable love which existed between him and S.
Basil the Great was famous all through Greece, and
Tertullian testifies, that the Pagans admired the
more than brotherly love which reigned amongst the
primitive Christians. Oh! with what celebration and
solemnity, with what praises and benedictions, should
be kept, with what admirations should be honoured and
loved, the eternal and sovereign friendship of the
Father and the Son! What is there to beloved and
desired if friendship is not? And if friendship is to
be loved and desired, what friendship can be so in
comparison with that infinite friendship which is
between the Father and the Son, and Which is one same
most sole God with them?
Our heart, Theotimus, will sink lost in love,
through admiration of the beauty and sweetness of the
love, that this eternal Father and this
incomprehensible Son practise divinely and eternally.
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