2. The Blessed Trinity.

When the thought of the adorable Trinity enters thy mind, make not to thyself three gods, after the manner of the heathen; but believe, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are One God, who is the illimitable fulness of being, life, power, holiness, wisdom, goodness, sweetness, beauty, wealth, nobility, 171bliss, glory, and every perfection. Believe, I say, that the Three Uncreated Persons are One Godhead, One Substance or Being, infinitely transcending all creatures, immense, dependent on none, needing no one, subsisting by Itself, sufficing to Itself, supremely glorious, beautiful, and joyful, supremely tranquil, worthy of love, and perfect, superessential and most simple, which no bodily eye can see, and no human intellect can comprehend. Venerate the Unity of substance in the Trinity of Persons, and the Trinity of Persons in the Unity of substance. The One and Undivided Essence is Three Persons, and the Three Persons are the One and Undivided Essence. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are wholly One as regards the substance, while yet there is great distinction between the Persons. There is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Ghost; but there is not one Essence of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Ghost: for there is one substance, one nature, one Divinity, one majesty, of the Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost. As we confess that the Unbegotten Father is perfect and immutable God, or that the whole and true Divinity is in the Father; so we ought to confess that the Son, begotten of the Father, is perfect and immutable God; and that the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, who is the Love of the Father and the Son, is perfect and immutable God. But yet the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are not three gods, but one perfect and immutable God, one Lord, one eternal, one al mighty, one Beginning of all created things. Whatsoever 172one Person is as to substance, such is also each of the other Persons. Assuredly whatever is in one Person, that is entirely in each of the others; nor has any one less than the three together, nor have the three together more than each one alone.

The Father is from Himself. He is His own eternal Essence, and He receives nothing from any other; the Son is not from Himself, but from the Father alone, and whatever He hath, He hath from the Father; moreover, the Holy Ghost is not from Himself, but from the Father and the Son, and whatsoever He hath, He hath from the Father and the Son. The Father communicates Himself wholly to the Son; for He gives Him His whole Divine Essence or the fulness of His whole Divinity, and, with the Son, as one principle, He gives to the Holy Ghost the same fulness of the i Divinity. Yet there is no before or after in the glorious Trinity, no greater or loss; but the three Divine Persons, whose substance is one and the same, are co-eternal and supremely equal, and supremely alike, and abide mutually each one in each other. In the Father is the whole Son and the whole Holy Ghost; in the Son is the whole Father and the whole Holy Ghost; in the Holy Ghost is the whole Father and the whole Son. Although to the Father be attributed power, and to the Son wisdom, and to the Holy Ghost goodness; yet the power, and the wisdom, and the goodness of the three Persons is one and the same. The Person of the Son assumed a human nature, but not the Person of the Father, nor the Person of the Holy Ghost; yet the Incarnation of 173the Son was the work of the whole Trinity. For as the Essence of the three Persons is one, so their operation is one, and their will one and the same.

The image of the Holy Trinity shines forth beautifully in the soul of man. For, like the angelic spirits, the rational soul has three very excellent natural powers, namely, memory, intellect, and will; which God bestowed upon it, that it might with the memory remember Him, with the intellect know Him, and with the will choose and love Him, and enjoy Him. Now, as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are One God, or One Divine Substance; so those three superior and spiritual powers of the soul are one mind, or one essence of the soul. The three eternal and inseparable Persons of the Divinity operate inseparably; and the aforesaid three powers of the soul being also inseparable operate inseparably. The memory does not recall or reflect upon anything without the intellect and the will; nor does the intellect know anything without the memory and the will; nor can the will choose or love anything without the memory and the intellect. These three powers of the soul are the spiritual senses; for sight is attributed to the faculty of intellect, hearing to that of memory; smelling, taste, and touch to that of the affections or of love, that is to say, the will. But as the spirit is more excellent than the body, so those senses are more perfect and more worthy than the bodily senses. Moreover when a soul, being raised above its natural powers, has deserved to find God in its simple essence and most secret depths, and to be united to Him without any medium, it 174sees, hears, tastes, and touches what no words can express.

Thou must not discourse otherwise than cautiously of the mystery of the Most High Trinity; for it is as impossible to explain it as it is for a man standing on the earth to reach heaven with his hand. For who can say or even understand, that the Father most clearly contemplating His eternal Essence, and perfectly knowing Himself, utters His Word, or begets His Son consubstantial, co-eternal, and co-equal with Himself? For that knowledge of Himself is in eternity the generation of His Son. Or who can comprehend, that the Holy Spirit proceeds and emanates from the Father and the Son, with whom also He is consubstantial, co-eternal and co-equal? These things sur pass all human understanding.

In order, however, that a sensible similitude may strengthen in thee the faith by which thou must believe the Son to be eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal, as the Father, from whom they proceed and derive their origin, is eternal consider that light and heat also proceed from fire or name, and yet are not posterior in time to the fire. For from the very moment that fire exists, it gives both light and heat; nor could fire ever exist without light and heat, so that if fire were eternal its light would also be eternal and its heat eternal. In like manner the light and heat proceeding from the sun are coeval with the sun.

As that incomprehensible Generation and Procession in the Most Holy Trinity never had a beginning, neither will they ever have an end, for if they had 175ever had a beginning, or if they should ever come to an end, there would have been, or there would be some change in the Divinity, which is absolutely impossible, for the Divine Nature and Substance are unchangeable. Since each Divine Person is infinitely perfect, and each one most clearly beholds and fully comprehends the other, these same three Persons delight in each other with a most joyful, ardent, and utterly infinite love. But it is better to have some experience within of so great a mystery, than with the mouth to speak of it in many words. In these things which thy reason and intellect cannot comprehend, do thou give thyself to humility alone, keeping the entire faith, and simply believing what the Catholic Church believes.