I Mens or antius. > Antnia. 3-Psu cvs, 4. 4 Isa. lv. 6, 7.
BOOK XV.
BEGINS BY SETTING FORTH BRIEFLY AND IN SUM THE CONTENTS OF THE PREVIOUS FOURTEEN
BOOKS, THE ARGUMENT IS THEN SHOWN TO HAVE REACHED SO FAR AS TO ALEOW OF OUR
NOW INQUIRING CONCERNING THE TRINITY, WHICH IS GOD, IN THOSE ETERNAL, INCORPOREAL,
AND UNCHANGEABLE THINGS THEMSELVES, IN THE PERFECT CONTEMPLATION OF WHICH A
BLESSED LIFE IS PROMISED TO US. BUT THIS TRINITY, AS HE SHOWS, IS HERE SEEN BY US AS
'BY A MIRROR AND IN AN ENIGMA, IN THAT IT IS SEEN BY MEANS OF THE IMAGE OF GOD,
WHICH WE ARE, AS IN A LIKENESS THAT IS OBSCURE AND HARD OF DISCERNMENT, IN LIKE
MANNER, IT IS SHOWN, THAT SOME KIND OF CONJECTURE AND EXPLANATION MAY BE GATH-
ERED RESPECTING THE GENERATION OF THE DIVINE WORD, FROM THE WORD OF OUR OWN
MIND, BUT ONLY WITH DIFFICULTY, ON ACCOUNT OF THE EXCEEDING DISPARITY WHICH IS
DISCERNIBLE BETWEEN THE TWO WORDS; AND, AGAIN, RESPECTING THE PROCESSION OF THE
HOLY SPIRIT, FROM THE LOVE THAT IS JOINED THERETO BY THE WILL, as I hope, help our labors, that they may not be unfruitful, and that we may understand how it is said in the holy Psalm, '** Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord. Seek the Lord, and be strengthened: seek His face evermore.''?3 For that which is always being sought seems as though it were never
CHAP, I.—GOD IS ABOVE THE MIND.
1. DESIRING to exercise the reader in the things that are made, in order that he may know Him by whom they are made, we have now advanced so far as to His image, which is man, in that wherein he excels the other animals, z.e. in reason or intelligence, and whatever else can be said of the rational or intellectual soul that pertains to what is called the mind.t For by this name some Latin writers, after their own peculiar mode of speech, distinguish that which excels in man, and is not in the beast, from the soul,? which is in the beast as well. If, then, we seek anything that is above this nature, and seek truly, it is God,—namely, a nature not created, but creating. And whether this is the Trinity, it is now our business to demonstrate not only to believers, by authority of divine Scripture, but also to such as understand, by some kind of reason, if we can. And why I say, if we can, the thing itself will show better when we have begun to argue about it in our inquiry.
found; and how then will the heart of them that seek rejoice, and not rather be made sad, if they cannot find what they seek? For it is not said, The heart shall rejoice of them that find, but of them that seek, the Lord. And yet the prophet Isaiah testifies, that the Lord God can be found when He is sought, when he says: ''Seek ye the Lord; and as soon as ye have found Him, call upon Him: and when He has drawn near to you, let the wicked man forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts.''4 If, then, when sought, He can be found, why is it said, ''Seek ye His face evermore?"'? Is He perhaps to be sought even when found? For things incomprehensible must so be investigated, as that no one may think he has found nothing, when he has been able to find how incomprehensible that is which he was seeking. Why then does he so seek, if he comprehends that which he seeks to be incomprehensible, unless because he may not give over seeking so long as he makes progress in the inquiry itself into things
CHAP, 2.—-GOD, ALTHOUGH INCOMPREHENSIBLE,
IS EVER TO BE SOUGHT. THE TRACES OF THE TRINITY ARE NOT VAINLY SOUGHT IN THE CREATURE,
2. For God Himself, whom we seek, will,
3-Psu cvs, 4. 4 Isa. lv. 6, 7.
I Mens or antius. > Antnia.