Holy Ghost.'' This Trinity, one God, one temple of God is holy," says the Apostle,
374 THE WORKS OF
ST. AUGUSTIN.
created our body. The grass, God created; our body Who created? How do we prove that the grass is God's creating? He that clothes, the same creates. Read the Gospel, ''If then the grass of the field,'' saith it,
The living, the just; the dead, the unjust. For He judges both, rendering unto each his own. To the just He will say in the judgment, '' Come, ye blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.''* For this prepare yourselves, for these things hope, for this live, and so live, for this believe, for this be baptized, that it may be said to you, *' Come ye blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."" To them on the left hand, what? ''Go into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.".? Thus will they be judged by Christ, the quick and the dead. We have spoken of Christ's first nativity, which is without time; spoken of the other in the fullness of time, Christ's nativity of the Virgin; spoken of the passion of Christ; spoken of the coming of Christ to judgment. The whole is spoken, that was to be spoken of Christ, God's Only Son, our Lord. But not yet is the Trinity perfect.
'' which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, God so clotheth.''7 He, then, creates Who clothes. And the Apostle: 'Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die; and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but a bare grain, as perchance of wheat, or of some other corn; but God giveth it a body as He would, and to each one of seeds its proper body.''® If then it be God that builds our bodies, God that builds our members, and our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost, doubt not that the Holy Ghost is God. And do not add as it were a third God; because Father and Son and Holy Ghost is One God. So believe ye. 14. It follows after commendation of the Trinity;...°cTheHoly~:CGhurch?''7 God Fis pointed out, and His temple. '* For the temple of God is holy," says the Apostle,
13. It follows in the Creed, *'And in the Holy Ghost.'' This Trinity, one God, one nature, one substance, one power; equality, no division, no diversity, perpetual dearness of love. Would ye know the Holy Ghost, that He is God? Be baptized, and ye will be His temple. The Apostle says, which (temple) are ye." This same is the holy Church, the one Church, the true Church, the catholic Church, fighting against all heresies: fight, it can: be fought down, it cannot. As for heresies, they went all out of it, like as unprofitable branches pruned from the vine: but itself abideth in its root, in its Vine, in its charity. '"* The gates of hell shall not prevail against it. "ee highest | °'
Know ye not that your bodies are the temple within you of the Holy Ghost, Whom ye have of God?''4 A temple is for God: thus also Solomon, king and prophet, was bidden to build a temple for God. If he had built a temple for the sun or moon or some star or some angel, would not God condemn him? Because therefore he built a temple for God, he showed that he worshipped God. And of what did he build? Of wood and stone, because God deigned to make unto Himself by
15. '' Forgiveness of sins." Ye have [this article of] the Creed perfectly in you when ye receive Baptism. Let none say, '' I have done this or that sin: perchance that is not forgiven me.'' What hast thou done? How great a sin hast thou done? Name any heinous thing thou hast committed, heavy, horrible, which thou shudderest even to think of: have done what thou wilt: hast thou killed Christ? There is not. than that deed any worse, because also than Christ there is nothing better. What a dreadful thing is it to kill Christ! Yet the Jews killed Him, and many afterwards believed on Him and drank His blood: they are forgiven the sin which they committed. When ye have been baptized, hold fast a good life in the commandments of God, that ye may guard your Baptism even unto the end. I do not tell you, that ye will live here without sin; but they are venial, without which this life is not. For the sake of all sins was Baptism provided; for the sake of light sins, without which we cannot be, was prayer provided.* What hath
His servant an house on earth, where He might be asked, where He might be had in mind, Of which blessed Stephen says, **Solomon built Him an house; howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in temples made by hand.''5 If then our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost, what manner of God is it that built a temple for the Holy Ghost? But it was God. For if our bodies be a temple of the Holy Ghost, the same built this temple for the Holy Ghost, that built our bodies. Listen to the Apostle saying, '*God hath tempered the body, giving unto that which lacked the greater honor;''® when he was speaking of the different members that there should be no schisms in the body. God
I Matt. xxv. 34. 3 Charitas. 5 Acts vii. 47, 48.
2 Matt. xxv. 41. . t Cor. vi, 19. 6 x Cor. xii. 24.
7 Matt. vi. 30. 8 x Cor. xv. 36-38. 10 Matt. xvi. 18. 9 x Cor. lili. 17. {See R.V.] 11 Juventus.