other the more easily, if we know, or at anyof Him of whom we think, nor comprehends
BOOK VY.
PROCEEDS TO TREAT OF THE ARGUMENTS PUT FORWARD BY THE HERETICS, NOT FROM SCRIPTURE, BUT\FROM THEIR OWN REASON. THOSE ARE REFUTED, WHO THINK THE SUBSTANCE OF THE FATHER AND OF THE SON TO BE NOT THE SAME, BECAUSE EVERYTHING PREDICATED OF GOD IS, IN THEIR OPINION, PREDICATED OF HIM ACCORDING TO SUBSTANCE ; AND THEREFORE IT FOLLOWS, THAT TO BEGET AND TO BE BEGOTTEN, OR TO BE BEGOTTEN AND UNBEGOTTEN, BEING DIVERSE, ARE DIVERSE SUBSTANCES ; / WHEREAS IT IS HERE DEMONSTRATED THAT NOT EVERYTHING PREDICATED OF GOD IS PREDICATED ACCORDING TO SUBSTANCE, IN SUCH MANNER AS HE IS CALLED GOOD AND GREAT ACCORDING TO SUBSTANCE, OR ANYTHING ELSE THAT IS PREDICATED OF HIM IN RESPECT TO HIMSELF; BUT THAT SOME THINGS ARE ALSO PREDICATED OF HIM RELATIVELY, I. E. NOT IN RESPECT TO HIMSELF, BUT TO SOMETHING NOT HIMSELF, AS HE IS CALLED FATHER IN RESPECT TO THE SON, AND LORD IN RESPECT TO THE CREATURE THAT SERVETH HIM; IN WHICH CASE, IF ANYTHING THUS PREDICATED RELATIVELY, I. E. IN RESPECT TO SOMETHING NOT HIMSELF, IS EVEN PREDICATED AS HAPPENING IN TIME, AS E. G. ''LORD, THOU HAST BECOME OUR REFUGE,'' YET NOTHING HAPPENS TO GOD SO AS TO WORK A CHANGE IN HIM, BUT HE HIMSELF REMAINS ABSOLUTELY
UNCHANGEABLE IN HIS OWN NATURE OR ESSENCE.
my desire, but also my infirmity. I ask also of my readers to pardon me, where they may perceive me to have had the desire rather than the power to speak, what they either understand better themselves, or fail to understand through the obscurity of my language, just as I myself pardon them what they cannot understand through their own dullness.
CHAP. I.—WHAT THE AUTHOR ENTREATS FROM
GOD, WHAT FROM THE READER. IN GOD NOTHING IS TO BE THOUGHT CORPOREAL OR CHANGEABLE.
1, Beginning, as I now do henceforward, to speak of subjects which cannot altogether be spoken as they are thought, either by any man, or, at any rate, not by myself; although even our very thought, when we think of God the Trinity, falls (as we feel) very far short of Him of whom we think, nor comprehends
2. And we shall mutually pardon one another the more easily, if we know, or at any rate firmly believe and hold, that whatever is said of a nature, unchangeable, invisible and having life absolutely and sufficient to itself, must not be measured after the custom of things visible, and changeable, and mortal, or not self-sufficient. But although we labor, and yet fail, to grasp and know even those things which are within the scope of our corporeal senses, or what we are ourselves in the
Him as He is; but He is seen, as it is written, even by those who are so great as was the Apostle Paul, ''through a glass and in an enigma:''! first, I pray to our Lord God Himself, of whom we ought always to think, and of whom we are not able to think worthily, in praise of whom blessing is at all times to be rendered,? and whom no speech is sufficient to declare, that He will grant me both help for understanding and explaining that which I design, and pardon if in anything I offend. For I bear in mind, not only inner man; yet it is with no shamelessness that faithful piety burns after those divine and unspeakable things which are above: piety, I say, not inflated by the arrogance of its own power, but inflamed by the grace of
I x Cor. xiii. 12. 2 Ps, xxxiv. 1. 13