HOMILY LXXIV.

JOHN xiv. 15—17.

If ye love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of Truth; Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

ments.

1. We have heard, my brethren, when the Gospel was read, the Lord saying, If ye love Me, keep My commandAnd I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever ; even the Spirit of Truth; Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. There are many things, which in these few words of the Lord need to be sought into: but it is too much for us either to seek all that is here to be sought, or to find all that we here seek. Nevertheless, in so far as the Lord deigns to bestow upon us, according to our capacity and yours, marking what we ought to say and what ye ought to hear, through us, beloved, receive ye what we are able to give, and ask of Him what we are not able. The Spirit, the Paraclete, Christ promised to His Apostles, but in what way He promised let us note. If, saith He, ye love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of Truth. This is in the Trinity the Holy Ghost,

XIV.

No love, and no obedience without the Holy Ghost: 801 Whom the Catholic Faith confesseth Consubstantial and JOHN Co-eternal with the Father and the Son: this is He of Whom 15-17. saith the Apostle, The love of God is shed abroad in our Rom. 5, hearts by the Holy Ghost Which is given us. How then 5. saith the Lord, If ye love Me, keep My commandments: and I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, seeing He saith this of the Holy Spirit, Whom except we have, we can neither love God, nor keep His commandments? How are we to love, in order to receive Him, when except we have Him, we cannot love? or how shall we keep His commandments, in order to receive Him, when except we have Him, we cannot keep the commandments? Or haply doth there come first in us the charity by which we love Christ, so that, by loving Christ and doing His commandments, we merit to receive the Holy Ghost, and so the charity, not of Christ, which had already preceded, but of God the Father, is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit Which is given to us? This is a wrong sentence. For he that thinks he loves the Son, and yet loves not the Father, assuredly loveth not even the Son, but only a fiction of His own devising. Then it is the voice of the Apostle, No man saith, Jesus is Lord, but in the 1 Cor. Holy Ghost: and who saith that Jesus is Lord, save he that 12, 3. loves Him, if he say it in that sense in which the Apostle would be understood? For many say it with the voice, but in heart and deeds deny it: as of such he saith, They Tit. 1, confess that they know God, but in their deeds deny Him. If by deeds He is denied, without doubt He is also by deeds affirmed. No man therefore saith, Jesus is Lord, with mind, word, deed, heart, mouth, work, no man saith, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Ghost: and no man so saith it, but he that loves. Now the Apostles already said, Jesus is Lord; and, if they in that sort said it, that they said it not feignedly, confessing with the mouth, in heart and deeds denying in short, if they said this truly, without doubt they loved. Then how loved they but in the Holy Ghost? And yet are they first commanded to love Him, and keep His commandments, that they may receive the Holy Ghost: when, except they had the Holy Ghost, assuredly they could not love, and keep the commandments.

16.

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But to them that have Him already,

HOMIL. 2. It remains therefore that we should understand, that he

LXXIV. who loves hath the Holy Spirit, and by having deserves to

12.

have more, and by more having to love more. Already then the disciples had the Spirit Which the Lord was promising, the Spirit without Whom they could not call Him Lord: but still they had Him not as yet in that sort in which the Lord promised Him. They both had therefore, and had not, in that they had Him not yet as much as He ought to be had. They had Him therefore less: He was to be given to them more. They had Him secretly, were to receive openly; because this also pertained to the greater gift of the Holy Spirit, that what they had should become known 1 Cor. 2, to them. Speaking of which gift, the Apostle saith, Now we have received, not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit Which is of God, that we may know the things which are given us of God. For even the manifest imparting of the Holy Spirit the Lord enacted not once for all, but two several times. For presently after He was risen from the John20, dead, He said, breathing upon them, Receive ye the Holy 20. Ghost. Then, because He at that time gave, did He there1 misit fore not also afterwards send Him Whom He promised1? promi- Or is it not one and the same Holy Spirit Which both then was breathed by Him, and afterward was sent by Him from heaven? Wherefore, as touching this same bestowal, made in evident manner, of the Holy Spirit, why it was twice made, is another question: thus it may be, that it was with reference to the two precepts of love, i. e. love of our neighbour and of God, to shew that love is of the province of the Holy Ghost, that the bestowal of Him in manifestation was thus twice enacted. And if we are to seek another cause, the present discourse must not, by now pursuing this inquiry, be drawn to greater length than is meet: enough that it be understood, that without the Holy Spirit we cannot love Christ and keep His commandments; and that we can do, and actually do, this the less, the less we partake of Him; and the more, the more we partake of Him. And therefore, it is not without cause that He is promised not only to him that hath not, but to him that hath to him that hath not, that He may be had; to him that hath, that He may be had more. For unless He were had by one less, by another more, holy Eliseus would not

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He is given in more abundant measure:

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have said to holy Elias, Let the Spirit that is in thee, be in JOHN me in double measure.

XIV. 15-17.

9.

18-21.

3. But when John the Baptist said, For not by measure 2 Kings givelh God the Spirit, he spake of none other than the Son 2, 9. ch.3,34. of God, to Whom the Spirit was not given by measure, because in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead. Col. 2, For not without the grace of the Holy Spirit is He the 1 Tim. Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus: as 2, 5. He affirmeth of Himself the fulfilment of that prophetic word, The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me; for that He hath Luke 4, anointed Me, He hath sent Me to preach the Gospel to the poor. That He is the Only-begotten, Equal with the Father, is not of grace, but of nature: but the taking of man into Unity of Person with the Only-Begotten, is of grace, not of nature, as the Gospel confesseth and saith, But the Child Luke 2, grew, and was strengthened, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was in Him. But to the rest He is given by measure, and being given is more given, until each one, according to the measure of his perfection, hath his proper measure completed. Whence also the Apostle admonisheth each not to think of himself more highly than he ought to Rom. 7, think; but to think soberly, according as God hath given to 3. each the measure of faith. Not that the Spirit Himself is divided, but only the gifts bestowed by the Spirit: for 1 Cor. there are divisions of gifts, but the same Spirit.

40.

12, 14.

Παρα

7. pru

4. Moreover, in saying, I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete, He shews that He is Himself a Paraclete. And indeed Paraclete in our tongue is 'Advocate': and it is said of Christ, We have an Advocate with the Father, 1 John Jesus Christ the Righteous. And, that the world cannot 21. receive the Holy Spirit, He said in the same regard as it is KaŋTÓV. said, The wisdom of the flesh is at enmity with God: for to Rom. 8, the Law of God it is not subject, neither indeed can be: dentia just as if we should say, Unrighteousness cannot be righteous. carnis : In fact, by 'world' in this place He means lovers of the world, which love is not of the Father. And therefore, to the love 1 John of this world (which it is our business to get diminished and 2, 16. consumed away in us) the love of God is contrary, which love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us. The world then cannot receive Him, because it

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tia.

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Unknown by the world, dwelling in the faithful.

HOMIL. Seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him. For worldly love hath LXXIV not the invisible eyes by which the Holy Spirit can only be invisibly beheld.

5. But ye, saith He, shall know Him, because He shall dwell with you, and shall be in you. Shall be in them that He may dwell, not dwell that He may be: for to be somewhere comes before dwelling. Only, lest they should think the saying, Shall dwell with you, to be spoken in the customary sense of a guest visibly dwelling with a man, He expounded what He meant by, Shall dwell with you, when He further said, Shall be in you. Therefore He is invisibly seen: nor, if He be not in us, can the knowledge of Him be in us. For in this way is our own conscience seen by us in ourselves we see another's face, our own we cannot see: our conscience we see, another's we see not. But then, conscience never is any where but in us, whereas the Holy Spirit can also be without us, as in fact He is given to be also in us. But seen and known as He ought to be seen and known, by us He cannot be, if He be not in us.