Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

have you never heard concerning the Only-begotten that He “is at the right hand of God,
who also maketh intercession for us”? 1143 Do not, then, because the Spirit is in you,—if
indeed He is at all in you,—nor yet because He teaches us who were blinded, and guides us
to the choice of what profits us,—do not for this reason allow yourself to be deprived of the
right and holy opinion concerning Him. For to make the loving kindness of your benefactor
a ground of ingratitude were indeed a very extravagance of unfairness. “Grieve not the Holy
Spirit;” 1144 hear the words of Stephen, the first fruits of the martyrs, when he reproaches
the people for their rebellion and disobedience; “you do always,” he says, “resist the Holy
Ghost;” 1145 and again Isaiah,—“They vexed His Holy Spirit, therefore He was turned to be
their enemy;” 1146 and in another passage, “the house of Jacob angered the Spirit of the
Lord.” 1147 Are not these passages indicative of authoritative power? I leave it to the judgment
of my readers to determine what opinions we ought to hold when we hear these passages;
whether we are to regard the Spirit as an instrument, a subject, of equal rank with the creature,
and a fellow servant of ourselves, or whether, on the contrary, to the ears of the pious the
mere whisper of this blasphemy is not most grievous. Do you call the Spirit a servant? But,
it is said, “the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth,” 1148 and yet the Spirit knoweth
the things of God, as “the spirit of man that is in him.” 1149
1143 Rom. viii. 34.
1144 Eph. iv. 30.
1145 Acts vii. 51.
1146 Is. lxiii. 10.
1147 Ps. cvi. 32; Micah ii. 7.
1148 John xv. 15.
1149 1 Cor. ii. 11.
Against those who assert that the Spirit ought not to be glorified.
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