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

eached if we through the faith in Christ which is in the Spirit 1295 hope that we shall be
raised together with Him and sit together in heavenly places, 1296 whenever He shall change
our vile body from the natural to the spiritual, 1297 and yet refuse to assign to the Spirit any
share in the sitting together, or in the glory, or anything else which we have received from
Him. Of all the boons of which, in accordance with the indefeasible grant of Him who has
promised them, we have believed ourselves worthy, are we to allow none to the Holy Spirit,
as though they were all above His dignity? It is yours according to your merit to be “ever
with the Lord,” and you expect to be caught up “in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air
and to be ever with the Lord.” 1298 You declare the man who numbers and ranks the Spirit
with the Father and the Son to be guilty of intolerable impiety. Can you really now deny
that the Spirit is with Christ?
70. I am ashamed to add the rest. You expect to be glorified together with Christ; (“if
so be that we suffer with him that we may be also glorified together;” 1299 ) but you do not
glorify the “Spirit of holiness” 1300 together with Christ, as though He were not worthy to
receive equal honour even with you. You hope to “reign with” 1301 Christ; but you “do
despite unto the Spirit of grace” 1302 by assigning Him the rank of a slave and a subordinate.
And I say this not to demonstrate that so much is due to the Spirit in the ascription of glory,
but to prove the unfairness of those who will not ever give so much as this, and shrink from
the fellowship of the Spirit with Son and Father as from impiety. Who could touch on these
things without a sigh? 1303 Is it not so plain as to be within the perception even of a child
that this present state of things preludes the threatened eclipse of the faith? The undeniable
has become the uncertain. We profess belief in the Spirit, and then we quarrel with our
own confessions. We are baptized, and begin to fight again. We call upon Him as the Prince
of Life, and then despise Him as a slave like ourselves. We received Him with the Father
and the Son, and we dishonour Him as a part of creation. Those who “know not what they
ought to pray for,” 1304 even though they be induced to utter a word of the Spirit with awe,
as though coming near His dignity, yet prune down all that exceeds the exact proportion
1295 cf. Gal. v. 5.
1296 cf. Eph. ii. 6.
1297 cf. Phil. iii. 21, and 1 Cor. xv. 44.
1298 1 Thess. iv. 17.
1299 Rom. viii. 17.
1300 Rom. i. 4.
1301 2 Tim. ii. 12.
1302 Heb. x. 29.
1303 cf. Verg., Æn. ii. Quis talia fando…temperet a lacrymis?
1304 Rom. viii. 26.
That our opponents refuse to concede in the case of the Spirit the terms…
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