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AND THEIR REFUTATION. 125
thou shalt say to this people, hearing, hear and understand not.
Blind the heart of this people, and make their ears heavy."
Now, St. Paul informs us that this Supreme God, of whom the
Prophet speaks, is the Holy
Ghost. Here are his words :
"
Well
did the Holy Ghost speak to our fathers by Isaias the Prophet,
" Go to this people, and say to them, ivith the ear you
saying :
shall hear" &c. (Acts, xxviii, 25, 26). So we here see that the
Holy Ghost is that same God called by Isaias the Lord God of
Hosts. St. Basil (19) makes a beautiful reflection regarding this
expression, the Lord God of Hosts. Isaias, in the prayer quoted,
refers it to the Father. St. John (cap. 12), applies it to the Son,
as is manifest from the 37th and the following verse, where this
text is referred to, and St. Paul applies it to the Holy Ghost :
" The
Prophet," says the Saint,
"
mentions the Person of the
Father, in whom the Jews believed, the Evangelist the Son, Paul
Judei cre-
the Holy Spirit"
"
Propheta inducit Patris in quern
debant personam Evangelista Filii, Paulus Spiritus, ilium ipsum
qui visus fuerat unum Dominum Sabaoth communiter nominantes.
Sermonem quern de hypostasi instituerunt distruxere indistincta
manente in eis de uno Deo sententia." How beautifully the
Holy Doctor shows that the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost, are three distinct Persons, but still the one and the same
God, speaking by the mouth of his Prophets. St. Paul, also,
speaking of that passage in the Psalms (xciv, 9),
" Your fathers
tempted me," says, that the God the Hebrews then tempted was
the Holy Ghost ;
"
therefore," says the Apostle,
"
as the Holy
Ghost saith your fathers tempted me" (Heb. iii, 7, 9).
7. St. Peter confirms this doctrine (Acts, i, 16), when he says
that the God who spoke by the mouth of the Prophets is the
"
Ghost himself : The Scripture must be fulfilled, which the
Holy
Holy Ghost spoke before by
second Epistle (i, 21), he says :
the mouth of David." And in the
" For
prophecy came not by the
will of man at any time, but the holy men of God spoke, in
spired by the Holy Ghost." St. Peter, likewise, calls the Holy
Ghost God, in contradistinction to creatures. When charging
Ananias with a lie, he says :
"
Why hath Satan tempted thy
heart, that thou shouldst lie to the Holy Ghost thou hast
(19) St. Basil, /. 5, con. Eunom.