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1. The Holy Spirit, whom the Lord promised to send to His
disciples, to teach them all the truth which, at the time He was
speaking to them, they were unable to bear: of the which Holy
Spirit, as the apostle says, we have now received "the earnest,"
an expression whereby we are to understand that His fullness is
reserved for us till another life: that Holy Spirit, therefore,
teacheth believers also in the present life, as far as they can
severally apprehend what is spiritual; and enkindles a growing desire
in their breasts, according as each one makes progress in that love,
which will lead him both to love what he knows already, and to long
after what still remains to be known: so that those very things which
he has some notion of at present, he may know that he is still ignorant
of, as they are yet to be known in that life which eye hath not seen,
nor ear heard, nor the heart of man hath perceived. But were the
inner Master wishing at present to say those things in such a way of
knowing, that is, to unfold and make them patent to our mind, our
human weakness would be unable to bear them. Whereof you remember,
beloved, that I have already spoken, when we were occupied with the
words of the holy Gospel, where the Lord says, "I have yet many
things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." Not that in
these words of the Lord we should be suspecting an over-fastidious
concealment of no one knows what secrets, which might be uttered by the
Teacher, but could not be borne by the learner, but those very things
which in connection with religious doctrine we read and write, hear and
speak of, as within the knowledge of such and such persons, were
Christ willing to utter to us in the self-same way as He speaks of
them to the holy angels, in His own Person as the only-begotten
Word of the Father, and co-eternal with Him, where are the human
beings that could bear them, even were they already spiritual, as the
apostles still were not when the Lord so spoke to them, and as they
afterwards became when the Holy Spirit descended? For, of course,
whatever may be known of the creature, is less than the Creator
Himself, who is the supreme and true and unchangeable God. And yet
who keeps silence about Him? Where is His name not found in the
mouths of readers, disputants, inquirers, respondents, adorers,
singers, all sorts of haranguers, and lastly even of blasphemers
themselves? And although no one keeps silence about Him, who is
there that apprehends Him as He is to be understood, although He is
never out of the mouths and the hearing of men? Who is there, whose
keenness of mind can even get near Him? Who is there that would have
known Him as the Trinity, had not He Himself desired so to become
known? And what man is there that now holds his tongue about that
Trinity; and yet what man is there that has any such idea of it as the
angels? The very things, therefore, that are incessantly being
uttered off-hand and openly about the eternity, the truth, the
holiness of God, are understood well by some, and badly by others:
nay rather, are understood by some, and not understood at all by
others. For he that understands in a bad way, does not understand at
all. And in the case even of those by whom they are understood in a
right sense, by some they are perceived with less, by others with
greater mental vividness, and by none on earth are apprehended as they
are by the angels. In the very mind, therefore, that is to say, in
the inner man, there is a kind of growth, not only in order to the
transition from milk to solid food, but also to the taking of food
itself in still larger and larger measure. But such growth is not in
the way of a space-covering mass of matter, but in that of an
illuminated understanding; because that food is itself the light of the
understanding. In order, then, to your growth and apprehension of
God, and in order that your apprehension may keep full pace with your
ever-advancing growth, you ought to be addressing your prayer, and
turning your hope, not to the teacher whose voice only reaches your
ears, that is, who plants and waters only by outside labor, but to
Him who giveth the increase.
2. Accordingly, as I have admonished you in my last sermon, take
heed, those of you specially who are still children and have need of a
milk diet, of turning a curious ear to men, who have found occasion
for self-deception and the deceiving of others in the words of the
Lord, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear
them now," in order to the discovery of that which is unknown, while
you still have minds that are incompetent to discriminate between the
true and the false; and most especially on account of the obscene
lewdnesses which Satan has instilled, by God's permission, into
unstable and carnal souls, for this end, that His judgments may
everywhere be objects of terror, and that pure discipline may best
manifest its sweetness in contrast with the impurities of wickedness;
and that honor may be given to Him, and fear and modesty of demeanor
assumed by every one, who has either been kept from falling into such
evils by His kingly power, or been raised out of them by His
uplifting hand.
Beware, with fear and prayer, of rushing into that mystery of
Solomon's, where "the woman that is foolish and brazen-faced, and
become destitute of bread," invites the passers-by with the words,
"Come and make a pleasant feast on hidden bread, and the sweetness of
stolen waters." For the woman thus spoken of is the vanity of the
impious, who, utterly senseless as they are, fancy that they know
something, just as was said of that woman, that she had "become
destitute of bread;" who, though destitute of a single loaf,
promises loaves; in other words, though ignorant of the truth, she
promises the knowledge of the truth. But it is bread of a hidden
character she promises, and which she declares is partaken of with
pleasure, as well as the sweetness of stolen waters; in order that
what is publicly forbidden to be uttered or believed in the Church,
may be listened to and acted upon with willingness and relish. For by
such secrecy profane teachers give a kind of seasoning to their poisons
for the curious, that thereby they may imagine that they learn
something great, because counted worthy of holding a secret, and may
imbibe the more sweetly the folly which they regard as wisdom, the
hearing of which, as a thing prohibited, they are represented as
stealing.
3. Hence the system of magical arts commends its nefarious rites to
those who are deceived, or ready to be so, by a sacrilegious
curiosity. Hence, also, those unlawful divinations by the inspection
of the entrails of slain animals, or of the cries and flights of
birds, or of multiform demoniacal signs, are distilled by converse
with abandoned wretches into the ears of persons who are on the brink of
destruction. And it is because of these unlawful and punishable
secrets that the woman mentioned above is styled not merely
"foolish," but also "audacious." But such things are alien not
only to the reality, but to the very name of our religion. And what
shall we say of this foolish and brazen-faced woman seasoning, as she
does, so many wicked heresies, and serving up so many detestable
fables with Christian forms of expression? Would that they were only
such as are found in theatres, whether as the subjects of song or
dancing, or turned into ridicule by a mimicking buffoonery; and not,
some of them, such as makes us grieve at the foolishness, while
wondering at the audacity that could have contrived them, against
God!
And yet all these utterly senseless heretics, who wish to be styled
Christians, attempt to color the audacities of their devices, which
are perfectly ahorrent to every human feeling, with the chance
presented to them of that gospel sentence uttered by the Lord, "I
have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now:"
as if these were the very things which the apostles could not then
bear, and as if the Holy Spirit had taught them what the unclean
spirit, with all the length he can carry his audacity, blushes to
teach and to preach in broad daylight.
4. It is such whom the apostle foresaw through the Holy Spirit,
when he said: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound
doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves
teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears
from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." For that
mentioning of secrecy and theft, whereof it is said, "Partake with
pleasure of hidden bread and the sweetness of stolen waters," creates
an itching in those who listen with ears that are lusting after
spiritual fornication, just as by a kind of itching also of desire in
the flesh the soundness of chastity is corrupted. Hear, therefore,
how the apostle foresaw such things, and gave salutary admonition about
avoiding them, when be said, "Shun profane novelties of words; for
they increase unto much ungodliness, and their speech insinuates itself
as cloth a cancer." He did not say novelties of words merely; but
added, "profane."
For there are also novelties of words in perfect harmony with religious
doctrine, as is told us in Scripture of the very name of Christians,
when it began to be used. For it was in Antioch that the disciples
were first called Christians after the Lord's ascension, as we read
in the Acts of the Apostles: and certain houses were afterwards
called by the new names of hospices and monasteries; but the things
themselves existed prior to their names, and are confirmed by religious
truth, which also forms their defense against the wicked. In
opposition also to the impiety of Arian heretics, they coined the new
term, Patris Homousios; but there was nothing new signified by such
a name; for what is called Homousios is just this: "I and my
Father are one," to wit, of one and the same substance. For if
every novelty were profane, as little should we have it said by the
Lord, "A new commandment I give unto. you;" nor would the
Testament be called New, nor the new song be sung throughout the
whole earth. But there is profanity in the novelties of words, when
it is said by "the foolish and audacious woman, Come and enjoy the
tasting of hidden bread, and the sweetness of stolen waters." From
such enticing words of false science the apostle also gives his
prohibitory warning, in the passage where he says, "O Timothy,
keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane novelties
of expression, and oppositions of science falsely so called; which
some professing, have erred concerning the faith." For there is
nothing that these men so love as to profess science, and to deride as
utter silliness faith in those verities which the young are enjoined to
believe.
5. But some one will say, Have spiritual men nothing in the matter
of doctrine, which they are to say nothing about to the carnal, but to
speak out upon to the spiritual? If I shall answer, They have not,
I shall be immediately met with the words of the Apostle Paul in his
Epistle to the Corinthians: "I could not speak unto you as unto
spiritual, but as unto carnal. As unto babes in Christ I have given
you milk to drink, and not meat to eat: for hitherto ye were not
able; neither yet now are ye able; for ye are yet carnal;" and with
these, "We speak wisdom among them that are perfect;" and with
these also, "Comparing spiritual things with spiritual: but the
natural man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they
are foolishness unto him." The meaning of all this, in order that
these words of the apostle may no longer lead to the hankering after
secrets through the profane novelties of verbiage, and that what ought
always to be shunned by the spirit and body of the chaste may not be
asserted as only unable to be borne by the carnal, we shall, with the
Lord's permission, make the subject of dissertation in another
discourse, so that for the time we may bring the present to a close.
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