The mystery of the Trinity is brought home to our lives by investing each of our spiritual relations with that particular divine Person, who is particularly and directly operative at a particular moment or occasion in it. St. Paul, assiduously, impresses us with, and instructs us in, this particular habit. Holy Scripture does not permit that practical abolition of the Three Persons, such as has no concern for the personality of the one immediately working in us. Practically, however, our manner of acting is tantamount to our saying or observing,—"Ah! what matters it? It is all one God!" There is, of course, in this attitude, practical fusion of the Divine Persons in our lives. Our lives proclaim that one person as such is the same as another. There is, nevertheless, a difference existing between the Divine Persons, and St. Paul's persistent reiteration of the several Persons proves that it is not matter of a dead letter or cold, impractical theory:—"This is our faith," says St. Augustine, "that we believe and confess that Father, Son and Holy Ghost are one God, but, we can not ever call the Son, Father, nor the Father, Son, nor call Him Who is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, either Father or Son. For these designations signify what they are to one another." (Eph. clxxiv.)
Having advanced another step in the mountain of Sion, we may pause and, reclining, look out upon the new beauties of Godhead that will transfigure more and more the soul and impress the heart afresh, as we inhale Godhead, lingeringly. With eyes heaven-bent, our bursting hearts will exclaim to the Author of all: "Thou art the Lord, the only God, and glorious over all the world." (Daniel, iii, 45.) "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts."—Godhead bewilders me; its soft mysteriousness charms me; ah, it is good to be here, it attracts me from the low earth. Sin hath separated me, like Israel, from His gaze, alas! too long. "We are admonished more than any nation, and are brought low in all the earth, this is done for our sins. Our lives have been unholy, we have not sought our only end, God." Like Lot's wife, we have turned back, but now all that, thank God, is changed, and "we follow Thee with all our heart, and we fear Thee and seek Thy face." (v. 41.) The prophet puts these words upon our lips and now they fit our minds and our hearts.
Fleshly no longer, low, creeping things, but,— "servants of the Lord;" "Spirits and souls of the just, lowly and humble of heart;" let us say it in one word—Saints. "Ustote sancti!"
The Father is Spirit, the Son is Spirit, and the Holy Ghost is Spirit. Ah! I, too, would be spirit, and, "the Spirit breatheth where He will, and they hear His voice." (St. John, iii, 8.)
How fragrant His breath as I ascend to the clouds of Sion "to seek His face," in prayer and meditation, and my soul catches the aroma of the mountain daisy, bathed in the early morning dew. How my shrivelled soul expands, as I uplift it, by prayer and meditation, I repeat,—the only path— to the lofty, invigorating air of the Divine essence and goodness, unfolding themselves before my soul, truth and judgment dawning in their unrivalled effulgence of color and symphony of tone and culminating in a glorious sun-burst of love for God.
The prospect of my soul widens. The Spirit's breath hath electrically stirred the currents of my sluggish, somnolent, aye, debilitated and even deadened soul; the mercury begins to rise once more and my icy heart melts. Yes, the soul's winter has passed and beautiful spring has come. Yes, I am, forsooth, spirit. Now! and ever shall the Spirit's voice, heard in yonder clouds of meditation, linger in my memory—"be holy because I am holy." (Lev. xi, 44.) This echo merges into, and is perpetuated in, the heart by the words of the Son of Man:—"Be ye therefore perfect, as also your Heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew v, 48.)
