What is He as cause, and what is this divine life of His being which is the effect of that cause? As cause, He is the Father, the Parent, the Progenitor, the Producer, the Begetter of His own life. And that life, which is begotten in Himself, is the Son. He is the eternally living God, and hence the Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The Person of God who begets His own life is the Father. The Person who is the Life begotten is the Son; and is a Person, because it is God who says by the mouth of the Son—I am the Life begotten.
Both the Father and the Son are equal, because it is the same Divine Being who is both Father and Son, as we profess in the Creed—"consubstantial with the Father." Both are eternal. The Father does not exist before the Son, because it is the same Divine Being which is the life as Son, as well as Giver of life as the Father. God is the Father, because He begets a Son—His Life. God is the Son, because He is the Life begotten of the Father—the Divine Progenitor of the Life of the Eternal Godhead.
God is the eternally living God. He lives the life which He gives Himself. His life is infinitely perfect, infinitely lovely, infinitely good. He enjoys the life He has. We possess life, not like the life of God, it is true, because it is limited in duration, imperfect in action, subject to change, and incapable of absolute happiness; but, such as it is, we live it, we enjoy it. The enjoyment or living of our life proceeds from two sources. First, from the cause of our life—from that which makes us live; and, secondly, from the life we possess. And we say—I enjoy my own life. But, mark it, we cannot say as the Father can say—I give myself life; nor as the Son of God can say—I am the life. We can only say—I enjoy the life which is given to me. Hence we are only one person—the person living, enjoying the life which is not from ourselves, but from God.
So God enjoys with an infinite beatitude His own life. It is the Person of the Holy Ghost. He says not—I give myself life. It is the Person of the Father which says that. He does not say—I am the life. It is the Person of the Son who says that. But he says—I am God, living My life; I am God, enjoying My life. Yet it must be kept in mind that all this is one simultaneous act in God: the eternal giving of life to Himself; the life itself eternally springing into being, and the eternal enjoyment or fruition of life. These are not separate acts, but one, single, inseparable act of the Triune God. The Being which acts is God, and God is not one or two of the Trinity, but the Trinity itself. The principle of the act is attributed to the Person; the act itself to the God head. Hence, again, the Son does not live a different life from the Father, or the Holy Ghost a different life from the other two Persons, but the life they live is all one.
To the Holy Ghost is attributed the living or enjoyment of life, as we attribute the living of our own life to our own person; and, therefore, our person is, in a remarkable manner, an image of the Holy Ghost. We speak of our spirit as living, rejoicing, etc., and when we die or yield up the living of our life, we say—We give up the ghost.
In Me, says the Holy Ghost, are all possible perfections; I rejoice in them. My life is all good, wherefore I love Myself with infinite love. My life is all beautiful, wherefore I admire it, and am well pleased, and take an infinite delight in it. My life is all holy. I am the supreme object of My own adoration. My life is all true, wherefore I contemplate all truth with unspeakable bliss. In My life is no conflict, no change, no anxiety, doubt, or sorrow, wherefore I am in eternal peace. My life is all that is or can be, wherefore I seek not for My happiness outside of My own happy being. Such I am, and such I live, the Holy Ghost, who proceed from the Father and the Son, who, together with the Father and the Son, am adored and glorified, the great I AM, the Ancient of Days, Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, who was, and who is, and who is to come, the Almighty, Good, Wise, Just, and True, the eternal, living God.
Dear brethren, such thoughts, I know, are bewildering, and leave our poor human intellects stupefied in presence of that Majesty, the simplest idea of whom is beyond all power of expression.
But we know that God is, and that we know Him, great as He is, incomprehensible as He is, so far transcending all grasp of our feeble minds; yet even in His mysterious Being He is no stranger to us. The doctrine of the Trinity of Persons in God is wonderful, but it is not a strange doctrine. It is a truth full of light and consolation. It is a revelation of Him, who is all in all, that draws us, if I may say so, nearer to Him.
Starting with this view of Him, enlightened with this truth, all that He has done for us in the world of nature and of grace, becomes clear, plain, reasonable, and consequent. All the other mysterious truths of Christianity, as I have said before, suppose the truth of this, and, indeed, would be unmeaning without it. The consideration of one or two of these will confirm the view I have taken of it.