and unchangeableness of the Trinity, and in which, above all, we see at what a distance from
all others in respect of essential character that humanity stands by whose assumption it oc-
curred that the Word was made flesh, cannot be clearly discerned and recognised until the
Lord Himself comes. Consequently, it will tarry thus until He comes. At present it will tarry
in the faith of believers, but hereafter it will be possible to contemplate it face to face,1667
when He, our Life, shall appear, and when we shall appear with Him in glory.1668 But if any
one supposes that with man, living, as he still does, in this mortal life, it may be possible for
a person to dispel and clear off every obscurity induced by corporeal and carnal fancies, and
to attain to the serenest light of changeless truth, and to cleave constantly and unswervingly
to that with a mind thoroughly estranged from the course of this present life, that man un-
derstands neither what he asks, nor who he is that put such a supposition. Let such an indi-
vidual rather accept the authority, at once lofty and free from all deceitfulness, which tells
us that, as long as we are in the body, we are absent from the Lord, and that we walk by faith
and not by sight.1669 And thus, with all perseverance keeping and guarding his faith and
hope and charity, let him look forward to the sight which is promised, in accordance with
that earnest which we have received of the Holy Ghost, who shall teach us all truth,1670
when God, who raised up Jesus Christ from the dead, shall also quicken our mortal bodies
by His Spirit that dwelleth in us.1671 But before this body, which is dead by reason of sin,
is quickened, it is without doubt corruptible, and presseth down the soul.1672 And if, in the
body, man is ever helped to reach beyond the cloud with which the whole earth is
covered,1673—that is to say, beyond this carnal darkness with which the whole life of earth
is covered,—it is simply as if he were touched with a rapid coruscation, only to sink swiftly
into his natural infirmity, the desire surviving by which he may again be excited (to what
is evil), and the purity being insufficient to establish him (in what is good). The more,
however, any one can do this, the greater is he; while the less he can do so, the less is he.
And if the mind of a man has as yet had no such experience—in which mind nevertheless
Christ dwells by faith—he ought to strive earnestly to diminish the lusts of this world, and
to make an end of them by the exercise of moral virtue, walking, as it were, in the company
of these three evangelists with Christ the Mediator. And, with the joy of large hope, let him
in faith hold Him who is alway the Son of God, but who, for our sakes, became the Son of
1667 1 Cor. xiii. 12.
1668 Col. iii. 4.
1669 2 Cor. v. 6, 7.
1670 John xvi. 13.
1671 Rom. viii. 10, 11.
1672 Wisd. of Sol. ix. 13.
1673 Ecclus. xxiv. 3.
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Of the Evangelist John, and the Distinction Between Him and the Other T…