Mr. C.F.H. Johnston (The Book of St. Basil the Great on the Holy Spirit), in noting that St. Basil in the De Sp. Scto. refrained from directly using the term Θεός of the Holy Ghost, remarks that he also avoided the use of the term ὁμοούσιος of the Son, “in accordance with his own opinion expressed in Ep. ix.”  In Ep. ix., however, he rather gives his reasons for preferring the homoousion.  The epitome of the essay of C. G. Wuilcknis (Leipsig, 1724) on the economy or reserve of St. Basil, appended by Mr. Johnston, is a valuable and interesting summary of the best defence which can be made for such reticence.  It is truly pointed out that the only possible motive in Basil’s case was the desire of serving God, for no one could suspect or accuse him of ambition, fear, or covetousness.  And if there was an avoidance of a particular phrase, there was no paltering with doctrine.  As Dr. Swete (Doctrine of the H. S., p. 64) puts it:  “He knew that the opponents of the Spirit’s Deity were watching their opportunity.  Had the actual name of God been used in reference to the Third Person of the Trinity, they would have risen, and, on the plea of resisting blasphemy, expelled St. Basil from his see, which would then have been immediately filled by a Macedonian prelate.  In private conversation with Gregory, Basil not only asserted again and again the Godhead of the Spirit, but even confirmed his statement with a solemn imprecation, ἐπαρασάμενος ἑαυτῷ τὸ φρικωδέστατον, αὐτοῦ τοῦ πνεύματος ἐκπεσεῖν εἰ μὴ σέβοι τὸ πνεῦμα μετὰ πατρὸς καὶ ῾Υιοῦ ὡς ὁμοούσιον καὶ ὁμότιμον.”  (Greg. Naz., Or. xliii.)  In Letter viii. § 11 he distinctly calls the Spirit God, as in Adv. Eunomius, v., if the latter be genuine.  In the De S. Scto. (p. 12) Basil uses the word οἰκονομία in the patristic sense nearly equivalent to incarnation.  In the passage of Bp. Lightfoot, referred to in the note on p. 7, he points out how in Ign. ad Eph. xviii, the word has “already reached its first stage on the way to the sense of ‘dissimulation,’ which was afterwards connected with it, and which led to disastrous consequences in the theology and practice of a later age.”  On “Reserve” as taught by later casuists, see Scavini, Theolog. Mor. ii. 23, the letters of Pascal, and Jer. Taylor, Ductor Dubit. iii. 2.