in that sin which He mentioned when He said, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they had not had sin:”2421 which sin also in the Gospel according to John He shows to be a very grievous one, when He says of the Holy Spirit Himself, when He promised that He would send Him, “He shall reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believed not on Me:”2422 yet if that hardness of the impenitent heart have not spoken a word against the Holy Ghost, even this which is spoken against the Son of Man shall be forgiven. 25. Here perhaps some one may ask, “whether the Holy Ghost only forgiveth sins, and not the Father and the Son also?” I answer, Both the Father and the Son forgive them. For the Son Himself saith of the Father, “If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.”2423 And we say to Him in the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father, which art in heaven.”2424 And amongst the other petitions we ask this, saying, “Forgive us our debts.”2425 And again of Himself He saith, “That ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins.”2426 “If then,” you will say, “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit forgive sins, why is that impenitence which shall never be forgiven, said to relate only to the blasphemy of the Spirit, as though he who should be bound in this sin of impen- itence should seem to resist the gift of the Holy Spirit, because by that gift is wrought the 327 remission of sins?” Now on this point, I will also ask, Whether Christ only cast out devils, or the Father and the Holy Spirit also? For if Christ only, what means His saying, “The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works.”2427 For so it is said, “He doeth the works,” as if the Son doeth them not, but the Father who dwelleth in the Son. Why then in another place doth He say, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”2428 And a little after, “For what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.”2429 But when in another place He says, “If I had not done amongst them the works which none other man did,”2430 He speaks as if He did them alone. Now if these things are so expressed, as that nevertheless the works of the Father and the Son are inseparable, what must we believe of the Holy Spirit, but that He also worketh equally with them? For in that very place, from which this 2421 John xv. 22. 2422 John xvi. 8, 9. 2423 Matt. vi. 14. 2424 Matt. vi. 9. 2425 Matt. vi. 12. 2426 Matt. ix. 6. 2427 John xiv. 10. 2428 John v. 17. 2429 John v. 19. 2430 John xv. 24. 689 On the words of the Gospel, Matt. xii. 32, ‘Whosoever shall speak a word…