operate with Him in those works; but to men by whom we read of many miracles having
been done, but by none such miracles as the Son did. And what the Apostle says of the Holy
Spirit, “But all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally
as He will,” is not said, because the Father and the Son do not co-operate with Him; but
because in these works there are not many spirits, but One Spirit, and in His divers operations
He is not diverse from Himself.
27.2439 And yet it is not without cause, but with reason and with truth said, that the
Father, and not the Son and the Holy Spirit, said, “Thou art My beloved Son, in whom I am
well pleased.”2440 Nevertheless, we do not deny that the Son and the Holy Spirit co-operated
in working this miracle of the voice sounding from heaven, though we know that it belongs
to the Person of the Father only. For though the Son bearing flesh, was there conversing
with men on earth, He was not the less on that account in the Bosom of the Father also as
the Only-Begotten Word, when that Voice came out of the cloud; nor could it be either
wisely and through the Spirit 2441 believed, that God the Father separated the operation of
these audible and passing words from the co-operation of His Wisdom and His Spirit. In
the same way when we say most rightly, that not the Father, nor the Holy Spirit, but the Son
walked upon the sea, who only had that flesh and those feet which rested on the waves;2442
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yet who would deny that the Father and the Holy Spirit co-operated in the work of so great
a miracle? For so again we say most truly that the Son only took this our flesh, not the
Father, nor the Holy Spirit, and yet he hath no true wisdom who denies that the Father, or
the Holy Spirit co-operated in the work of His Incarnation which belongeth only to the Son.
So also we say that neither the Father, nor the Son, but the Holy Spirit only appeared both
in the “form of a dove,”2443 and in “tongues as it were of fire;”2444 and gave to those to
whom He came the power to tell in many and various tongues “the wonderful works of
God;” and yet from this miracle which regards the Holy Spirit only, we cannot separate the
co-operation of the Father and the Only-Begotten Word. So also the Whole Trinity work
the works of each several Person in the Trinity, the Two co-operating in the work of the
Other, through a perfect harmony of operation in the Three, and not through any deficiency
of the power to work effectually in One. And since this is so, hence it is that the Lord Jesus
cast out devils in the Holy Spirit. Not that He was not able to accomplish this alone, or that
He assumed that aid as being insufficient for this work; but it was meet that the spirit who
2439 Serm. ii. (lii. Bened.) 8–13 (iv.).
2440 Matt. xvii. 5; Luke iii. 22.
2441 Spiritualiter.
2442 Matt. xiv. 25.
2443 Matt. iii. 16.
2444 Acts ii. 3.
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On the words of the Gospel, Matt. xii. 32, ‘Whosoever shall speak a word…