40. Moreover by any one who carefully uses
his reason it will be found that even at the moment of the expected
appearance of the Lord from heaven the Holy Spirit will not, as some
suppose, have no functions to discharge: on the contrary, even in
the day of His revelation, in which the blessed and only
potentate
1 Tim. vi.
15. will judge the
world in righteousness,
Acts xvii.
31. the Holy Spirit
will be present with Him. For who is so ignorant of the good
things prepared by God for them that are worthy, as not to know that
the crown of the righteous is the grace of the Spirit, bestowed in more
abundant and perfect measure in that day, when spiritual glory shall be
distributed to each in proportion as he shall have nobly played the
man? For among the glories of the saints are “many
mansions” in the Father’s house, παρὰ τῷ
πατρί, (=chez le
Père,) with little or no change of meaning, for
ἐν τῇ οἰκί& 139·
τοῦ πατρός
μου. John xiv. 2.
that is differences of dignities: for as “star differeth
from star in glory, so also is the resurrection of the
dead.”
1 Cor. xv. 41,
42. They, then,
that were sealed by the Spirit unto the day of redemption, cf.
Eph. iv. 30. and preserve pure and undiminished the first
fruits which they received of the Spirit, are they that shall hear the
words “well done thou good and faithful servant; thou hast been
faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many
things.”
Matt. xxv.
21. In like
manner they which have grieved the Holy Spirit by the wickedness of
their ways, or have not wrought for Him that gave to them, shall be
deprived of what they have received, their grace being transferred to
others; or, according to one of the evangelists, they shall even be
wholly cut asunder,
Matt. xxiv.
51.—the cutting
asunder meaning complete separation from the Spirit. The body is
not divided, part being delivered to chastisement, and part let off;
for when a whole has sinned it were like the old fables, and unworthy
of a righteous judge, for only the half to suffer chastisement.
Nor is the soul cut in two,—that soul the whole of which
possesses the sinful affection throughout, and works the wickedness in
co-operation with the body. The cutting asunder, as I have
observed, is the separation for aye of the soul from the Spirit.
For now, although the Spirit does not suffer admixture with the
unworthy, He nevertheless does seem in a manner to be
present with them that have once been sealed, awaiting the salvation
which follows on their conversion; but then He will be wholly cut off
from the soul that has defiled His grace. For this reason
“In Hell there is none that maketh confession; in death none that
remembereth God,”
Ps. vi. 5, lxx. ὅτι
οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν
τῷ θανάτῳ ὁ
μνημονεύων
σου, ἐν δὲ τῷ
ἅδῃ τίς
ἐξομολογήσεται
σοι; Vulg. “In inferno autem quis
confitebitur tibi?” because the succour
of the Spirit is no longer present. How then is it possible to
conceive that the judgment is accomplished without the Holy Spirit,
wherein the word points out that He is Himself the prize
Phil. iii.
14. of the righteous, when instead of the
earnest
2 Cor. i. 22, v.
5. is given that which
is perfect, and the first condemnation of sinners, when they are
deprived of that which they seem to have? But the greatest proof
of the conjunction of the Spirit with the Father and the Son is that He
is said to have the same relation to God which the spirit in us has to
each of us. “For what man” it is said, “knoweth
the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so
the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of
God.”
1 Cor. ii.
11.