Trinity Sunday. The Gospel. Matthew 28:18. Tuesday Meditation Plaine Path-way to Heaven ~ THOMAS HILL 1634

Tuesday Meditation

If it were possible that there could be many Gods, the contrary may be demonstrated and proved by natural reasons. Among the rest is this of St. Ambrose: If there were many Gods, he says, they must have many wills. Having so many wills, they must either agree or disagree. If they disagree, the world could not be so orderly and uniformly governed as we see it is. If they agree, then either one of them could govern it alone, or not. If not, then neither he nor the other would be omnipotent, and consequently no God. If one were sufficient, then more would be superfluous and in vain.

Therefore, as I said before, although it were possible that there could be many Gods (as by this argument aforesaid, besides diverse others, is shown there cannot be), religion would be more glorious both in itself and to us. In itself, because as the Gods are multiplied, so is their honour. To us, because if it be an honour unto us (as it is) to have one God, to be beloved of him, and to have him as our Father and friend, how much more to have many?

Wherefore, although we cannot come to this honour of a multiplicity of Gods (because it cannot be), yet in having one God and three Persons, we come as near unto it as can be possible. For if there were one God and one Person, it were too little for a true God. If there were more than three Persons to one God, it were too much for a true God. Wherefore, believing as we do in one God and three Persons, neither more nor less, we cannot choose but have the true God. All the rest of the Gods of the Gentiles, as the Prophet David says (Psalm 95), are devils, and not Gods.By which three Persons—acknowledging them, as we do, every one to be perfect God, and yet all three but one God—we are much more honoured than if we acknowledged one God and one Person only. And we give more honour to God, because his honour is more extended to three Persons than to one, by attributing to every Person his several office as aforesaid: our Creation to God the Father, our Redemption to God the Son, and our Sanctification to God the Holy Ghost.

That there must be in God three Persons, and no more nor less, I will not go about by any discourse of natural reason to show, for it is so far above the reach of natural reason that it were a great folly and presumption (as aforesaid). But I will prove it only by that which God hath revealed unto us by his Son Christ Jesus in his sacred Word.

Christ himself hath revealed unto us that there are three divine Persons, and that these three are one God. He promised that the Holy Ghost, when he came, should teach his Church all truth, and nothing but the truth, for he is the Spirit of truth. But this Spirit hath revealed no more nor less. Therefore there are no more Persons nor less. If there are no more nor less, it is impossible there should be more or less, for nothing is in God more or less than of necessity must be.

This knowledge of the Blessed Trinity, though it were obscurely shadowed out in the Old Testament, yet Christ was the clear Revealer of it, making mention oftentimes of his Father that sent him, and of the Holy Ghost whom he would send (as he did indeed), and affirming by his own mouth that his Father and he were one; and by the mouth of St. John the Evangelist, his beloved disciple, that the Father, the Son (whom he calleth the Word, but meaneth the Son), and the Holy Ghost were one.And here in this Gospel, more plainly indeed than almost anything could be, bidding his disciples preach the Gospel and to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, joining all three in equal authority together.

This knowledge, St. Paul in one place (having spoken immediately before of it) by way of thanksgiving for so great a benefit, calleth the plenitude or fulness of our knowledge of God. And in another place, the clearness or brightness of God in the face of Jesus Christ.Let us therefore give thanks, with St. Paul, for so great a benefit, and sing with our holy Mother the Church:

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost: As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

And glory be again to our Lord Jesus Christ, who so clearly revealed this glorious and comfortable mystery of the Blessed Trinity unto us—which till then was very obscurely known, and that unto very few.

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