When I looked to the sides, to the left I saw learned clergy, and
behind them regular clergy. To the right I saw educated laity, and behind
them, uneducated laity. Between us, though, there was a gaping void that
could not be crossed.
[ 3 ] We turned our eyes and ears to the left where the learned clergy
were, with the regular clergy behind them. We heard them reasoning about
God in the following way: “On the basis of the doctrine of our church—
the single view of God shared by the entire European world—we know that
we have to turn to God the Father, because he cannot be seen. By so doing
we also turn to God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, who likewise cannot
be seen because they are coeternal with the Father. Because God the Father
is the Creator of the universe and is therefore in the universe, wherever we
turn our eyes he is present. When we pray to him he graciously hears us.
After accepting the Son’s mediation, the Father sends the Holy Spirit, who
carries the glory of the Son’s justice into our hearts and blesses us.
“Created as we were to be teachers of the church, when preaching we
have felt in our chests the holy effect of that sending and we have inhaled
a devoutness from its presence in our minds. We have been affected in
this way because we have directed all our senses to a God who cannot be
seen, who works not in a particular way in the sight of our intellect but
in a universal way throughout the whole system of our mind and body
through his emissary Spirit. Worshiping a God who can be seen, a God
whom our minds can picture as a human being, would not yield such
good results.”
[ 4 ] The regular clergy who were behind them applauded these points
and added, “Where does holiness come from if not from a Divinity who
is beyond our ability to picture or perceive? On first hearing even a men-
tion of such a Divinity, our faces light up and broaden into a smile. Like
the caress of some sweet-smelling breeze, the thought exhilarates us and
we thump our chests with vigor. To the mention of a Divinity who is
within our ability to picture and perceive, we react completely differ-
ently. When this comes within earshot it translates into something
merely earthly and not divine.
“For the same reason the Roman Catholics conduct their mass in the
Latin idiom; from the sanctuary of the altar they take the host, about
which they utter divine and mystical things, and display it, and the peo-
ple fall to their knees, as before the greatest of mysteries, and breathe in
the holiness.”
§159 the holy spirit & divine action 223