i] The Triunity of God 53 



to other two. This is necessarily so, because our person- 

 alities are still in a large measure isolated ; we have gone 

 so little way towards perfect union in plurality. Mutu- 

 ality we are beginning to understand, but we confine it 

 to two persons. Moreover the simple relation of mutu- 

 ality between two persons seems to us so almost perfect, 

 that a third would spoil it. The familiar proverb that 

 'two is company; three, none,' goes far deeper than is 

 generally recognised. 



The necessity for this Third Person of the Holy Trinity 

 will emerge more clearly when we come to study the 

 human personality. Meantime, we must content our- 

 selves with say ing that the Godhead is, from the necessity 

 of its own nature as Love, differentiated into I and Thou, 

 Father and Son ; the Father Originative and Active, the 

 Son derivative as the mediating Principle of Ordered 

 Reason, limiting the Father, as it would seem at first 

 sight, in the modes of His Activity. But since such limi- 

 tation is a contradiction of the pure self-determination 

 of the Godhead, from Each proceeds the hypostasis of 

 Freedom which makes the mutuality of Father and Son 

 perfect once more in the mutuality of Each with the 

 Holy Spirit, who retrocedes into Each again. 



But as we look deeper into the mystery of the 

 eternal Personality of God we seem to see a need of 

 the Effulgence or aTravyatrna of His Glory, upon an 

 objective manifold. Love implies activity, functioning 

 externally as well as internally. Perfect Love craves 

 that others should share that perfection, not in order 

 that It may be increased or made more perfect thereby, 

 but because love's nature is centrifugal as well as 

 centripetal. Just because God experiences perfection 

 which cannot be added to, He must needs, in the utter 

 self-lessness of perfect love, make others share it. As 

 we have seen elsewhere Love implies the existence of an 

 eternal subjective or internal manifold, but it desider- 



