{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/101/1010273.htm","path":"chr/ecf/101/1010273.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/101/1010273.htm","text":"Chapter VII.\u2014That the Holy Spirit Brings Us to God.\n8. Hence let him that is able now follow Thy apostle with his understanding where he thus speaks, because Thy love \u201cis shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us;\u201d 1182 and where, \u201cconcerning spiritual gifts,\u201d he teacheth and showeth unto us a more excellent way of charity; 1183 and where he bows his knees unto Thee for us, that we may know the super-eminent knowledge of the love of Christ. 1184 And, therefore, from the beginning was He super-eminently \u201cborne above the waters.\u201d To whom shall I tell this? How speak of the weight of lustful desires, pressing downwards to the steep abyss? and how charity raises us up again, through Thy Spirit which was \u201cborne over the waters?\u201d To whom shall I tell it? How tell it? For neither are there places in which we are merged and emerge. 1185 What can be more like, and yet more unlike? They be affections, they be loves; the filthiness of our spirit flowing away downwards with the love of cares, and the sanctity of Thine raising us upwards by the love of freedom from care; that we may lift our hearts 1186 unto Thee where Thy Spirit is \u201cborne over the waters;\u201d and that we may come to that pre-eminent rest, when our soul shall have passed through the waters which have no substance. 1187\n\u201cNeque enim loca sunt quibus mergimur et emergimus.\u201d\n192:1186\nWatts remarks here: \u201cThis sentence was generally in the Church service and communion. Nor is there scarce any one old liturgy but hath it, Sursum corda, Habemus ad Dominum.\u201d Palmer, speaking of the Lord\u2019s Supper, says, in his Origines Liturgic\u00e6., iv. 14, that \u201cCyprian, in the third century, attested the use of the form, \u2018Lift up your hearts,\u2019 and its response, in the liturgy of Africa (Cyprian, De Orat. Dom. p. 152, Opera, ed. Fell). Augustin, at the beginning of the fifth century, speaks of these words as being used in all churches\u201d (Aug. De Vera Relig. iii. ). We find from the same writer, ibid. v. 5, that in several churches this sentence was used in the office of baptism.\n192:1187\n\u201cSine substantia,\u201d the Old Ver. rendering of Ps. cxxiv. 5. The Vulgate gives \u201caquam intolerabilem.\u201d The Authorized Version, however, correctly renders the Hebrew by \u201cproud waters,\u201d that is, swollen. Augustin, in in Ps. cxxiii. 5, sec. 9, explains the \u201caqua sine substantia,\u201d as the water of sins; \u201cfor,\u201d he says, \u201csins have not substance; they have weakness, not substance; want, not substance.\u201d","title":"Nicene and Post Nicene-Fathers, Vol. I: The Confessions: ...","type":"page"}