The servitor answered: The more simple any being is in itself, the
more manifold is it in its energy and operation. That which has
nothing gives nothing, and that which has much can give much. I have
already spoken of the inflowing and overflowing fount of good which
God is in Himself. This infinite and superessential goodness
constrains Him not to keep it all within Himself, but to communicate
it freely both within and without Himself. But the highest and most
perfect outpouring of the good must be within itself, and this can
be nought else but a present, interior, personal and natural
outpouring, necessary, yet without compulsion, infinite and perfect.
Other communications, in temporal matters, draw their origin from
this eternal communication of the Divine Goodness. Some theologians
say that in the outflow of the creatures from their first origin
there is a return in a circle of the end to the beginning; for as
the emanation of the Persons from the Godhead is an image of the
origin of the creatures, so also it is a type of the flowing back of
the creatures into God. There is, however, a difference between the
outpouring of the creatures and that of God. The creature is only a
particular and partial substance, and its giving and communication
is also partial and limited. When a human father begets a son, he
gives him part, but not the whole, of his own substance, for he
himself is only a partial good. But the outpouring of God is of a
more interior and higher kind than the creature's outpouring,
inasmuch as He Himself is a higher good. If the outpouring of God is
to be worthy of His pre-eminent being, it must be according to
personal relations.
Now, then, if you can look upon the pure goodness of the highest
Good (which goodness is, by its nature, the active principle of the
spontaneous love with which the highest Good loves itself) you will
behold the most excellent and superessential outpouring of the Word
from the Father, by which generation all things exist and are
produced; and you will see also in the highest good, and the highest
outpouring, the most holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
existing in the Godhead. And if the highest outpouring proceeds from
the highest essential good, it follows that there must be in this
Trinity the highest and most intimate consubstantiality or community
of being, and complete equality and identity of essence, which the
Persons enjoy in sweetest communion, and also that the Substance and
power of the three almighty Persons is undivided and unpartitioned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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