By this we know that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Begin to love; you shall be perfected. Have you begun to love? God has begun to dwell in you: love Him that has begun to dwell in you, that by more perfect indwelling He may make you perfect.
It is well: thanks be to God! We come to know that He dwells in us. And whence come we to know this very thing, to wit, that we do know that He dwells in us? Because John himself has said this: Because He has given us of His Spirit. Whence know we that He has given us of His Spirit? This very thing, that He has given you of His Spirit, whence do you come to know it? Ask your own bowels: if they are full of charity, you have the Spirit of God. Whence know we that by this you know that the Spirit of God dwells in you? Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us. Romans 5:5
In this we know that we abide in Him . . . by His Spirit, &c. By His Spirit, i.e, the participation of the Spirit, the communication of grace and charity, which are the gifts of the Spirit.
In the preceding verse S. John said that God abides in us, and consequently we in God by charity. For so loving He abides in the lover and the beloved. For so God loves us and we God. He here inculcates the same thing, repeats it, and as it were enforces it by a reason. The reason is this, He who hath the Spirit of God abides in God, and God in him: but he who hath charity hath the Spirit of God. Therefore he who hath charity abides in God and God in him. The major premiss is self-evident, because where the Spirit of God Isaiah , there is God Himself. But where God Isaiah , there He unites to Himself the subject in which He Isaiah , and by, as it were, the infinity of His Essence incorporates and absorbs it, so that the subject should be more in God than God in it. He therefore who hath experience ...
