Vestigia Trinitatis in Man and his Works in the English Renaissance

Abstract

It is, John Donne told his congregation in sermon preached at Lincoln's Inn on Trinity Sunday, 1620, a lovely and religious thing, to finde out Vestigia Trinitatis, Impressions of the Trinity, in as many things as we can .... Let us therefore, with S. Bernard, consider Trinitatem Creatricem, and Trinitatem Createm, Creating, and Created Trinity; Trinity, which the Trinity in Heaven, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, hath created in our soules, Reason, Memory, and Will. .. .1 He was asserting doctrine that appears to have had widespread expression and application in Renaissance England, in forms ranging from Sir Thomas Tresham's perhaps frivolous endeavors to incarnate the idea of the Trinity in the architecture of Longford Castle and Rushton Lodge2 to John Davies of Hereford's perception of the image of the Trinity in the human soul: just as God is one, but three persons,