Grace is trinitarian: not only because it is the grace of God who is the Trinity, but also because it works in a correspondingly trinitarian way. God’s method of being gracious is to be toward us what he is in himself: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

This strikes some Christians as a new idea these days. But it was once preached and taught as a matter of basic insight into the Bible. Thinkers downstream from John Calvin did an especially good job proclaiming this truth, and the Puritans probably best of all. Take for example John Flavel.
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In a class on Chaucer yesterday, a group of Torrey sophomores (hi, Lewis group!) examined Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales with an eye on the theme of marriage.

Chaucer scholars disagree about the order and coherence of the Tales, but only a pretty obtuse reader would miss the fact that these Canterbury pilgrims are having an extended argument about marriage. Specifically, they are opining about who’s got control in the marriage relationship.

That astonishing woman, the Wife of Bath, declares forcibly that sovereignty belongs to the wife, and the sooner husbands will admit that, the better things will be. She has worn out five husbands, and is looking for the sixth, wink wink. Her prologue and her tale, in diverse ways, make a strong and overt case for female sovereignty, Mighty Matriarchy. Never mind that what she really wants is for a certified Real Man to put up a good fight instead of collapsing under her first assault; the point is she wants to rule.
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Isaac Watts versifies the lines, “with you is the fountain of life; in your light shall we see light:”

Life, like a fountain rich and free,
Springs from the presence of the Lord;
And in thy light our souls shall see
The glories promised in thy word.

Psalm 36:9, “With you is the fountain of life; In your light do we see light,” is a strange line. I looked it up in three books: a modern commentary, a summary of medieval Christian commentaries, and the medieval midrash on the Psalms.

A modern critical commentary: Peter C. Craigie, in volume 19 of the Word Biblical Commentary (Psalms 1-50), helpfully recommends viewing “thy light” as shorthand for “the light of thy countenance,” as in Psalm 4:7 and more importantly Numbers 6:25-6: “The Lord make his face shine upon you.” So “we will be enlightened by the light of your face.” That helps make the passage a bit less dense.

A summary of medieval commentators: Thomas de Vilanova (1488-1555) says, “Scarcely anywhere else in the whole Psalter do we so find the Son and the Holy Ghost, and the Sacraments, preached as here. It is as if David spoke with John’s voice… with Paul’s voice.” John Mason Neale (1818-1866) thinks this verse, understood as referring to the Son coming from the Father, is the source of the phrase “light of light” in the Nicene Creed (381). And Thomas Aquinas hangs detailed argumentation about the mode of the beatific vision on this verse. In Neale’s summary: “In order to see the Essence of God, some kind of similitude to that Essence on the part of the visual power is requisite; in opposition to those who taught, as later and poorer theologians have endeavoured to prove, that the Vision itself is habitual to beatified spirits.”

Wherefore, sings Gerhoch of Reichersberg (1093-1169):

Glory be to the Father, with Whom is the Well of Life, and to the Son, in Whose light we shall see light; and to the Holy Ghost, Whose righteousness standeth like the strong mountains. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.

Midrash Tehillim (Medieval Jewish commentary embodying older traditions): So good I quote it in full:
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An especially spirited rendering of a mythological beast, or, in Freddy’s words, “something God did not make.” Click to enlarge.