It is good, I think, to ascertain how young men [and women] as members of the Church of England [Anglican] were instructed in the Christian Religion in days gone by, say in the sixteenth century. Happily apart from the short Catechism within "The Book of Common Prayer" (1559) only one other Catechism was approved for use in the Church of England during the reign of Elizabeth I. This was the Large Catechism composed by Alexander Nowell, Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, London. In it we find an exposition of the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments and the Apostles’ Creed. In the latter exposition there is, as an example of the teaching, the following material on the Holy Ghost given in the question and answer form. It is very succinct and is what a schoolboy would be taught so that he could recite it by heart as a baptized Christian. O that such teaching were given today to young persons preparing for confirmation!

Master: I would hear thee speak of the third part, what thou believest of the Holy Ghost.

Scholar: I confess that he is the third Person of the most Holy Trinity, proceeding from the Father and the Son before all beginning, equal with them both, and of the very same substance, and together with them both to be honoured [worshipped] and called upon.

Master: Why is he called holy?

Scholar: Not only for his own holiness, which yet is the highest holiness, but also for that by him the elect of God and the members of Christ are made holy. For which cause the Holy Scriptures have called him “the Spirit of sanctification.”

Master: In what things dost thou think that this sanctification consisteth?

Scholar: First, we are by his instinct and breathing newly begotten, and therefore Christ said that we must be born again of water and of the Spirit. Also by his heavenly breathing upon us, God the Father doth adopt us his children, and therefore he is worthily called the Spirit of Adoption. By his expounding, the divine mysteries are opened unto us: by his light, the eyes of our souls are made clear to understand them; by his judgment, sins are either pardoned or reserved; by his strength, sinful flesh is subdued and tamed, and corrupt desires are bridled and restrained. At his will manifold gifts are distributed among the godly. In the manifold and divers discommodities, molestations, and miseries of this life the Holy Ghost with his secret consolation, and with good hope, doth assuage, ease, and comfort the griefs and mourning of the godly, which commonly are in this world most afflicted, and whose sorrows do pass all human consolation: whereof he hath the true and proper name of Paraclete or the Comforter. Finally, by his power our mortal bodies shall rise alive again. Briefly, whatsoever benefits are given us in Christ, all these we understand, feel and receive by the work of the Holy Ghost. Not unworthily, therefore, we put confidence and trust in the Author of so great gifts and do worship and call upon him.

Here we meet the Holy Ghost as the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, in words that are drawn from the dogmatic definitions of the Church of God. But we also meet Him as Person who is active in the Church and in the souls of sinners being saved by grace. And in terms of the developed language of modern theology we encounter him first within the Immanent Trinity and then within the Economic Trinity.

By the “immanent” Trinity I mean the Trinity remaining within itself; that is, God as God is unto himself; or the Three Persons as they are unto themselves within the Unity of the Godhead. Here God is considered in total isolation apart from both creation and the divine plan of salvation, the oikonomia. (It is important that we do not confuse the doctrine of the immanence of God in creation with the doctrine of the “immanent” Trinity. The former speaks of God, who is transcendent, being present in and through his creation, while the latter speaks of God as God is in and unto and for himself in his own being, infinity and eternity.)

By the “economic” Trinity I mean the Trinity in relation to the "oikonomia"; or the sending by the Father of the Son (our Lord Jesus Christ) into the world for our salvation and of the sending of the Holy Ghost (also the Spirit of Christ) to the Church for its sanctification and empowering. The “economic” Trinity is not to be equated with the biblical doctrine(s) of the Trinity for the former is logically dependent upon the concept of the “immanent” Trinity.

There is the biblical presentation of the Holy Ghost who is the Spirit of God the Father; there is the dogmatic presentation of the Holy Ghost within the Undivided Trinity as the Third Person thereof; and then there is the application of this dogma to the biblical material to present the Holy Ghost in the divine economy.

While the conceptual distinction between the “immanent” and “economic” Trinity goes back a long way, these two expressions and the formal distinction between them came into use only in relatively modern times (apparently first by John Urselperger in 1769 according to W.Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Vol.1. p.317, note 112).

There is of course one and only one God who is the Holy Trinity but there is a variety of ways of speaking of this one God who is a Unity in Trinity and a Trinity in Unity.