The Christian Trinity; The Doctrine of God. the Father Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. a Discourse Preached in Harvard Church, Charlestown, February 5, 1860 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1860 Excerpt: ... the scriptural references to the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, the chief question is a matter about the right exposition of texts. In the development of a doctrinal system, an additional element intermingles; and human fancies supply either the warp or the woof of the fabric. The careful student of the course of discussion and controversy on this doctrine will note two quite different processes used in arguing for it. One process picks out sentences or half-sentences through all the books of Scripture, and works them into a perfect mosaic of fragments, in order that the composite result may exhibit a Trinity of personalities in the Unity of the Godhead. The other process deals with the doctrine of the Trinity, not so much as finding a statement in the text of the Scriptures, but as inwrought into the scheme and method of redemption by the Gospel. The Christian system, it is affirmed, is built upon the disclosure of a partition of divine instrumentalities between three personalities in the Godhead. In this point of view, the doctrine of the Trinity is made to be the very arcana, the interior secret, of revelation. The relation of the doctrine to the organic development and to the working plan of the Gospel is strongly insisted upon. Some of the most earnest modern defenders of the doctrine plead for it, not so much through the stress of evidence offered for it in the literal statements of Scripture, as for the sake of the inferential uses and the doctrinal corollaries to be drawn from it. It is adopted as a central truth, that it may serve as a starting-point for the development of a system. Its affiliated doctrines are made to be dependent upon it. It becomes the sap-root of the Christian vine. In this case, the usual method of deducing the doc...