The knowledge of God is the blessedness of man. To know God, and to be
known by Him--to love God, and to be loved by Him--is the most
precious treasure which this life has to give; properly speaking the
only treasure; properly speaking the only knowledge; for all
knowledge is valuable only so far as it converges towards and ends in
the knowledge of God, and enables us to acquaint ourselves with God,
and be at peace with Him. The doctrine of the Trinity is the sum of
all that knowledge which has as yet been gained by man. I say gained
_as yet_. For we presume not to maintain that in the ages which are to
come hereafter, our knowledge shall not be superseded by a higher
knowledge; we presume not to say that in a state of existence
future--yea even here upon this earth, at that period which is
mysteriously referred to in Scripture as "the coming of the Son of
Man"--there shall not be given to the soul an intellectual conception
of the Almighty, a vision of the Eternal, in comparison with whose
brightness and clearness our present knowledge of the Trinity shall be
as rudimentary and as childlike as the knowledge of the Jew was in
comparison with the knowledge of the Christian.

Now the passage which I have undertaken to expound to-day, is one in
which the doctrine of the Trinity is brought into connection
practically with the doctrine of our Humanity. Before entering into it
brethren, let us lay down these two observations and duties for
ourselves. In the first place, let us examine the doctrine of the
Trinity ever in the spirit of charity.

A clear statement of the deepest doctrine that man can know, and the
intellectual conception of that doctrine, are by no means easy. We are
puzzled and perplexed by _words_; we fight respecting _words_.
Quarrels are nearly always verbal quarrels. Words lose their meaning