all such remember, that though the doctrine may appear to them absurd,
because they have not the proper conception of it, some of the
profoundest thinkers, and some of the holiest spirits among mankind,
have believed in this doctrine--have clung to it as a matter of life
or death. Let them be assured of this, that whether the doctrine be
true or false, it is not necessarily a doctrine self-contradictory.
Let them be assured of this, in all modesty, that such men never could
have held it unless there was latent in the doctrine a deep
truth,--perchance the truth of God.

We pass on now to the consideration of this verse under the following
divisions. In the first place, we shall view it as a triad in discord:
"I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved
blameless;" in the second place, as a Trinity in Unity: "the God of
peace sanctify you wholly." We take then first of all for our
consideration the triad in discord: "I pray God your whole body and
soul and spirit be preserved blameless."

The apostle here divides human nature into a three-fold division; and
here we have to observe again the difficulty often experienced in
understanding words. Thus words in the Athanasian creed have become
obsolete, or lost their meaning: so that in the present day the words
"person," "substance," "procession," "generation," to an ordinary
person, mean almost nothing. So this language of the apostle, when
rendered into English, shows no difference whatever between "soul" and
"spirit." We say, for instance, that the soul of a man has departed
from him. We also say that the spirit of a man has departed from him.
There is no distinct difference between the two; but in the original
two very different kinds of thoughts--two very different modes of
conception--are represented by the two English words "soul" and