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come hereafter, our knowledge shall not be superseded by a higher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
in the course of time; nay, the very words of the Athanasian creed
which we read to-day mean not in this age, the same thing which they
meant in ages past. Therefore it is possible that men, externally
Trinitarians, may differ from each other though using the same words,
as greatly as a Unitarian differs from a Trinitarian. There may be
found in the same Church and in the same congregation, men holding all
possible shades of opinion, though agreeing externally, and in words.

I speak within the limit of my own experience when I say that persons
have been known and heard to express the language of bitter
condemnation respecting Unitarianism, who when examined and calmly
required to draw out verba