re," says the
apostle, "in our Gentile state, fulfilling the desires of the flesh
and of the mind." Man naturally fulfils not merely the desires of the
flesh, but the desires of the mind. "And were," says the apostle,
"children of wrath."

One of the saddest spectacles is the decay of the natural man before
the work of the Spirit has been accomplished in him. When the savage
dies--when a mere infant dies--when an animal dies--there is nothing
that is appalling or depressing there; but when the high, the
developed intellect--when the cultivated man comes to the last hours
of life, and the memory becomes less powerful, and the judgment fails,
and all that belongs to nature and to earth visibly perishes, and the
higher life has not been yet developed, though it is destined to
survive the grave for ever--even the life of God--there is here ample
cause for grief; and it is no wonder that the man of genius merely
should shed tears at he idea of decaying life.

We pass on to consider the Trinity in unity. All this is contained in
that simple expression, "The God of peace." God is a God of unity. He
makes one where before there were two. He is the God of peace, and
therefore can make peace. Now this peace, according to the Trinitarian
doctrine, consists in a threefold unity. Brethren, as we remarked
respecting this first of all, the distinction in this Trinity is not a
physical distinction, but a metaphysical one. The illustrations which
are often given are illustrations drawn from material sources: if we
take only those, we get into contradiction: for example, when we talk
of personality, our idea is of a being bounded by space; and then to
say in this sense that three persons are one, and one is three, is
simply contradictory and absurd. Remember that the doctrine of the
Trinity is a metaphysical doctrine. It is a trinity--a division in the
mind of God. It is not three materials; it is three persons in a sense
we shall explain by and by.

In the next place I will endeavour to explain the doctrine--not to
prove it, but to show its rationality, and to explain what it is.

The first illustration we endeavour to give in this is taken from the
world of matter. We will take any material substance: we find in that
substance qualities; we will say three qualities--colour, shape, and
size. Colour is not shape, shape is not size, size is not colour. They
are three distinct essences, three distin