thy joy and life, to suffering and death." God is a threefold being, a trinity of persons, means: God is not only a metaphysical, abstract, spiritual, but a physical being. The central point of the Trinity is the Son, for the Father is Father only through the Son; but the mystery of the generation of the Son is the mystery of physical nature. The Son is the need of sensuousness, or of the heart, satisfied in God; for all wishes of the heart, even the wish for a personal God and for heavenly felicity, are sensuous wishes;--the heart is essentially materialistic, it contents itself only with an object which is seen and felt. This is especially evident in the conception that the Son, even in the midst of the Divine Trinity, has the human body as an essential, permanent attribute. Ambrosius: "Scriptum est Ephes. i.: Secundum carnem igitur omnia ipsi subjecta traduntur." Chrysostomus: "Christum secundum carnem pater jussit a cunctis angelis adorari." Theodoretus: "Corpus Dominicum surrexit quidem a mortuis, divina glorificata gloria ... corpus tamen est et habet, quam prius habuit, circumscriptionem." (See Concordienbuchs-anhang. "Zeugnisse der h. Schrift und Altväter von Christo," and Petrus L. l. iii. dist. 10, cc. 1, 2. See also on this subject Luther, Th. xix. pp. 464-468.) In accordance with this the United Brethren say: "I will ever embrace thee in love and faith, until, when at length my lips are pale in death, I shall see thee bodily." "Thy eyes, thy mouth, the body wounded for us, on which we so firmly rely,--all that I shall behold." Hence the Son of God is the darling of the human heart, the bridegroom of the soul, the object of a formal, personal love. "O Domine Jesu, si adeo sunt dulces istae lachrymae, quae ex memoria et desiderio tui excitantur, quam dulce erit gaudium, quod ex manifesta tui visione capietur? Si adeo dulce est flere pro te, quam dulce erit gaudere de te. Sed quid hujusmodi secreta colloquia proferimus in publicum? Cur ineffabiles et innarrabiles affectus communibus verbis conamur exprimere? Inexperti talia non intelligunt. Zelotypus est sponsus iste.... Delicatus est sponsus iste."--Scala Claustralium (sive de modo orandi. Among the spurious writings of St. Bernard). "Luge propter amorem Jesu Christi, sponsi tui, quosque eum videre possis."--(De modo bene vivendi. Sermo x. id.) "Adspectum Christi, qui adhuc inadspectabilis et absens amorem nostrum meruit et exercuit, frequentius scripturae commemorant. Joh. xiv. 3; 1 Joh. iii. 1; 1 Pet. i. 8; 1 Thess. iv. 17. Ac quis non jucundum credat videre corpus illud, cujus velut instrumento usus est filius Dei ad expianda peccata, et absentem tandem amicum salutare?"--Doederlein (Inst. Theol. Chr. l. ii. P. ii. C. ii. Sect. ii. § 302. Obs. 3). "Quod oculis corporis Christum visuri simus, dubio caret."--J. Fr. Buddeus (Comp. Inst. Theol. Dogm. l. ii. c. iii. § 10).