II. Special Characteristic and Office of the First Personage of the Trinity. III. Father and "Fathering"--Creating and "Sustaining"--"Directing the Creation to Glorious Ends." REFERENCES. The works and passages cited in the body of this lesson. _SPECIAL TEXT: "G. to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend to my Father and your Father; and to my God and your God." (Jesus--St. John xx:17.)_ DISCUSSION. _1. Alikeness and Diversity in the Nature of Divine Beings:_ Whatever may be said in the scriptures of the union in knowledge, mercy, love, power, and will--in a word, whatever may be said of the alikeness of these holy and divine Personages of the trinity, it should be so understood as to allow of the thought of some difference in office; and of some one or more distinctions in their relations to each other, and in their relationship towards men; and even in their physical natures when compared one with another. I feel encouraged to make this avowal, unusual though it may be, because in nature we may observe both a unity and a diversity. Though a given species of grass may have general characteristics in which all the varieties of grasses are alike, yet men have not yet found two blades of grass precisely alike. In all the leaves of the forest, there have not yet been found two leaves exactly alike; among all the hordes of men--the millions living and the millions dead--no two have yet been found one of which is a precise counterpart of the other. It is so everywhere you look in nature; in animal or plant life; in mountains, rivers or valleys; in the sands or among the shells of the sea shore--everywhere unity of kind, of groups, but infinite variety of individuals. That being the general truth taught throughout nature, may it not hold in reference to Divine Personages as well? Without absolutely insisting upon it, I shall venture to say I think so; and that in some way--in office, in function, in appointment, in some respects even in physical nature also--there are distinctive characteristics in the three divine Personages of the Godhead. Setting forth, and in profoundest reverence, the Personages of the Godhead with reference to their chief functions as each stands related to man, they appear as God, the Father; God, the Son, Redeemer of man; God, the Holy Ghost, Witness to man of truth, of all truth. Let us consider each in these capacities respectively. _2. God, the Father:_ With this conception of God as "Father" there is associated the larger--but not higher--idea of "Creator."