The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent: A Complete Course of 66 Short Sermons, or Full Sermon Outlines for Each Sunday, and Some Chief Holy Days of the Christian Year — John Shaqi
The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent: A Complete Course of 66 Short Sermons, or Full Sermon Outlines for Each Sunday, and Some Chief Holy Days of the Christian YearBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent: A Complete Course of 66 Short Sermons, or Full Sermon Outlines for Each Sunday, and Some Chief Holy Days of the Christian Year
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Anglican Communion -- England -- Sermons; Church of England -- Sermons; Church year sermons; Sermons, English
INTRODUCTION.--An ancient writer informs us that when the Egyptians named
their Greatest God who was over all, they cried thrice, "Darkness!
Darkness! Darkness!" And when we come to speak of the great mystery of
the Holy Trinity, the utmost we can do is to repeat their cry, and say,
"Darkness! Darkness! Darkness! In the name of the Father--Darkness,
and of the Son--Darkness; and of the Holy Ghost--Darkness!" for however
much the mind may strive to penetrate this mystery, it can never attain
to its solution. Just as the eye, looking at the sun, sees the
Overpowering light as a dark ball, being dazzled by its excessive glory,
so the eye of the mind perceives only darkness, when looking into the
infinite splendour of God in Three Persons.
We may, indeed, see sundry likenesses here on earth, which assist us in
believing the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, but they are helps, and helps
only; and not explanations. Thus, the sun may shine into a glass, and
the glass reflect in clear water, and we see three suns, a sun in the
heaven, a sun in the glass, and a sun in the water, which proceeds from
both;--and this assists us to understand how the Son of God is of the
Father, and the Holy Ghost is of the Father, and of the Son, and how that
each is God, and yet that there are not three Gods, but one God. But,
after all, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is a matter of Faith, and not
of Reason. We must believe, though we cannot understand.
SUBJECT.--In this Holy Trinity of Persons there is perfect unity
existing, an unity of substance, an unity of Godhead, an unity of
perfection, an unity of love.
And on earth, among men, there should be unity. "Be ye perfect," said
our Lord, "even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." The
Father is love, the Son is love, and the Holy Ghost is the love of the
Father and of the Son, and this love requires the same of us--even love,
or unity.
This is what God wills on earth, our living unity, even as it exists in
Heaven between the Three Persons of the glorious Trinity.
But there are three great hindrances to Christian Unity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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