Chapter II. Doctrine Of The Trinity.

I. In Scriptures there are Three who are recognized as God. 1. Proofs from the New Testament. A. The Father is recognized as God. B. Jesus Christ is recognized as God. C. The Holy Spirit is recognized as God. 2. Intimations of the Old Testament. A. Passages which seem to teach plurality of some sort in the Godhead. B. Passages relating to the Angel of Jehovah. C. Descriptions of the divine Wisdom and Word. D. Descriptions of the Messiah. II. These Three are so described in Scripture that we are compelled to conceive of them as distinct Persons. 1. The Father and the Son are persons distinct from each other. 2. The Father and the Son are persons distinct from the Spirit. 3. The Holy Spirit is a person. III. This Tripersonality of the Divine Nature is not merely economic and temporal, but is immanent and eternal. 1. Scripture proof that these distinctions of personality are eternal. 2. Errors refuted by the foregoing passages. A. The Sabellian. B. The Arian. IV. This Tripersonality is not Tritheism; for, while there are three Persons, there is but one Essence. V. The Three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are equal. 1. These titles belong to the Persons. 2. Qualified sense of these titles. 3. Generation and procession consistent with equality. VI. Inscrutable, yet not self-contradictory, this Doctrine furnishes the Key to all other Doctrines. 1. The mode of this triune existence is inscrutable. 2. The Doctrine of the Trinity is not self-contradictory. 3. The doctrine of the Trinity has important relations to other doctrines.