velation of Scripture. The gods of the heathen were of like passions
with their worshippers--selfish, cruel, vindictive, and without regard
for equity or justice in their treatment of men. The God of the Bible,
on the other hand, is a righteous God, merciful to His creatures, and
desirous of their temporal and eternal wellbeing, and when He inflicts
suffering it is not as a passionate Judge, but as a Father who chastens
His children for their profit.

The doctrine of the Trinity of Persons in the God-head, though not
expressly stared in the Creed, is implied in the clauses which refer to
each of the Persons who compose it. There is one God, but in the Godhead
there are three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, whose
names indicate the relation in which each stands to the others.

Each of the Persons is complete and perfect God. While there are three
Persons in the Godhead, the same in substance, equal in power and glory,
these three are one. The doctrine thus stated is termed the doctrine of
the Trinity. This word is not found in Scripture, but the truth which it
expresses is set forth there, dimly in the Old Testament, distinctly in
the New. In the first chapter of Genesis the word "God" is in the Hebrew
a plural noun, and yet it is used with a singular verb, thus early
seeming to intimate what afterwards is clearly made known, that there is
a plurality of Persons, who yet constitute the one living and true God.
The same indication of plurality in unity appears in the account of
man's creation: "Let _us_ make man."[019] This doctrine of the
Trinity is essentially one of revelation. Natural religion testifies to
the existence, the personality, and the unity of God, but fails to make
known that the unity of God is a unity of three Persons. The doctrine
does not contradict reason, it is above reason.

It is sometimes said that the doctrine of the Trinity involves a
contradiction in affirming that three Persons are one Person. This
charge misrepresents the doctrine. Trinitarians do not say that Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost are three Persons in the sense in which three men
are three individuals. They believe that there is one God, and that
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are yet so distinct that the Father can
address the Son, the Son can address the Father, and the Father can
address and send the Spirit. God's ways are not as our ways. He is not a
man that He should be limited by the conditions of human relations