F. W. BOREHAM

DREAMS AT SUNSET (Epworth Press 1954) pgs 115-121

I have made up my mind to preach on Sunday on a subject a million sizes too big for me; a million sizes too big for my congregation; a million sizes too big for any preacher or any congregation. I shall commence the service with the hymn-

Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty!

Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee:

Holy, Holy, Holy! merciful and mighty,

God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity!

and that last line will represent my theme.

I shall approach my stupendous task with the conviction that neither I nor my hearers will have acquired a more intelligent grasp of the sublime topic as a result of our mutual study: yet it is good for children to bathe now and then in the sea even though they cannot conceive of its infinite breadths and infinite depths. When I leave the pulpit at the close of my service, I shall find comfort in the thought that the gospel transcends at every point the intelligence of the poor preacher who is called on to expound it. It is higher than all the heights; deeper than all the depths; wider than all the immensities and infinities and eternities of his most dazzling dreams. Like the peace of God, it passeth all understanding.

"Can you understand Jesus Christ?" someone asked Daniel Webster one day, when the great statesman was surrounded by a group of his literary acquaintances. "No!" he replied, "I would be ashamed to acknowledge Him as my Saviour if I could understand Him. I need a superhuman Saviour-one so great and glorious that I cannot comprehend Him!"

I sometimes think that Christian people, if they take their religion seriously, should be a little brainier, as well as a little better, than ordinary mortals. If much exercise strengthens the muscles, then much thinking on such tremendous themes as the Trinity, the Creation, the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection and the Immortality of the Soul, should expand and invigorate the mind. A Christian should possess, not only a greater wealth of faith and feeling than ordinary men, but a mightier intellect as well. But this is by the way.

I

At the very outset of our invasion of these infinitudes, I find two modest little reflections that facilitate my approach to our theme.

The first is this: Is it any wonder that I cannot grasp the idea of the Trinity of the Godhead when I find myself puzzled by the trinity that I discover within the compass of my own personality?

I am physical. I have a body, just as the animals have. It throbs with animal instincts and animal appetites and animal passions. But those instincts and appetites and passions are my instincts and my appetites and my passions; they are an integral part of the warp and woof of my own personality.

My congregation will see this material body of mine as I stand in the pulpit. But if they elect to close their eyes, they will still be conscious of me. For my voice will convey to them my thought. They will thus become aware of the second element in my composition. I am intellectual as well as physical. Such an achievement is impossible to the beasts that perish; I am able to survey the past, contemplate the future, reason out the problems of the present and read the riddles of the stars.

And what of that opening hymn? The congregation will not be looking at me when they sing it, and they will certainly not hear my voice as I sing with them. Yet their souls will thrill to the thought of the indescribable majesty of the Trinity, and so will mine. That secret and indefinable and mutual thrill represents the evidence of the spiritual in them and in me.

And, in that spiritual element, and spiritual fellowship, you have the third factor in the trinity of my being.

And yet my body is me, and my mind is me, and my spirit is me. They are not mere possessions, like my fountain-pen and my watch and my walking-stick. Each is part and parcel of my personality. Each stands in vital relationship with the other two. All the three together contribute to the completeness of myself! I do not understand it. I cannot define the boundary at which the visible brain ends and the invisible mind begins; I cannot place my finger on the point at which physical indulgence ends and intellectual gratification begins: I am out of my depth. And if I am out of my depth in contemplating the triune character of my own personality, is it any wonder that I am baffled and bewildered by the thought of the Triune Personality of Almighty God?

The second of these trivial ideas that assist my approach to so august a subject is the reflection that, when a workman makes an article-no matter what-he unconsciously stamps it with the hall-mark of his own individuality. So long as that piece of workmanship endures, there will always be something of him about it. One can detect traces of the idiosyncrasies of Turner in every picture that he painted; one can discern the rugged personality of Carlyle in every sentence that he penned; one can feel the peculiarities of Beethoven's temperament in each of his compositions.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Now, if He be, in deed and in truth, a triune God, we should expect to find some quality of triunity in the very fabric and tissue of His workmanship. And the striking thing is that, if you examine the heaven and the earth with wide-open eyes, you find the brand of three-ness everywhere. Ministers are often twitted with the way in which, in their sermons, they divide everything into three parts. They must always have a Firstly and a Secondly and a Thirdly. They are not to blame for that. But they are to blame for doing it without understanding why they do it. Every theme that they handle divides itself into three parts for the simple reason that the element of three-ness is the hall-mark of divine manufacture. Everything that God has said, and everything that God has done, and everything that God has made has that distinctive and distinguishing element about it. A Triune God necessarily scatters triunity everywhere.

The material realm around us consists of three kingdoms- animal, vegetable and mineral. Humanity divides itself into three-men, women and children. Or, if you prefer to analyse it historically, you find three races-the yellow races, the sons of Shem; the black races, the sons of Ham; and the white races the sons ofJaphet. Or if, instead of taking the mass, you take the individual, you find that he is made up of spirit, soul and body-three again. Or, if you fancy Kant's more philosophical analysis, he consists of intelligence, emotion and will - still three! You glance round upon the universe and you say that it consists of sun, moon and stars. Or, confining your attention to things immediately around you, you divide them up into sea, earth and sky. The stately pageant of time consists of past, present and future. Even the money in your pocket falls into three parts-pounds, shillings and pence!

In attempting to describe a thing you employ one or other of three degrees of comparison: in attempting to measure a thing you are confronted by three dimensions, length, breadth and thickness. The indispensabilities of mortal existence are three: air, food and water. The Bible abounds in trinities. It divides human conduct into thought, word and deed; it marshals the forces of evil as the world, the flesh and the devil; it breaks up the life of grace into faith, hope and charity. The epic of the Temptation in the Wilderness consists of three stanzas: the desert stanza, the temple stanza, and the world stanza.

Admirers of the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table will remember that he remarks upon the way in which, in describing a person, we invariably employ three adjectives. We say that a man is honourable, courteous and brave, or that a woman is graceful, charming and kind. In his delineations of character, Dr. Samuel Johnson is famous for his everlasting threes.

And it is worth recalling that when Jerome K. Jerome published Three Men in a Boat he explained that the frolic was based on his profound conviction that three is the ideal number for an excursion. Two get tired or each others society. A party of four or more soon splits up into groups and cliques. But three is perfection.

The figure three, then, is inscribed upon everything that God has fashioned; and men will never solve the mystery of the universality of that inscription unless they have grasped the fact that the universe that bears this brand is the handiwork of a Triune God.

II

But I am paddling in the shallows. I must get nearer to the deeps. And, in order that I may do so, let me accept a helping hand first from Ireland, then from Scotland, and finally from England-a trinity of nationalities.

To Ireland first! Everybody knows the haunting little Irish melody about the "dear little shamrock, the sweet little shamrock, the dear little, sweet little shamrock of Ireland." The song declares that it was St. Patrick himself, sure, that set it.

And the sun on his labour with pleasure did smile,

And the dew from his eye often wet it.

But why? The thing that charmed St. Patrick as he gazed upon the shamrock was the fact that it seemed to throw just one welcome ray of light on the most excellent mystery of the Trinity. "Have I here three leaves," he asked himself, as he fondly fingered the dainty trefoil, "or have I here one leaf? It is three in one!" And for that reason he made it the emblem of Ireland.

To Scotland next! Everybody knows how much Scotland owes to the Erskines. I have never visited Scotland without baring my head before their tombs. Henry Erskine, the father of Ralph and Ebenezer, has left us much that is notable and memorable, but he has bequeathed to us few treasures more valuable than his Parable of the Honey. God the Father, he would say, is like honey in the flower-sweetness potential; God the Son is like honey in the bee-sweetness communicable: whilst God the Holy Spirit is like honey in the mouth-sweetness appropriable and enjoyable.

And now to England! Preaching in the pulpit of St. Paul's Cathedral, Canon Liddon said that nothing helped him more to an intelligent apprehension of the awful doctrine of the Trinity than a glass prism. He held the tiny trinket in his hand and caught the pure white ray of sunlight. Straightway there were thrown upon the wall the three cardinal colours-red, blue and yellow. The three were one, and the one was three! You may see them in unity or in diversity, just as you will.

III

I do not understand all this; do not begin to understand it; never expect to understand it. Yet I realize that it meets the deepest needs of my heart. For I often feel that I am but a little child, and need a Father; I am a sinful man and I desperately need a Saviour; I am troubled and heart-broken, and I need the Spirit, the Paraclete, the Comforter. I once saw a painting entitled The Paraclete. It represented a good old woman sitting down beside a young widow to comfort her. That is the idea of the word exactly-one who comes alongside. I need Fathering; I need Saving; I need Comforting; and, in the Holy Trinity, I find all my needs divinely met.

I shall close my sermon on Sunday by entreating the young people in my congregation not to become bewildered or confused. "You all know Jesus," I shall say. "His face and form seem familiar to you. You love the very thought of Him. Well, think of the Trinity in the terms of your reverent intimacy with Jesus. He is the express image of the Father. He Himself declared that he that hath seen Him hath actually seen the Father. And, as to the Holy Spirit, He has no desire that you should think of Him apart from your thought of Jesus. It is His supreme mission to impress you with the love of Christ!"

And if I can lead that congregation of mine to the feet of Jesus, and leave them in penitence and adoration there, I shall feel that I have achieved my end, and that, concerning the wonder of the Trinity, there is no more to be said.