No. 3  A discourse on the Personality of God  From the texts:  Hereby ye shall know that the living God  is among you -- Joshua III: 10th first clause  It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands  of the living God. Hebrew X: 31  Read 139th Psalm Hymns for worship.  1. 20th Hymn [?.M] 2. 6th Hymn 7 3. 17th Hymn L.M. [?oxolgy;] Ye angels round the throne.  Joshua III: 10th Heb. 10th- 31st A demonstration of the existence of God,  however clear and unanswerable, is not of  itself sufficient to meet the varied and  ever shifting phases of Infidelity. To the  mind which has never been brought into  contact with these heresies, it may seem  that such an argument as we already  advanced [may] was of itself superfluous.  And much more so to such as one will  seem such an attempt to establish the fact  that the God whose mere Being we have  labored to set upon immovable basis, is  a Person. It has never once, for a single  instant entered into the conception of such   a mind that He was or could be supposed  to be anything else but a Person. But  it is always of importance in the support  of the Truth, to be well acquainted with all  the plans and systems of Error which have  been devised by Truths enemies for her  overthrow. A faith which seems to be  firm and unshaken on the eternal  rock, while it is exposed to none but  the more obvious forms of assault  may when assailed by opposition in  some new, plausible and hitherto  unknown form falter and give some  temporary advantage to Falsehood, or,  by inability to meet its approaches, may  at least be overwhelmed with dismay  and discouragement. There are also before  me this morning those whose future lot in life  is utterly uncertain; they may be driven  or led by the hand of Providence far  from the time hallowed precincts of  the domestic circle where truth falls  from the venerated lips of a beloved  Father, and shines in the holy life  of a cherished mother. They may not be allowed always to sit under the  sound of the solemn [??iths] of a faithfully  preached Gospel. Their footsteps may  traverse the barren and burning [sands] regions  of a heartless infidelity. Their ears may   be saluted by the startling tenets of some  Godless theory, such as would cause the  heart to swing from its safe moorings  in the haven of Truth, and drift to a  returnless distance from the God  of their Fathers, and be stranded upon  the hidden rocks of eternal Death. It  will not suffice then for the battles of life  that the young be simply fortified by  the knowledge of the Truth;-- they should  also be furnished with a detailed delineation  of all the diversified stratagems  of Error, + its modes of attack, so that  its assaults may be met successfully  let its disguise be ever so specious. You   are to be told then that the God whom  you have been taught to revere + to love  is sometimes presented even by those who  acknowledge that there is a God, as  utterly destitute of individual Personality.  Coming to you with the confession of the  primary truth that God is, you are  hardly prepared to believe such a  man an Atheist. But it is all the more  to be dreaded coming in this questionable  shape. An often, unqualified denial of God;  Existence would at least possess the  merit of candor and manliness. But this  is the unmitigated treachery of a base  Joab, which while offering the kiss of   pretended friendship and fraternity drives  into the fifth rib and into the very vitals  of this great Truth the fatal steel of  death. For it is in honeyed words of sweet  and eulogistic laudation that the  Pantheist sets forth the idea of God--  when he tells you; that the existence of God  is the sum and substance of all truth  or rather the one great truth of the  Universe -- that he sees God everywhere.  that he sees him shining in the sun  moon and stars, living in the flowers and  grass of the field; hears Him speaking  in the winds and waters, in the songs of the  inhabiters of the grove, and in the deep   emotions of the human soul. He points to  all the glorious forms of Earth + sky and exclaims  with something like enthusiasm,  There is God. We who are neither Atheists  nor Pantheists have habituated ourselves to  think of God as entirely distinct from  all His works, while at the same time  He is present with them in some sense, +  pervading them all. But now the distinctive  characteristic of the Pantheist is that  Nature is absorbed in God. He has a  God and he has nothing else. You are  a part of God -- the Earth you tread upon  is part of His essence -- the sky -- space,  sea, Light Darkness, everything is God  and God is in everything -- [He??] no person  only an infinite substance -- a vague  immensity-- the one essence of Being  extended everywhere, of which man and  all other existing things are but the modes.  And he sums up his creed by saying that  all is God. This sounds as the music  of fervent devotion to the unpractised  ear. But it is a dish of poisoned viands  prepared for the soul, of which  if it eat, the end will be death. This  is not the inspiration of the Christian Poet in  the immortal morning orison which he  puts into the mouths of Adam + Eve in  Paradise: when he calls upon Angels to   circle his throne rejoicing; on the morning  star to praise Him in its sphere; on the  Sun to acknowledge Him his greater  on moon + stars and air and elements  and mists and exhalations, in honor to the  worlds great Author to rise -- winds and  lofty pines and fountains and all voices  and birds that sing, and watery tribes  and those that walk the Earth, to  praise Him in songs of sweetest harmony.  He conceived of God as a separate +  distinct Being from his works, possessed  of Personality. -- So of all those  enthusiastic utterances of devotional  poetry with which our religious   literature abounds, even where it represents  God as shining in the Sun, whispering  in the winds, clothing Himself  with clouds and storms, and speaking  in mans rational nature, it is altogether  another doctrine held forth  in such effusions, from the creed  of the Pantheist which teaches  that all see is but a development  of God, that everything  in short is Divine. The true doctrine  which we hold presented  in Gods word, is that while it is  true that God is present in the  immensity of His essence in all the  forms of life which fill the world,  He is nevertheless possessed of the quality  of Personality just as distinctly separate  from them all, as the soul of  man is distinct from his body.  My plan for the discussion of this subject  is I. To establish the doctrine that God  is a Person, and not a vague immensity.  2. To set forth the dreadful results of  the opposite creed -- Pantheism.  I. And my first proof for the Personality  of God is derived from the consideration  that this quality is essential to His  full perfection. I mean distinctly to   lay it down as a well settled principle that  no Being can be considered perfect which  is not possessed of separate individual  personality. Such a thing can be conceived  of as vegetation, and animal life in the abstract  as being possessed of certain properties  [as] which render them important among  the arrangements of Providence. But  they are mere abstractions until they  become individualized in the particular  form which enables you to take  cognizance of them in the  that delights you with its fragrance,  + the [herb] plant or [beast] animal that aids in sustaining  your existence. And hence we see   at once that whatever valuable properties  may be justly ascribed to the vegetable  or animal Kingdom in general all  become vastly enhanced in value, by being  brought into some tangible form so as to be  separately personalized, + distinguished from all of its species. Rising yet higher we  may easily comprehend how man himself  would be degraded in the seale of being  and divested of his crown of Glory  were it possible to merge him into  the mere animal, destitute of  personality as a moral, intelligent  individual being. It will not be denied,  nor is it at all necessary to demonstrate   demonstrate that the possession of Personality- living, moral, and intellectual personality  as such as mans is a Perfection.  Now if God be not a Person according to  our view He must be inferior to ourselves.  We have it. This renders us more  noble and glorious than the beasts + the  brute Earth which possess it in a very  low degree. And consequently while  it is true that our highest conceptions  of the Divine character can  never reach what He really is, we still can  understand that if God [has not] be destitute of some attribute of elevation which we do  possess, He cannot be perfect.   Let the Pantheist go on in a [?rain]  of imaginative conception through all  nature until he has secured the Knowledge  of a first Cause; is it not obvious  that if he conceive of Him as a Person  possessed of separate individual Being  and self-consciousness, choice, will  and active wisdom this [great Being]  would be a far more glorious ideal  of a God, than to form the conception  of Him as of an abstract essence  a vague immensity -- nowhere to be  concentrated in any individual personality  but merged into the essence +  substance of all things created?   This argument derives its force from two facts. 1st We are conscious  of our own Personality + 2 we are also conscious that our personality  adds to our importance +  enhances our rank in the seale  of Being. These facts which need  no demonstration, being the responses  of our own consciousness,  lead to the inference that Personality  is essential to the entire  perfection of Gods character.  And as all who admit that  there is a God, conceive of  Him as perfect, we cannot   withhold from Him this property  which is an element of Perfection.  But as a [?] proof of Gods personality  we appeal to every mans inward  experience. I doubt not that in the  bosoms of my hearers today there  is such a thoroughly wrought conviction  that God is a Person,  that the wonder arises why there  should be needed a demonstration  of a truth so plain. It is  that native conviction to which  I make this appeal; and I hold  that it is itself one of the most  unanswerable of all the proofs   of the Divine Personality. Hence were  no one else concerned but you and I who  acknowledge this inward certainty  there would be no use in arguing  the point. But you are to know  that this doctrine of abstraction  in regard to God is sending out  its poisonous streams all over  our land, + how soon it may  sweep over us, or how soon some  of our member may be forced to  meet its onward current, we know  not; and hence we press into our  service every conceivable form  of evidence to settle this truth.   Every mans bosom has in it this  witness. The criminal in his dungeon  cannot be deluded by the false theories  of this false Philosophy into  the belief that God is not a Person.  He knows that He is a judge whom  [is to be dreaded] he must confront a Sovereign to be  dreaded, and yet possibly a Father  who may be appeased. And it is because  he thinks of Him as a Person  that he is agitated by the conflict between despair,  and Hope. Without this idea no  penitent Publican would ever cry,  God be merciful to me a sinner. No returning Prodigal would ever  cry Father I have sinned!-- Without  it a pious Psalmist would never  have felt that ardent burning  hungering thirsting desire within  his soul which found utterance  for its intense longings in the  language my soul thirsteth  for God-- for the living God!  Without it Pauls reasoning of  righteousness temperance and  judgement to come would never  have shaken the guilty Felix on  his seat of power and wrung from  him the reluctant tribute to his  eloquence in the exclamation Go thy   way for this time when I have a  convenient season, I will call for  thee. It was this which gave Paul  his vantage ground, and enabled him  to bring before the mind of his judge  the idea of a personal + a greater [and a per] judge who  was to arraign Felix in a coming  Day. And it is this idea that God  is a Person that lends sweetness and  attraction to the Xtians hours of holy  communion and intercourse with  Him when under the influence  of the Spirit of adoption sent  forth from Heaven into the hearts of  Gods [c??], he is enabled to cry [A???] Father!   It is thus we show from inner consciousness,  more unanswerable than all  argument, that all the mists of  speculative Philosophy cannot  [conceal] obscure the great primary truth  that God is a person. In the day  of darkness and sorrow which  must come to all, there is no  attempt made to seek relief in  mere metaphysical abstraction,  but recourse is had to the living God.  There are honest hours,-- testing times,  in every mans life when such a  native conviction as this will  force its way up from the deep   dungeon where artificial and  silly senseless theorizing may have  driven it, and compels us to acknowledge  God; claims to distinct  individual Personality-- as a Judge  or a Friend. And this too is a form  of proof that lies deep in the very  nature of man, and which never  can be destroyed by the [va??aries]  of Philosophy falsely so called.  Every prayer that is offered, by the  heart-stricken penitent for merely  proves it.  Every grateful orison  that issues from the heart of Gods  dear child proves it. And even   the blasphemous abuse of Gods great  name is an unconscious admission  on the path of the swearer, that it is  a great Truth that lies deep down  in the soul. No man cries for  mercy to a vague immensity-- no  christian longs for communion  with some indeterminate substance  stretched uncouthly through infinite  space. No oath is emphasized  with the idea of an unlimited something  that is everywhere and yet nowhere  individualized. But the voice of prayer  and praise and blasphemy alike  attest the great Truth;-- God is a person!   But while it may be necessary under certain  circumstances to meet speculation  such as Pantheism is, with argument  drawn from sources outside the revelation  of Divine Truth, from the fact  that our antagonists ignore Scripture  as a source of argument, yet we  hold that no brain of reasoning is  conclusive which makes no appeal  to the Bible on points of Theology. We  present them, as our  3d argument for the Personality of  God, the testimony of Scripture  itself. The word of God,-- this Bible--  is the living expression and transcript  of Gods character and will and purposes  and method of dealing with men. In  His intercourse with us, He has adopted  in this volume as great a variety of modes of communication  as was absolutely necessary  to suit the vast diversity of circumstances  under which the varied [xt??s]  of men are presented. And the forms  of address, the language in which  God makes Himself known to us, so as  to meet our several cases, and to suit  our temperaments although fixed and  immovable as the pillars of His throne  yet derive all their emphasis from  the idea that God is a Divine Person +   nor a vague immensity; For example  were those simple narratives with which  the Bible abounds, which speak of God as acting + moving that sublime poetry which is addressed to Him in the  form of Hymns of praise, or which  set Him forth in terms of elevated  + noble description, considered as referring  to this indefinite substance  which Pantheism worships, it would be  all emasculated and insipid, nor could  it ever awaken within us an emotion  of devout adoration save on account  of our deep conviction of the whole  being pervaded with the idea of a  living personal God. In this Book   are promises, and threatenings, invitations  and denunciations, warnings and entreaties,  encouragements and  rebukes, allurements to attract  and horrors to deter us;-- and to  us they come clothed with emphasis  and power because we deem them  to be issuing from One who is a  glorious awful benignant Person  with whom we have to do. But  they fall upon the ear of the sinner  feeble as the idle wind, which passes  by us unregarded when we think  of them as the mere imaginary utterances  or the fancied inscriptions  which the Poetic Pantheist may read  upon the face of His vague immensity. Who can love an abstraction? Who can  embrace an invitation coming from  such a thing? Who can fear a threat?  Who can believe a promise? Who  can repose his faith in a statement  thus made? The very link which  unite us by an electric chain with  this Great Being, so as to institute a  communication between us operating  upon us constantly and effectually  is wanting, and that is the idea  that God is a Person. According  by when the sacred writer says that God created  the Heavens and the Earth,-- that God rested  that God blessed man, that God covenanted  with Abram Isaac + Jacob -- that He  led the Israelites through the wilderness  to Canaan after the destruction  of Pharaoh + his hosts; -- that He blessed  and prospered the Nation while they  obeyed Him and chastised and  sent them into captivity when they  rebelled, we feel an instantaneous  conviction that it is the design of  the sacred winter in the language  of Joshua that we should know  that the living God was among  them. When He details to us the   fate of the idolatrous + insolent Pharaoh,  the destruction of rebellious Israel  the extinction of wicked Nations,  the summary vengeance executed  upon wicked rulers, the predictions  of future ruin denounced against  His enemies, the dreadful threatenings  throughout His word against all  the wicked who be turned into Hell  + all the Nations who forget God, and then  the solemn announcement of the  new Testament that he believeth  not shall be damned, and the sentence  which is recorded as assuredly to be  pronounced on the last Day [to] upon the wicked  Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared   prepared for the Devil and his angels--  and all this would be absurd and ineffectual  were it [not that] to be interpreted of an  impersonal something which could not  be brought palpably to the conception  of the mind. But the impression is simultaneously  made with the reading  of the language that it is a person  who utters these words;-- a Divine  person who is the Sovereign +  Lawgiver, and is to be the ultimate  Judge. And hence the dreadful solemn  by attached to the awful words of  our text, penned by Paul: It is a  fearful thing to fall into the hands of  the living God! Were it not for the  idea of personality which pervades  all the Bible like a burning and  powerful principle giving vitality  to all it says, it would be the most  unauthorized impertinence that was  ever written. Our hopes would be awakened  by its promises only to be  disappointed by finding them to come  from nothing. Our fears would be  aroused by its threatenings only to  be turned into [indic?te] by finding that  these was no Person threatening  no Person competent to execute  those threatenings. And it is only because   because the Bible represents Him as a  Personal living Father + Savior that  our warmest affections are drawn  out to Him -- as our Personal Creator,  and the Most High God Ruler of  Heaven + Earth that we stand in  awe + sin not;-- as a Personal Ever  present Presiding Providence that  we are enabled to bear in mind  the solemn truth Thou God seest  me! and thus feel around us the  restraints of His Grace + Spirit to  prevent our sinning. This idea of  Personality is essential to all men  of all classes, and it is found to be   the grand pervading principle of the  Bible in all its teachings.  But apart from the impressive lessons  thus to be collected from the Sacred  Word, we have had addressed to us  [*4th??*] a still more palpable proof of the  personality of God, in the incarnation  -- the Person and Work of the  Lord Jesus Christ,  After all that  we may have said about Personality being  a palpable matter, and true as it is,  that we cannot think of God without  feeling that He is a Person, yet there  is certainly some difficulty in  grasping the full and perfect idea  of that which is Infinite, as God is,  being nevertheless Personal. For the moment  you conceive of God you must  make Him both Infinite and Personal.  And such is the constitution of our  minds that the idea of a Person  immediately suggests the notion  of something that is bounded  by definite limits. There have then  grown out of this state of things  two doctrines the extreme opposite  creeds of each other, one of which  viewing God as Infinite makes  Him just what the Pantheist  believes Him to be, viz: A vague immensity  Immensity without personality, and the other  makes of Him a Great Being possessed  of human form. The reconciliation  of the personality with the Infinity of  God is entirely beyond the compass  of unassisted human reason. And  nothing short of Divine Revelation  could ever have solved the difficulty.  But this achievement has been effected  by the manifestation of God in the flesh.  Here we behold the marvelous exhibition  of an Infinitely Great and Glorious  Being palpably presented before  us a personal character of  historical record. No attribute   belonging to a Divine Being can be  imagined, but that it is found in  Him in infinite perfection. Every  miracle He performed proclaims  Him God; Every declaration  in Scripture concerning Him  is based upon the conceded  fact that He is God. All the  offices in which He is said to  act, presume Him to be God. And  while there is no labored or direct  train of argumentation to prove  that Xt. is God, still it is a quiet  and deliberate assumption of  this great Truth which underlies   and permeates the whole narrative  of the Incarnation, and the accompanying Scriptures. And yet while this is  true and demonstrable there are, all  through the Prophetic. Historical  and Doctrinal Departments of the  Bible just as palpable statements, and  declarations and evidences that He  is a Being possessed of Personal  form. Thus to sum up this idea in brief when the Apostle tells  us that He was in the form of God,  he tells us in the very next verse,  that He took upon Him the form  of a servant + was made in the likeness  of sinful flesh. This train   of reflection as profitable as it is interesting  might be advantageously prosecuted  to great length, but we content  ourselves with following it  out under three prominent heads,  and thus show the Personality of  God while His Infinity is inseparably  identified with it, in the Person  + work of the Lord Jesus Xt.  And 1st This will be perfectly manifest  in the work of Creation. All  men who acknowledge a God at all  hold the doctrine that creation  is His work. Such is the grandeur  and wisdom displayed in the   universal frame work of Nature,  that it cannot be contemplated by  any rational Being without forcing  the mind to the conclusion, that it  is the work of an Infinite Being.  Hence Isiah declares that the everlasting  God, the Lord is the Creator of the  ends of the Earth. Nehemiah addressing  God says:  Thou even, thou art Lord alone;  thou hast made Heaven, the heaven of  Heavens, with all their host, the Earth  and all things that are therein, the  seas and all that is therein -- The  Psalmist declares: By the word of the  Lord were the heavens made; and all   the host of them by the breath of His  mouth. The new song of the Heavenly  inhabitants is Thou art worthy, O  Lord, to receive glory and honor, and  power: for thou hast created all  things, and for thy pleasure they  are and were created. And now  while we have all been accustomed  to read these declarations with  the full understanding that  they were attainable to the  eternal God Himself, we must  also be careful to bear in mind that  the same great work is attributed  to the Incarnate God, Jesus Christ.  All things were made by Him says  John speaking of Xt. and without Him  was not anything made that was made.  Paul also commenting as it  were upon this very passage says:  For by Him (i.e Jesus Xt.) were all things  created, that are in Heaven, and that  are in the Earth, visible and invisible  whether they be thrones, [do??inious]  or principalities, or powers; all things  were created by Him, and for Him, +  He is before all things, and by Him  all things consist. So that in so far  as the work of Creation demonstrates  His infinite nature, Xt. though possessed  of a personal form is the Infinite God. And thus far  the Personality of God is established by  the Incarnation. But a second point  in which it is illustrated by God manifested  in the flesh is, that of Redemption.  This is a work of such stupendous  magnitude as required that no inferior  Being to the Creator Himself should be  concerned in it. The God who made, must  also redeem man. It is in fact the  second creation, -- so styled in Scripture.  The original act of creation was the  simple outgoing of Omnipotence and  the result was the great fabric of the  Physical Universe and the still mightier   empire of mind to preside over it.  But when ruin swept over this scene  of pristine perfection, and all [crumbled] fell  into corruption and decay, no less than  Divine power, Wisdom, and Goodness  was required to re-construct the fallen  temple of Mans moral nature and to  restore the ruins of the Fall. Hence it  is that God only is represented in S.S.  as saying Behold I create new Heavens  and a new Earth. And David declares  that the people remembered that the  high God was their Redeemer. Isiah  also, says: As for our Redeemer, the Lord of  Hosts is His name; and again: Thou oh   Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer, and  Jeremiah assures us that their Redeemer  is strong, the Lord of Hosts. And now  when we turn our attention to the New Testament  we find that the Redeemer of man  is there represented as being individualized  in the person of Lord Jesus Xt. Here  we behold the distinct personality of that  Being whom we had previously known  as the Infinite God -- Who being the  eternal Son of God, became man by  taking to Himself a true body and a  reasonable soul, and so was, and continues  to be God + Man in two distinct natures,  and one person forever.   And all the grand phenomena of His  Redemptive career were so many bright  and luminous points of evidence of  the Personality of Jehovah. You might  ignore the argument from your own  consciousness, and the Infidel might  declare that he was not convinced from  such evidence that God was a person.  But if you are satisfied that the work  of Redemption is the work of [nothing] no Being  short of a God, then since unanswerable  arguments are available to show that  Xt. Jesus performed that work, we hold that  in so far so as His Personality is proven,  just so firmly do we establish the Personality  of God -- since J.Xt. is the brightness of His Fathers Glory, and the express image of His person.   Lastly, That God is a Person, we clearly prove  from the Incarnation, inasmuch as Jesus  Christ is to transact the final work of  Judgement. To judge the World is the  exclusive prerogative of the Divine Being.  When therefore we find the Psalmist  declaring that God is judge Himself, --  we are prone to refer this to none but  the absolute Infinite God Himself. This  is natural but it is true also. For it is  no contradiction of this declaration when  it is said that The Father hath committed  all judgement to the Son + that we must  all appear before the judgement seat of Xt.  for Xt. is God individualized; and since  Xt. is a person, and since Heir Divine it  follows that God is possessed of personality.   [?] doctrine is full of practical power.  [?] of a personal divinity is one which however  [?] yet [of] is calculated to relieve  [?l] [?] earnest longings of the soul. Here  [?e] may find a resting place. There is in it  something of certainty which the mind  may grasp. Here is an Object of prayer.  Here a Rock of confidence. Here a shield  of defence. Here a tower of deliverance  Under the outspread and overshadowing  Protection of this Personal yet infinite God,  we may take refuge as under the shadow  of a great rock in a weary land. Jesus  Emmanuel God with us, sets forth in a  [?] is irresistibly convictive the  [?] Jehovah -- there we end our quest.  But that which speaks peace + she [?]  repose over the soul of the Christ [?]  full, realized, speaks in tones of [?]  terror to the impenitent and [?] Well  would it be for you were God a vague vast  immensity. But lo! He is a just Judge, --  possessed of Personality -- who will by no means  spare the guilty. You have not yet known Him  save only as He has manifested Himself [as] the  dreadful God marching upon the storm -- or as  He has seen witnessed in the pestilence that walketh  in the darkness -- or as He has been heard in  the voice of Conscience! But the Day of wrath  is at hand when He shall come in the clouds of  Heaven and amid the terrors of Judgement [?]  shall see Him + all kin are as of the [?]  because of Him-- Postpone not yielding to it.