1. Opportunities are lost. A man wrongs his own soul by the sinful neglect of God's commands in his early years. Those grand years freighted with golden chances of service for God and humanity, can never be recalled.

2. Moral growth is arrested. You may secure the resumption of arrested processes in a crystal or a plant, but as you ascend the scale of being difficulties increase. In one's moral nature the law we illustrate holds inexorable sway. He that sinneth against God dwarfs, deadens, and stultifies his better faculties. Take a single faculty, like the memory. There is retention as well as reception. The passing thought, the momentary impulse, the fugitive desire we entertain—all these are ours; yea, they are us. We are ever enriching or defacing our moral life through the faculty of memory.

3. Look at the true end of our life here, service for God and our fellow-men. If that service is unrendered, it remains undone for ever.

4. Look at the effects of our sin on others. True religion in a man is that which earnestly and habitually makes for righteousness and holy obedience. If it does not keep from sin, it is not a religion sufficient to save.

(H. A. Stimson, D. D.)

I. THE SINNER WRONGS HIS OWN SOUL IN THIS WORLD, BY DEBASING IT. Indulgence in vice wrongs and destroys the moral nature. Even the intellectual faculty is hurt and wronged by sin. Sensuality debases the mind. He who is the slave of sin occupies a lower position in creation than the man who by virtue asserts the high prerogative of nature, who by his goodness and righteousness strives to assimilate his soul to God. He wrongs the soul who makes it subservient to the base requirements of the body. The intellectual faculty will censure sin, and so will the moral faculty. Therefore these properties should be cultivated. The conscience is seared by indulgence in sin, and the Holy Spirit is grieved.

II. SIN WRONGS THE SOUL BY SUBJECTING IT TO PUNISHMENT IN THE WORLD TO COME. That this is true is evident from the teaching of nature as well as religion. The mind has reasoned correctly when it wrought out for itself the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and proved an existence beyond the grave. The living being is not the outer frame. Consciousness is perceived to be a simple and indivisible power—an essential property of the mind. The destruction of matter cannot of necessity be considered the destruction of living agents. The destruction of the body and all its organs does not necessarily involve the destruction of the reflecting powers; they may not even be suspended in death. Upon the immortality of the soul philosophy speaks the precepts of religion. Behold, then, the excellency of the soul, and the guilt of him who wrongs it. How is it possible that he who wrongs the heavenly Essence can escape the just judgments of God? But the Christian can realise the dignity of the soul from other considerations. He has the evidence of his own heart. Christianity requires the submission of the whole heart; the acceptance of its mysteries; the noblest self-denial, the most exalted virtue, the highest holiness, the perfection of humanity. But who except the Christian can realise this? From the death-bed of the unbelieving may be learned the misery, here and hereafter, of those who wrong their own soul.

(David Ross, B. A.)

1. Sin is inhuman.

2. Sin is unnatural.

3. Sin is the degradation of human nature.

II. THE WRONG SIN DOES THE CAPACITIES OF THE SOUL. The soul of man is a great capacity for God. There is no punishment worse than the habit of sin, which comes from sinning. To do wrong is worse than to suffer any calamity. Pain is soon over, misfortune is for a moment, calamity is temporary. But sin is permanent. It does an irreparable injury to the soul. It keeps man out of his heritage. It defeats the end for which man was made. God made us in His image.

III. THE WRONG SIN DOES THE POWER OF THE SOUL.

1. The conscience, which is that power of the soul by which we recognise the moral quality of actions.

2. Sin also wrongs the will. Sin enfeebles man at the most vital part of his nature. Sin wrongs the soul in every faculty and power. Conclusion:(1) Of all evils that man can know or suffer, sin is the worst.(2) The sinner makes his own hereafter. Remember that heaven is a holy soul in a holy place.(3) I cannot, I dare not, close without a word of hope for any troubled and penitent soul.

(S. Z. Batten.)

(J. Parker, D. D.)

II. CONFIRM THIS DOCTRINE.

1. Faith in Christ is honouring Him in a special manner; therefore unbelief must be a special dishonour.

2. Unbelief is the great Antichrist in the heart, sitting up there in downright opposition to the Son of God.

3. This sin engrosses the whole soul to itself against Christ.

4. It is the sin that ruins the hearers of the gospel, with whom Christ has to do.

5. It is equal to the grossest sins against the light of nature.

6. It is above these sins in heinousness.

7. It has none that goes beyond it but the sin against the Holy Ghost.

8. It is a sin directly striking against the glorious office wherewith Christ is invested, and while He is in the actual exercise of that office.

III. UNBELIEF IS SIN AGAINST CHRIST BY WAY OF EMINENCY, AND THIS APPEARS FROM A VIEW OF SOME PARTICULAR PIECES OF MALIGNITY WRAPPED UP THEREIN.

1. It is a despising Him as the Father's choice.

2. It is a trampling of His love in taking the mediatory office.

3. It is a treating of Him as if He were an impostor.

4. It is a contempt poured upon His precious blood.

5. It is a frustrating of the ends of the death of Christ, as far as lies in the unbeliever's power.

6. It is a declining of His government most reproachfully. From this doctrine learn lessons for saints, for sinners, for all.

IV. THE SINNER AGAINST CHRIST BY UNBELIEF WRONGS HIS OWN SOUL.

1. Wrongs his own soul really. He does in very deed do hurt and bring damage to himself, body and soul. He keeps his soul in a state of alienation from God. He keeps his soul under the guilt of all his sins. In a state of inability to do what is good or acceptable in the sight of God. It fixes the soul in a state of condemnation.

2. Wrongs his own soul only; not Christ whom he sins against. All sin is against the mind and honour of Christ, but no sin is against His happiness.

(T. Boston, D. D.)

1. He wrongs his soul by the degradation he inflicts upon it, the evil that he scatters through it. The soul comes as a new creation from God. It is enshrined in a body that inherits evil — evil propensities, insurgent affections; and it has a hard struggle at best, and cannot win the victory but by the help of God. But the man who sins makes a voluntary surrender of the nobler to the baser part, and so appropriates the frailty of the baser nature, and makes it a part of his soul's being. Each sin by a certain reflex action spreads disorder through man's whole nature. In this way the very bodily appetite may become the appetite also of the soul. Oh, grim and ghastly are the evils which sin inflicts upon the body! It dulls the eye, and palsies the hand, and banishes manly grace from the brow, and coarsens and brutalises the human face Divine. But something far more dreadful than this befalls the sinner. The soul takes on the vice of the body. The worst symptom of drunkenness, for instance, is not the craving of the body, but the craving of the soul. The soul of the inebriate begins to crave the false excitement of drink, and an obliquity corresponding to that of the body begins to set up in the soul. The eye of the drunkard sees false or sees double: the mind's eye begins to see false also. And so it comes to pass that the soul of the drunkard becomes untruthful. This is the reason that men cannot trust the word of a drunkard. So also the deadly sin of impurity. The very mind and conscience become defiled. The mind panders to the body. Oh, horrible degradation! And so we find that there is a correspondence and correlation between different kinds of sin. The sensual man is always a cruel man. The drunkard is a liar. The thief is simply covetous and selfish, just like the worldling and the miser. In all these things man's whole nature is shamed and dishonoured. In all his being he is degraded and coarsened by his sin.

2. And this becomes all the more evident when we examine the wrong which sin does to man's characteristic powers. And first, his intellectual faculties, his reason, his power to know. It is a great and awful truth, little heeded, little understood, that all the powers of man's intellect are blunted and weakened by sin. Who has not seen the splendour of some lordly intellect first dimmed, then obscured, by excess or folly, until its fitful light would blaze at intervals, and then go out in piteous darkness, or fade into still more pitiable imbecility? But even more pitiable, if possible, is it to see the royal intellect of man forced into the base service of the world, and compelled to drudge like a very slave in the interest of sordid vice, or avarice, or other selfishness. Who does not know how such intellect declines into trickery or beastly cunning, and it watches like a fox for a chance to deceive, or like a predatory beast to seize its prey? To such a man high thoughts and noble purposes become simply impossible. Not less disastrous and dishonouring is the influence of sin on man's moral nature — on his power to discriminate and choose between right and wrong. Of the debilitating effect of sin upon the will of man I need not speak at length. All observation and all experience prove that this is its immediate, unvarying, inevitable effect. He who once yields to do wrong will find it harder the next time to do right, until he speedily becomes powerless to choose God and resist evil. But of the darkening, paralysing effect of sin upon a moral sense not so much is commonly thought, though such effect is not less immediate and inevitable. The moral sense, which at first is quick to discriminate, begins, under the pressure of sin, to lose the keenness of perception. The high sense of honour and of truthfulness is dulled. The good seems to be less good, and the evil does not seem to be so very evil, until at last that soul calls evil good and good evil. Woe to the soul that is in such a case! He has abdicated his throne, and lost his regal state, and broken his sceptre, and flung away his crown. Finally, even more debasing is the effect of sin upon the affections. This would seem to be the worst degradation of all — that man should not only sin his intellect and will and conscience away, but that he should love his shame, that his soul should be enamoured of its degradation. And yet, who does not know that even this is the effect of sin? Through it men learn to love the base things of this world and lose the power to love the nobler things. What is life to such a soul but shame? What shall death be but the beginning of an eternal bereavement? One word in conclusion. All the effects of sin may be summed up in one dreadful word — death. The dying of the soul, the decay of its faculties, the languishing of its strength — the progressive unending dying of an immortal soul, with all its unending anguish of unsatisfied tonging, unfulfilled desire, baffled hope, pitiless remorse, remediless desire — this is the dread reality at which men ought to tremble. It is no chimera of imagination; it is no spectre of the future — it is a present reality. It is doing its ghastly work even now in every soul where sin reigns. For the soul that sins is dying. The wages of sin is death.

(Bp. S. S. Harris.)

I. SIN AGAINST SPIRITUAL LAW.

1. The law of nutrition. Hunger, flavour, and the delight of the palate are God's arrangements for insuring the taking of proper food to repair the waste and supply the growth of the body. Break the law, and eat for the sake of pleasing the palate or increasing sociability, then indigestion, dulness, sleeplessness at night and sluggishness by day follow. Who shall estimate the sin against the temple of the soul?

2. The nervous system. Its motor power is intended to carry messages from the mind to the muscles, ordering work done and motion performed. Properly governed and temperately used, what usefulness, health, and abundance of valuable labour accomplished may result! Abuse it, and exhaustion, prostration, paralysis follow.

II. THE SPIRITUAL HURT.

1. To the truth-perceiving faculties. The judgment and reason, acting under the restraint of a pure conscience, leads to the truth in a thousand ways: in business, society, pleasure, habits, indulgences — in all necessary things — and the life is guided in righteousness and wisdom. But let unholy ambition, improper desire for gain, any form of wicked selfishness, get control of these faculties, and how they become warped, blinded, and misguided!

2. To the power of self-control. This is the battle of growing evil habits against the will — growing more and more impatient of restraint, more and more defiant of conscience and will, till appetite, strengthened into habit, leads manhood captive and blots out every hope and joy.

3. To the religious nature. Properly acted upon by the Holy Spirit, it becomes God's audience-chamber in the soul; the natal chamber of the holiest purposes; the place where the strength comes which gives martyr-power. Sinned against, the demons of superstition, distrust, hatred of good, vile affections, scepticism, and cold, dark atheism come in to torment the soul. To the joys of memory and hope. Every life gathers up all its past and holds it in its present possession for evermore by faithful memory; and if that past be one of holy purpose and noble endeavour, every record it holds will be a joy for ever; its pains will turn to pleasure, its hardships to victories, its struggles to triumphs. But if its records be of deceit and dishonesty, of lust and recklessness, then remorse pours her bitterness into every recollection.

III. HE THAT SINS AGAINST WISDOM INTERFERES WITH GOD'S PURPOSES FOR HIS FUTURE. God has great ambitions for us.

1. He would build in us a noble character. Sin defeats His wish, and makes us in character ignoble.

2. He would make us useful; sin makes us hurtful to others.

3. He would make us happy; sin makes us wretched, utterly and for ever.

4. He would have us grow in spiritual beauty, symmetry, and power; sin deforms, enfeebles, and mars our being.

(C. N. Sims, D. D.)

1. Sin does a wrong to reason. There are instances in which sin, in various forms of vice and vanity, absolutely destroys reason. There are other and more numerous cases in which it employs the faculty, but employs it in a toil most degrading to its nature. There is reasoning, indeed, in the mind of a miser; the solemn arithmetic of profit and loss. There is reasoning in the schemes of unscrupulous ambition; the absorbing and agitating intrigue for office or honour. There is reasoning upon the modes of sensual pleasure; and the whole power of a very acute mind is sometimes employed and absorbed in plans, and projects, and imaginations of evil indulgence. But what an unnatural desecration is it, for reason — sovereign, majestic, all-comprehending reason — to contract its boundless range to the measure of what the hand can grasp; to be sunk so low as to idolise outward or sensitive good; to make its god not indeed of wood or stone, but of a sense or a nerve!

2. Sin is a kind of insanity. So far as it goes, it makes man an irrational creature; it makes him a fool. The consummation of sin is ever, and in every form, the extreme of folly. And it is that most pitiable folly which is puffed up with arrogance and self-sufficiency. The infatuation of the inebriate man, who is elated and gay just when he ought to be most depressed and sad, we very well understand. But it is just as true of every man that is intoxicated by any of his senses or passions, by wealth, or honour, or pleasure, that he is infatuated — that he has abjured reason. What clearer dictate of reason is there than to prefer the greater good to the lesser good? But every offender, every sensualist, every avaricious man, sacrifices the greater good — the happiness of virtue and piety — for the lesser good, which he finds in his senses or in the perishing world. Nor is this the strongest view of the case. He sacrifices the greater for the less, without any necessity for it. He might have both. A pure mind can derive more enjoyment from this world and from the senses than an impure mind. What bad man ever desired that his child should be like himself? And what a testimony is this, what a clear and disinterested testimony, to the unhappiness of a sinful course! How truly, and with what striking emphasis, did the venerable Cranmer reply, when told that a certain man had cheated him: "No he has cheated himself."

3. Sin does a wrong to conscience. There is a conscience in every man, which is as truly a part of his nature as reason or memory. The offender against this, therefore, violates no unknown law nor impracticable rule. From the very teaching of his nature he knows what is right, and he knows that he can do it; and his very nature, therefore, instead of furnishing him with apologies for wilful wrong, holds him inexcusable. He will have the desired gratification; and to obtain it he sets his foot upon that conscience, and crushes it down to dishonour and agony worse than death.

4. Sin does a wrong to the affections. How does it mar even that image of the affections, that mysterious shrine from which their revealings flash forth, "the human face Divine"; bereaving the world of more than half its beauty! Can you ever behold sullenness clouding the clear, fair brow of childhood — or the flushed cheek of anger, or the averted and writhen features of envy, or the dim and sunken eye and haggard aspect of vice, or the red signals of bloated excess hung out on every feature, proclaiming the fire that is consuming within — without feeling that sin is the despoiler of all that the affections make most hallowed and beautiful? But these are only indications of the wrong that is done and the ruin that is wrought in the heart. Nature has made our affections to be full of tenderness; to be sensitive and alive to every touch; to cling to their cherished objects with a grasp from which nothing but cruel violence can sever them. But sin enters into this world of the affections, and spreads around the death-like coldness of distrust; the word of anger falls like a blow upon the heart, or avarice hardens the heart against every finer feeling; or the insane merriment, or the sullen stupor of the inebriate man falls like a thunderbolt amidst the circle of kindred and children. Oh! the hearts where sin is to do its work should be harder than the nether millstone; yet it enters in among affections, all warm, all sensitive, all gushing forth in tenderness; and, deaf to all their pleadings, it does its work as if it were some demon of wrath that knew no pity, and heard no groans, and felt no relenting!

(O. Dewey, D. D.).

     9024   death, spiritual

Wisdom and Christ
'Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; 31. Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men.'--PROVERBS viii. 30, 31. There is a singular difference between the two portions of this Book of Proverbs. The bulk of it, beginning with chapter x., contains a collection of isolated maxims which may be described as the product of sanctified common sense. They are shrewd and homely, but not remarkably …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

"But Whereunto Shall I Liken this Generation?"
Matth. xi. 16.--"But whereunto shall I liken this generation?" When our Lord Jesus, who had the tongue of the learned, and spoke as never man spake, did now and then find a difficulty to express the matter herein contained. "What shall we do?" The matter indeed is of great importance, a soul matter, and therefore of great moment, a mystery, and therefore not easily expressed. No doubt he knows how to paint out this to the life, that we might rather behold it with our eyes, than hear it with our …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Fragrant Spices from the Mountains of Myrrh. "Thou Art all Fair, My Love; There is no Spot in Thee. " --Song of Solomon iv. 7.
FRAGRANT SPICES FROM THE MOUNTAINS OF MYRRH. HOW marvellous are these words! "Thou art all fair, My love; there is no spot in thee." The glorious Bridegroom is charmed with His spouse, and sings soft canticles of admiration. When the bride extols her Lord there is no wonder, for He deserves it well, and in Him there is room for praise without possibility of flattery. But does He who is wiser than Solomon condescend to praise this sunburnt Shulamite? Tis even so, for these are His own words, and were …
Charles Hadden Spurgeon—Till He Come

Wisdom. Pr 8:22-31
…
John Newton—Olney Hymns

The Invitation of Wisdom. --Prov. viii.
The invitation of Wisdom.--Prov. viii. To us the voice of Wisdom cries, Hearken, ye children, and be wise; Better than gold the fruit I bear, Rubies to me may not compare, Happy the man who daily waits To hear me, watching at my gates; Wretched is he who scorns my voice, Death and destruction are his choice. To them that love me I am kind; And those who seek me early find; My Son, give me thine heart,--and learn Wisdom from folly to discern. The Lord possess'd me, ere of old, His hand the firmament …
James Montgomery—Sacred Poems and Hymns

Having Said This, when they had Kissed Him...
92. Having said this, when they had kissed him, he lifted up his feet, and as though he saw friends coming to him and was glad because of them--for as he lay his countenance appeared joyful--he died and was gathered to the fathers. And they afterward, according to his commandment, wrapped him up and buried him, hiding his body underground. And no one knows to this day where it was buried, save those two only. But each of those who received the sheepskin of the blessed Antony and the garment worn …
Athanasius—Select Works and Letters or Athanasius

Introduction to Proverbs viii. 22 Continued. Absurdity of Supposing a Son or Word Created in Order to the Creation of Other Creatures; as to the Creation
Chapter XVII.--Introduction to Proverbs viii. 22 continued. Absurdity of supposing a Son or Word created in order to the creation of other creatures; as to the creation being unable to bear God's immediate hand, God condescends to the lowest. Moreover, if the Son a creature, He too could not bear God's hand, and an infinite series of media will be necessary. Objected, that, as Moses who led out the Israelites was a man, so our Lord; but Moses was not the Agent in creation:--again, that unity is found …
Athanasius—Select Works and Letters or Athanasius

Introduction to Proverbs viii. 22 Continued. Contrast Between the Father's Operations Immediately and Naturally in the Son...
Chapter XVIII.--Introduction to Proverbs viii. 22 continued. Contrast between the Father's operations immediately and naturally in the Son, instrumentally by the creatures; Scripture terms illustrative of this. Explanation of these illustrations; which should be interpreted by the doctrine of the Church; perverse sense put on them by the Arians, refuted. Mystery of Divine Generation. Contrast between God's Word and man's word drawn out at length. Asterius betrayed into holding two Unoriginates; his …
Athanasius—Select Works and Letters or Athanasius

Texts Explained; Sixthly...
Chapter XIX.--Texts explained; Sixthly, Proverbs viii. 22. Proverbs are of a figurative nature, and must be interpreted as such. We must interpret them, and in particular this passage, by the Regula Fidei. He created me' not equivalent to I am a creature.' Wisdom a creature so far forth as Its human body. Again, if He is a creature, it is as a beginning of ways,' an office which, though not an attribute, is a consequence, of a higher and divine nature. And it is for the works,' which implied the …
Athanasius—Select Works and Letters or Athanasius

Texts Explained; Sixthly...
Chapter XXI.--Texts Explained; Sixthly, Proverbs viii. 22, Continued. Our Lord not said in Scripture to be created,' or the works to be begotten.' In the beginning' means in the case of the works from the beginning.' Scripture passages explained. We are made by God first, begotten next; creatures by nature, sons by grace. Christ begotten first, made or created afterwards. Sense of First-born of the dead;' of First-born among many brethren;' of First-born of all creation,' contrasted with Only-begotten.' …
Athanasius—Select Works and Letters or Athanasius

Of the Council of Antioch and what was done There against the Holy Meletius.
At this time, [586] Constantius was residing at Antioch. The Persian war was over; there had been a time of peace, and he once again gathered bishops together with the object of making them all deny both the formula "of one substance" and also the formula "of different substance." On the death of Leontius, Eudoxius had seized the see of Antioch, but on his expulsion and illegal establishment, after many synods, at Constantinople, the church of Antioch had been left without a shepherd. Accordingly …
Theodoret—The Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret

A String of Pearls
'Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. 2. The fear of a king is as the roaring of a lion: whoso provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own soul. 3. It is an honour for a man to cease from strife: but every fool will be meddling. 4. The sluggard will not plough by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing. 5. Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out. 6. Most men will …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Voluntary Suffering
I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting. T hat which often passes amongst men for resolution, and the proof of a noble, courageous spirit, is, in reality, the effect of a weak and little mind. At least, it is chiefly owing to the presence of certain circumstances, which have a greater influence upon the conduct, than any inherent principle. Thus may persons who appear to set death and danger at defiance in the hour …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

The Glorious Master and the Swooning Disciple
If our conceptions of the Lord Jesus are very enlarged, they will only be his due. We cannot exaggerate here. He deserves higher praise than we can ever render to him. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high is be above our loftiest conceptions. Even when the angels strike their loudest notes, and chant his praises most exultingly on their highest festal days, the music falls far short of his excellence. He is higher than a seraph's most soaring thought! Rise then, my brethren, as on …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 18: 1872

His Name --The Counsellor
We shall now enter upon the discussion of this title which is given to Christ, a title peculiar to our Redeemer; and you will see why it should be given to him and why there was a necessity for such a Counsellor. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ is a Counsellor in a three-fold sense. First, he is God's Counsellor; he sits in the cabinet council of the King of heaven; he has admittance into the privy chamber, and is the Counsellor with God. In the second place, Christ is a Counsellor in the sense which …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 4: 1858

Of the Decrees of God.
Eph. i. 11.--"Who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will."--Job xxiii. 13. "He is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth." Having spoken something before of God, in his nature and being and properties, we come, in the next place, to consider his glorious majesty, as he stands in some nearer relation to his creatures, the work of his hands. For we must conceive the first rise of all things in the world to be in this self-being, the first conception …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Synagogue at Nazareth - Synagogue-Worship and Arrangements.
The stay in Cana, though we have no means of determining its length, was probably of only short duration. Perhaps the Sabbath of the same week already found Jesus in the Synagogue of Nazareth. We will not seek irreverently to lift the veil of sacred silence, which here, as elsewhere, the Gospel-narratives have laid over the Sanctuary of His inner Life. That silence is itself theopneustic, of Divine breathing and inspiration; it is more eloquent than any eloquence, a guarantee of the truthfulness …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

Organic and Individual.
"Where is He that put His Holy Spirit among them?" --Isa. lxiii. 11. The subsequent activity of the Holy Spirit lies in the realm of grace. In nature the Spirit of God appears as creating, in grace as re-creating. We call it re-creation, because God's grace creates not something inherently new, but a new life in an old and degraded nature. But this must not be understood as tho grace restored only what sin had destroyed. For then the child of God, born anew and sanctified, must be as Adam was in …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

The Trinity
Q-6. HOW MANY PERSONS ARE THERE IN THE GODHEAD? A: Three persons, yet but one God. 'There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.' I John 5:5. God is but one, yet are there three distinct persons subsisting in one Godhead. This is a sacred mystery, which the light within man could never have discovered. As the two natures in Christ, yet but one person, is a wonder; so three persons, yet but one Godhead. Here is a great deep, the Father …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

The Third Exile, 356-362.
The third exile of Athanasius marks the summit of his achievement. Its commencement is the triumph, its conclusion the collapse of Arianism. It is true that after the death of Constantius the battle went on with variations of fortune for twenty years, mostly under the reign of an ardently Arian Emperor (364-378). But by 362 the utter lack of inner coherence in the Arian ranks was manifest to all; the issue of the fight might be postponed by circumstances but could not be in doubt. The break-up of …
Athanasius—Select Works and Letters or Athanasius

An Explanation of Acts ii. ...
An explanation of Acts ii. 36 and Proverbs viii. 22, which are shown to refer properly to Christ's manhood alone. 95. To no purpose, then, is the heretics' customary citation of the Scripture, that "God made Him both Lord and Christ." Let these ignorant persons read the whole passage, and understand it. For thus it is written. "God made this Jesus, Whom ye crucified, both Lord and Christ." [1843] It was not the Godhead, but the flesh, that was crucified. This, indeed, was possible, because the flesh …
St. Ambrose—Works and Letters of St. Ambrose

Covenanting Provided for in the Everlasting Covenant.
The duty of Covenanting is founded on the law of nature; but it also stands among the arrangements of Divine mercy made from everlasting. The promulgation of the law, enjoining it on man in innocence as a duty, was due to God's necessary dominion over the creatures of his power. The revelation of it as a service obligatory on men in a state of sin, arose from his unmerited grace. In the one display, we contemplate the authority of the righteous moral Governor of the universe; in the other, we see …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

Covenanting According to the Purposes of God.
Since every revealed purpose of God, implying that obedience to his law will be given, is a demand of that obedience, the announcement of his Covenant, as in his sovereignty decreed, claims, not less effectively than an explicit law, the fulfilment of its duties. A representation of a system of things pre-determined in order that the obligations of the Covenant might be discharged; various exhibitions of the Covenant as ordained; and a description of the children of the Covenant as predestinated …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting