To the believer and to the sceptic alike, the question of the Godhead must inevitably take the premier position. If there be no God then inevitably we must be prepared to work, to love, to achieve ambition and suffer disappointment knowing that a very confined limit is set to our emotions and our works, and to be resigned to the inescapable end of passing into nothingness. To the sceptic God does not speak; His position and majesty does not allow Him to identify Himself with the low-toned arguments of certain of His creatures by producing His credentials as Creator and Controller of the Universe; but as a workman He produces His finished work as an undeniable token of His existence, and as an eternal challenge to man to refute His being. He leaves man on the threshold of his search to discover or to deduce Him from His handiwork: the creation is certain; the evidence undeniable: it is man's part to frankly believe in the Power that both made and sustains him.

The Bible does not overlook this evidence of nature as establishing the existence of its Creator, though it does not argue thereon; it freely admits that there is a class which denies the living God, and thereby the Authorship of the creation. The Scriptures indeed continually testify to this powerful and satisfying evidence of nature: -

"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handywork" (Psalm xix.1).

"I have made the earth," says God, "and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded" (Isaiah xlv. 12).

Paul also appeals to this evidence as the right and proper standard by which to establish the existence of God (Rom i. 18-20).

God, as has been stated, does not argue; He affirms and leaves man to reason if he will, to a limited extent, why these things should be.

This book, however, being a work upon the doctrine of the Trinity, necessarily appeals only to the believer, and of course presumes that God has spoken; and concerns itself solely to discovering what God has affirmed in relation to Himself.

SECTION 1, CHAPTER 1: The Corruption Of The Early Church