The Elements of Character | Page 8

Mary G. Chandler
heart and of the head will then be baptized into
the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

THE HUMAN TRINITY.
"It is this trinity of man,--for man is the image of his God, in whom is
the essential Trinity,--under which his whole character must be
studied."--KINMONT.
Man being created in the image and likeness of God, we must of
necessity find in him a finite organization corresponding with the
infinite organization of the Creator. In the Infinite Divine Trinity there
are the Divine Goodness or Love, the Divine Truth or Wisdom, and the
Divine Operation or the manifestation of the other two in and upon the
universe: in other words, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the human,
finite trinity, we have, corresponding with these, Affection,
Understanding, and Use, or external life. Divinity being the
embodiment of infinite order, its parts act in a sequence of absolute

perfection; that is, absolute love by means of absolute wisdom exhibits
itself in absolute use. Speaking with exactness, the word sequence is
out of place in this connection, because with the Divinity, love, wisdom,
and operation are simultaneous; but he has separated them in his
ultimate manifestations, and we are obliged to separate them in our
analysis, in order that they may in any degree come within the compass
of human comprehension.
Man, in his primeval innocence, was a genuine image and likeness of
the All-perfect Divinity; perfect after the same manner, but on a lower
plane. There was then no antagonism between the creature and the
Creator; and the finite naturally and joyfully obeyed the infinite; for in
obedience to the will of the Heavenly Father it found sustenance for the
soul as manifestly as in meat and drink for the body. The progress of
time saw the creature turn from the love of God to the love of
self,--from seeking the truth of God to seeking out its own vain
imaginations, and from performing the orderly uses of a life of charity
to all the disorderly indulgencies of selfish passion. Instead of
worshipping the living God, man now invented idols representing his
own evil passions, and bowed before them in adoring admiration; for
the attributes wherewith he clothed them were fitting forces to
stimulate his progress along the pathway he had chosen, where life was
made hideous by the lowering shadows of rapine and murder.
The first Church, represented by Adam and Eve, is the general type of
every Church that has followed it, and of every unregenerate individual
in those Churches. Instead of looking to God as the source of all
wisdom, there is ever the desire to eat of, or make our own, the fruit of
the tree of knowledge, that we may know of ourselves good from evil;
and that we may do of ourselves what seems to us right; and instead of
penitence for sin and an endeavor after reformation, there is a striving
to conceal our unfaithfulness. The covering assumed by those who, in
Scripture, stand as the parents of mankind, is the perpetual type of the
subterfuges we all invent to hide our disobedience from our God, from
our neighbors, nay, even from ourselves. The primal image and
likeness of God has become so defaced, distorted, and broken, that it is
often hard to find a remnant still testifying to its Divine origin. Let us
rise up from among these shattered fragments, and contemplate for a
while the means of bringing the poor, fallen human nature into

harmony with the divine;--let us develop, if we can, a system that may
aid us in training our faculties, so that the Affections shall be pure, the
Understanding wise, and Life the harmonious exponent of both.
In the attempt to restore our being to its original symmetry, the
intellectual part of the nature must not be cultivated at the expense of
the affectional, nor should the affectional be suffered to run riot with
the intellectual. Love must be wise, and wisdom must be affectionate,
or life will fail of its end. External morality has no reliable foundation
unless it be built on morality of thought and affection. Apart from these,
it is either the result of a happy organization that demands no disorderly
indulgence, or it is the figleaf garment of deceit, put on by those who
strive to seem rather than to be.
In the just training of Character, if we first learn to understand the
capacities and relations of Affection, Thought, and Life, and look
within our own natures until we learn to comprehend how everything
pertaining to our being belongs to one of these departments, we shall
better appreciate the difficulties to be overcome before we shall be
willing to make everything that we do the honest outbirth of
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