On January 7, 1855, the minister of New Park Street Chapel,
Southwark, England, opened his morning sermon as follows:

It has been said by someone that "the proper study of mankind is
man." I will not oppose the idea, but I believe it is equally true 
that the proper study of God's elect is God; the proper study of 
a Christian is the Godhead. The highest science, the loftiest 
speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the 
attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, 
the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he 
calls his Father.
	
There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation 
of the Divinity. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are 
lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in its 
infinity. Other subjects we can compass and grapple with; in them we 
feel a kind of self-content, and go our way with the thought, "Behold 
I am wise." But when we come to this master science, finding that our
plumbline cannot sound its depth, and that our eagle eye cannot see 
its height, we turn away with the thought that vain man would be wise,
but he is like a wild ass's colt; and with solemn exclamation, "I am 
but of yesterday, and know nothing." No subject of contemplation will 
tend more to humble the mind, than thoughts of God....
	
But while the subject humbles the mind, it also expands it. He who
often thinks of God, will have a larger mind than the man who simply
plods around this narrow globe.... The most excellent study for
expanding the soul, is the science of Christ, and Him crucified, 
and the knowledge of the Godhead in the glorious Trinity. Nothing 
will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul 
of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great 
subject of the Deity.
	
And, whilst humbling and expanding, this subject is eminently
consolatory. Oh, there is, in contemplating Christ, a balm for every
wound; in musing on the Father, there is a quietus for every grief; 
and in the influence of the Holy Ghost, there is a balsam for every 
sore. Would you lose your sorrow? Would you drown your cares? Then go,
plunge yourself in the Godhead's deepest sea; be lost in his immensity;
and you shall come forth as from a couch of rest, refreshed and
invigorated. I know nothing which can so comfort the soul; so calm the
swelling billows of sorrow and grief; so speak peace to the winds of
trial, as a devout musing upon the subject of the Godhead. It is to 
that subject that I invite you this morning.

These words, spoken over a century ago by C. H. Spurgeon (at that time,
incredibly, only twenty years old) were true then, and they are true now.
They make a fitting preface to a series of studies on the nature and
character of God.