Consequence only Divine Wisdom was also pleased that Jesus Christ should be born in Obscurity and Humiliation that those mean outward Appearances being offensive to the prejudice of carnal and worldly minded Jews they might as it were by chance give occasion to the execution of those things which the Council of God had determined And this is one of the principal causes of his Poverty and Humiliation of the Meanness of his Birth and the Vnworthiness of his first Profession the choice of his Disciples c. The Justice of God acting in concert with his Wisdom obliges him to speak to all prophane Contemners of his Mysteries in an obscure Language and so as it were to conceal those Pearls from them lest like unclean Beasts they should trample them under their Feet And this may very well serve for a Reason of the denial which Christ formerly made to the Unbelievers of those Times of signalizing his Power among them and of the great care he often took to conceal his Miracles from them For this cause therefore spoke he sometimes in Parables to Strangers but he always very clearly exprest himself to his Disciples giving them to understand the meaning of those Parables and telling them that as for them they had the Priviledge of seeing all things openly Neither does his Majesty suffer him to reveal himself as familiarly to the sinful Man as he would to the innocent This we ought not to wonder at since Men themselves are wont so to deal with one another There is nothing more common than for Great Men to banish their Presence those who have incurr'd their Displeasure To think it then strange if God conceals himself from a Sinner would be to entertain a more unworthy Idea of his Majesty than that of an Earthly Monarch This was the Reason why God took such care to conceal himself even when he design'd to manifest his Glory And for this Cause he shewed himself only in Visions and Dreams or when hidden in the Cloud and Ark or covered with some other Veil On this account also he was wont to banish from his Presence all those as were defiled in their Bodies and order the Priests of the Sanctuary to purifie themselves He commanded too the People to wash their Garments when he gave them notice that within three Days he would come down to them nothing but an external and corporeal Purity being sufficient to qualify those that were to approach the Deity manifested under corporeal Symbols But Christ fulfilling in the Spirit every thing hidden in the Letter of the Law teaches us that those only shall see God who shall be found pure in Heart so that we have no reason to wonder if when Man by reason of his Guilt hides himself from God the Almighty withdraws the Influence of his Glorious Majesty from Man Lastly The Goodness and Mercy of God overshadows Revelation with some sort of Darkness to exercise our Faith and keep up our Minds in Vigour which also would grow sluggish if not stirred up by such Difficulties as are proper to Mysteries as also to humble our proud and haughty Reason which is immediately puffed up with its own Knowledge to make us submit our Understandings to him since we ought to believe any Truths tho incredible if he reveals them as also to sway our Hearts and Affections which ought readily to embrace any sorrowful and mortifying Objects that he is pleased to offer them to strip our Pride of all its Pretences and to dispose our Minds that we must necessarily acknowledge every Benefit we enjoy springs from him and that too so much the more because we thereby attain to life Eternal by such means and objects as are above our Capacity to comprehend So necessary is it that it should appear that our Sufficiency is of God and that the Gospel is the Power of God unto Salvation to every one that believeth Rom. 1. 16. To this Principle we owe the choice of those persons which God has made use of to preach the Gospel the nature of those seeming Paradoxes he commanded them to publish so contrary to the Light of Nature and Reason the Silence of the Holy Ghost in those things which a few Words from him would have rendred plain and easy to our Understandings But God is not content to exercise our Faith by those Obscurities we find dispersed throughout the Divine Revelations he further permits Heresies Schisms and Errours nay Superstition it self to reign among us that those who are approved may be made manifest Thus we may say he suffers all Egypt to be covered with Darkness the more eminently to discover his wonderful Protection in blessing at the same time the Land of Goshen with the Light of his Truth that is by giving us a Religion accompanied with so bright an Evidence as carnal and worldly minded Men can never comprehend because their Reason is eclipsed by Sensuality and the Corruption of their Hearts produces those thick Clouds that hide the Truth from their sight God 't is true enlightens the Minds of Men but Men wilfully blind themselves He permits it should be so to confound their Ignorance and demonstrate to us that he is the Father of Light But let us now enquire into the Principles of that Obscurity which solely springs from Men. And I. So gross are all the Prejudices of the Senses that there is no body so void of shame as to follow them openly Yet 't is certain they are very prevalent in the Hearts of most Men who stick not to say I never saw the like I could willingly believe it if I should but see it Who ever saw dead Men rise again from their graves And who ever ascended into Heaven or went down into the Pit All which Reasonings are manifestly absurd For can there be any greater Folly in a Man than to refuse to believe that which he does not see when these Objects of his Faith could have no Existence were they not invisible Did any one ever see the Time past long before he liv'd or the future long after his Death Did he ever see his own Soul the Deity c. For 't is nothing else but the Time past and the future the Objects and Interests of the Soul together with the Benefits of God which Faith offers to our Consideration II. We are accustomed by Education not to believe any thing that happens not in the ordinary course of Nature We confine our selves as it were to a Circle of Objects which we willingly admit of because they contain nothing that is repugnant to Experience or Probability So that the Custom we have of refusing to give our Assent to all other things reaching even unto matters of Religion inevitably casts us into Scepticism and Incredulity Yet should we but throughly consider those Objects which fall under common Experience they would certainly appear as surprising and incomprehensible as those of Religion If you think it strange that the Soul should outlive
incapable of Illusion and Deceit at least with respect to those who wrought them Jesus Christ could never imagine that he had filled five thousand Men at one time three thousand at another that he had raised to Life the Widows Son of Naim the daughter of Jairus and Lazarus of Bethany that he had made St. Peter walk upon the Sea c. if all these things had not really been true No one surely can doubt but that Jesus Christ foretold his Resurrection if he considers that it was upon this Account only that the Jewish Doctors appointed a Watch to guard his Sepulcher and commanded the Stone of it to be sealed Sir we remember said they to Pilate that that Deceiver said while he was yet alive after three days I will rise again Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day lest his Disciples come by night and steal him away and say unto the people he is risen from the Dead so the last errour shall be worse than the first Pilate said unto them ye have a watch go your way make it as sure as you can So they went and made the Sepulchre sure sealing the stone and setting a watch Mat. 27. 63 64 65 66. This is such a matter of fact which the Disciples could not durst not invent against the publick knowledge every body had of it and which besides agrees very well with the other Circumstances of that Event For how came that Report to be spread in Jerusalem that the Watch slept when the Disciples took away the Body of Jesus had they not really set a Watch to guard his Sepulchre And what necessity was there to appoint a Watch to guard it had it not been to hinder the Disciples from reporting abroad that he was risen from the Dead And if Christ really believed that he should rise again he could not have believed it but upon the Truth of his Miracles neither could he have believed his Miracles to be true had they been false Thus it appears that the Connexion of all those Circumstances if narrowly considered forms as it were a kind of a moral Demonstration which cannot but throughly convince any just and reasonable Man But let us not slightly pass over that matter of fact but having seen what Christ thought concerning his Resurrection let us next consider the Opinion of the Scribes and Pharisees concerning it and the Report the Soldiers made that were appointed to guard this Sepulcher For the Consideration of those Circumstances may give us some light in the Discovery of that matter of fact the most important and the most essential that ever was or ever shall be hereafter In the first place the Scribes and Pharisees and generally every Member of the Sanhedrin being instigated by the very same Spirit that had induced them to put Jesus Christ to Death were in a great Apprehension lest his Disciples should take away his Body and afterwards report abroad that he was risen from the Dead We may judge how much they thought it for their Interest to prevent it by the Attempts they had already made to put him to Death And it is very probable that since the Sepulcher of Jesus Christ was to have been guarded but three days they took all care imaginable before hand for fear the Watch thro negligence or otherwise should have suffered that Body to be taken away which it so mightily behoved them to keep in their Custody But let us consider the Event of all this The Soldiers that watch'd the Body could not hinder it from rising out of it's Sepulcher How so Was it because they were afraid or were they bribed not to discover the Business Had they been bribed one might very well imagine it was not in behalf of the Disciples that they would run the hazard of losing their Lives for their Negligence or Treachery What then were they afraid But how could the Watch prove so fearful and the Disciples on a sudden so couragious as to attempt the taking away the dead Body of one from whom they had so lately fled while he was yet alive Besides How could those Soldiers have reported such things as they did without manifestly contradicting themselves For if they were asleep how did they know that the Disciples of Christ had taken away his Body But why did not the Sanhedrin for their own Honour and the Respect they bare to the Truth put all those Soldiers to the Rack And if that Thought came not presently into their Heads is it not natural to think they would have done it when they found awhile after all Jerusalem inclinable to believe in that crucified man and that about six thousand Souls had already believed in him in one day and that too but fifty days after his Death Certainly the Soldiers that watch'd his Body were still at Jerusalem And the Sanhedrin had still the same Power and Authority as before It highly concerned them to punish the Negligence of those Soldiers or make them confess the Secret of their Perfidy and who it was that suborned them I say it highly concerned them to make that strict Examination both to justify their own Procedure and prevent the utter Loss of almost an infinite number of Persons that had already sided with the Disciples of that pretended Impostor But this is not all When on the Day of Pentecost that is fifty days after the Death of Jesus Christ the Apostles shewed themselves in the City of Jerusalem to testify there that they had seen him risen from the Dead and that after he had several times appeared to them and was gone up into Heaven he had poured down upon them the miraculous and extraordinary Gifts of the Holy Ghost why did not the Sanhedrin then who was so highly concerned in discovering the Authors of the taking away the Body of Jesus Christ I say why did they not seize upon the Apostles and so make them confess how all things had happened Why did they not confront them with the Watch Why did they not cast Joseph of Arimathea and those Men in Prison till they had made them confess what was become of that Body as also every other Circumstance of their Imposture 'T is already very unlikely that if the Disciples of Christ had come by night and had stolen his Body away they durst have shewed themselves and appeared in publick nay immediately confessed that they were his Disciples It is much more credible they would have hid themselves after such an Action and that if they preach'd at all it would have been to People more remote and not in Jerusalem the very Place where those things had happened nor in the Presence of that very Sanhedrin they were so much afraid of and had so much offended Why then did not the Sanhedrin take the ordinary Methods made use of to discover Criminals They were very ready by Threats Torments and Persecutions to oblige the Apostles not to preach up the Name of
this Necessity and it is to no purpose to alledge his Meanness and Wretchedness for that Circumstance rather aggravates the Crime than excuses it it being impudent beyond all pardon for a Traytour to plead Innocence because he is a Peasant and not a Lord. It will be also in vain to lay the Fault upon the evil Temperament of Body and Mind For if either submits to those Reasons which you have for committing no indecent action before a Sovereign and if that and all its Passions are calm when you fall into any Danger or expect Sentence of Death there is the same Reason that the Presence the Will and Judgments of God should have the same effect upon it Nor will Ignorance be any Excuse It would indeed justifie you if it were not only a bare pretence as it does Brutes Children and Ideots But what Man knows not his Duty 'T is also in vain to rely on the Mercy of God for that extends not to impenitent Sinners and the Almighty saves only those that desire and endeavour to be saved Lastly 'T is meer folly to assert that eternal Punishments are disproportionable to the weakness of our Nature For is not God himself eternal whom you have offended And is not your Soul also eternal that has Sinned against him Self-love however blinded thinks not life eternal a thing disagreeable and imagins nothing in it disproportionable to our Condition But 't is shock'd at the Thoughts of everlasting Pains and therefore willing to believe them improbable Dreams and Whimsies But why it does so is hard to be imagin'd unless we suppose its design to be at any rate to impose upon it self In the mean while since you can neither destroy the Eternity of God or the Soul which Reason it self forces you to acknowledge you must either suppose that the Soul is to dwell eternally with God or that it must be eternally banished from his Presence that is that it must live or die eternally For to live with God is to enjoy the greatest Perfection of Happiness and to be banished his Presence is certainly the greatest Misery that can be thought of As soon as we know the Existence of God that the Soul has no Parts and that 't is incapable of any Dissolution that its Nature altogether distinct from that of Matter cannot be buried under the Ruins of the Body it is then very hard for us to oppose the Doctrin which the Gospel teaches us concerning the State of the Soul after Death Nay we are so far from impugning of it that there is even a Necessity incumbent upon us readily to embrace the same For if the Souls of the Wicked together with those of the Good are equally to be banished the Presence of God then Reason Nature and all our other Knowledge impose upon us in giving us Hope of a future Reward And if the Souls both of the Wicked and the Good are to enjoy alike the Presence of Almighty God then too those very Principles delude us in making us dread his pretended Judgments and so Gods Justice and Veracity together with all our other Knowledge are at an end To avoid therefore falling into such an impious Assertion we must own that the Souls of the Good are to dwell for ever with God but that contrariwise those of the Wicked are to be banished his Presence and in owning this we affirmthe only thing in the World that is most agreeable to all our Knowledge and most visibly flows from the nature of things themselves The Blessings of God excellently answer his liberal Promises and the formidable Severity of his Punishments All the Creatures of this visible World conspire together to do us good And besides all the temporal Blessings daily conferr'd upon us besides the whole Earths being replenished with the Knowledge of the true God the Hearts of Men are sanctified their Souls comforted the Gospel preached throughout the whole World the Son of God died for our Offences and was raised for our Justification our crucified Saviour came out of the Grave to bring us Peace from God and seal the Truth of his Gospel by his frequent Apparitions after his Death there was a visible and frequent Effusion of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost upon Men a multitude of Martyrs sent from God to reclaim the World by their Examples and Conversation from Vice and Idolatrous Superstition all these things I say are such Blessings as are wonderfully suitable to the Promises and Threatnings of God and fully convince us that the Christian Morality has as many Objects to exalt and comfort Men's Souls as it has to excite and terrify their Minds to the performance of their Duty X. But to prove that this Morality is not a meer Idea of Perfection God in is Wisdom was pleased not only to have it set down in the Book of the New Testament but also to have it lively Painted first in the Life of Christ and afterwards in the daily practice of the Primitive Christians These Men are not such Teachers as might deservedly be accused of speaking well but doing ill as it was objected formerly to Seneca who composed very excellent Discourses concerning Poverty and the contempt of the Goods of Fortune when he himself was richer than the wealthiest Citizen of Rome These on the contrary confirm'd by their practice what they taught And by extirpating their evil Desires form'd such a Society as is conformable to that we have had above but a faint Prospect of when we laid down the Idea of Man's Duty They utterly renounced those Passions which put a Distinction betwixt them and other Men. They forgot their Quality and Condition the better to use one another like Brethren The same Interests were common to them all They sold their Possessions to ease the Wants and Necessities of those that suffered Adversity They rejoyced for having been thought worthy to suffer for the Name of God Every thing conduced to their Happiness even Afflictions themselves They prayed for those that despitefully us'd them and as Charity and not Selflove was the Rule of their Affections so all the Motions of their Heart tended to one as to the same Center to the Glory of God and the good of their Neighbours which gave the Scripture occasion to say that they were but one Heart and one Soul I confess that State could not always continue in the Church but the Wisdom of God permitted it should last for some time to give us a lively Image and Idea of Heaven here on Earth and so to confirm by the excellence of such an Example a Morality already supported by so many great and powerful Motives VIII Portraiture of the Christian Religion as it is consider'd in its Mysteries THe Mysteries God has revealed unto us in his Word are like the cloudy Pillar which led the Children of Israel through the Wilderness For like that they are clear on one side but dark and obscure on the other If we contemplate
the other Scale to overbalance it but t is not the Pleasure of God we should and we must rest content to believe those Objects which make us thus renounce that which we actually see And should they be never so agreeable to the Principles of Common Sense yet Faith and not Reason ought chiefly to induce us to receive them Now the same Principle that sets the Heart at variance with the Law that imposes on it the necessity of acting after that manner the same Principle I say makes Reason oppose Revelation which lays upon it an invincible Necessity of believing what it cannot comprehend 'T is certain however that this Command of God is very conformable to the nature of things very suitable to our present Condition necessary to our Sanctification and useful for the advancement of Gods Glory We must not think it strange that the Dispensation of Faith should preceed that of Sight since we daily observe Darkness to preceed Light by a natural Order and that we are Children before we come to be Men. Both Experience and Reason tell us that our Knowledge is very imperfect in this Life wherein the Soul is as it were pressed down by the Clog of the Body that we may walk more secure by the help of the Light of Nature And those Heathens who attempted to go beyoud it wandred blindly about and lost their Way There are two sorts of Irregularities in Man which produce all his other Disorders Pride and Voluptuousness The latter of which springs up in the most inferiour part of the Soul and is chiefly produced by the Senses But Pride is properly a Defect of the Mind As therefore there has not been found hitherto a better Remedy against Voluptuousness than that of afflicting the Senses by denying them those Pleasures they so earnestly thirst after so it does not appear there has been as yet a better means thought of to remove the Pride of the Mind than to humble it by restraining those Speculations of Knowledge which puff it up beyond measure and mortify it by requiring it to sacrifice all its weak Conjectures and vain Reasonings to Faith And indeed this Sacrifice of our selves is deservedly owing to God since there is as much Reason for submitting our Willby our Obedience to his Laws as there is for subjecting our Mind to him by Faith For by the former of these acts we own him for our Lord that has a Right to command us and by the latter we readily confess his Veracity and that we need not fear being imposed upon when we receive those things he commands us to observe Thus Man who had lost himself in his Desire of infinite Knowledge is bound in some measure to expiate his Crime in not desiring to know any thing by himself He had attempted to get as clear a Knowledge of all things as God himself But now he refuses to know any thing but from God He was blind whilst he walked in the Light of Nature but now he must see clear in the Darkness of the Dispensation of Faith For after that in the Wisdom of God the World by Wisdom knew not God it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe 1 Cor. 1. 21. 'T is certain should God familiarly and frequently Reveal himself unto Men by sensible and continued Miracles we should then walk by Sight and not by Faith and 't is true also that if the Objects of Revelation were not in some sort obscure there would be no Endeavours no Difficulty no Sacrifice of Reason made to believe them The Difficulties that Mysteries are attended with have almost the same Influence over our Vnderstanding as Afflictions have upon our Heart For as these bring the latter in subjection so the others serve to try the Constancy of the former And since God Almighty was pleased to encrease our Patience by two different sorts of Sufferings the one which he himself inflicts immediately upon us and the other he permits worldly minded and sinful Men to inflict upon us so in like manner he was pleased to exercise our Faith by two different sorts of Difficulties some whereof spring immediately from God himself and others proceed from the very Heart and Vnderstanding of Men. For we must distinguish betwixt that Obscurity with respect to the Mysteries which proceed from God and that which proceeds from the Vnderstanding of Men. The first is either necessary as all those Difficulties which arise from the essential Disproportion between infinite Objects such as those of Revelation and a finite Understanding like ours or else voluntary and so enter into the very Plan and Design of Religion it self And these again may be distinguished according to that Diversity which in our manner of conceiving things we are obliged to suppose in the Perfections of God himself There being some which proceed from the Council of his Wisdom others from that of his Justice others from that of his Majesty and lastly from that of his Goodness and Mercy Thus Divine Wisdom was pleased to intermix some sort of Darkness amidst the most express Prophecies we have lest that too clear an Evidence of them should destroy their Event To this Principle also must we refer all those Shadows Types Parabolical Representations that mixture of sensible Objects with spiritual Benefits that of the State of the Church with the State of Israel according to the flesh and generally all those other means which the Holy Ghost made use of partly to cover those Events he has declared to Men many Ages before their Completion God drew a Veil over the most essential Truths of the Old Testament such as the Immortality of the Soul the Trinity the Redemption of Mankind c. that a distinct Revelation from all these Objects might be an undeniable Character of the Messias and that his Disciples might boldly affirm that Life was manifested in Jesus Christ that Grace had appeared unto all Men. For no Man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him John 1. 18. To this Wisdom of God also must be referred that Conduct of the Holy Ghost in inspiring the Patriarchs thereby to reveal a better life to them and make them cry out upon their Death-beds Lord I have waited for thy Salvation but withal giving them but a faint Prospect of that Object by such obscure Thoughts and dark Notions as they were not able of themselves to solve deferring to give a more perfect Knowledge of his Mysteries till that Time which he had set apart for the fulfilling of his Oracles and the Manifestation of him that was to be the Author and End of Christian Religion For this cause therefore there is hardly mention made of any thing else in the Writings of Moses but of temporal Promises and Threatnings and hence it was that Jesus Christ himself when disputing against the Sadducees proved the Resurrection of the dead but by
Nature And what is most surprising in the former of those two Unions is to see that the Soul which is so noble a Being should be so closely fastened and united to Matter and even depend upon it in all its Operations Now 't is not so with the Incarnation of Christ And it can never be said that the Divine Nature depends on the Humane but contrariwise 't is the Humane Nature which depends on the Divine In this Union God remains the same as before All-perfect All-mighty All-full Eternal and Immutable but Man is changed and sanctified and exalted by it What Inconveniency then can there result from it As it is surprising to see a most noble Being subject to a less perfect Being so it is natural for a less perfect Being to be subject to one more Noble Now the latter of these the Mystery of the Incarnation evidently demonstrates and the Union of the Soul with the Body discovers the former It follows hence therefore that the Union of the Soul with the Body is in some sense very extraordinary and far more surprising than the Mystery of the Incarnation 3. If still you require another Representation of this Object that might further give you a clearer Notion of the same Conceive a false Sun composed of two different things so closely united together that they seem as it were confounded together viz. A Cloud and the Light of the Sun The Cloud is not the Sun nor is the Sun the Cloud And thus the Humane Nature of Christ is not the Divine Nature the same with the Humane This false Sun is a Sun and yet a Cloud so likewise Christ is God and Christ is Man This false Sun is formed of the Substance of the Earth because it is composed of a Cloud which is nothing else but the Vapours of it and of the Sun himself being formed out of those Beams in which the Body of that Planet consists so in like-manner Christ is taken from the Earth and is a part of the common Lump of Mankind because he is Man which does not hinder him from being the Substance of the Father since he is the Brightness of his Glory This is a very just Representation of that great Mystery but not perfect But we hope every just and equitable Reader will easily forgive the Defects of this Comparison in a Subject that is so far exalted above our weak Imagination 4. Moreover of all those who pretended to treat of the Nature of the Deity none but the Epicureans who thought it was idle and lazy divided it entirely from its Creatures and all other Men besides looked upon it as united to its Works The Heathens for instance imagined it was affixed to their Temples and Statues to which they supposed it constantly united But the Jews more properly looked upon God as being united in a more partilar manner to a Bush or a Cloud or the Ark. And several of the Incredulous now adays represent the Deity to themselves as an Vniversal Soul affixed to universal Matter just as our Soul is united to our Body If then it be so common to Men to conceive God as being united to his Works why should it seem so strange to them to represent him as closely united to the Humane Nature of Christ and that too in a more particular manner than to any of his other Creatures For if there be any Creature which the Deity may be united to it must necessarily be such an holy and innocent Creature as that is And if it be possible for God to unite himself to any living Body it is much more likely he should impart himself to the Soul of Jesus Christ. If an Ark was capable to be filled with the Presence of God there is not the least Difficulty in conceiving that Humane Nature being pure and holy and far perfecter than all the Arks in the World should have been thus honoured in a more particular manner And if Men in short stick not to make the Vniversal Soul as it were depending upon Matter by its Union to it why should we refuse to admit of an Union which leaves to God his intire Independence and Liberty and aims at nothing else but the bringing the Body and Soul of Christ in a greater subjection to Him We no sooner embrace the Mystery of the Incarnation but every thing that seems offensive in the Doctrin of Christian Religion will presently vanish We shall then easily comprehend that 't was possible for Christ to die since he was Man and that his Death is infinitely valuable since he was God And so great is the Dignity which proceeds from the Union of those two Natures that it makes the Death of Christ equivalent to the Punishments our Sins had so justly deserved We shall not then think it difficult to be fully convinced of the Truth of the Resurrection of our Lord for it would be unreasonable to suppose that a Nature as had been honoured with so particular an Union to the Deity should yet have been for ever dissolv'd and remain'd to all Eternity under the Power of Death But we shall think it very reasonable to imagin that it could not but have risen from the Grave into which it had been pleased to descend If then Christ be truly risen from the Dead can our Incredulous Reason still refuse to believe that we shall also rise again But how can that Reason contradict a Truth which the Disciples saw They beheld the Glory of Christ both in the Miracles which he performed and in his Holiness of life They saw God manifested in the Flesh and were Witnesses of the Resurrection of our Lord They perceived Angels coming down towards him The Gospel was preached to the Gentiles by their Ministry The World believed on their Preaching and Lastly they saw Christ ascending into Heaven all which were very sensible and evident matters of Fact The Mystery then of the Incarnation tho the hardest to comprehend of all those of Christian Religion implies however nothing contrary to Reason But we must except the most Holy and ever-blessed Trinity another Mystery which being infinitely exalted above the reach of our shallow Capacity is not easily reconcilable to it Nevertheless 't is most certain that the Sublimity of its Nature renders it not any ways repugnant to Reason 1 st Because the word Person is not to be taken in the same sense with that of Essence I grant that three Persons and one Person one Essence and three Essences implie a Contradiction but the Notion of one Essence and three Persons is not liable to any after you know the Signification of those two Terms 2 ly Because the Deity is so great and so sublime a Subject that we ought not to wonder if we can't reach to the Greatness of it by our weak Imagination 3 dly Because for ought we know the most considerable Difficulties of this Mystery proceed from a Defect of Revelation or the silence which holy Writ observes on that