In the Books of Proverbs, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus, Solomon speaks, in sublime language, of Him Who is eternal Wisdom he tells us, and he uses every variety of grandest expression to tell us, of the divine essence of this Wisdom, and of His being a distinct Person in the Godhead but, how few among the people of Israel could see through the veil? Isaias heard the voice of the Seraphim, as they stood around God's throne he heard them singing, in alternate choirs, and with a joy intense because eternal, this hymn: Holy! Holy! Holy! is the Lord (Is. Power, Understanding, and Will, are three faculties within him, and yet he himself is but one being. 26), the Jew bows down and believes, but he understands not the sacred text the Christian, on the contrary, who has been enlightened by the complete revelation of God, sees, under this expression, the Three Persons acting together in the formation of Man the light of Faith develops the great truth to him, and tells him that, within himself, there is a likeness to the blessed Three in One. "When the Book of Genesis tells us, that God spoke in the plural, and said: Let Us make man to our image and likeness (Gen. Not that the Old Testament Books were altogether silent on the Three Divine Persons, Whose ineffable relations are eternal only, the mysterious passages, which spoke of them, were not understood by the people at large whereas, in the Christian Church, a child of seven will answer them that ask him, that, in God, the three Divine Persons have but one and the same nature, but one and the same Divinity. During the period preceding the Incarnation of the eternal Word, God seems intent on inculcating the idea of His Unity, for polytheism was the infectious error of mankind and every notion of there being a spiritual and sole cause of all things would have been effaced on earth, had not the infinite goodness of that God watched over its preservation. #Brave church trinity fullIt was God's good-pleasure to make known to us His essence, in order to bring us into closer union with Himself, and to prepare us, in some way, for that face-to-face vision of Himself which He intends giving us in eternity: but His revelation is gradual He takes mankind from brightness unto brightness, fitting it for the full knowledge and adoration of Unity in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity. Human reason may, of itself, come to the knowledge of the existence of God as Creator of all beings it may, by its own innate power, form to itself an idea of His perfections by the study of His works but the knowledge of God's intimate being can only come to us by means of His own gracious revelation. Our Faith centers in this as in the master-truth of all it knows in this life, and as the infinite object whose vision is to form our eternal happiness and yet, we only know it, because it has pleased God to reveal Himself thus to our lowly intelligence, which, after all, can never fathom the infinite perfections of that God, who necessarily inhabiteth light inaccessible (1 Tim. This is the Mystery whence all others flow. The very essence of the Christian Faith consists in the knowledge and adoration of One God in Three Persons.
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