emarkable fact that Pythagoras, one of the
most celebrated philosophers of antiquity, represented the Great
Author of all things to be possessed of a threefold form (Cudworth
System. Intell. cap. iv. p. 446, June 1733). Nor is it less
wonderful, as a learned writer has shown, that even the Chinese seem
to have received, from the dispersed Jews, long before the birth of
Christ, some knowledge of the doctrine of the Trinity. Bryant's
Philo Judaeus, pp. 283-290.--_Ed._]

227 [That is, a bottom, or ball of thread.--_Ed._]

228 [That is, to be manifested.--_Ed._]

229 [The word _furniture_ had formerly a more varied and extensive
signification than is now assigned to it. The old divines employed
it to denote the union of the divine and human natures in the person
of Christ, or the peculiar properties or qualifications with which,
as the Messiah, he was furnished, to act in the character of our
Mediator. "Consider that Christ's calling to the office of
Mediatorship may import three things his designation, his
_furniture_, his investiture in the office."--_Gillespie's Ark of the
Covenant_, p. 176. Lond. 1677.--_Ed._]

230 [Codrus respecting whom this incident is recorded was the last king
of the Athenians. His subjects from reverence to his memory resolved
that with him should terminate their regal form of government.--_Val.
Max._ lib. v. cap. 6. _Just. Hist._ lib. v. cap. 6.--_Ed._]

231 [That is, appeal.--_Ed._]

232 ["What Mahomet did, lies within any man's reach. He was authorized
by no miracle, he was countenanced by no prediction. But what was
performed by Jesus Christ, is absolutely above the power and the
imitation of man.

"Mahomet established himself by slaughter, Jesus Christ by
commanding us to lay down our lives. Mahomet, by forbidding his law
to be read, Jesus Christ by engaging us to search and read. In a
word, the two designs are in all respects so directly opposite that
Mahomet took the way, in human probability to succeed, Jesus Christ,
humanly speaking, to be disappointed. And hence, instead of so
irrational a conclusion, as that because Mahomet succeeded, Jesus
Christ might, in like manner have succeeded before, we ought to
infer, that since Mahomet has succeeded, Christianity must
inevitably have perished