ted from nothing by the will of the father. The Son, by
whom all things were made, had been begotten before all worlds, and the
longest of the astronomical periods could be compared only as a
fleeting moment to the extent of his duration; yet this duration was
not infinite, and there had been a time which preceded the ineffable
generation of the Logos. On this only-begotten Son, the Almighty Father
had transfused his ample spirit, and impressed the effulgence of his
glory. Visible image of invisible perfection, he saw, at an immeasurable
distance beneath his feet, the thrones of the brightest archangels; yet
he shone only with a reflected light, and, like the sons of the Romans
emperors, who were invested with the titles of Caesar or Augustus,
he governed the universe in obedience to the will of his Father and
Monarch. II. In the second hypothesis, the Logos possessed all the
inherent, incommunicable perfections, which religion and philosophy
appropriate to the Supreme God. Three distinct and infinite minds or
substances, three coequal and coeternal beings, composed the Divine
Essence; and it would have implied contradiction, that any of them
should not have existed, or that they should ever cease to exist.
The advocates of a system which seemed to establish three independent
Deities, attempted to preserve the unity of the First Cause, so
conspicuous in the design and order of the world, by the perpetual
concord of their administration, and the essential agreement of their
will. A faint resemblance of this unity of action may be discovered
in the societies of men, and even of animals. The causes which disturb
their harmony, proceed only from the imperfection and inequality of
their faculties; but the omnipotence which is guided by infinite
wisdom and goodness, cannot fail of choosing the same means for
the accomplishment of the same ends. III. Three beings, who, by the
self-derived necessity of their existence, possess all the divine
attributes in the most perfect degree; who are eternal in duration,
infinite in space, and intimately present to each other, and to the
whole universe; irresistibly force themselves on the astonished mind, as
one and the same being, who, in the economy of grace, as well as in that
of nature, may manifest himself under different forms, and be considered
under different aspects. By this hypothesis, a real substantial trinity
is refined into a trinity of names, and abstract modifications, that