ly speaking, more than one in another sense; we have to
inquire anteriorly of the probable nature of such other intimate Being
or Beings: as also, whether such addition to essential oneness is likely
itself to be more than one or only one. As to the former of these
questions: if, according to the presumption of reason (and according
also to what we have since learned from revelation; but there may be
good policy in not dotting this book with chapter and verse)--if the
Deity thus loved to multiply Himself; then He, to whom there can exist
no beginning, must have so loved, so determined, and so done from all
eternity. Now, any conceivable creation, however originated, must have
had a beginning, place it as far back as you will. In any succession of
numbers, however infinitely they may stretch, the commencement at least
is a fixed point, one. But, this multiplication of

Deity, this complex simplicity, this intricate easiness, this obvious
paradox, this sub-division and con-addition of a One, must have taken
place, so soon as ever eternal benevolence found itself alone; that is,
in eternity, and not in any imaginable time. So then, the Being or
Beings would probably not have been creative, but of the essence of
Deity. Take also for an additional argument, that it is an idea which
detracts from every just estimate of the infinite and all-wise God to
suppose He should take creatures into his eternal counsels, or consort,
so to speak, familiarly with other than the united sub-divisions,
persons, and coeequals of Himself. It was reasonable to prejudge that the
everlasting companions of Benevolent God, should also be God. And thus,
it appears antecedently probable that (what from the poverty of
language we must call) the multiplication of the one God should not have
been created beings; that is, should have been divine; a term, which
includes, as of right, the attribution to each such Holy Person, of all
the wondrous characteristics of the Godhead.

Again: as to the latter question; was it probable that such so-called
sub-divisions should be two, or three, or how many? I do not think it
will be wise to insist upon any such arithmetical curiosity as a perfect
number; nor on such a toy as an equilateral triangle and its properties;
nor on the peculiar aptitude for sub-division in every thing, to be
discerned in a beginning, a middle, and an end; nor in the consideration
that every fact had a cause, is a constancy, and produces a