there be no foe to combat, no difficulty to be overcome. Hatred,
ill-favour, weakness, are only perversions or diminutions of these.
Power exists independently of muscles or swords or screws or levers;
love, independently of kind thoughts, words, and actions; beauty,
independently of colours, shapes, and adaptations. Just so is Wisdom
philosophically spoken of by a truly royal and noble author:

"I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and find out the knowledge of clever
inventions. Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom; I am understanding; I
have strength. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before
his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or
ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth;
before the mountains were fixed, or the hills were made. When He
prepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass upon the face
of the depth; when he established the clouds above; when he strengthened
the foundations of the deep: Then was I by him, as one brought up with
him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; rejoicing
in the habitable parts of his earth; and my delights were with the sons
of men."

King Solomon well knew of Whom he wrote thus nobly. Eternal wisdom,
power, and goodness, all prospectively thus yearning upon man, and
incorporate in One, whose name, among his many names, is Wisdom. Wisdom,
as a quality, existed with God; and, constituting full pervasion of his
essence, was God.

But to return, and bind to a conclusion our ravelled thoughts. As,
originally, the self-existent being, unbounded, all-knowing, might take
up, so to speak, if He willed, these eternal affirmative excellences of
wisdom, power, and goodness; and as these, to every rational