indulge unwisely in objections which it is the happy state of nobler
intelligences than man on earth is, to look into with desire, and to
exercise withal their keen and lofty minds.

But we have not yet done. Some further thoughts remain to be thrown out
in the third place, as to the prëconceivable fitness or propriety of
that Holy Union, which we call the trinity of Persons who constitute the
Self-existent One. If God, being one in one sense, is yet likely to
appear, humanly 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 cöequals of