which supplies to atheism its most plausible, because its only moral,
arguments; but more especially to that species of atheism which existed
in Greece in the form of polytheism, admitting moral and intelligent
shapers and governors of the world, but denying an intelligent ground,
or self-conscious Creator of the universe; their gods being themselves
the offspring of chaos and necessity, that is, of matter and its
essential laws or properties.

The Leibnitzian distinction of the Eternal Reason, or nature of God,
[Greek: to theion](the [Greek: nous kai anagkae] of Timaeus Locrus) from
the will or personal attributes of God--([Greek: thelaema kai
boulaesis--agathou patros agathon boulaema])--planted the germ of the
only possible solution, or rather perhaps, in words less exceptionable
and more likely to be endured in the schools of modern theology, brought
forward the truth involved in Behmen's too bold distinction of God and
the ground of God;--who yet in this is to be excused, not only for his
good aim and his ignorance of scholastic terms, but likewise because
some of the Fathers expressed themselves no less crudely in the other
extreme; though it is not improbable that the meaning was the same in
both.

At least Behmen constantly makes self-existence a positive act, so as
that by an eternal [Greek: perich_oraesis] or mysterious
intercirculation God wills himself out of the 'ground' ([Greek: to
theion--to hen kai pan],--'indifferentia absoluta realitatis infinitae et
infinitae potentialitatis')--and again by his will, as God existing,
gives being to the ground, [Greek: autogenaes--autophylaes--uhios
heautou]. 'Solus Deus est;--itaque principium, qui ex seipso dedit sibi
ipse principium. Deus ipse sui origo est, suaeque causa substantiae, id
quod est, ex se et in se continens. Ex seipso procreatus ipse se fecit',