Probabilities | Page 9

where and no where, good and evil, powerful and weak;
this is the heathen phase of Numen's character, and is obviously most
objectionable in every point of view: the other would be a physical way;
such as requiring a God who should be at once material and immaterial,
abstraction and concretion; or, for a still more confounding paradox to
Reason (considered as antagonist to Faith, in lieu of being strictly its
ally), an arithmetical contradiction, an algebraic mystery, such as
would be included in the idea of Composite Unity; one involving many,
and many collapsed into one. Some such enigma was probable in
Reason's guess at the nature of his God. It is the Christian way; and one
entirely unobjectionable: because it is the only insuperable difficulty as
to His Nature which does not debase the notion of Divinity. But there
are also other considerations.
For, secondly. The self-existent One is endowed, as we found probable,
with abundant loving-kindness, goodness overflowing and perpetual. Is
it reasonable to conceive that such a character could for a moment be
satisfied with absolute solitariness? that infinite benevolence should, in
any possible beginning, be discovered existent in a sort of selfish
only-oneness? Such a supposition is, to the eye of even unenlightened
Reason, so clearly a reductio ad absurdum, that men in all countries
and ages have been driven to invent a plurality of Gods, for very
society sake: and I know not but that they are anteriorly wiser and more
rational than the man who believes in a Benevolent Existence eternally
one, and no otherwise than one. Let me not be mistaken to imply that
there was any likelihood of many cöexistent gods: that was a
reasonable improbability, as we have already seen, perhaps a spiritual
impossibility: but the anterior likelihood of which I speak goes to show,
that in One God there should be more than one cöexistence: each, by
arithmetical mystery, but not absurdity, pervading all, cöequals, each
being God, and yet not three Gods, but one God. That there should be a

rational difficulty here--or, rather, an irrational one--I have shown to be
Reason's prërequirement: and if such a one as I, or any other creature,
could now and here (ay, or any when or any where, in the heights of
highest heaven, and the far-stretching distance of eternity) solve such
intrinsic difficulty, it would demonstrably be one not worthy of its
source, the wise design of God: it would prove that riddle read, which
uncreate omniscience propounded for the baffling of the creature mind.
No. It is far more reasonable, as well as far more reverent, to acquiesce
in Mystery, as another attribute inseparable from the nature of the
Godhead; than to quibble about numerical puzzles, and 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