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.
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