Another deep and inscrutable topic is now to engage our thoughts--the
mystery of a probable Triunity. While we touch on such high themes, the
Christian's presumption ever is, that he himself approaches them with
reverence and prayer; and that, in the case of an unbeliever, any such
mind will be courteous enough to his friendly opponent, and wise enough
respecting his own interest and safety lest these things be true, to
enter upon all such subjects with the seriousness befitting their
importance, and with the restraining thought that in fact they may be
sacred.
Let us then consider, antecedently to all experience, with what sort of
deity pure reason would have been satisfied. It has already arrived at
Unity, and the foregoing attributes. But what kind of Unity is probable?
Unity of Person, or unity of Essence? A sterile solitariness, easily
understandable, and presumably incommunicative? or an absolute oneness,
which yet relatively involves several mysterious phases of its own
expansive love? Will you think it a foregone conclusion, if I assert the
superior likelihoods of the latter, and not of the former? Let us come
then to a few of many reasons. First: it was by no means probable to be
supposed anteriorly, that the God should be clearly comprehensible: yet
he must be one: and oneness is the idea most easily apprehended of all
possible ideas. The meanest of intellectual creatures could comprehend
his Maker, and in so far top his heights, if God, being truly one in one
view, were yet only one in every view: if, that is to say, there existed
no mystery incidental to his nature: nay, if that mystery did not
amount to the difficulty of a seeming contradiction. I judge it likely,
and with confidence, that Reason would prërequire for his God, a Being,
at once infinitely easy to be apprehended by the lowest of His spiritual
children, and infinitely difficult to be comprehended by the highest of
His seraphim. Now, there can be guessed only two ways of compassing such
a prërequirement: one, a moral way; such as inventing a deity who could
be at once just and unjust, every 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 of
Himself. It was reasonable to prëjudge that the everlasting companions
of Benevolent God, should also be God. And thus, it appears antecedently
probable that (what from the poverty of language we must call) the
multiplication of the one God should not have been created beings; that
is, should have been divine; a term, which includes, as of right, the
attribution to each such Holy Person, of all the wondrous
characteristics of the Godhead.
Again: as to the latter question; was it probable that such so-called
sub-divisions should be two, or three, or how many? I do not think it
will be wise to insist upon any such arithmetical curiosity as a perfect
number; nor on such a toy as an equilateral triangle and its properties;
nor on the peculiar aptitude for sub-division in every thing, to be
discerned in a beginning, a middle, and an end; nor in the consideration
that every fact had a cause, is a constancy, and produces a consequence:
neither, to draw any inferences from the social maxim that for counsel,
companionship, and conversation, the number three has some special
fitness. Some other similar fancies, not altogether valueless, might be
alluded to. It seems preferable, however, on so grand a theme, to
attempt a deeper dive, and a higher flight. We would then, reverently as
always, albeit equally as always with the free-born boldness of God's
intellectual children, attempt to prëjudge how many, and with what
distinctive marks, the holy beings into whom (Greek: ôst epos eipein)
God, for very Benevolence sake, pours out Essential Unity, were likely
to be.
Let us consider what principles, as in the case of a forthcoming
creation, would probably be found in action, to influence such
creation's Author.
First of all, there would be Will, a will energized by love, disposing
to create: a phase of Deity aptly and comprehensively typified to all
minds by the name of a universal Father: this would be the primary
impersonation of God. And is it not so?
Secondly: there would be (with especial reference to that idea of
creation which doubtless at most remote beginnings occupied the Good
One's contemplation), there would be next, I repeat, in remarkable
adaptation to all such benevolent views, the great idea of principle,
Obedience; conforming to a Father's righteous laws, acquiescing in his
just will, and returning love for love: such a phase could not be better
shadowed out to creatures than by an Eternal Son; the dutiful yet
supreme, the subordinate yet cöequal, the amiable yet exalted Avatar of
our God. This was probable to have been the second impersonation of
Deity. And is it not so?
Thirdly: Springing from the conjoint ideas of the Father and the Son,
and with similar prospection to such instantly creative universe, there
would occur the grand idea of Generation; the mighty cöequal, pure, and
quickening Impulse: aptly announced to men and angels as the Holy
Spirit. This was to have been the third impersonation of Divinity. And
is it not so?
Of all these--under illumination of the fore-known fact, I speak, in
their aspect of anterior probability. With respect to more possible
Persons, I at least cannot invent one. There is, to my reflection,
neither need nor fitness for a fourth, or any further Principle. If
another can, let him look well that he be not irrationally demolishing
an attribute and setting it up as a principle. Obedience is not an
attribute; nor Generation; nor Will: whilst the attribute of Love,
pervading all, sets these only possible three Principles going together
as One in a mysterious harmony. I would not be misunderstood; persons
are not principles; but principles may be illustrated and incorporative
in persons. Essential Love, working distinctively throughout the Three,
unites them instinctively as One: even as the attribute Wisdom designs,
and the attribute Power arranges all the scheme of Godhead.
And now I ask Reason, whether, prësupposing keenness, he might not have
arrived by calculation of probabilities at the likelihood of these great
doctrines: that the nature of God would be an apparent contradiction:
that such contradiction should not be moral, but physical; or rather
verging towards the metaphysical, as immaterial and more profound: that
God, being One, should yet, in his great Love, marvellously have been
companioned from eternity by Himself: and that such Holy and United
Confraternity should be so wisely contrived as to serve for the bright
unapproachable exemplar of love, obedience, and generation to all the
future universe, such Triunity Itself existing uncreated.