Note 76 — Quest. IX., X., XI.

“God is One: a most pure, most simple, and most perfect Being.

“The absolute unity and simplicity of this glorious Being is strictly exclusive of any division of perfections. Yet, as human knowledge is not intuitive but discursive, we find it necessary to form and communicate our conceptions, by referring them to distinct and infinite attributes. Such are independence, spirituality, eternity, immutability, power, knowledge, rectitude, and benevolence.

“It is absurd to say, that either the abstract essence, or any of the infinite perfections of God, in themselves, or in their exercise, can be grasped, included, or comprehended (or whatever equivalent term be used) by a limited intellect. ‘A part of His ways, a little portion of Him,’ we know; for He has unveiled it. The knowledge of the best and greatest finite mind can only be, to immortality, an approximation; and therefore must for ever be infinitely small. God alone is CAPABLE of COMPREHENDING His own nature, mode of existence, and perfections.

“The only questions, therefore, that we have to ask, are, Has Deity, in fact, communicated to man any information concerning HIMSELF? And what has He communicated? Whatever such revelation may be, it is impossible that it should be self-contradictory, or any other than most becoming to infinite wisdom and purity.

“This revelation authorizes us, by a variety of inductive proofs, to conclude, that, with regard to the mode of existence of the ONE Divine Essence, the Unity of the Godhead includes a Trinity of Persons (so denominated for want of any better terms) who are scripturally styled the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: Distinct, not in essence or in perfections, but only personally: One, not personally, but in the common possession of the same identical nature and attributes.

“No contradiction or absurdity is involved in this doctrine, because the unity refers to one respect, and the trinity to another. But we make no difficulty in professing our incapacity to include in our knowledge, or express by any possible terms, the respect in which the Trinity of persons subsists in the perfect Oneness of the Deity. Such pretension would imply a contradiction.”

Smith’s Letters to Belsham.