so ' ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book 1. 



But, fetting afide things immaterial, there is one material thing which 

 will illuftrate this matter very much, and make it intelligible even to 

 thofe who are not philofophers. The thing I mean is the Sun, which 

 produces rays that are coeval with the caufe producing them; as we 

 cannot fuppofe the Sun to exift without rays. And this example, with 

 the other I have given from the theorems of fcience, proves this general 

 propofition, that wherever any thing, by the neceffity of its nature, 

 produces another thing, both the thing produced and the caufe, or 

 that which produces it, muft be co-exiftent : So that if the caufe be 

 eternal, the production alio mufi: be eternal. Now this is the cafe 

 of the generation of the Son of God ; for as produiflion is efl'cntial 

 to the Supreme Being, and as the firft produdion, according to the 

 Order of nature, mufl have been the princi})lc of intelligence, or the 

 Second Perfon of the Trinity, it was neccllary that this produdion 

 fliould be coeval with the Firfh Perfon of the Trinity, from which 

 it is derived, and confequcntly co-eternal with him. And in this 

 way, I think, the eternal generation is clearly explained, as it is 

 fliown that the Firft Perfon of the Trinity could not exift without 

 producing the Second. Whoever does not believe this, muft be- 

 lieve as Arius did, that the time was when our Saviour did not ex- 

 ift ; and that he was produced in the way of common generation 

 here on earth. Now, this is a herely that ftrikes at the very foun- 

 dation of the Chriftian religion, but which, as I have fhown, was 

 an error that men, who were not philofophers, would naturally 

 fall into, and was therefore a more general herefy and more predo- 

 minant than any other that ever was in the Chriftian church. 



And thus, 1 think, the two fundamental principles of the Chrif- 

 tian religion, the dodtrine of the Trinity, and of the eternal gener- 

 ation of the Son of God, are clearly explained. And as they are 

 thus made compreheniible by us, they may be believed, and ought to 

 be believed, as I think I have ftiown that they are truths of philofo- 



