“Cicero observes: If when travelling you came suddenly in a desert upon some magnificent palace, such as that of Solomon, and were to ask how it came thither, and the answer were made that a mountain had fallen, and that its ruins had shaped themselves, somehow, into this great mansion, you would laugh them to scorn who asserted this, for the house shows plainly the handiwork of an artificer—and that he was a famous artificer to boot—who thus ranged all in such perfect order, and this, you would say, was self-evident. So, too, he who considers the workmanship of this world with attention,—the garden of earth, the abyss of sea, the heavens wondrously adorned, the variety of stars, their varied and yet harmonious motions,—he will say that it is manifest that some master artificer has arranged them, and that their conjunction cannot be fortuitous.” “Look first at the beauteous image of the soul, and gather from it that it has a divine artificer. If you saw a boy holding a charming image in his hand, and you asked him, Whose is this image? who fashioned it? if he were to reply, I made it; you would at once say, That is not true, for it is a masterpiece of art. So, too, the wondrous power of our souls, and their wondrous perfection, point to a Heavenly artificer.” “Who, then, is God? He is One and Three: one in nature, one in wisdom, one in goodness; but three in Person: Three Persons but One God, one wise, one powerful, one good. “How then three Persons and not three Gods? I and thou are two persons, but one in nature and species. “How two persons with one nature? Because in me there is that which is not in thee, and this constitutes difference in personality. “But thou sayest, What is there in the Father which is not in the Son? “That thou mayest understand, take this illustration. “I have invented a science, entirely of myself; this science I teach thee; thou and I communicate it to a third. The same science is in all three; one of us knows nothing which the other knows not; one knows as much as all the three. Yet is there this difference between us, I have the knowledge of myself, having received it of none; in thee it is derived from me; in the third it proceeds from thee and me. Now suppose that, instead of a science, this were my nature which I gave to thee, and which we two communicated to the third; then should we three be one in nature, and yet with the diversity I have specified. “Thus, as I have said, is it with our God, in whom it is the same to be, to know, to be able, &c. This wisdom and nature is in the Father self-derived, received of none. It is in the Son also, the same, but received by intelligence from the Father. It is in the Holy Ghost, but proceeding from the Father and the Son by love: therefore the Persons are three, but there are not three Gods nor three Lords, for the nature, and the wisdom, and the power, and the goodness are one, but in three Persons; therefore there is but one God, one Lord, one Wise.”