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ing of which, it will be convenient to take no tice of the observation of Ruffinus, "that in all the Eastern creeds, it is, I believe in ONE God the father;" where, if by the Eastern he means the Nicene, or Constantinopolitan, it is certainly true; or, if he means the ancient creeds used before either of those, it is true not only of the Eastern, but of the Western also; for in all the most primitive creeds, whether Latin or Greek, this article runs, "I believe in one God," or, "in the only God;" as in the two creeds of Irenæus, and three of Origen's, Hena Theon, one God; and in three of Turtullian's, Unum, or, Unicum, Deum, one, or the only God: and whosoever shall with any observation consider the writings of the most ancient fathers, and especially of Irenæus, shall find, that there was a peculiar force and energy couched in this expression of one God, in contradiction to the wretched notions and tenets of some men, whereby they opposed and blasphemed this fundamental point of the Christian religion, the unity of the divine es

sence.

As for the persons who were condemned by this clause, it will be readily granted, that they were not the Jews, seeing the unity of the godhead is every where inculcated in the Mosaical law, and the body of that people

have been so immovably fixed and confirm ed in the belief thereof, that now throughout their sixteen hundred years captivity and dispersion, they have never quitted or deserted this principle, that God is One, as is evident from their thirteen articles of faith, composed by Maimonides, "the second whereof is the unity of the blessed God;" which is there explained to be in such a peculiar and transcendant manner, as that nothing like it can be found, and in their liturgy, according to the use of the Sepharadim, or the Spaniards, which is read in these parts of the world in their synagogues; in the very first hymn, according to the edition of David Di Krasto Tartas, printed at Amsterdam, Anno 422, of their little computation, which falls in with Anno Christi 1662; or, as it is in a larger edition by Emanuel Benvenisti, at Amsterdam, Anne Christi 1642, in the second hymn, which is an admiring declaration of the excellencies of the divine nature; the repeated chorus of that hymn is," All creatures both above and below, testify and witness all of them as one, that the Lord is one, and his name One."

And as this assertion of the divine unity was not intended against the Jews, so neither is it probable that it was principally designed against the Pagans: I do not deny, but that

the apostles and first preachers of the gospel did carefully instruct and warn their Heathen converts against Polytheism, or a multiplicity of gods, and directed them to the solitary wor ship of the true and only God; as St. Paul and Barnabas preached unto the Lycaonians, to turn from the idolatrous services of Jupiter and Mercury, "unto the living God, who made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein;" and the more firmly to establish them in the true and necessary notion of the unity of the divine essence, it is very likely, that frequently they might mention this with the other Christian verities, which they demanded at baptism. But that which I say, is this, that the constant repetition of this clause, in the order wherein it now stands in the creed, was chiefly designed against some persons different from the Pagans; for to do the Heathens justice, and not to make them worse than really they were, I do not think that it can be proved, that the generality, or at least the wisest and most thinking part of them, did ever own a plurality of gods; but on the contrary, a large volume of testimonies might be produced both from Heathens, and Christians, to evidence that they believed but only one eternal, supreme, unbegotten, and independent being; from whom all their other inferior divinities, vulgarly

also called gods, derived their original and es

sence.

As for the Heathen writers, an infinity of testimonies might be cited from Plutarch, Sencca, Maximus, of Tyre, Plato, Virgil, Hecatæus, Abderita, Xenophanes, Colophoniensis, Orpheus, Cicero, and a multitude of others who have all asserted, that the Pagans received but one supreme, infinite, and self-existent God; unto whom the title of Optimus, Maximus, the Greatest, and the Best, was alone ascribed; and that for those other innumerable divinities, called also gods, they were only so termed in an inferior and secondary sense, as they had some resemblance in their natures and virtues to the supreme God, from whom they were derived and generated, and whose children and off-spring they were, and as they were intercessors and mediators between him and the sons of men.

But there will be no need to cite any particular passages from the Pagan authors to confirm this point, seeing the Christian writers, and even those who have professedly writ and disputed against the idolatry and superstition, of the Heathens, have at the same time acknow. ledged, that they believed but one supreme and eternal God. St. Austin informs us, that

although the Pagans worshipped several deities, yet their doctors declared these to be but so many different names of their great god Jupiter, who was called in the air Juno, in the sea Neptune, in the earth Pluto, in hell Proserpina, in war Mars, in vineyards Bacchus, in the woods Diana; yea, all these other inferior gods and goddesses, as Opis, Lucina, Cunina, Fortuna, Rumina, and the rest of that numberless company, were "all of them but one and the same Jupiter," who, according to the diverse and various benefits that he bestowed upon mankind, was worshipped under different names, and appellations suitable thereunto; "which being so," as the said father continues there to write, "what would they lose, if in a more prudent compendium they did worship but one God? For, what part of him would be despised, when he himself is worshipped?" Homer and Hesiod were the first, as Athenagoras relates from Herodotus, "who invented the names, generations, titles, honors, arts, and shapes of the Grecian gods;" and yet Justin Martyr affirms, that not only Pythago ras and Plato, with the rest of the wise philosophers, but that even this blind, superstitious, and idolatrous Homer, in the golden chain of his gods and goddesses, doth at length place all the power and dominion in one supreme

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