since on it our whole religion depends; this is the foundation of every thing that is sacred; without it religion would be a mere fancy and conceit, the most foolish and unreasonable thing in the world; "He therefore", saith the apostle," that cometh unto God, must believe that he is;" that is, must be fully persuaded in his mind, that there is a God; and not only yield a naked assent to the certainty of his being and entity, but apprehend him under due and congruous notions to his nature and essence, "as the first cause and foundation of all things, infinite, unbegotten, immortal, perpetual, only, whom no bodily shape can describe, or circumspection determine, without quantity or quality, disposition, motion or habit," as Ruffinus writes in his exposition of this article, "When thou hearest," saith he, "the word GOD, understand a substance without beginning, and without end, simple, without mixture, invisible, incorporeal; to whom nothing is adjoined, in whom nothing is created, without author, for he himself is the author of all.

But, the existence of God having been in all ages universally acknowledged, without any considerable opposition thereunto, the unity of the godhead hath been more generally inculcated as the chiefest and more principle sense of this article; for the better understand

E

ing of which, it will be convenient to take notice 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 confirmed in the belief thereof, that now throughout their sixteen hundred years captivity and dis persion, 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, Anno 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 worship 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

aíso called gods, derived their original and es

sence.

As for the Heathen writers, an infinity of testimonies might be cited from Plutarch, Seneca, 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