a Deity. And that man must be poffeffed with a ftrange opinion of the weakness of our Fathers, and the teftimony of all former Ages, who fhall Pfal. xliv. 1. deny that ever any Miracle was wrought. We have heard with our ears, O God, our Fathers have

told us what works thou didst in their days, in the Pflxxii. 18. times of old. Blessed be the Lord God, who only doth wondrous works.

Nor are we only informed by the neceffary dependency of all things on God, as effects upon their univerfal caufe, or his external patefactions unto others, and the confentient acknowledgment of mankind; but every particular perfon hath a particular remembrancer in himself, as a fufficient testimony of his Creator, Lord, and Judge. We know there is a great force of Confcience in all Rom. ii. 15. inen, by which their thoughts are ever accufing, or excufing them; they feel a comfort in those virtuous actions which they find themselves to have wrought according to their rule, a fting and fecret remorfe for all vicious acts and impious machinations. Nay those who strive moft to deny a God, and to obliterate all sense of Divinity out of their own fouls, have not been leaft fenfible of this remembrancer in their breafts. It is true indeed, that a falfe opinion of God, and a fuperftitious perfuafion which hath nothing of the true God in it, may breed a remorfe of Confcience in those who think it true; and therefore fome may hence collect that the force of Confcience is only grounded upon an opinion of a Deity, and that opinion may be falfe. But if it be a truth, as the teftimonies of the wifeft Writers of moft different perfuafions, and experience of all forts of perfons of moft various inclinations, do agree, that the remorse of Conscience can never be obliterated, then it rather proveth than fuppofeth an opinion of a Divinity; and that man which most peremptorily denieth God's exiftence is the greatest argument himself that there is a God. Let Caligula

Caligula profefs himself an Atheist, and with that profeffion hide his head, or run under his bed, when the thunder ftrikes his ears, and lightning flashes in his eyes; those terrible works of nature put him in mind of the power, and his own guilt of the juftice of God; whom while in his wilful opinion he weakly denieth, in his involuntary action he strongly afferteth. So that a Deity will either be granted or extorted, and where it is not acknowledged it will be manifefted. Only unhappy is that man who denies him to himself, and proves him to others; who will not (g) acknowledge his existence, of whose power he cannot be ignorant, God is not A&s xvii. far from every one of us. The proper difcourse of 27• St. Paul to the Philofophers of Athens was, that they might feel after him and find him. Some Children have been fo ungracious as to refuse to give the honour due unto their Parent, but never any fo irrational as to deny they had a Father. As for those who have dishonoured God, it may ftand moft with their intereft, and therefore they may wish there were none; but cannot confift with their reason to affert there is none, when even the very Poets of the Heathen have taught us that we are his Off- Acts xvii. Spring.

It is neceffary thus to believe there is a God, first, because there can be no Divine Faith without this belief. For all Faith is therefore only Divine, because it relieth upon the authority of God giving teftimony to the object of it; but that which hath no being can have no authority, can give no testir mony. The ground of his Authority is his Veracity, the foundations of his Veracity are his Omniscience and Sanctity, both which fuppofe his Effence and Existence, because what is not is neither knowing nor holy.

Secondly, it is neceffary to believe a Deity, that thereby we may acknowledge fuch a nature extant as is worthy of, and may juftly challenge from us,

D 4

the

28.

the highest worship and adoration. For it were vain to be religious and to exercise devotion, except there were a Being to which all fuch holy applications were moft juftly due. Adoration implies fubmiffion and dejection, so that while we worship we caft down ourselves: there must be therefore fome great eminence in the object worshipped, or else we fhould dishonour our own nature in the worship of it. But when a Being is prefented of that intrinfical and neceffary perfection, that it depends on nothing, and all things elfe depend on that, and are wholly governed and difpofed by it, this worthily calls us to our knees, and fhews the humbleft of our devotions to be but just and loyal retributions.

This neceffary truth hath been fo univerfally received, that we fhall always find all nations of the World more prone unto Idolatry than to Atheism, and readier to multiply than deny the Deity. But our Faith teacheth us equally to deny them both, and each of them is renounced in these words, I believe in God. Firft, in God affirmatively, I believe he is, against Atheism. Secondly, in God exclufively, not in Gods, against Polytheifm and Idolatry. Although therefore the Existence and Unity of God be two distinct truths, yet are they of fo neceffary dependence and intimate coherence, that both may be expreffed by (h) one word, and included in one (i) Article.

And that the Unity of the Godhead is concluded in this Article is apparent, not only because the Nicene Council fo expreffed it by way of expofition, but also because this Creed in the (k) Churches of the Eaft, before the Council of Nice, had that addition in it, I believe in one God. We begin our Creed then as (1) Plato did his chief and prime epiftles, who gave this diftinction to his friends, that the name of God was prefixed before those that were more ferious and remarkable, but of Gods, in the plural, to fuch as were more vulgar and trivial.

Unto

Unto thee it was fhewed, faith Mofes to Ifrael, that Deut. ir. thou mightest know that the Lord he is God, there is 35. none elfe befide him. And as the Law, fo the Gospel teacheth us the fame, We know that an Idol is no- 1 Cor. viii. thing in the World, and there is none other God but 4. one. This Unity of the Godhead will eafily appear as neceffary as the existence, fo that it must be as impoffible there fhould be more Gods than one, as that there fhould be none: which will clearly be demonftrated, first, out of the nature of God, to which multiplication is repugnant; and, fecondly, from the government as he is Lord, in which we

muft not admit confufion.

For first, the nature of God confifts in this, that he is the prime and original cause of all things, as an independent Being upon which all things elfe depend, and likewise the ultimate end or final caufe of all; but in this fenfe two prime caufes are inimaginable, and for all things to depend of one, and to be more independent beings than one, is a clear contradiction. This primity God requires to be attributed to himfelf; Hearken unto me, O Jacob, Ifai. xlviii. and Ifrael my called, I am be, I am the first, I also am 12. the laft. And from this primity he challengeth his Unity; Thus faith the Lord, the King of Ifrael, and Ifa. xliv. 6. his Redeemer the Lord of Hofts, I am the first, and I am the laft, and befide me there is no God.

Again, if there were more Gods than one, then were not all perfections in one, neither formally, by reafon of their diftinction, nor eminently and virtually, for then one should have power to produce the other, and that nature which is producible is not divine. But all acknowledge God to be abfolutely and infinitely perfect, in whom all perfections imaginable which are fimply fuch must be contained formally, and all others which imply any mixture of imperfection, virtually.

But were no arguments brought from the infinite perfections of the divine nature able to convince us,

yet

yet were the confideration of his fupreme dominion fufficient to perfuade us. The will of God is infinitely free, and by that freedom doth he govern and Dan, iv. 35. difpofe of all things. He doth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, faid Nebuchadnezzar out of his experience; and St. Paul expreffeth him as working all things after the counfel of his own will. If then there were more fupreme Governors of the World than one, each of them abfolute and free, they might have contrary determinations concerning the fame thing, than which nothing can be more prejudicial unto government. God is a God of order, not confufion; and therefore of unity, not admitting multiplication. If it be better that the (m) Universe hould be governed by one than many, we may be affured that it is fo, because nothing must be conceived of God but what is beft. He therefore who made all things, by that right is Lord of all, and because all (1) power is his, he alone ruleth

over all.

Now God is not only one, but hath an unity (0) peculiar to himself, by which he is the only God; and that not only by way of actuality, but also of poffibility. Every individual Man is one, but so as there is a fecond and a third, and confequently every one is part of a number, and concurring to a multitude. The Sun indeed is one; fo as there is neither third nor fecond fun, at least within the fame vortex but though there be not, yet there might have been; neither in the unity of the folar nature is there any repugnancy to plurality; for that God which made this World, and in this the Sun to rule the day, might have made another world by the fame fecundity of his omnipotency, and another fun to rule in that. Whereas in the Divine Nature there is an intrinsical and effential fingularity, because no other Being can have any existence but from that; and whatfoever effence hath its exiftence

from