SERMON XLIV." purposes whatsoever, one of these two Gods would be utterly needless and useless : But it is absurd to imagine, that a God is an useless, or needless Being ; therefore there can be no other God but one. This is thegreat and universal dictate of the light of nature, and this is the constant doctrine of scripture in the Old and New Testament : And indeed, this unity of the godhead, is a peculiar glory of all the religions, that God hath given to men, and whereby they are distinguished, from the false religions of the heathen nations, who did generally profess more gods than one. God hath always taken care, to secure to himself an unrivalled dignity and majesty, in all his dispensations. This is the lan- guage of God'by Motes, Hear, O Israel, the Lordour God is one Lord; Deut. vi. 4. And Christ confirms this doctrine, most abundantly, in the New Testament, and ,that in the very same words ; Mark xii. 29. And he commends the scribe for affirming,," There is one God, and there is none other but he." This is the foundation and basis ofall that can be called true religion, in every nation and in every age since the world began. And when a multitude of nations had lost this doctrine of the one God, and fell into the worship of many, whom they called gods, it was one great design of chris- tianity, to destroy polytheism, or the doctrine of many gods, among the nations of the world, and to reduce them more universally to that ancient and eternal truth which some of their own philosophers professed, viz. that there is but one true God. Fence it follows, by plain consequence, from these two propositions, that since God is a Spirit, eternal, all-wise, and almighty, &c. and since there cannot be more gods than one, there cannot be more than one eternal, all-wise, and almighty Spirit ; there can be but one eternal and almighty Being. Let this then be fixed as an unchangeable truth. . III. This one God bath revealed himself by the light of nature, as well as by scripture, to be the first cause ofall things in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, . the Creator and Governor, the original Possessor, and the sovereign Lord of all other beings whatsoever. And as he is the original Lord of all, he requires the worship and homage of all his intelligent creatures : He demands holy obedience to his laws, and humble submission to his providences ; and upon this account, even some of the ancients, by the light of nature, have called him, Father ofall. IV. The great God bath more clearly made himself known inhis word, under the personaland relativecharacter of a Father, A2
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