6.

Pfal. xviii.

from another is not God. I am the Lord, faith he, and Ifa. xlv. 5, there is none elfe, there is no God befides 'me: that they Deut. iv.35. may know from the rifing of the fun, and from the weft, & xxxii. 39. that there is none befides me, I am the Lord, and there 31. is none elfe. He who hath infinite knowledge knoweth no other God béfide himself. Is there a God Ifai. xlv. befides me? yea, there is no God, I know not any. And & xliv. 3. we who believe in him, and defire to enjoy him, need for that end to know no other God but him: For this is life eternal, that they might know thee the John xvii. only true God; (p) as certainly One as God.

It is neceffary thus to believe the Unity of the Godhead, that being affured there is a nature worthy of our devotions, and challenging our religious fubjection, we may learn to know whofe that nature is to which we owe our adorations, left our minds fhould wander and fluctuate in our worship about various and uncertain objects. If we fhould apprehend more Gods than one, I know not what could determinate us in any instant to the actual adoration of any one for where no difference doth appear, (as, if there were many, and all by nature Gods, there could be none), what inclination could we have, what reafon could we imagine, to prefer or elect any one before the reft for the object of our devotions? Thus is it neceffary to believe the Unity of God in refpect of us who are obliged to worship him.

18, 21, 22.

3.

Secondly, It is neceffary to believe the Unity of God in respect of him who is to be worshipped. Without this acknowledgment we cannot give unto God the things which are God's, it being part of the worship and honour due unto God, to accept of no compartner with him When the Law was given, in the observance whereof the religion of the Ifraelites confifted, the firft precept was this prohibition, Thou shalt have no other gods before me; and Exod.xx. 3. whofoever violateth this, denieth the foundation on which all the rest depend, as the (9) Jews obferve.

10.

This is the true reason of that ftrict precept by which all are commanded to give divine worship to Matth. iv. God only, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only fhalt thou ferve; because he alone is God: him only shalt thou fear, because he alone hath infinite power; in him only shalt thou trust, because Pfal. Ixii. 2. be only is our rock and our falvation; to him alone Chron. vi. fhalt thou direct thy devotions, because he only knoweth the hearts of the children of men. Upon this foundation the whole heart of Man is entirely reDeut. vi. quired of him, and engaged to him. Hear, Ó If

30.

4. 5.

rael, the Lord our God is one God: And (or rather, Therefore) thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy foul, and with all thy might. Whofoever were truly and by nature God, could not choose but challenge our love upon the ground of an infinite excellency, and tranfcendent beauty of holiness; and therefore if there were more Gods than one, our love must neceffarily be terminated unto (r) more than one, and confequently divided between them; and as our love, fo alfo the proper effect thereof, our cheerful and ready obedience, which, like the Child propounded to the judgment of Solomon, as foon as it is divided, is deMatth. vi. ftroyed, No man can ferve two mafters: for either be will hate the one, and love the other: or else he will hold to the one, and defpife the other.

24.

Having thus defcribed the firft notion of a God, having demonftrated the Existence and Unity of that God, and having in these three particulars comprised all which can be contained in this part of the Article, we may now clearly deliver, and every particular Christian understand, what it is he fays when he makes his confeffion in these words, I believe in God; which in correfpondence with the precedent discourse may be thus expreffed :

Forafmuch as by all things created is made known the eternal power and Godhead, and the dependency of all limited beings infers an infinite and independent

independent effence; whereas all things are for fome end, and all their operations directed to it, although they cannot apprehend that end for which they are, and in profecution of which they work, and therefore must be guided by fome univerfal and over-ruling wisdom; being this collection is fo evident, that all the Nations of the Earth have made it; being God hath not only written himself in the lively characters of his Creatures, but hath alfo made frequent patefactions of his Deity by moft infallible Predictions and fupernatural operations; therefore I fully affent unto, freely acknowledge, and clearly profefs this truth, that there is a God.

Again, being a prime and independent Being, fuppofeth all other to depend, and confequently no other to be God; being the entire fountain of all perfections is incapable of a double head, and the most perfect government of the Universe speaks the fupreme dominion of one abfolute Lord; hence do I acknowledge that God to be but one, and in this Unity, or rather fingularity of the Godhead, excluding all actual or poffible multiplication of a Deity, I believe in God.

A

I believe in God the Father.

FTER the confeffion of a Deity, and affertion of the Divine Unity, the next confideration is concerning God's Paternity; for that one Eph. iv. 6. God is Father of all, and to us there is but one God, the Father.

Now, although the Chriftian notion of the divine Paternity be some way peculiar to the evangelical patefaction; yet (s) wherefoever God hath been acknowledged, he hath been understood and worfhipped as a Father: the very Heathen (t) Poets fo describe their gods, and their vulgar names did

carry

I Cor. viiis

28.

carry Father (u) in them, as the most popular and univerfal notion.

This name of Father is a relative; and the proper foundation of Paternity, as of a relation, is Generation. As therefore the phrafe of generation is diversely attributed unto several acts of the fame nature with generation properly taken, or by confequence attending on it: fo the title of Father is given unto divers perfons or things, and for feveral Gen. ii. 4. reasons unto the fame God. Thefe are the generations of the heavens and the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, faith Mofes. So that the creation or production of any thing by which it is, and before was not, is a kind of generation, and confequently the Job xxxviii. Creator or producer of it a kind of Father. Hath the rain a Father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew? By which words Job fignifies, that as there is no other caufe affignable of the rain but God, so may he as the cause be called the Father of it, though not in the moft proper fenfe (x) as he is the Father of his Son : and fo the (y) Philofophers of old, who thought that God did make the World, called him exprefsly, as Cor. viii. the Maker, fo the Father of it. And thus to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things; to which the words following in the Creed may feem to have relation, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. But in this mafs of Creatures and body of the Univerfe, fome works of the creation more properly call him Father, as being more rightly Sons fuch are all the rational and intellectual offfpring of the Deity. Of merely natural beings and irrational agents he is (z) the Creator; of rational, as fo, the Father alfo; they are his Creatures, these his Sons. Hence he is ftyled the Father of Spirits, and the bleffed Angels, when he laid the foundaJob xxxviii. tions of the earth, his Sons; When the morning ftars fang together, and all the Sons of God fhouted for joy: hence Man, whom he created after his own image,

6.

Heb. xii.

7.

9.

1

Luke iii.

is called his offspring, and Adam, the immediate Aas xvii. work of his hands, the Son of God: hence may we 28. all cry out with the Ifraelites taught by the Prophet 38. fo to speak, Have we not all one Father? hath not one Malac. ii. God created us? Thus the first and most universal 10. notion of God's Paternity in a borrowed or metaphorical fenfe, is founded rather upon Creation than Procreation.

Unto this act of Creation is annexed that of Conservation, by which God doth uphold and preferve in being that which at firft he made, and to which he gave its being. As therefore it is the duty of the Parent to educate and preserve the Child, as that which had its being from him; fo this paternal education doth give the name of (a) Father unto Man, and Confervation gives the fame to God.

Again, Redemption from a ftate of mifery, by which a people hath become worse than nothing, unto a happy condition, is a kind of Generation, which joined with love, care, and indulgence in the Redeemer, is fufficient to found a new Paternity, and give him another title of a Father. Well might Mofes tell the people of Ifrael, now brought out of the land of Egypt from their brick and ftraw, unto their quails and manna, unto their milk and honey, Is not be thy Father that hath bought thee? bath he not Deut. xxxii. made thee, and established thee? Well might God". fpeak unto the fame people as to his Son, even his Exod. iv. firft-born, Thus faith the Lord thy Redeemer, and be 2: that formed thee from the womb; Hearken unto me, O 24. & xlvi. boufe of Jacob, and all the remnant of the houfe of 3. Ifrael, which are born by me from the belly, which are carried from the womb. And juft is the acknowledgment made by that people inftructed by the Prophet, Doubtless thou art our Father, though Abraham Ifai. Ixiii. be ignorant of us, and Ifrael acknowledge us not; thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer, from everlasting is thy name. And thus another kind of pater

nal

Ifai. xliv.

16.