there is one, and only one God in the universe-yet the case we find was not always so.

In pursuing this subject, of what is called the unity of God, I shall first lay before you the ground of our assurance that there is one only God, the author and cause of all things; and then I shall add some reflections upon the doctrine of one God, as applicable to the Jewish and Christian dispensations. Now the argument which proves that there is but one Creator, is the uniformity of council and design observable in the creation; by which is meant this-that in every part of the world that we are acquainted with, the same laws and constitution of nature obtains, and that one part is subservient and essential to another part, so as to form together one plan, scheme, and system and if it appears that one plan, scheme, and system runs through the whole of the creation, it affords clear and certain inference that the whole is the conception, contrivance, and design of one being -for had different beings formed different parts of the universe, we should undoubtedly have seen throughout different parts different laws of nature, a different order of things, never perhaps independent of one another, which is not by any means the fact. Take, for instance, our globe, the earth on which we tread, and compare the different regions of it with one another. A stone falls to the ground in China just as it does in England; water runs to a level in both. The same sun rises and sets in the most distant region of the globe as here; a grain of wheat springs up in the

same manner in one quarter of the globe that it does in another; a bird builds its nest in the same way in whatever country it is found. The same laws of nature hold in all. In general, the very same species of plants and animals are to be met with in the several parts of the globe: men, for instance, inhabit any part. When a new plant or new animal is found, the formation of it bears an evident similitude and analogy to that of the plants and animals with which we are acquainted. Every plant, for instance, has its root, its fibres, its sap, its flowers, and seed; every animal has much the same senses of sight, touch, taste, hearing, and smelling; every animal is male and female; every animal has blood, and is sustained by food; every one has a heart and lungs, brain and limbs and this much similar prevails in all creatures : though new creatures be continually discovered, new laws of nature never are. The rain descends, the winds blow, the thunder is heard, the lightning seen; fire and water, earth and air, possess the same powers, hold the same place, produce the same effects, act upon one another in the same manner in the most remote and hidden, the hottest and coldest tracts of the earth, that they do and always have done with us at home. Now what is the plain inference from hence, but that the same being is the author of those effects in all these places; that they have all come from the same hand, have all had one origin, and one Creator? No one can doubt, but that the being who founded and established the laws of nature here was the same

being who founded and established the laws of nature in America; because the laws are throughout the same. The Creator, who gave to the sparrow that instinct by which it builds its nest in this country, undoubtedly was he who gave to the bird its instinct in the most distant parts of the earth; because the bird, left to itself, in all countries would build its nest the same. This is only a trifling and parti. cular instance; it is only one example out of many thousands throughout the whole order and economy of nature, in every part of the world that has been travelled over or found out, there exists a manifest sameness of plan, and scheme, and design. Then, if we ascend from our globe, which undoubtedly owes its formation to one hand, to the globes which occupy the firmament-the sun, moon, and planets in particular-we find amongst them a relation, a subserviency to one another, which demonstrate that they are different parts of one system. For instance: together with our earth, there revolve round the sun. five, or perhaps six, other planets, all receiving light and heat from the sun, in like manner as we do; and so influencing and acting upon our earth, and upon one another, that if it, or any one of them, was destroyed, the motions of all the rest would be so disturbed that they would all fall into ruin and confusion. This shows a system. He that made one made all; for they all mutually depend upon cach -the rest could not go on without that one, nor it without them: consequently they were produced to

gether, and produced in pursuance of a common plan; which plan must have existed in the same divine mind, and, as far as the same plan continues, as far we are sure one and the same Creator was concerned. To the very extremest limits to which our knowledge or observation reaches, we find one and the same God; because we find a uniformity of council and design, a connexion of parts, a relation of things one to another, which could not be expected to take place amongst the works and productions of different, independent beings.

And what is a further and undeniable proof that the doctrine of one God is the genuine dictate of reason is, that all the reasoning part of mankind are now agreed upon it. Whatever disputes or differences of opinion there may be among thinking and learned men concerning other points, there is none upon this which shows, that however erroneous notions had formerly crept in amongst mankind concerning a multitude of gods, the thing itself is sufficiently certain; for as reason and knowledge have made advances and gained ground in the world, men have gradually come to a pacific agreement about the matter. "The Lord our God is one Lord:" there is none other besides him; one and the same; who made the heavens and the earth, ourselves, all that is around us, all we see, all we know of.

We now proceed to observe from this doctrine, in regard to the two great revelations under which we now live-the Jewish and the Christian, the Old

and the New Testaments.

Now with regard to the

Old Testament, there is this remarkable undisputed fact that at the time when every other nation and every other religion in the world held that there were many gods, the Jews alone, in the religion of Moses, taught that there was but one: so that upon this, the greatest and most important point in the world that which is now found out, and allowed, and agreed upon to be the truth, was contained and delivered in the Bible, at a time when no such opinion was to be met with among any other persons, or in any other book; but contrary opinions. How is it to be accounted for, that the people of the Jews should hit upon the truth, when every other nation mistook it; that their nation alone should maintain that there was one, and only one God, who first produced, and still governs all things, when the various nations which surrounded them all fell into an opposite persuasion; that Moses should be the first, and, as far as we find, the only person who delivered a doctrine which many ages afterwards, and not until many ages afterwards, the whole world, in a manner, was to be convinced was the truth-how, I say, shall we account for this, but by believing, what the Scriptures teach us to believe, that Moses and the fathers of the Jewish nation received it from God; that it was upon self-evidence that God, in the Old Testament, expressly taught his peculiar people, and enjoined them to maintain it; nay more, this was that great truth which it was the very end and

purpose