law hath always been esteemed the best interpretation of that law. Now, did the Jews, while they irreproveably adhered to the law of God, ever conceive themselves to have more than one object of their worship or devotion? Did they ever think themselves at liberty to pray and sacrifice to two or more gods; the first infinite and supreme, the rest created and subordinate? Were the law and prophets more expressly against so heathenish a practice, than the constant faith and worship of God's people, while they continued truly such? Or have we any other object of worship, than the ancient Israelities had? No; our blessed Saviour, referring to Deuteronomy vi. 13, and x. 20, saith, It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God; and him only shalt thou serve.' In thus quoting the law, he centres all our worship in the same object with that of the Israelites; and what that object is, we may hear from the same authority in the same passage, 'The Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty and a terrible.' This was the God of the Israelites; this is our God. Is there now a greater God than this? Is there a God over this God of gods? Is there a Lord over this Lord of lords? Is he but a national or subordinate God? And as to the worship we are to pay him, that we may have no more chicaning on words, it is fixed sufficiently by the context to this expression of our Saviour. The devil had offered him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, on condition he would fall down and worship him. Here our Saviour's answer must be wholly impertinent, if the meaning of the word 'worship,' both in his reply, and in the offer of the tempter, is not exactly the same. Now, that this was the worship peculiar to the true God only, is plain from the words of our Saviour, 'Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.' The expression of falling down, in the act of adoration, farther serves to determine and illustrate the sense of the word under dispute. If then the Israelites were, and consequently we Christians are, to worship Jehovah, or the Lord God, only, it follows, that he must be the one only true God; or that, if he is but an inferior god, we are hereby forbidden to worship the superior or most high God; or at least it follows, that the term 'worship,' in these words of Christ, must signify, contrary to the

manifest purport of his argument, not the worship due to the only adorable God, but such a worship as may be paid to creatures, as well as him. Is it not the one only, supreme, eternal, God, whom alone we are, in this passage, commanded to worship, whom alone we are commanded to serve? If it is, are we at liberty to worship any other being under the notion of a created or delegated god?

That there is but one only God, and that no other is admitted to a participation of his name, or to any subordination of his divinity, in any sense or measure, under him, or in fellowship with him, these words of Jehovah, were there nothing else, would be sufficient to convince me; I, even I, am he, and there is no God with me;' Deut. xxxii. 39. How you may judge in this matter, I know not; but it is to me as manifest as the light, that the all-foreseeing God intended, by what I have cited from his word, to prevent all distinctions between the eternal God and Jehovah, that there might not be the least room left for supposing the God of Israel was an inferior, or subordinate, god.

All the expedients, to which our adversaries have recourse, in order to evade the strength of this, and the like reasoning, miserably fail them. They can erect no new god by adoption, by generation, by creation, no more than by delegation. God can adopt only creatures; and creatures can never be converted into gods; the finite can never be made infinite. And as to generation, it is either proper, or improper. By generation, properly so called, it is impossible a creature should become God. Every thing begets its like or another thing of the same nature with itself. God therefore, by proper generation, cannot generate a creature. The act of this production admits of no other term, but that of creation. Much less can he, by the improper or metaphorical generation, ascribed to him in Scripture, where it is also called regeneration and adoption, raise up a new infinite, or God.

These things being laid down as self-evident or demonstrable truths, can we suppose the God of truth would, in any case, or for any purpose, deceive us into the adoration of creatures, under the pretence of loving, praying to them, and trusting in them, not as creatures, but as the deputies of God? Would he thus debase his own majesty, and

alienate our dependence from himself to our fellow-creatures? Would he thrust in the creature between himself and his servants, to stop the passage of our love and duty towards the source of being, of bounty and mercy? Does this Sun of the intellectual world raise up clouds to obstruct the rays of his own glory, and darken the eyes of his worshippers, whose love he woos by infinite obligations, whose adoration he calls up to, and centres in, himself, by all the convenience, the beauty, and magnificence, of the creation, and by the whole tenor of true religion? He, who can thus think of him, knows him not. He, who knows him, finds his imagination swallowed up in the sense of his infinity, his love engrossed by his boundless goodness, and his whole soul, with all his affections, faculties, and powers, so attached to him, that he hath little attention, not to say adoration, left for his fellow-creatures, howsoever dignified by the bounty of his Creator. We cannot pay our adoration to any being, but him, if we receive the first commandment as a rule of our duty, or the first article of the creed as a rule of our faith; especially if we consider, that, in respect to our worshipping any thing else, he is called in the second commandment, in Joshua xxiv. and in Nahum i. A jealous God; the Lord who revengeth; the Lord who revengeth and is furious; the Lord who will take vengeance on his adversaries;' which adversaries we shall find to be the worshippers of other gods, if we cast our eyes over the chapter to verse 14. It is in pursuance of the same metaphor of jealousy, that the Israelites, whom he had espoused by covenant for a peculiar people, are said by the prophets, on account of their revolting to the service of other gods, to be adulterers, and to have gone a whoring after their own inventions.'

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If we are not so much as to make mention of the names of other gods, nor to let it be heard out of our mouths;' Exod. xxiii. 13; if a Gentile could so truly say, 2 Kings v. 15, on being miraculously cured of a leprosy, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel;' if God himself hath said, 2 Kings xvii. 35, 'Ye shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice unto them;' if he says by Isaiah xlv. 22, 'Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else;' if the same is inculcated

in innumerable 'other passages of Scripture; if it is inculcated with the most glorious promises to the worshippers of the only true God, and with the most dreadful denunciations against the worshippers of other gods; how shall we call the Scriptures the word of God, and at the same time allow ourselves the most distant thought of adoring any thing but him?

But here, say the adversaries, these very Scriptures make frequent mention of other gods, without condemning them as false gods, but rather with marks of veneration; as Exod. xxii. 28, Thou shalt not revile the gods.' Deut. x. 17, "The Lord your God, is God of gods.' 1 Sam. xxviii. 13, 'I saw gods ascending out of the earth.' 1 Cor. viii. 5, 'There be gods many,' &c. What then shall we say? Do the Scriptures contradict themselves? God forbid. For Elohim, the word in the original, which we translate by gods, Exod. xxii. 28, the Targum of Onkelos, the Syriac and Arabic versions, put judges; and so indeed it ought to be interpreted in this and the like places. When it is applied to God, it signifies the most powerful or sovereign Lord. Here it is to be remarked, as it is by Plato and Damascene, that God, being incomprehensible, is not properly to be named; for names cannot intimate his nature, as they do the natures of other things. It often happens, therefore, that, in speaking of God, we are forced to use such terms as are applied to inferior beings. Hence it is that we call him Elohim, the judge, or potentate; El, the powerful God; and to distinguish him from inferior Elohim, El Elion, the most high God, Gen. xiv. 20; El Gibbor, the most mighty God; Zeph. iii. 17; El Elim, the Potentate of potentates, Dan. xi. 36. In the same manner he is called Adonai, or the Lord. These are but titles or epithets, borrowed from things below, to denote the attributes of God; and therefore it is no wonder, that they are sometimes applied to inferior beings. However, it is easy to see by their adjuncts, that they bear an infinitely different sense when applied to God and his creatures. They no more make gods of them, than they can make a creature of him. But, besides these, he hath his more proper names, which by their peculiar sense and application, simply intimate him alone, with the addition of negatives, strongly expressing his unity. Such are Shaddai, the All-sufficient; Ehjeh, I shall be; Jah, the essential Lord;

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and Jehovah, the Being, or he which is, which was, and which is to come. God, it is true, is called, Deut. x. 17, 'The God of gods;' but is it not to intimate his excellence, rather than their divinity? In the same sense it is said, Psal. xcvii. 7, "Worship him, all ye gods,' where the psalmist says in the same verse, Confounded be all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves in idols;' and then commands these very gods, or angels, as St. Paul calls them, to worship the true God.' As to the passage, 1 Sam. xxviii. 13, we have there only the word of a witch, struck into almost a frenzy of fear on the sight of an unexpected vision, and the discovery of a king, who had made her practices death by a decree, that she saw any gods. And after all, it appears by the place, that what she took for Samuel afterward, was one of her gods. And concerning the words of St. Paul, 1 Cor. viii. 5, the meanest reader may see he speaks by way of irony and derision; for he says in the foregoing verse, 'There is no other God but one;' and in the following verse, 'To us there is but one God;' guarding his irony with a strong negative on each hand of it. This text, so often cited by the tritheists to prove there are more gods than one, or that there are subordinate gods, serves sufficiently to explain those passages of the Old Testament where the same appellations are sometimes given both to God and creatures, and to restrain our faith and worship to the only true God; for it is expressly asserted, 'that there is none other God but one;' and that doctrine urged home upon us by a direct application of it to our minds and consciences, To us there is but one God.' Now, if we are really Christians, and do believe the Scriptures to be the word of God, is not this single passage, wherein the Holy Spirit, speaking of these supposed inferior gods, denies their being gods, and forbids their worship as such, sufficient to end for ever all doubts and debates about the unity of God, or the object of divine worship? This passage tells us, there is but one God, and that the one only God is our only God. God himself awfully inculcates the same doctrine, Isa. xlv. 21-23; Who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the Lord [Jehovah]? And there is no God [Elohim] else besides me, a just God and a Saviour, there is none besides me. Look unto me and