1. In a freedom from all evils; particularly, from the evil of evils, sin; and so from all the consequences of it. Sin is an evil and bitter thing in its own nature; it is exceeding sinful, and extremely pernicious; it is the source of all disorders, disasters, distresses and calamities that befall any of the creatures; sin has made some of the angels, and Adam and his posterity, once in a most happy state, exceeding unhappy; and it is the infelicity of good men, in the present state, that sin dwells in them, which wars against them, breaks their peace and comfort, and mars their happiness, and obliges them to say, O wretched men that we are! but God is just and true, there is no iniquity in him, Deut. xxxiii. 4. no darkness of this kind at all to eclipse his light, glory, and felicity: as holiness is the happiness of the elect angels, and glorified saints, who, being thoroughly holy, are completely happy; so even the most consummate and perfect holiness, is the happiness of God; yea, he is so happy as not to be tempted with the evil of sin, nor can be, James i. 13. whereas good men, in the present state, are often sadly harrassed, and made unhappy by Satan's temptations; being sifted by him as wheat is sifted; and so much trouble is given them, by being buffeted by him, and having his fiery darts thrown at them; but God is out of the reach of all; and as he is not affected with sin, nor can be tempted to it, so he is clear from all the evil consequences of it, all hurts and damages by it.

Such is his knowledge of all things, that he cannot make choice of any thing that will be to his detriment; men, through ignorance, mistaking one thing for another, choose what is abominable, and issues in their hurt and ruin: and such is his wisdom, that he cannot be imposed upon, circumvented, deceived, and drawn into any thing that may make him unhappy; as Eve was, through the subtlety of the serpent; but there is no wisdom; nor understanding, nor counsel, against the Lord, Prov. xxi. 30. and such is his power, that he cannot be overcome, nor oppressed by any: with respect to men, there is, oftentimes, power on the side of their oppressors, to crush and distress them, and make them unhappy; but there is no power superior to the divine Being, to do him the least hurt, or give him the least uneasiness. It has been observed, that properly speaking, there are no affections and passions in God to be wrought upon, or worked up, so as to disturb or disquiet him, as there are in creatures; such as grief and sorrow indulged, and wrath and anger provoked, and raised to a pitch; these are only ascribed to God, speaking after the manner of men; and because some things are done by God similar to what are done by men, when they are grieved and provoked to wrath, &c. otherwise, he is invariably and unchangeably the same, and so most blessed for evermore.

11. His blessedness lies in the possession of all good. He has all good in him; he comprehends all that can be called good; he stands in no need of any thing; he is perfect and entire, wanting nothing; he is the fountain of all goodness; all good things come from him; he gives all things richly to enjoy; he is good,

So the Stoics say of God, that he is perfect and intellectually happy; xxM AMYTOS œVERIÕIMTONI unsusceptible of any evil. Laert. 1. 7. in Vita Zeno.

and does good, yea, he is good to all; he gives to all, and receives from none; and therefore must be happy; for "it is more blessed to give than receive," according to the saying of Christ, Acts xx. 35. he is the summum bonum, the chief, the chiefest good; in whom only happiness is to be found; when all nature is surveyed, and every place and thing searched into, it can be thought to be in God only, and he is found to be that; Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee, Psal. lxxiii. 25. Such and such persons, in such and such circumstances, may be thought to be happy; but happy, thrice happy, are the people whose God is the Lord! who, besides the good things he bestows on them here, he has laid up such goodness for them hereafter, which the heart of man cannot conceive of. How blessed and happy must he himself be! name whatsoever it may be thought happiness consists in, and it will be found in God in its full perfection. Does it lie in grandeur and dominion? with God is terrible majesty; he is the blessed and only potentate; his kingdom rules over all, and is an everlasting one. Does it lie in wealth and riches? The Gold is mine, and the Silver is mine, saith the Lord, Hag. ii. 8. all the gold and silver in the world, that, and all the fullness of it are his; the riches of both Indies are his property; the mines and metals of the earth, the fowls of the heaven, the beasts of the field, and "the cattle on a thousand hills," in the latter of which the substance of men formerly lay, Psal. xxiv. 1. and l. 10-12. Does it lie in wisdom and knowledge where Solomon sought for happiness, and had of all men the greatest share of it? these are in God in the highest perfection; O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! Rom. xi. 33. Does it lie in might, power, and strength, as Sampson's excellency did? God is mighty in strength: if I speak of strength, says Job, lo, he is strong; there is no strength nor power comparable to his; Who is a strong Lord like unto thee? Job ix. 4, 19. Psal. lxxxix. 8. Does it lie in pleasure; in which also Solomon sought for it, but found it not? In the presence of God is fullness of joy, and at his right hand are pleasures for evermore, Psal. xvi. 11. and if such as to make his creatures happy, angels and men, then certainly to make himself happy also. Does it lie in fame, in credit, and the high esteem of others? How excellent is the name of God in all the earth! his works praise him, his saints bless him, angels celebrate his glory; yea, his glory is above the heavens; his name is great from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same.

To happiness knowledge is necessary; whatever excellencies may be in creatures, if they know them not, they are not happy in them. Hence happiness is denied of brutes; for though there are many things which they excel in, as strength, swiftness, &c. as the horse and the mule, yet being without understanding, are not happy: but God knows all the excellencies and perfections in his nature; there is no searching of his understanding, and therefore most happy. That happiness is the greatest which is independent; the happiness of angels and men is dependent on God; they have nothing but what they have received, and therefore cannot glory, as though they received it not; and this is a restraine

upon, and a limitation of their happiness: but the happiness of God is infinite and independent; of him, and through him, and for him, are all things, Rom. xi. 36. Add to this, that his blessedness endures for ever; he is God blessed for ever, from everlasting to everlasting: could his happiness cease, or be known that it would, it would detract from it, even for the present; but this can no more cease than his Being.

II. What may serve further to prove and illustrate the blessedness of God, is, that he is the cause of all blessedness in his creatures, angels and men. Angels have their beings from him; it is he that has made them the spirits they are, and what excellencies, as of wisdom, knowledge, strength, &c. they have, are all from him; that they are chosen in Christ, and confirmed by grace in him, sce the face of God, and enjoy his favour, in which their greatest bleseedness lies, all flow from his sovereign will and pleasure. The temporal happiness of men is from him; that they have a being, are preserved in it, and have all the nccessaries and comforts of life; that they are blessed in basket and store; that they have health and wealth, and an increase in their families, flocks and herds; on account of which it behoves them to say, Blessed be the Lord, who daily

deth us with benefits, Psal. Ixviii. 19. Their spiritual blessings come from him, who is himself their covenant God and Father, the chief of their blessings, and therefore cannot want any good thing, nor need fear any evil: they have Christ, and all the blessings of goodness with him: the Spirit, and all his graces, faith, hope, and love, joy and peace; the blessings of pardoning grace, and a justifying righteousness, and in which their blessedness greatly lies, and from whence peace and comfort flow, Rom. iv. 6-8. and v. 1, 11. They are blessed also with the word and ordinances; which are the means of increasing grace, and spiritual peace; and hereafter will be blessed with eternal happiness; with the blessed hope, or the blessedness laid up in heaven, they are hoping for, which they enter upon at death, and enjoy to all eternity. Now if such blessedness comes from God, how blessed must he be in himself!

III. God is his own blessedness; it is wholly within himself and of himself: he receives none from without himself, or from his creatures; nothing that can add to his happiness; and he himself is the blessedness of his creatures, who are made happy by him; whose blessedness lies in likeness to him; which is begun in this life, in regeneration; when new born souls are made partakers of the divine nature, is increased by sights of the glory of God in Christ, and will be perfected in the future state, when they shall awake in his likeness, and bear his image in a more perfect manner; and also it lies in communion with God; it is the happiness of saints now, and what they exult in, when they enjoy it, that their fellowship is with the Father, and his Son Jesus Christ; and it will be the blessedness of the new Jerusalem-state, that the tabernacle of God will be with men, and he will dwell with them; and of the ultimate glory the saints shall then have, everlasting and uninterrupted communion with Father, Son, and Spirit, and partake of endless pleasures in the divine presence: and it will, more

over, lie in the vision of God: which, because of the happiness of it, is usually called the beatific vision; when they shall see God for themselves, and not another;" see him as he is in Christ, and behold the glory of Christ; see :10, more darkly through a glass, but face to face, and know as their known. Wherefore,

IV. God is pronounced, declared, and owned to be blessed, by all his creatures; hence the frequent form of blessing him used, Blessed be the Lord God, &c. Gen. ix. 26. Psal. lxxii. 18. Luke i. 68. Eph. i. 3. thus he is blessed by angels, who, as they are called upon to bless him, do ascribe honour, glory, and blessing to him, Psal. ciii. 20. Rev. v. 11, 12. and vii. 11, 12. and by the saints, who call upon their souls, and all within them, to bless his holy name for all benefits bestowed upon them, Psal. ciii. 1-3. and cxlv. 10. Which is done not by invoking a blessing on him: for there is none greater than he, to invoke and ask one of, much less by conferring any upon him; for has he needs none, a creature can give him nothing but what is his own. Besides without all contradiction, the less is blessed of the greater; the creature of the Creator, and not the Creator of the creature: but this is done by congratulating his greatness and blessedness, and ascribing it to him, and praising him for all blessings, temporal and spiritual, bestowed on them by him; and which, as they come from him, are proofs of the blessedness that is in him. And here ends the account of the attributes of God; which all center and terminate in his blessedness,

OF THE UNITY OF GOD.

HAVING treated of the attributes of God, I shall now proceed to prove that this God, who is possessed of all these great and glorious perfections is but one, This is a first principle, and not to be doubted of; it is a most certain truth, most surely to be believed, and with the greatest confidence to be asserted; as he is a fool that says there is no God, he is equally so, who says there are more than one; and, indeed, as Tertullian observes, if God is not one, he is not at all. This is the first and chief commandment which God has given, and requires an assent and obedience to; on which all religion, doctrine, and faith depend, Mark xii. 28-30. it is the voice both of reason and revelation; it is discernible by the light of nature; what teaches men there is a God, teaches them there is but one: and though when men neglected the true God, and his worship, and liked not to retain him in their knowledge, he gave them up to a reprobate mind, to judicial blindness, to believe the Father of lies, who led them. on by degrees into the grossest idolatry; yet the wiser and better sort of them, though they complied with the custom of countries in which they lived, and paid a lesser sort of worship to the rabble of inferior deities, in which they are not at all to be excused from idolatry; yet they held and owned one supreme

Adv. Marcion, l. 1. c. 3.

Being, whom they often call the Father of the Gods and menf; the chief God with the Assyrians, as Maerobius relates, was called Adad; which, he says, signifies one; and with the Phoenicians, Adodus, the King of the Gods; the same with a, one, That there is but one God, is an article in the Jewish Creed, and which still continues; and no wonder, since it stands in such a glaring light in the writings of the Old Testament, and is as clearly and as strongly asserted in the New; so that we christians knów assuredly, that there is none God but one, I Cor. viii. 4. It is a truth agreed on by all, by Jews and Gen iles; by Jewish doctors', and heathen poets and philosophers; by Old and New Testament-saints; by the holy angels; and even by the devils themselves: it must be right and well to believe it. The apostle James commends the faith of it; Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well; the devils also believe and tremble, chap, ii. 19. But I go on,

I. To give the proof of this doctrine; which may be taken partly from express passages of scripture, both in the Old and New Testament; see Deut. vi. 4. Psal. lxxxvi. 10. Isai. xliii. 10. and xliv. 6, 8. and xlv. 5-22. and xlvi. 9. Mark xii. 29. John xvii. 3. Rom. iii. 30. 1 Cor. viii. 4-6. Eph. iv. 6. 1 Tim. ii. 5. The sense of these scriptures will be observed hereafter, and partly from the perfections of God, and his relations to his creatures.

· The necessary existence of God is a proof of his unity. The existence of God must be either of necessity, or of will and choice; if of will and choice, then it must be either of the will and choice of another, or of his own; not of another, for then that other would be prior and superior to him, and so be God' and not he not of his own will and choice, for then he must be before him self, and be and not be at the same instant; which is such an absurdity and contradiction as is not to be endured. It remains, therefore, that he necessarily exists; and if so, there can be but one God; for no reason can be given why there should be, or can be, more than one necessarily existent Being.

God is the first Being, the cause of all other Beings; he is the first Cause, and last End of all things; the mind of man, fiom effects, rises to the knowledge of causes; and from one cause, to the cause of that; and so proceeds on until it arrives to the first Cause, which is without a cause, and is what is truly called God; and as therefore there is but one first Cause, there can be but one God; so, according to Pythagoras and Plato, unity is the principle of all things'.

God, the first Cause, who is without a cause, and is the Cause of all, is independent; all owe their existence to him, and so depend upon him for the preservation, continuance, and comfort of their being; all live, and move, and have their being in him; but he, receiving his being from none, is independent of any; which can only be said of one; there is but one independent Being, and therefore but one God,

f Homer. Illiad. 1. Hesiod. l. 1. Opera & Dies, v. 59. niatho apud Euseb. præpar. Evangel. 1. 1. p. 38. Joseph Albo in Sepher Ikkarim, 1. 2. c. 6, 7. Laert. 1. 1. in Vita Pythagore.

Saturnal. 1. 1. c. 24. h Sancho

i Maimon. Yesode Hattorah. c. 1. s. 4.

* Vide Mornæum de Ver. Christ. Relig. c. 3.