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inanimate and living refound the glory of the Creator, he is able to hear fome portion of the univerfal harmony that furrounds him.

But there is difcord alfo among the works of God; fome evil, as well as much good. Every thing does not appear to contribute to this general agreement; and if the happiness which we find in the world require us to acknowledge, that there is a God of wisdom and goodness; there is mifery enough in it to be imputed to fome other Author.

Yes; to ourselves, very much of it; and to our own voluntary choice. We will not receive the good that is offered us: we refufe to comply with the intentions of our Maker, and to act the part allotted us: we abuse the bleffings of heaven, and then murmur against the Prov.xix. Author of them; The foolishness of man

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per

perverteth his way; and his heart fretteth against the Lord.

Sometimes others act thus perverfely, and we also fuffer, in various degrees, for their faults. Still our calamities flow from that Free agency which was imparted to us for our good, and upon the whole contributes to it; and which would lose it's use, and it's very nature, were the effects of it to be obftructed.

Or we fuffer by general laws, an interruption of which would be more hurtful than the evils we complain of.

Or our fufferings arife unavoidably out of our happiness, or they are necessary in order to produce it. Pain, amongst men, is the offspring, or the parent of all pleasure. It is evidently fo in inftances exceeding all number, and probably where we cannot trace the relation.

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Or, laftly, the evils which we suffer are fuch as the Author of the world meant to lay upon us; they are agreeable, if not to our wishes, to the plan of his provi dence; and tend, as much perhaps as other things more eligible in our eyes, to the great ends of his Creation.

Thus, as the voice of nature fpeaks most plainly the existence of one God, it fuggefts nothing to us concerning more: and the rules of found Philofophy forbid us to multiply causes without neceffity, or fo much as the fhadow of a reafon.

But Philosophy, in the Heathen world, even in the most learned times, enlightened but a few perfons: and thofe few thought themfelves at liberty to equivocate with the vulgar, and diffemble their faith. If in their hearts they believed in one God, they worshipped more; and offered their facrifices upon as many altars as the reft of their countrymen.

The

The religion of the Jews did indeed expressly teach, and earnestly inculcate the Unity of God: yet was it fo far from expelling the evil of Polytheifin out of other nations, that it was not able to keep off the contagion from their own. While that people were mafters of their own land, they were feldom content but with the Gods of their neighbours: fo long as they continued free from the dominion of foreigners, they were ever. ready to make room for their Deities. And nothing could effectually cure them of Idolatry, but a long fervitude to Idolaters.

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But, what the Law could not do, to bor- Rom. viii. row the Apostle's words on another oc

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cafion, in that it was weak, God fending his own Son hath eminently accomplished. Henceforth, to us there is but one God, the Cor. viii, Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jefus Chrift, by whom are all things, and we by him.

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But even we, enlightened, as we are, by the Gospel, must be content with what is delivered; and not, prompted by curiofity, or by vanity, presume to be 2 Tim. i. wife above that which is written. We are 13. to hold faft the form of found words; without departing from it on either fide, by explaining it into what is not meant, or into nothing; neither confining what is left general, nor denying what we can not comprehend; left thus professing ourfelves to be wife, we become fools.

Rom. i.

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The ideas of Unity, and Identity, in the abstract, are clear; applied to a Man, or to the meanest Infect, they immediately become liable to a thousand difficulties, which hardly any two Philofophers clear up alike. And can we but be overwhelmed and loft in the breadth and length and depth and height, the glory and humiliation, the union with the Father, and with Man, of that Word, who was in the beginning, was with God, and was

God,

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