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and fo you ungod the Second Perfon; and what you gave with one Hand, you take

the other.

away with

What you should have faid, is, (for it is what you really mean) that there are two Gods; one Supreme, and the other Subordinate: Which being a Propofition utterly repugnant to the Texts of Ifaiah, and to the whole Tenor of Scripture, and to all Antiquity, you do not, I fuppofe, care to fpeak it at length. I have before endeavoured to expofe this notion of two Gods; one Supreme, and the other Inferior; and have shown it to be unreafonable and unfcriptural. I may add, that if there really be two Gods (Supreme and Inferior) in the proper Scriptural Senfe of the Word, the Good Fathers of the three first Centuries argued against the Heathen Polytheism upon a very falfe Principle, and died Martyrs for an Error; the Angel in the Revelations may feem to have impofed upon St. John with an erroneous Maxim, Rev. 19. 10. our Savior's Answer to the Devil to have been defective, and not pertinent, Luk. 4. 8. and the many Declarations of the Unity, fcattered through the Old Testament, to be unintelligible and infignificant. But this fhall be more distinctly explain'd, when I come to the Argument concerning Worship.

Here let me only ask you, where does the Scripture give you the leaft Intimation of two true Gods? Where does it furnish you

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with any ground for the Diftinction of a Soveraign and an Inferior Deity? What Foundation can you find for adding Supreme whereever the Scripture fays abfolutely there is but one God? You are apt to complain of us, for adding to the Text; and for pretending to fpeak plainer than the Holy Spirit has dictated; why do you add here, without any Warrant? If the Sacred Writers intended to limit the Senfe by Supreme, why could not They, in one place at leaft, among many, have faid fo, and have told it us as plainly as Dr. Clarke and you do? I argue indeed here ad Hominem only; and let it have just as much force with you, as the fame way of Arguing, when you take it up in your turn, ought to have with us. But farther; what account can you give of your leaving Room for inferior Deities, when the Realon of the thing, the drift fcope and defign of the Scripture feems plainly to have been to exclude, not other Supremes only, or other Independent Deities (which few have been weak enough to fuppofe) but other leffer, inferior, and dependent Divinities? Befides, God has declared that He will not give his Glory to another, If. 42. 8.--48. 11, This you fay has no difficulty. How fo, I befeech you? It feems to me a very great difficulty in your Scheme. You add, that his Glory is, his being the one fupreme independent Caufe and Original of all Things or Beings. Now, I thought it was his peculiar Glory to

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be truly God, and to be acknowledged as such, exclufive of other Gods. This, I am fure, is what the one God inculcates and infifts upon, very particularly, in the Old Teftament. He discovers Himself to be a jealous God, and looks upon it as the highest Indignity to have any admitted as partners and Sharers with Him. All Acts of Worship, all Homage, Service, Adoration, and Sacrifice, He claims, He challenges as his due; and due to Him only; and that because He only is God. Now put the Cafe of another God; another Author and Governor of the Universe: That other will have a Share, and divide, tho' unequally, with Him in Glory. Was this then the meaning of Ifa. 42.8. I will not give All my Glory to another? I will have the greater Share in every Thing? How confiftent might this be with the Worship of inferior Deities, or with the rankeft Polytheifm? For many of the Pagans themselves paid their highest Veneration to the one fupreme God; only they defiled his Worship with a multitude of inferior Deities; they gave not God the fole Glory; but admitted others as Sharers and Partners with Him. You add, that whatever divine Honour is justly given to any other, redounds ultimately to the Glory of Him, who commanded it to be given.

But what if God, who beft knows what redounds to his Glary, has already and beforehand engrofs'd all divine Honour to Himself, as being the only God, and the fole Author G 3

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and Governor of the Universe? Then all others are precluded from receiving any divine Honour; and there's no more Room left for God's commanding it, than there is for his confronting and contradicting Himself. But more of this hereafter, under the Head of Worship. I fhall close this Article with Grotius's Comment upon the Text which we have been confidering. The meaning of it is, fays He, *That God will take fevere Vengeance on those who give that Name which belongs to "Him, to Bel, Nebo, Merodach, and Others, "which by Nature are no Gods.

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* Vult enim dicere, fe Vindicaturum fevere in Eos qui Nomen, quod Ipfius eft, dant Belo, Neboni, Meraducho, & Aliis Tois n Φύση ἔστι Θεοίς.

QUERY

QUERY V.

Whether Dr. Clarke's pretence, that the Authority of Father and Son being One, tho' They are two diftinct Beings, makes Them not to be two Gods, As a King upon the Throne and his Son adminiftring the Father's Government, are not two Kings; be not trifling and inconfiftent? For, if the King's Son be not a King, He cannot truly be called King; if He is, then there are two Kings. So, if the Son be not God in the Scripture-Notion of God, He cannot truly be called God; and then how is the Doctor confiftent with Scripture, or with Himself? But if the Son be truly God, there are two Gods upon the Doctor's Hypothefis, as plainly as that one and one are Two: And fo all the Texts of Ifaiah cited above, befides others, ftand full and clear against the Doctor's Notion.

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trust, it feems, that upon a fecond Confideration of this fifth Query, The Objector himself will not think it very pertinent or conclufive But I can fee no Reason for your being fo fanguine upon it. For, as an Argument fo plain and ftrong, needs not fo much as a fecond Confideration; fo if the Objector were to confider it ever fo often, He could not but think it to be, as He finds it, G 4 both

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