SECT. III. That there is but one God.

HAVING proved the existence of the Deity, we come next to his attributes: the first whereof is, that there can be no more Gods than one; which may be gathered from hence; 6because, as was before said, God exists necessarily, or is self-existent. Now that which is necessary, or self-existent, cannot be considered as of any kind or species of beings, but as actually existing, and is therefore a single being;⁵⁵   But a great many single beings are a great many individual beings; this argument therefore might have been omitted, without any detriment to so good a cause: Le Clerc.—Whoever would see the argument for the unity of God, drawn from his necessary or self-existence, urged in its full force, may find it at the beginning of dr. Samuel Clark’s Boyle’s Lectures. for, if you imagine many Gods, you will see that necessary existence belongs to none of them; nor can there be any reason why two should rather be believed than three, or ten than five: beside, the abundance of particular things of the same kind proceeds from the fruitfulness of the cause, in proportion to which more or less is produced; but God has no cause, or original. Further, particular different things are endued with peculiar properties, by which they are distinguished from each other; which do not belong to God, who is a necessary being. Neither do we find any signs of many Gods; for this whole universe makes but one world, in which there is but one thing that far exceeds the rest in beauty, viz. the sun:⁶⁶   At least to the inhabitants of this our solar system, (as we now term it), as those fiery centres the stars are to other erterns. Le Clerc. and in every man there is but one thing that governs, that is, the mind: moreover, if there could be two or more Gods, free agents, acting according to their own wills, they might will contrary to each other; and so one be hindered by the other front effecting his design; now, a possibility of being hindered is inconsistent with the notion of God.