that they who in the Latin church made use only of this last addition, could not choose but take it in the full latitude of the first expression.

And well may this be taken as the undoubted sense of the Creed, because it is the known language of the sacred scriptures. "In six days," saith Moses, "the Lord made heaven and earth," Exod. xxxi. 17; in the same time, saith God himself, "The Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is," Exod. xx. 11. So that all things by those two must be understood which are contained in them; and we know no being which is made or placed without them. When God would call a general rendezvous, and make up a universal auditory, the prophet cries out, "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth,' Isa. i. 2. When he would express the full splendor of his majesty, and utmost extent of his actual dominion, "Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool," Isa. lxvi. 1. When he would challenge unto himself those glorious attributes of immensity and omnipresence, "Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord," Jer. xxiii. 24. These two then taken together signify the universe, or that which is called the world. St. Paul hath given a clear exposition of these words in his explication of the Athenian altar; "God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands," Acts xvii. 24. For seeing God is necessarily the Lord of all things which he made, (the right of his direct dominion being clearly grounded upon the first creation) except we should conceive the apostle to exempt some creature from the authoritative power of God, and to take some work of his hand out of the reach of his arm; we must confess that heaven and earth are of as large extent and ample signification as the "world and all things therein." Where it is yet farther observable that the apostle hath conjoined the speech of both testaments together; for the ancient Hebrews seem to have had no word in use among them which singly of itself did signify the world, as the Greeks had, in whose language St. Paul did speak; and therefore they used in conjunction the heaven and earth, as the grand ex

tremities within which all things are contained. Nay, if we take the exposition of the later writers in that language, those two words will not only as extremities comprehend between them, but in the extension of their own significations contain all things in them; for when they divide the universe into three worlds, the inferior, superior, and the middle world, the lower is wholly contained in the name of earth, the other two under the name of heaven. Nor do the Hebrews only use this manner of expression, but even the Greeks themselves; and that not only before, but after Pythagoras had accustomed them to one name. As therefore under the single name of world or universe, so also under the conjunctive expression of heaven and earth, are contained all things material and immaterial, visible and invisible.

But, as the apostle hath taught us to reason," when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted which did put all things under him," 1 Cor. xv. 27; so when we say, all things were made by God, it is as manifest that he is excepted who made all things. And then the proposition is clearly thus delivered-all beings whatsoever beside God were made: as we read in St. John concerning the Word, that "the world was made by him;" and in more plain and express words before, "All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made," John i. 3. Which is yet farther illustrated by St. Paul; "By him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by him," Col. i. 16. If then there be nothing imaginable which is not either in heaven or in earth, nothing which is not either visible or invisible, then is there nothing beside God, which was not made by God.

This then is the unquestionable doctrine of the Christian faith, that the vast capacious frame of the world, and every thing any way contained and existing in it, hath not its essence from or of itself, nor is of existence absolutely necessary; but what it is, it hath not been, and that being which it hath was made, framed, and constituted by another. And as 66 every house is builded by

some man;" for we see the earth bears no such creature of itself; stones do not grow into a wall, or first hew and square, then unite and fasten themselves together in their generation; trees sprout not across like dry and sapless beams, nor do spars and tiles spring with a natural uniformity into a roof, and that out of stone and mortar— these are not the works of Nature, but superstructions and additions to her, as the supplies of art, and the testimonies of the understanding of man, the great artificer on earth: so if the world itself be but a house, if the earth which "hangeth upon nothing," be the foundation, and the glorious spheres of heaven the roof, (which hath been delivered as the most universal hypothesis) if this be the habitation of an infinite Intelligence, the temple of God, then must we acknowledge the world was built by him, and, consequently, that "he which built all things is God."

From hence appears the truth of that distinctionWhatsoever hath any being, is either made or not made: whatsoever is not made, is God; whatsoever is not God, is made. One uncreated and independent Essence; all other depending on it, and created by it. One of eternal and necessary existence; all other indifferent, in respect of actual existing, either to be or not to be, and that indifferency determined only by the free and voluntary act of the first Cause.

Now because to be thus made includes some imperfection, and among the parts of the world, some are more glorious than others, if those which are most perfect presuppose a Maker, then can we not doubt of a creation where we find far less perfection. This house of God, though uniform, yet is not all of the same materials; the footstool and the throne are not of the same mould; there is a vast difference between the heavenly expansions. This first aerial heaven, where God setteth up his pavillion, where" he maketh the clouds his chariot, and walketh upon the wings of the wind," is not so far inferior in place as it is in glory to the next, the seat of the sun and moon, the two great lights, and stars innumerable, far greater than the one of them. And yet that second heaven is not so far above the first as beneath the third,

into which St. Paul was caught. The brightness of the sun doth not so far surpass the blackness of a wandering cloud, as the glory of that heaven of presence surmounts the fading beauty of the starry firmament. For in this great temple of the world, in which the Son of God is the High Priest, the heaven which we see is but the veil, and that which is above, the holy of holies. This veil indeed is rich and glorious, but one day to be rent, and then to admit us into a far greater glory, even to the mercy seat and cherubim. For this third heaven is the proper habitation of the blessed angels, who constantly attend upon the throne. And if those most glorious and happy spirits, those morning stars which sang together, those sons of God which shouted for joy when the foundations of the earth were laid, Job. xxxviii. 7, 4; if they and their habitation were made, then can we no ways doubt of the production of all other creatures, so much inferior unto them.

Forasmuch then as the angels are termed the " sons of God," it sufficiently denoteth that they are from him, not of themselves; all filiation inferring some kind of production; and seeing God hath but one proper and onlybegotten Son, whose propriety and singularity consisteth in this, that he is of the same uncreated essence with the Father, all other offspring must be made, and consequently even the angels created sons; of whom the scripture speaking saith, "Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire," Psal. civ. 4; for although those words, as first spoken by the psalmist, do rather express the nature of the wind and lightning, yet seeing the author of the epistle to the Hebrews hath applied the same to the angels properly so called, we cannot but conclude upon his authority, that the same God who created the wind, and "made a way for the lightning of the thunder," hath also produced those glorious spirits; and as he furnished them with that activity there expressed, so did he frame the subject of it, their immaterial and immortal essence.

If then the angels and their proper habitation, the far most eminent and illustrious parts of the world, were made; if only to be made be one character of imperfec

tion; much more must we acknowledge all things of inferior nature to have dependence on their universal Cause, and consequently this great universe, or all things, to be made, beside that one who made them.

This is the first part of our Christian faith, against some of the ancient philosophers, who were so wildly. fond of those things they see, that they imagined the universe to be infinite and eternal, and, what will follow from it, to be even God himself. It is true that the most ancient of the heathen were not of this opinion, but all the philosophy for many ages delivered the world to have

been made.

When this tradition of the creation of the world was delivered in all places down successively by those who seriously considered the frame of all things, and the difference of the most ancient poets and philosophers from Moses was only in the manner of expressing it, those who in after-ages first denied it, made use of very frivolous and inconcluding arguments, grounding their new opinion upon weak foundations. For that which in the first place they take for granted, as an axiom of undoubted truth, that "whatsoever hath a beginning, must have an end," and consequently, "whatsoever shall have no end, had no beginning," is grounded upon no general reason, but only upon particular observation of such things here below, as from the ordinary way of generation tend in some space of time unto corruption. From whence, seeing no tendency to corruption in several parts of the world, they conclude that it was never generated, nor had any cause or original of its being. Whereas, if we would speak properly, future existence or non-existence hath no such relation unto the first production. Neither is there any contradiction that at the same time one thing may begin to be, and last but for an hour, another continue for a thousand years, a third beginning at the same instant remain for ever; the difference being either in the nature of the things so made, or in the determinations of the will of him that made them. Notwithstanding then their universal rules, which are not true but in some limited particulars, it is most certain the whole world was made, and of it part shall perish,