following passages: " God is a spirit;" [1] "Be ye perfect, even as your Father, who is in heaven, is also perfect;" [2] " all things are naked and open to his eyes;" [3] " Oh! the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God;" [4] " God is true;" [5] " I am the way, the truth and the life;" [6] " Thy right hand is full of justice;" [7] " Thou openest thy hand, and fillest with blessing every living creature;" [8] and finally: " Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy face? If I ascend into heaven, thou art there; if I descend into hell thou art there; if I take wing in the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there also shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me," &c. [9] and " Do I not fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord?" [10] These are great and sublime truths regarding the nature of God; and of these truths philosophers attained a knowledge, which, whilst it accords with the authority of the inspired volume, results from the investigation of created things.
But we must, also, see the necessity of divine revelation, if we reflect that not only does faith, as we have already observed, make known at once to the rude and unlettered, those truths, a knowledge of which philosophers could attain only by long and laborious study; but also impresses this knowledge with much greater certainty and security against all error, than if it were the result of philosophical inquiry. But how much more exalted must not that knowledge of the Deity be considered, which can not be acquired in common by all from the contemplation of nature, but is the peculiar privilege of those who are illumined by the light of faith?
This knowledge is contained in the articles of the Creed which disclose to us the unity of the divine essence, and the distinction of three persons; and also that God is the ultimate end of our being, from whom we are to expect the fruition of the eternal happiness of heaven: for we have learned from St. Paul, that " God is a rewarder of them that seek him." [11] The greatness of these rewards, and whether they are such as that human knowledge could aspire to their attainment, [12] we learn from these words of Isaias uttered long before those of the Apostle; " From the beginning of the world they have not heard, nor perceived with the ears: without thee, O God, the eye hath not seen what things thou hast prepared for them that wait for thee." [13]
From what has been said, it must also be confessed that there is but one God not many Gods; for as we attribute to God supreme goodness and infinite perfection, it is impossible that what is supreme and most perfect could be common to many. If a being want any thing that constitutes this supreme perfection, it is therefore imperfect, and cannot be endowed with the nature of God. This is also proved from many passages of the Sacred
