651. ONE GOD. UNITY OF THE GODHEAD.

It appears that there is but one creator and governor of the world, by considering how the world is created and governed. The world is evidently so created and governed as to answer but one design in all the different parts of it, and in all ages; and therefore we may justly argue that ’tis but one design that orders the world. This appears,

1. By the mutual subserviency of all the various parts of the world. This great body is as much one, and all the members of it mutually dependent and subservient, as in the body of man. One part is so, and acts so, and is in every respect ordered so, as constantly to promote the design that others are made for. All the parts help one another and mutually forward each other’s ends. In all the immense variety of things that there are in the world, every one has such a nature and is so ordered in every respect and circumstance, as to comply with the rest of the universe, and to fall in with and subserve to the purposes of the other parts. This argues that ’tis the same design and contrivance, or the same designing contriving being, that makes and orders one part, as doth the other. It appears also,

2. By this, that the same laws of nature obtain throughout the universe. Every part of matter everywhere is governed by exactly the same law, which laws are only the appointment of the governor. This argues, therefore, that they are all governed by one appointment or will.

3. The same laws obtain in all ages without any alteration. There is no alteration seen in any one instance in all those numberless and infinitely various effects that are the result of those laws in different circumstances.

This argues that ’tis not several that have the government by turns, but that ’tis one being that has the management of the same things in all ages of the world, one design and contrivance.

Not only the identity of laws in inanimate beings, but in the same sort of animals— especially in the nature of man, in all men in all ages of the world— shows that all men in all ages are in the hands of the same being.

[4.] Another thing that argues that the world has but one creator and governor is the great analogy there is in the works of creation and providence; the analogy there is in the bodies of all animals, and in all plants, and in the different parts of the inanimate creation; and the analogy there is even between the corporeal and spiritual parts of the creation; and the analogy in the constitution and government of different orders of beings. This argues that the whole is the fruit of but one wisdom and design.

Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 18, The “Miscellanies:” 501-832, ed. Ava Chamberlain (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 191-192.

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