From these observations it is plain, that the pleas, both of antiquity and novelty, either for or against any thing, are indecisive, and may be dangerous; and that when any doctrines are proposed to us, our principal inquiry should be, not whether they are new or old, but whether they are _true_. It is not the _date_ of a bond that gives it its validity in law, but the sign manual, and the attestation of witnesses. Who ever thought of inquiring, _when_ a piece of money was coined, provided the metal were pure, and its currency legal. Gold is the same in every age; and none would think it more intrinsically valuable, either for the antiquity or novelty of its coinage. So, the nature of truth cannot be affected by any accidental circumstances of date, time, and place; and all, who are in search of it, merely for its own sake, will make no account of such trivial considerations. However, as prejudices are sometimes best removed by being a little humoured in their requisitions, capricious as they are, I will endeavour to shew that the truths I have stated, claim antiquity as well as purity for the ground of their excellency. 1. If the writings of Moses may be considered among the most venerable and authentic records, I think I can prove my point even from the Pentateuch. A plural substantive and verb singular in the very first verse in the Bible, united in a description of the act and agent in creation, convey, if not a direct proof, yet a very strong intimation, of a plurality of persons in the Godhead, and of their oneness in point of essence. But that truth is more expressly declared, when upon the fall of man Jehovah says, “The man is become as one of us.” Gen. iii. 22.—The history of the first transgression is recorded in the same chapter. And the effects of it soon appeared in the murder committed by Cain against his own brother, and in the flagrant wickedness of one of his descendants, that infamous polygamist Lamech. The communication of the original taint from father to son is so expressly recorded by Moses, that when St. Paul says, that “by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners,” he does not speak more intelligibly, than when the Jewish Lawgiver says, that “Adam begat a son in his own likeness;” Gen. v. 3,—“in his own,” as contradistinguished from the divine image, in which he had been created. What words can more forcibly describe the total and desperate apostacy of the human heart, than the following? “And God saw that _every_ imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart was _only_ evil _continually_.” Gen. vi. 5. And what was the universal deluge, but a tremendous comment on this humiliating truth? And, lest it should be presumed, that postdeluvian wickedness was less flagrant than that which provoked God to destroy the inhabitants of the earth with a flood, or, that human nature was materially altered for the better, David says, that “God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there