of Man-Sacrifices against a modern Diatribist 67. That what Faith soever Plato might have in the Delphick Apollo he was no other than an Evil Daemon or Devil An Answer to the Pagans Argument from Divine Providence 68. That the Pagans Religion unsound in its Foundation was Infinitely more Corrupted and Depraved by means of these Four Things First the Superstition of the Ignorant Vulgar 69. Secondly the Licentious Figments of Poets and Fable-Mongers frequently condemned by Plato and other Wiser Pagans 70. Thirdly the Craft of Priests and Politicians 71. Lastly the Imposture of evil Daemons or Devils That by means of these Four Things the Pagan Religion became a most foul and unclean thing And as some were captivated by it under a most grievous Yoke of Superstition so others strongly inclined to Atheism 72. Plato not insensible that the Pagan Religion stood in need of Reformation nevertheless supposing many of those Religious Rites to have been introduced by Visions Dreams and Oracles he concluded that no wise Legislator would of his own head venture to make an Alteration Implying that this was a thing not to be effected otherwise than by Divine Revelation and Miracles The generally received Opinion of the Pagans that no man ought to trouble himself about Religion but content himself to worship God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the Law of that Country which he lived in 73. Wherefore God Almighty in great compassion to Mankind designed himself to reform the Religion of the Pagan World by introducing another Religion of his own framing in stead of it after he had first made a Praeludium thereunto in one Nation of the Israelites where he expresly prohibited by a Voice out of the Fire in his First Commandment the Pagan Polytheism or the worshipping of other Inferior Deities besides himself and in the Second their Idolatry or the Worshipping of the Supreme God in Images Statues or Symbols Besides which he restrain'd the use of Sacrifices As also successively gave Predictions of a Messiah to come such as together with Miracles might reasonably conciliate Faith to him when he came 74. That afterwards in due time God sent the promised Messiah who was the Eternal Word Hypostatically united with a Pure Humane Soul and Body and so a true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or God-man Designing him for a Living Temple and Visible Statue or Image in which the Deity should be represented and Worshipped as also after his Death and Resurrection when he was to be invested with all Power and Authority for a Prince and King a Mediatour and Intercessour betwixt God and Men. 75. That this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or God-man was so far from intending to require Men-sacrifices of his Worshippers as the Pagan Demons did that he devoted himself to be a Catharma Expiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of the whole World and thereby also abolished all Sacrifices or Oblations by Fire whatsoever according to the Divine Prediction 76. That the Christian Trinity though a Mystery is more agreeable to Reason than the Platonick and that there is no absurdity at all in supposing the Pure Soul and Body of the Messiah to be made a Living Temple or Shechinah Image or Statue of the Deity That this Religion of One God and One Mediatour or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God-man preached to the Pagan World and confirm'd by Miracles did effectually destroy all the Pagan Inferiour Deities Middle Gods and Mediatours Demons and Heroes together with their Statues and Images 77. That it is no way incongruous to suppose that the Divine Majesty in prescribing a Form of Religion to the World should graciously condescend to comply with Humane Infirmity in order to the removing of Two such Grand Evils as Polytheism and Idolatry and the bringing of men to Worship God in Spirit and in Truth 78. That Demons and Angels Heroes and Saints are but different Names for the same things which are made Gods by being worshipped And that the introducing of Angel and saint-Saint-worship together with Image-Worship into Christianity seems to be a defeating of one grand design of God Almighty in it and the Paganizing of that which was intended for the Vnpaganizing of the World 79. Another Key for Christianity in the Scripture not disagreeing with the former That since the way of Wisdom and Knowledge proved Ineffectual as to the Generality of Mankind men might by the contrivance of the Gospel be brought to God and a holy Life without profound Knowledge in the way of Believing 80. That according to the Scripture there is a Higher more Precious and Diviner Light than that of Theory and Speculation 81. That in Christianity all the Great Goodly and most Glorious things of this World are slurried and disgraced comparatively with the Life of Christ. 82. And that there are all possible Engines in it to bring men up to God and engage them in a holy Life 83. Two Errors here to be taken notice of The First of those who make Christianity nothing but an Antinomian Plot against Real Righteousness and as it were a secret Confederacy with the Devil The Second of those who turn that into Matter of mere Notion and Opinion Dispute and Controversie which was designed by God only as a Contrivance Machin or Engine to bring men Effectually to a Holy and Godly Life 84. That Christianity may be yet further illustrated from the consideration of the Adversary or Satanical Power which is in the World This no Mâ—nichean Substantial Evil Principle but a Polity of Lapsed Angels with which the Souls of Wicked men are also Incorporated and may therefore be called The Kingdom of Darkness 85. The History of the Fallen Angels in Scripture briefly explained 86. The concurrent Agreement of the Pagans concerning Evil Demons or Devils and their Activity in the World 87. That there is a perpetual War betwixt Two Polities or Kingdoms in the World the one of Light the other of Darkness and that our Saviour Christ or the Messiah is appointed the Head or Chieftain over the Heavenly Militia or the Forces of the Kingdom of Light 88. That there will be at length a Palpable and Signal Overthrow of the Satanical Power and whole Kingdom of Darkness by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God appearing in an extraordinary and miraculous manner and that this great affair is to be managed by our Saviour Christ as God's Vicegerent and a Visible Judge both of Quick and Dead 89. That our Saviour Christ designed not to set up himself Factiously against God Almighty nor to be accounted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 superiour to God but that when he hath done his Work and put down all Adversary Power himself will then be subject to God even the Father that so God may be all in all 90. Lastly having spoken of Three Forms of Religious the Jewish Christian and the Pagan and there remaining only a Fourth the Mahometan in which the Divine Monarchy is zealously asserted we may now Conclude that the Idea of
of an Invisible Deity and therefore unless they were detained in a way of Religion by such a worship of God as was accommodate and suitable to the lowness of their apprehensions would unavoidably run into Atheism Nay the most Philosophical Wits amongst them confessing God to be Incomprehensible to them therefore seemed themselves also to stand in need of some Sensible Props to lean upon This very account is given by the Pagans of their practice in Eusebius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That God being Incorporeally and Invisibly present in all things and Pervading or Passing through all things it was reasonable that men should worship him by and through those things that are Visible and Manifest Plato likewise represents this as the opinion of the generality of Pagans in his time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that as for the Greatest God and the Whole World men should not busily curiously search after the knowledge thereof nor pragmatically enquire into the causes of things it being not pious for them so to do The meaning whereof seems to be no other than this that men ought to content themselves to worship God in his Works and in this Visible World and not trouble themselves with any further curious Speculations concerning the Nature of that which is Incomprehensible to them Which though Plato professeth his dislike of yet does that Philosopher himself elsewhere plainly allow of worshipping the First Invisible God in those Visible Images which he hath made of himself the Sun and Moon and Stars Maximus Tyrius doth indeed exhort men to ascend up in the Contemplation of God above all Corporeal Things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The End of your Journey saith he is not the Heaven nor those shining Bodies in the Heaven for though those be beautiful and Divine and the Genuine Off-spring of that Supreme Deity framed after the best manner yet ought these all to be transcended by you and your head lifted up far above the Starry Heavens c. Nevertheless he closes his discourse thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. But if you be too weak and unable to contemplate that Father and Maker of all things it will be sufficient for you for the present to behold his Works and to Worship his Progeny or Off-spring which is various and manifold For there are not only according to the Boeotian Poet Thirty Thousand Gods all the Sons and Friends of the Supreme God but innumerable And such in the Heaven are the Stars in the Aether Demons c. Lastly Socrates himself also did not only allow of this way of worshipping God because himself is Invisible in his works that are Visible but also commend the same to Euthydemus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That I speak the truth your self shall know if you will not stay expecting till you see the Forms of the Gods themselves but count it sufficient for you beholding their works to worship and adore them Which he afterward particularly applies to the Supreme God who made and containeth the whole World that being Invisible he hath made himsâ—lf Visible in his Works and consequently was to be worshipped and adred in them Whether Socrates and Plato and their genuine Followers would extend this any further than to the Animated Parts of the World such as the Sun Moon and Stars were to them we cannot certainly determine But we think it very probable that many of those Pagans who are charged with worshipping Inanimate Things and particularly the Elements did notwithstanding direct their Worship to the Spirits of those Elements as Ammianus Marcellinus tells us Julian did that is Chiefly the Souls of them all the Elements being supposed by many of these Pagans to be Animated as was before observed concerning Proclus and Partly also those Demons which they conceived to inhabit in them and to preside over the parts of them upon which account it was said by Plato and others of the Ancients that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All things are full of Gods and Demons XXXIII But that these Physiological Gods that is the Things of Nature Personated and Deified were not accounted by the Pagans True and Proper Gods much less Independent and Self-existent ones may further appear from hence because they did not only thus Personate and Deifie Things Substantial and Inanimate Bodies but also meer Accidents and Affections of Substances As for example First the Passions of the Mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Greg. Nazianzen They accounted the Passions of the Mind to be Gods or at least worshipped them as Gods that is built Temples or Altars to their Names Thus was Hope not only a Goddess to the Poet Theognis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where he Fancifully makes her to be the only Numen that was left to men in Heaven as if the other Gods had all forsaken those Mansions and the World but also had Real Temples Dedicated to her at Rome as that consecrated by Attillius in the Forum Olitorium and others elsewhere wherein she was commonly pictured or feigned as a Woman covered over with a green Pall and holding a Cup in her hand Thus also Love and Desire were Gods or Goddesses too as likewise were Care Memory Opinion Truth Vertue Piety Faith Justice Clemency Concord Victory c. Which Victory was together with Vertue reckoned up amongst the Gods by Plautus in the Prologue of his Amphytrio and not only so but there was an Altar erected to her also near the entrance of the Senate-house at Rome which having been once demolished Symmachus earnestly endeavoured the restauration thereof in the Reign of Theodosius he amongst other things writing thus concerning it Nemo Colendam neget quam profitetur Optandum Let no man deny that of right to be worshipped which he acknowledgeth to be wished for and to be desirable Besides all which Eccho was a Goddess to these Pagans too and so was Night to whom they sacrificed a Cock and Sleep and Death it self and very many more such Affections of things of which Vossius has collected the largest Catalogue in his eighâ—h Book De Theologia Gentili And this Personating and Deifying of Accidental Things was so familiar with these Pagans that as St. Chrysostome hath observed St. Paul was therefore said by some of the Vulgar Athenians to have been a Setter forth of strange Gods when he preached to them Jesus and the Resurrection because they supposed him not only to have made Jesus a God but also Anastasis or Resurrection a Goddess too Nay this Humour of Theologizing the Things of Nature transported these Pagans so far as to Deifie Evil things also that is things both Noxious and Vicious Of the former Pliny thus Inferi quoque in genera describuntur Morbique multae etiam Pestes dum esse placatas trepido metu cupimus Ideoque etiam publicè Febri Fanum in Palatio dedicatum est Orbonae ad aedem Larium Ara Malae Fortunoe
to Inferiour Created Beings First that this Honour which is bestowed upon them does ultimately redound to the Supreme God and aggrandize his State and Majesty they being all his Ministers and Attendants 49. That as Daemons are Mediatours betwixt the Celestial Gods and Men so those Celestial Gods and all the other Inferiour Deities are themselves also Mediatours betwixt Men and the Supreme God and as it were Convenient steps by which we ought with Reverence to approach him 50. That there is an Honour in Justice due to all those excellent Beings that are above us and that the Pagans do but honour every thing as they ought in that due rank and place in which the Supreme God hath set it 51. That Daemons or Angels being appointed to preside over Kingdoms Cities and Persons and the several parts of the Corporeal Vniverse and being many ways Benefactors to us Thanks ought to be returned to them by Sacrifice 52. That the Inferiour Gods Demons and Heroes being all of them able to do us either Good or Hurt and being also Irascible and therefore Provokable by our neglect of them it is as well our Interest as our Duty to Pacifie and Appease them by Worship 53. Lastly that it cannot be thought that the Supreme God will envy those Inferiour Gods that Worship or Honour which is bestowed upon them nor suspected that any of those Inferiour Deities will Factiously go about to set up themselves against the Supreme God 54. That many of the Pagans worshiped none but Good Daemons and that those of them who worshipped Evil ones did it only in order to their Appeasment and Mitigation that so they might do them no hurt None but Magicians to be accompted properly Devil-Worshippers who honour Evil Daemons in order to the gratification of their Revenge Lust and Ambition 55. The Pagans plead that those Daemons who delivered Oracles and did Miracles amongst them must needs be Good since there cannot be a greater reproach to the Supreme God than to suppose him to appoint Evil Daemons as Presidents and Governours over the World or to suffer them to have so great a sway and share of Power in it The Faith of Plato in Divine Providence that the Good every where prevails over the Bad and that the Delphick Apollo was therefore a Good Daemon 56. The Pagans Apology for Worshipping the Supreme God in Images Statues and Symbols That these are only Schetically Worshipped by them the Honour passing from them to the Prototype And that since we living in Bodies cannot easily have a Conception of any thing without some Corporeal Image or Phantasm thus much must be indulged to the Infirmity of Humane Nature at least in the Vulgar to Worship God Corporeally in Images to prevent their running to Atheism 57. That though it should appear by this Apology of the Pagans that their Case were not altogether so Bad as is commonly supposed yet they cannot be Justified thereby in the Three Particulars above mentioned but the Scripture-Condemnation of them is Irrefragable That knowing God they did not Glorifie him as God or Sanctifie his Name that is Worship him according to his Vncommon and Incommunicable his Peerless and Insociable Transcendent and Singular Incomparable and Vnresembleable Nature but mingled some way or other Creature-worship with the Worship of the Creatour First that the Worshipping of One God in his Various Gifts and Effects under several personal Names a thing in it self absurd may also prove a great occasion of Atheism when the things themselves come to be called by those Names as Wine Bacchus Corn Ceres The Conclusion easily following from thence that the Good things of Nature are the only Deities But to Worship the Corporeal World it self Animated as the Supreme God and the Parts of it as the Members of God plainly to Confound God with the Creature and not to Glorifie him as Creatour nor according to his Separate and Spiritual Nature 58. To give Religious Worship to Daemons or Angels Heroes or Saints or any other Intellectual Creatures though not honouring them equally with the Supreme God is to deny God the Honour of his Holiness his Singular Insociable and Incommunicable Nature as he is the only Self-originated Being and the Creator of all Of whom Through Whom and To Whom are all things As God is such a Being that there is nothing Like him so ought the Worship which is given him to be such as hath nothing Like to it A Singular Separate and Incommunicate Worship They not to be Religiously Worshipped that Worship 59. That the Religious Worship of Created Spirits proceeded chiefly from a Fear that if they were not worshipped they would be provoked and do hurt which is both highly Injurious to Good Spirits and a Distrust of the Sufficiency of God's Power to protect his Worshippers That all Good Spirits Vninvok'd are of themselves officiously ready to assist those who sincerely Worship and Propitiate the Supreme Deity and therefore no need of the Religious Worship of them which would be also Offensive to them 60. That Mens praying to Images and Statues is much more Ridiculous than Childrens talking to Babies made of Clouts but not so Innocent they thereby Debasing both themselves and God not Glorifying him according to his Spiritual and Vnresembleable Nature but changing the Glory of the Incorruptible God into the Likeness of Corruptible Man or Beast 61. The Mistake of those who think none can be guilty of Idolatry that believe One God the Maker of the World 62. That from the same ground of Reason That nothing ought to be Religiously Worshipped besides the Supreme God or whom he appoints to represent himself because he ought to be Sanctified and dealt withal according to his Singular Nature as unlike to every thing it follows contrary to the Opinion of some Opposers of Idolatry that there ought also to be a Discrimination made between things Sacred and Prophane and Reverence used in Divine Worship Idolatry and Sacrilege allied 63. Another Scripture-Charge upon the Pagans that they were Devil-worshippers not as though they intended all their Worship to Evil Daemons or Devils as such but because their Polytheism and Idolatry unacceptable to God and Good Spirits was promoted by Evil Spirits delivering Oracles and doing Miracles for the Confirmation of it they also insinuating themselves into the Temples and Statues therefore the Worship was look'd upon as done to them The same thing said of others besides Pagans that they Worshipped Devils 64. Proved that they were Evil Daemons who delivered Oracles and did Miracles amongst the Pagans for the carrying on of that Religion from the many Obscene Rites and Mysteries not only not prohibited but also injoyned by them 65. The same thing further proved from other cruel and bloody Rites but especially that of Man Sacrifices Plutarch's Clear Acknowledgement that both the Obscene Rites and Man-Sacrifices amongst the Pagans owed their Original to Wicked Daemons 66. That the God of Israel neither required nor accepted
suspicable that it was really a Design or Policy of the Devil by imitating the Miracles of our Saviour Christ both in Apollonius and Vespasian to counter-work God Almighty in the Plot of Christianity and to keep up or conserve his own Usurped Tyranny in the Pagan World still Nevertheless we shall here show Apollonius all the favour we can and therefore suppose him not to have been one of those more foul and black Magicians of the common sort such as are not only grosly sunk and debauched in their Lives but also knowingly do Homage to Evil Spirits as such for the gratification of their Lusts but rather one of those more refined ones who have been called by themselves Theurgists such as being in some measure freed from the grosser Vices and thinking to have to do only with good Spirits nevertheless being Proud and Vainglorious and affecting Wonders and to transcend the Generality of Mankind are by a Divine Nemesis justly exposed to the illusions of the Devil or Evil Spirits cunningly insinuating here and aptly accommodating themselves to them However concerning this Apollonius it is undeniable that he was a zealous Upholder of the Pagan Polytheism and a stout Champion for The Gods he professing to have been taught by the Samian Pythagoras his Ghost how to Worship these Gods Invisible as well as Visible and to have converse with them For which cause he is stiled by Vopiscus Amicus verus Deorum A true Friend of the Gods that is a hearty and sincere Friend to that old Pagan Religion now assaulted by Christianity in which not One only True God but a Multiplicity of Gods were Worshipped But notwithstanding all this Apollonius himself was a clear and undoubted Asserter of One Supreme Deity as is evident from his Apologetick Oration in Philostratus prepared for Domitian in which he calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that God who is the Maker of the whole Vniverse and of all things And as he elsewhere in Philostratus declares both the Indians and Egyptians to have agreed in this Theology insomuch that though the Egyptians condemn'd the Indians for many other of their Opinions yet did they highly applaud this Doctrine of theirs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That God was the Maker both of the Generation and Essence of all things and that the cause of his making them was his Essential Goodness So doth he himself very much commend this Philosophy of Jarchas the Indian Brachman viz. That the whole World was but One Great Animal and might be resembled to a Vast Ship wherein their are many Inferiour subordinate Governours under One Supreme the Oldest and Wisest as also expert Mariners of several sorts some to attend upon the Deck and others to climb the Masts and order the Sails 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In which the first and highâ—st seat is to be given to That God who is the Generatour or Creator of this great Animal and the next under it to those Gods that govern the several parts of it respectively so that the Poets were to be approved of here when they affirm that there are Many Gods in the Heavens Many in the Seas Many in the Rivers and Fountains Many also upon the Earth and some under the Earth Wherein we have a true representation of the old Paganick Theology which both Indians and Egyptians and European Poets Greek and Latin all agreed in That there is One Supreme God the Maker of the Universe and under him Many Inferiour Generated Gods or Understanding Beings Superiour to Men appointed to govern and preside over the several parts thereof who were also to be religiously honoured and worshipped by Men. And thus much for Apollonius Tyanaeus The first Pagan Writer against Christianity was Celsus who lived in the times of Adrian and was so professed a Polytheist that he taxes the Jews for having been seduced by the Frauds of Moses into this Opinion of One God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Those silly Shepherds and Herdsmen following Moses their Leader and being seduced by his Rustick frauds came to entertain this Belief that there was but One only God Nevertheless this Celsus himself plainly acknowledged amongst his Many Gods One Supreme whom he sometimes calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the First God sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Greatest God and sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Supercelestial God and the like and he doth so zealously assert the Divine Omnipotence that he casts an imputation upon the Christians of derogating from the same in that their Hypothesis of an Adversary Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Christians are erroneously led into most wicked Opinions concerning God by reason of their great ignorance of the Divine Enigms whilst they make a certain Adversary to God whom they call the Devil and in the Hebrew Language Satan And affirm contrary to all Piety that the Greatest God having a mind to do good to men is disabled or withstood by an Adversary resisting him Lastly where he pleads most for the worship of Demons he concludes thus concerning the Supreme God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But God is by no means any where to be laid aside or left out neither by Day nor by Night neither in Publick nor in Private either in our Words or Actions but in every thing our Mind ought constantly to be directed towards God A Saying that might very well become a Christian. The next and greatest Champion for the Pagan Cause in Books and Writings was that Famous Tyrian Philosopher Malchus called by the Greeks Porphyrius who published a Voluminous and elaborate Treatise containing Fifteen Books against the Christians and yet He notwithstanding was plainly as zealous an Assertor of One Supreme Deity and One Onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vnmade or Self-existent Principle of all things as any of the Christians themselves could be he strenuously opposing that forementioned Doctrine of Plutarch and Atticus concerning Three Unmade Principles a Good God an Evil Soul or Demon and the Matter and endeavouring to demonstrate that all things whatsoever even Matter it self was derived from One Perfect Understanding Being or Self-originated Deity The Sum of whose Argumentation to which purpose we have represented by Proclus upon the Timaeus Page 119. After Porphyrius the next eminent Antagonist of Christianity and Champion for Paganism was Hierocles the Writer of that Book entituled in Eusebius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Lover of the Truth which is noted to have been a Modester Inscription than that of Celsus his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or True Oration For if Eusebius Pamphili were the Writer of that Answer to this Philalethes now Extant as we both read in our Copies and as Photius also read then must it needs be granted that Hierocles the Author of it was either contemporary with Porphyrius or else but little his Junior Moreover this Hierocles seems plainly to be the person intended by Lactantius in
as these there was an innumerable company amongst the Pagans And in their Civil Theology they were wont to be considered as certain Minds or Spirits appointed by the Supreme God to preside over the Affections fo Things They supposing that God whom they called the Best and the Greatest did not immediately himself take care of every thing since that must needs be a distraction to him and a hinderance of his happinessâ— but that he had as a King many He and She-Ministers under him which had their several offices assigned to them Thus Justice which was called also Astrea and Themis was by them thought to preside over all those actions in which Justice was concerned And Comus over all Revellings and the like Which Gods if considered after this manner will no otherwise differ from Angels good and bad than only in this that these Latter are Beings really created by God but the former the Figments of men only they according to the number of Affections that have any greater force in them devizing and imagining certain Minds to preside over each of them And the vulgar might therefore be the more easily led into this perswasion by their Priests because it seemed reasonable to them that that Supreme Mind who is the King of all the Gods should have many other Minds as his subservient Ministers under him both to free him from Solicitous Care and also to add to his Grandeur and Majesty And such was the Doctrine of the Civil Theology Where though Vossius speak Particularly of that kind of Pagan Gods which were nothing but Affections and Accidents Deified which no man in his wits could possibly suppose to be themselves True and Proper Gods they having no Subsistence of their own That these by the generality of the Vulgar Pagans were conceived to be so many Created Minds or Spirits appointed by the Supreme God to preside as his Ministers over those several Affections of Substances yet does he plainly imply the same of all those other Political Gods of these Pagans likewise that they were not look'd upon by them as so many Vnmade Self-existent and Independent Beings but only as Inferiour Minds or Spirits created by the Supreme God and by him appointed to preside over the Several Parts of the World and Things of Nature and having their Several Offices assigned to them Wherefore as to the main We and Vossius are now well agreed viz. That the ancient Pagans asserted no such thing as a Multitude of Independent Deities so that there only remain some Particular Differences of smaller moment betwixt us Our selves have before observed that Aeolus was probably taken by Epictetus in Arrianus not indeed for One but for Many Created Ministers of the Supreme God or Demons Collectively appointed by him to preside over the Winds in all the several Parts of the World And the Pagans in St. Austin seem to interpret those Deified Accidents and Things of Nature after the same manner as the Names of certain Unknown Gods or Demons one or more that were appointed to preside over them respectively or to dispense the same Quoniam sciebant Majores nostri nemini talia nisi aliquo Deo largiente concedi quorum Deorum nomina non inveniebant earum rerum nominibus appellabant Deos quas ab iis sentiebant dari aliqua vocabula inde flâ—ctentes sicut à Bello Bellonam nuncupaverunt non Bellum sicut à cunis Cuninam non Cunam sicut à segetibus Segetiam non Segetem sicuâ— Ã Pomis Pomonam non Pomum sicut à bobus Bobonam non Bovem Aut certè nulla vocabuli declinatione sicut res ipsae nominantur ut Pecunia dicta est Dea quae dat pecuniam non omninò pecunia Dea ipsa puâ—ata Ita Virtus quae dat virtutem Honor qui honorem Concordia quae concordiam Victoria quae victoriam dat Ita inquiunt cum Felicitas Dea dicitur non ipsa quae datur sed Numen illud attenditur à quo Felicitas datur Because our Forefathers knew well that these things do not happen to any without the special Gift and Favour of some God therefore were those Gods whose names they knew not called from the names of those very things themselves which they perceived to be bestowed by them there being only a little Alteration made in them as when the God that causeth War was called not Bellum but Bellona the God which presideth over Infants Cradles not Cuna but Cunina that which giveth Corn Segetia and that which affordeth apples Pomona c. But at other times this was done without any Declension of the Word at all they calling both the Thing and the God which is the Bestower of it by one and the self same name As Pecunia doth not only signifie Money but also the Goddess which giveth Money Virtus the Goddess which giveth Virtue Honor the God that bestoweth honour Concordia the Goddess that causeth Concord Victory the Goddess which affordeth Victory So also when Felicity is called a Goddess by it is not meant that thing which is given but that Divine Power from whence it is given Here I say the Pagans may seem to have understood by those Deified Things of Nature certain Inferiour Gods or Demons One or More the Ministers of the Supreme God appointed by him to preside over those several Things respectively or to dispense the same Neither can we deny but that in so much ignorance and diversity of Opinions as there was amongst the Pagans some might possibly understand those Political Gods and Deified Things also after the way of Vossius for so many Single Minds or Spirits appointed to preside over those Several Things respectively throughout the whole World and nothing else Nevertheless it seemeth not at all probable that this should be the General Opinion amongst the Civilized Pagans that all those Gods of theirs were so many Single Created Minds or Spirits each of them appointed to preside over some One certain thing every where throughout the Whole World and nothing else As for Example that the Goddess Victory was One Single Created she-She-Spirit appointed to bestow Victory to whosoever at any time enjoyed it in all parts of the World and so that the Goddess Justice should be such another Single Mind or Spirit created to dispence Justice every where and meddle with nothing else And the like of all those other Accidental Things or Affections Deified as Virtue Honour Concord Felicity c. And Lactantius Firmianus taking notice of that Profession of the Pagans to worship nothing but One Supreme God and his Subservient Ministers Generated or created by him according to that of Seneca in his Exhortations Genuisse Regni sui Ministros Deum that the Supreme God had generated other Inferiour Ministers of his Kingdom under him which were called by them also Gods plainly denies all the Pagan Gods save One to be the Created Ministers of that One Supreme he making this Reply Verum hi
fuit Inundatio quae non secus quà m Hyems quà m Aestas Lege Mundi venit Whatsoever from the beginning to the end of it it can either Do or Suffer it was all at first included in the Nature of the whole As in the Seed is conteined the Whole Delineation of the Future man and the Embryo or Vnborn infant hath already in it the Law of a Beard and Gray Hairs The Lineaments of the whole Body and of its following age being there described as it were in a little and obscure Compendium In like manner the Original and First Rudiments of the World conteined in them not only the Sun and Moon the Courses of the Stars and the Generations of Animals but also the Vicissitudes of all Terrestrial things And every Deluge or Inundation of Water comes to pass no less by the Law of the World its Spermatick or Plastick Nature than Winter and Summer doth XXVIII We do not deny it to be possible but that some in all Ages might have entertained such an Atheistical Conceit as this That the Original of this whole Mundane System was from one Artificial Orderly and Methodical but Sensless Nature lodge in the Matter but we cannot trace the footsteps of this Doctrine any where so much as among the Stoicks to which Sect Seneca who speaks so waveringly and uncertainly in this point Whether the World were an Animal or a Plant belonged And indeed diverse learned men have suspected that even the Zenonian and Heraclitick Deity it self was no other than such a Plastick Nature or Spermatick Principle in the Universe as in the Seeds of Vegetables and Animals doth frame their respective Bodies Orderly and Artificially Nor can it be denied but that there hath been just cause given for such a suspicion forasmuch as the best of the Stoicks sometimes confounding God with Nature seemed to make him nothing but an Artificial Fire Orderly and Methodically proceeding to Generation And it was Familiar with them as Laertius tells us to call God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Spermatick Reason or Form of the World Nevertheless because Zeno and others of the chief Stoical Doctors did also many times assert that there was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Rational and Intellectual Nature and therefore not a Plastick Principle only in the Matter of the Universe as likewise that the whole World was an Animal and not a mere Plant Therefore we incline rather to excuse the generality of the first and most ancient Stoicks from the imputation of Atheism and to account this Form of Atheism which we now speak of to be but a certain Degeneracy from the right Heraclitick and Zenonian Cabala which seemed to contain these two things in it First that there was an Animalish Sentient and Intellectual Nature or a Conscious Soul and Mind that presided over the whole World though lodged immediately in the Fiery Matter of it Secondly that this Sentient and Intellectual Nature or Corporeal Soul and Mind of the Universe did contain also under it or within it as the inferiour part of it a certain Plastick Nature or Spermatick Principle which was properly the Fate of all things For thus Heraclitus defined Fate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A certain Reason passing through the Substance of the whole World or an Ethereal Body that was the Seed of the Generation of the Vniverse And Zeno's first Principle as it is said to be an Intellectual Nature so it is also said to have contained in it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All the Spermatick Reasons and forms by which every thing is done according to Fate However though this seem to have been the genuine Doctrine both of Heraclitus and Zeno yet others of their Followers afterwards divided these two things from one another and taking only the latter of them made the Plastick or Spermatick Nature devoid of all Animality or Conscious Intellectuality to be the highest Principle in the Universe Thus Laertius tells us that Boethus an eminent and famous Stoical Doctor did plainly deny the World to be an Animal that is to have any Sentient Conscious or Intellectual Nature presiding over it and consequently must needs make it to be but Corpus Naturâ gubernante ut Arbores ut Sata A Body governed by a Plastick or Vegetative Nature as Trees Plants and Herbs And as it is possible that other Stoicks and Heracliticks might have done the like before Boethus so it is very probable that he had after him many Followers amongst which as Plinius Secundus may be reckoned for one so Seneca himself was not without a doubtful Tincture of this Atheism as hath been already shewed Wherefore this Form of Atheism which supposes one Plastick or Spermatick Nature one Plantal or Vegetative Life in the whole World as the Highest Principle may for distinction sake be called the Pseudo-Stoical or Stoical Atheism XXIX Besides these Philosophick Atheists whose several Forms we have now described it cannot be doubted but that there have been in all Ages many other Atheists that have not at all Philosophized nor pretended to maintain any particular Atheistick System or Hypothesis in a way of Reason but were only led by a certain dull and sottish though confident Disbelief of whatsoever they could not either See or Feel Which kind of Atheists may therefore well be accompted Enthusiastical or Fanatical Atheists Though it be true in the mean time that even all manner of Atheists whatsoever and those of them who most of all pretend to Reason and Philosophy may in some sence be justly stiled also both Enthusiasts and Fanaticks Forasmuch as they are not led or carried on into this way of Atheizing by any clear Dictates of their Reason or Understanding but only by an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a certain Blind and Irrational Impetus they being as it were Inspired to it by that lower Earthly Life and Nature which is called in the Scripture-oracles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Spirit of the World or a Mundane Spirit and is opposed to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Spirit that is of God For when the Apostle speaks after this manner We have not received the Spirit of the World but the Spirit that is of God he seems to intimate thus much unto us That as some men were Led and Inspired by a Divine Spirit so others again are Inspired by a Mundane Spirit by which is meant the Earthly Life Now the former of these Two are not to be accompted Enthusiasts as the word is now commonly taken in a Bad Sence because the Spirit of God is no Irrational thing but either the very self same thing with Reason or else such a thing as Aristotle as it were Vaticinating concerning it somewhere calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a certain Better and Diviner thing than Reason and Plotinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Root of Reason But on the contrary the Mundane Spirit or Earthly Life is Irrational Sottishness and they who are Atheistically Inspired by it how
abhorrent soever they may otherwise seem to be from Enthusiasm and Revelations are notwithstanding really no better than a kind of Bewitched Enthusiasts and Blind Spiritati that are wholly ridden and acted by a dark narrow and captivated Principle of Life and to use their own Language In-blown by it and by it bereft even in Speculative things of all Free Reason and Understanding Nay they are Fanaticks too however that word seem to have a more peculiar respect to something of a Deity All Atheists being that Blind Goddess Natures Fanaticks XXX We have described four several Forms of Atheism First the Hylopathian or Anaximandrian that derives all things from Dead and Stupid Matter in the way of Qualities and Forms Generable and Corruptible Secondly the Atomical or Democritical which doth the same thing in the way of Atoms and Figures Thirdly the Cosmoplastick or Stoical Atheism which supposes one Plastick and Methodical but Sensless Nature to preside over the whole Corporeal Universe And lastly the Hylozoick or Stratonical that attributes to all Matter as such a certain Living and Energetick Nature but devoid of all Animality Sense and Consciousness And as we do not meet with any other Forms or Schemes of Atheism besides these Four so we conceive that there cannot easily be any other excogitated or devised and that upon these two following Considerations First because all Atheists are mere Corporealists that is acknowledge no other Substance besides Body or Matter For as there was never any yet known who asserting Incorporeal Substance did deny a Deity so neither can there be any reason why he that admits the former should exclude the later Again the same Dull and Earthly Disbelief or confounded Sottishness of Mind which makes men deny a God must needs incline them to deny all Incorporeal Substance also Wherefore as the Physicians speak of a certain Disease or Madness called Hydrophobia the Symptome of those that have been bitten by a mad Dog which makes them have a monstrous Antipathy to Water so all Atheists are possessed with a certain kind of Madness that may be called Pneumatophobia that makes them have an irrational but desperate Abhorrence from Spirits or Incorporeal Substances they being acted also at the same time with an Hylomania whereby they Madly dote upon Matter and Devoutly worship it as the only Numen The Second Consideration is this because as there are no Atheists but such as are mere Corporealists so all Corporealists are not to be accompted Atheists neither Those of them who notwithstanding they make all things to be Matter yet suppose an Intellectual Nature in that Matter to preside over the Corporeal Universe being in Reason and Charity to be exempted out of that number And there have been always some who though so strongly captivated under the power of gross Imagination as that an Incorporeal God seemed to them to be nothing but a God of Words as some of them call it a mere Empty Sound or Contradictious Expression Something and Nothing put together yet notwithstanding they have been possessed with a firm belief and perswasion of a Deity or that the System of the Universe depends upon one Perfect Understanding Being as the Head of it and thereupon have concluded that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a certain kind of Body or Matter is God The grossest and most sottish of all which Corporeal Theists seem to be those who contend that God is only one particular Piece of Organized Matter of Humane Form and Bigness which endued with Perfect Reason and Understanding exerciseth an Universal Dominion over all the rest Which Hypothesis however it hath been entertained by some of the Christian Profession both in former and later times yet it hath seemed very ridiculous even to many of those Heathen Philosophers themselves who were mere Corporealists such as the Stoicks who exploded it with a kind of Indignation contending earnestly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That God though Corporeal yet must not be conceived to be of any Humane Shape And Xenophanes an Ancient Philosophick Poet expresseth the Childishness of this Conceit after this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If Oxen Lions Horses and Asses had all of them a Sense of a Deity and were able to Limn and Paint there is no question to be made but that each of these several Animals would paint God according to their respective Form Likeness and contend that he was of that shape no other But that other Corporeal Theism seems to be of the two rather more Generous and Gentile which supposes the whole World to be one Animal and God to be a certain Subtle and Etherial but Intellectual Matter pervading it as a Soul which was the Doctrine of others before the Stoicks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hippasus of Metapontus and Heraclitus the Ephesian supposed the Fiery and Etherial Matter of the World to be God However neither these Heracliticks and Stoicks nor yet the other Anthropomorphites are by us condemned for downright Atheists but rather look'd upon as a sort of Ignorant Childish and Vnskilful Theists Wherefore we see that Atheists are now reduced into a narrow Compass since none are concluded to be Atheists but such as are mere Corporealists and all Corporealists must not be condemned for Atheists neither but only those of them who assert that there is no Conscious Intellectual Nature presiding over the whole Universe For this is that which the Adepti in Atheism of what Form soever all agree in That the first Principle of the Universe is no Animalish Sentient and Conscious Nature but that all Animality Sense and Consciousness is a Secondary Derivative and Accidental thing Generable and Corruptible arising out of particular Concretions of Matter organized and dissolved together with them XXXI Now if the First Principle and Original of all things in the Universe be thus supposed to be Body or Matter devoid of all Animality Sense and Consciousness then it must of necessity be either perfectly Dead and Stupid and without all manner of Life or else endued with such a kind of Life only as is by some called Plastick Spermatical and Vegetative by others the Life of Nature or Natural Perception And those Atheists who derive all things from Dead and Stupid Matter must also needs do this either in the way of Qualities and Forms and these are the Anaximandrian Atheists or else in the way of Atoms and Figures which are the Democritical But those who make Matter endued with a Plastick Life to be the first Original of all things must needs suppose either One such Plastick and Spermatick Life only in the whole Mass of Matter or Corporeal Universe which are the Stoical Atheists or else all Matter as such to have Life and an Energetick Nature belonging to it though without any Animal Sense or Self-perception and consequently all the Particular Parts of Matter and every Totum by Continuity to have a
of a Wooden Hand For thus these Physiologers declare the Generations and Causes of Figures only or the Matter out of which things are made as Air and Earth Whereas no Artificer would think it sufficient to render such a Cause of any Artificial Fabrick because the Instrument happened to fall so upon the Timber that therefore it was Hollow here and Plane there but rather because himself made such strokes and for such Ends c. Now in the close of all this Philosopher at length declares That there is another Principle of Corporeal things besides the Material and such as is not only the Cause of Motion but also acts Artificially in order to Ends 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is such a thing as that which we call Nature that is not the Fortuitous Motion of Sensless Matter but a Plastick Regular and Artificial Nature such as acts for Ends and Good declaring in the same place what this Nature is namely that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Soul or Part of Soul or not without Soul and from thence inferring that it properly belongs to a Physiologer to treat concerning the Soul also But he concludes afterwards 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the whole Soul is not Nature whence it remains that according to Aristotle's sence Nature is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either part of a Soul or not without Soul that is either a lower Part or Faculty of some Conscious Soul or else an Inferiour kind of Life by it self which is not without Soul but Suborditate to it and dependent on it 22. As for the Bodies of Animals Aristotle first resolves in General that Nature in them is either the whole Soul or else some part of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nature as the Moving Principle or as that which acts Artificially for Ends so far as concerns the Bodies of Animals is either the whole Soul or else some Part of it But afterward he determines more particularly that the Plastick Nature is not the whole Soul in Animals but only some part of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Nature in Animals properly so called is some Lower Power or Faculty lodged in their respective Souls whether Sensitive or Rational And that there is Plastick Nature in the Souls of Animals the same Aristotle elsewhere affirms and proves after this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What is that which in the Bodies of Animals holds together such things as of their own Nature would otherwise move contrary ways and flie asunder as Fire and Earth which would be distracted and dissipated the one tending upwards the other downwards were there not something to hinder them now if there be any such thing this must be the Soul which is also the Cause of Nourishment and Augmentation Where the Philosopher adds that though some were of Opinion that Fire was that which was the Cause of Nourishment and Augmentation in Animals yet this was indeed but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only the Concause or Instrument and not simply the Cause but rather the Soul And to the same purpose he philosophizeth elsewhere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither is Concoction by which Nourishment is made in Animals done without the Soul nor without Heat for all things are done by Fire And certainly it seems very agreeable to the Phaenomena to acknowledge something in the Bodies of Animals Superiour to Mechanism as that may well be thought to be which keeps the more fluid parts of them constantly in the same Form and Figure so as not to be enormously altered in their Growth by disproportionate nourishment that which restores Flesh that was lost consolidates dissolved Continuities Incorporates the newly received Nourishment and joyns it Continuously with the preexistent parts of Flesh and Bone which regenerates and repairs Veins consumed or cut off which causes Dentition in so regular a manner and that not only in Infants but also Adult persons that which casts off Excrements and dischargeth Superfluities which makes things seem ungrateful to an Interiour Sense that were notwithstanding pleasing to the Taste That Nature of Hippocrates that is the Curatrix of Diseases 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that Archeus of the Chymists or Paracelsians to which all Medicaments are but Subservient as being able to effect nothing of themselves without it I say there seems to be such a Principle as this in the Bodies of Animals which is not Mechanical but Vital and therefore since Entities are not to be multiplied without necessity we may with Aristotle conclude it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a certain part of the Soul of those Animals or a Lower Inconscious Power lodged in them 23. Besides this Plastick Nature which is in Animals forming their several Bodies Artificially as so many Microcosms or Little Worlds there must be also a general Plastick Nature in the Macrocosm the whole Corporeal Universe that which makes all things thus to conspire every where and agree together into one Harmony Concerning which Plastick Nature of the Universe the Author de Mundo writes after this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Power passing thorough all things ordered and formed the whole World Again he calls the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Spirit and a Living and Generative Nature and plainly declares it to be a thing distinct from the Deity but Subordinate to it and dependent on it But Aristotle himself in that genuine Work of his before mentioned speaks clearly and positively concerning this Plastick Nature of the Universe as well as that of Animals in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It seemeth that as there is Art in Artificial things so in the things of Nature there is another such like Principle or Cause which we our selves partake of in the same manner as we do of Heat and Cold from the Vniverse Wherefore it is more probable that the whole World was at fiâ—st made by such a Cause as this if at least it were made and that it is still conserved by the same than that Mortal Animals should be so For there is much more of Order and determinate Regularity in the Heavenly Bodies than in our selves but more of Fortuitousness and inconstant Regularity among these Mortal things Notwithstanding which some there are who though they cannot but acknowledge that the Bodies of Animals were all framed by an Artificial Nature yet they will needs contend that the System of the Heavens sprung merely from Fortune and Chance although there be not the least appearance of Fortuitousness or Temerity in it And then he sums up all into this Conclusion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore it is manifest that there is some such thing as that which we call Nature that is that there is not only an Artificial Methodical and Plastick Nature in Animals by which their respective Bodies are Framed and Conserved but also that there is such a General Plastick Nature likewise in the Vniverse by which the Heavens
Interpretation of his meaning there as this of Plutarch's inserts these very words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither must any such thing be supposed as if there were two Gods contrarily minded to one another turning the Heavens sometimes one way and sometimes another Which plain declaration of Plato's Sence being directly contrary to Plutarch's Interpretation and this Ditheistick Opinion might serve also for a sufficient Confutation of His Second Ground from the Tenth De Legibus as if Plato had there affirmed that there were Two Souls moving the Heavens the One Beneficent but the other Contrary because this would be all one as to assert Two Gods contrarily minded to one another Notwithstanding which for a fuller Answer thereunto we shall further add that this Philosopher did there First only distribute Souls in General into Good and Evil those Moral Differences Properly belonging to that rank of Beings called by him Souls and first emerging in them according to this Premised Doctrine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Soul is the Cause of Good and Evil Honest and Dishonest Just and Vnjust But then afterwards making Enquiry concerning the Soul of the World or Heaven what kind of Soul that was he positively concludes that it was no other than a Soul endued with all Vertue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ath. Hosp. Since it is Soul that moves all things we must of necessity affirm that the Heaven or World is moved by some Soul or other adorning and disposing of it whether it be the Best Soul or the Contrary Clin. O Hospes it is certainly not Holy nor pious to conclude otherwise than that a Soul endued with all Vertue One or More moves the World And as for the last thing urged by Plutarch that before the World was made the Matter is said by Plato to have been Moved disorderly we conceive that that Philosopher did therein only adhere to that Vulgarly received Tradition which was Originally Mosaical that the First beginning of the Cosmopoeia was from a Chaos or Matter confusedly moved afterward brought into Order And now we think it plainly appears that there is no strength at all in any of Plutarch's forementioned Allegations nor any such Monster to be found any where in Plato as this Substantial Evil Principle or God a Wicked Soul or Demon Unmade and Self-existent from Eternity Opposite and Inimicous to the Good God sharing the Empire and Dominion of the World with him Which Opinion is really nothing else but the Deifying of the Devil or Prince of Evil Spirits making him a Corrival with God and entitling him to a Right of receiving Divine Honour and Worship And it is observable that Plutarch himself confesseth this Interpretation which he makes of Plato to be New and Paradoxical or an Invention of his own 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such as because it was contrary to the Generally received Opinion of Platonists himself thought to stand in need of some Apology and Defence To which purpose therefore he adds again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will saith he declare mine own Opinion first concerning these things confirming it with Probabilities and as much as possibly I can aiding and assisting the Truth and Paradoxicalness thereof Moreover Proclus upon the Timaeus takes notice of no other Philosophers that ever imputed this Doctrine to Plato or indeed maintained any such Opinion of Two Substantial Principles of Good and Evil but only Plutarch and Atticus though I confess Chalcidius cites Numenius also to the same purpose Proclus his words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plutarchus Cheronensis and Atticus maintain that before the Generation and Formation of the World there was Vnformed and disorderly Matter existing from Eternity together with a Maleficent Soul for whence say they could that Motion of the Matter in Plato 's Timaeus procede but from a Soul and if it were a Disorderly Motion it must then needs come from a Disorderly Soul And as Proclus tells us that this Opinion of theirs had been before confuted by Porphyrius and Jamblychus as that which was both Irrational and Impious so doth he there likewise himself briefly refel it in these Two Propositions First that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every Soul is the Off-spring of God and there can be no Soul nor any thing else besides God Self-existing and Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is absurd to make Evil alike Eternal with Good for that which is Godless cannot be of like honour with God and equally Vnmade nor indeed can there be any thing at all positively opposite to God But because it may probably be here demanded What Account it was then possible for Plato to give of the Original of Evils so as not to impute them to God himself if he neither derived them from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vnqualified Matter which Plutarch has plainly proved to be absurd nor yet from a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Irrational and Maleficent Soul of the World or Demon Self-existent from Eternity we shall therefore hereunto briefly reply That though that Philosopher derived not the Original of Evils from Vnqualified Matter nor from a Wicked Soul or Demon Vnmade yet did he not therefore impute them to God neither but as it seemeth to the Necessity of Imperfect Beings For as Timaeus Locrus had before Plato determined that the World was made by God and Necessity so does Plato himself accordingly declare in his Timaeus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Generation of this World is mixt and made up of a certain composition of Mind and Necessity both together yet so as that Mind doth also in some sence rule over Necessity Wherefore though according to Plato God be properly and directly the Cause of nothing else but Good yet the Necessity of these Lower Imperfect things does unavoidably give Being and Birth to Evils For First as to Moral Evils which are the Chiefest there is a Necessity that there should be Higher and Lower Inclinations in all Rational Beings Vitally United to Bodies and that as Autexousious or Free-willed they should have a Power of determining themselves more or less either way as there is also a Necessity that the same Liberty of Will essential to Rational Creatures which makes them capable of Praise and Reward should likewise put them in a Possibility of deserving Blame and Punishment Again as to the Evils of Pain and Inconvenience there seems to be a Necessity that Imperfect Terrestrial Animals which are capable of the Sense of Pleasure should in contrary Circumstances which will also sometimes happen by reason of the Inconsistency and Incompossibility of things be obnoxious to Displeasure and Pain And Lastly for the Evils of Corruptions and Dissolutions there is a plain Necessity that if there be Natural Generations in the World there should be also Corruptions according to that of Lucretius before cited Quando alid ex alio reficit Natura nec ullam Rem gigni patitur nisi Morte adjutam alienâ To all which
Platonical or Grecanical therefore was not Egyptian The only Instance that Casaubon insists upon is this Dogma in the Trismegistick Books That Nothing in the World perisheth and that Death is not the Destruction but Change and Translation of Things only Which because he finds amongst some of the Greek Philosophers he resolves to be peculiar to them only and not common with the Egyptians But since the chief design and tendency of that Dogma was plainly to maintain the Immortality preexistence and Transmigration of Souls which Doctrine was unquestionably derived from the Egyptians there is little reason to doubt but that this Dogma was it self Egyptian also And Phythagoras who was the chief Propagator of this Doctrine amongst the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That no real Entity in Generations and Corruptions was Made or destroyed according to those Ovidian Verses before cited Nec perit in toto quicquam mihi credite mundo Sed variat faciemque novat Nascique vocatur Incipere esse Aliud c. did in all probability derive it together with its superstructure the Preexistence and Transmigration of Souls at once from the Egyptians But it is observable that the Egyptians had also a peculiar ground of their own for this Dogma which we do not find insisted upon by the Greek Philosophers and it is thus expressed in the Eighth of Ficinus his Hermetick Books or Chapters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If the World be a Second God and an Immortal Animal then is it impossible that any part of this Immortal Animal should perish or come to nothing but all things in the World are Parts of this great Mundane Animal and chiefly Man who is a Rational Animal Which same Notion we find also insisted on in the Asclepian Dialogue Secundum Deum hunc crede ô Asclepi omnia gubernantem omniaque mundana illustrantem animalia Si enim Animal Mundus vivens semper fuit est erit nihil in mundo mortale est viventis enim uniuscujusque Partis quae in ipso mundo sicut in uno eodemque Animale semper vivente nullus est mortalitatis locus Where though the Latin be a little imperfect yet the sence is this You are to believe the World ô Asclepius to be a Second God governing all things and illustrating all Mundane Animals Now if the World be a Living Animal and Immortal then there is nothing Mortal in it there being no place for mortality as to any Living Part or Member of that Mundane Animal that always Liveth Notwithstanding which we deny not but that though Pythagoras First derived this Notion from the Egyptians yet he and his Followers might probably improve the same farther as Plato tells us that the Greeks generally did what they received from the Barbarians namely to the taking away the Qualities and Forms of Bodies and resolving all Corporeal Things into Magnitude Figure and Motion But that there is indeed some of the old Egyptian Learning contained in these Trismegistick Books now extant shall be clearly proved afterwards when we come to speak of that Grand Mystery of the Egyptian Theology derived by Orpheus from them That God is All. To conclude Jamblichus his judgment in this case ought without controversie to be far preferred before Casaubon's both by reason of his great Antiquity and his being much better skilled not only in the Greek but also the Egyptian Learning That the Books imputed to Hermes Trismegist did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 really contain the Hermaick Opinions though they spake sometimes the Language of the Greek Philosophers Wherefore upon all these Considerations we conceive it reasonable to conclude that though there have been some Hermaick Books counterfeited by Christians since Jamblichus his time as namely the Paemander and The Sermon in the Mount concerning Regeneration neither of which are found cited by any ancient Father yet there were other Hermaick Books which though not written by Hermes Trismegist himself nor all of them in the Egyptian Language but some of them in Greek were truly Egyptian and did for the substance of them contain the Hermaick Doctrine Such probably were those mentioned by the Ancient Fathers but since lost as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which seems to have been a discourse concerning the Cosmogonia and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the like And such also may some of these Hermaick Books be that are still extant as to instance particularly the Asclepian Dialogue entituled in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Perfect Oration and in all probability translated into Latin by Apuleius For it can hardly be imagined that he who was so devout a Pagan so learned a Philosopher and so Witty a man should be so far imposed upon by a counterfeit Trismegistick Book and mere Christian Cheat as to bestow Translating upon it and recommend it to the World as that which was genuinely Pagan But however whether Apuleius were the Translator of this Asclepian Dialogue or no it is evident that the Spirit of it is not at all Christian but rankly Pagan one Instance whereof we have in its glorying of a power that men have of Making Gods upon which accompt St. Austin thought fit to concern himself in the confutation of it Moreover it being extant and vulgarly known before Jamblichus his time it must needs be included in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and consequently receive this attestation from him that it did contain not merely the Greekish but the Hermaical and Egyptian Doctrine There are indeed some Objections made against this as first from what we read in this Dialogue concerning the Purgation of the World partly by Water and partly by Fire Tunc ille Dominus Pater Deus Primipotens Vnus Gubernator mundi intuens in mores factaque hominum voluntate sua quae est Dei Benignitas vitiis resistens corruptelae errorem revocans malignitatem omnem vel Alluvione diluens vel igne consumens ad antiquam faciem mundum revocabit When the World becomes thus Degenerate then that Lord and Father the Supreme God and the only Governour of the World beholding the manners and deeds of men by his Will which is his Benignity always resisting vice and restoring things from their Degeneracy will either wash away the Malignity of the World by Water or else consume it by Fire and restore it to its ancient form again But since we find in Julius Firmicus that there was a Tradition amongst the Egyptians concerning the Apocatastasis of the World partim per 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 partim per 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 partly by Inundation and partly by Conflagration this Objection can signifie nothing Wherefore there is another Objection that hath some more plausibility from that Prophecy which we find in this Asclepius concerning the overthrow of the Egyptian Paganism ushered in with much Lamentation in these words Tunc Terra ista sanctissima sedes Delubrorum Sepulchrorum erit mortuorumque plenissima Then
Commentary on this Inscription Wherefore it may be here observed that those Pagans who acknowledged God to be a Mind and Incorporeal Being secrete from Matter did notwithstanding frequently consider him not abstractly by himself alone but concretely together with the Result of his whole Fecundity or as displaying the World from himself and diffusing himself through all things and being in a manner All Things Accordingly we learn'd before from Horus Apollo that the Egyptians by God meant a Spirit diffusing it self through the World and intimately pervading all things and that they supposed that nothing at all could consist without God And after this manner Jamblichus in his Mysteries interprets the meaning of this Egyptian Inscription For when he had declared that the Egyptians did both in their Doctrine and their Priestly Hierurgies exhort men to ascend above Matter to an Incorporeal Deity the Maker of all he adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hermes also propounded this Method and Bithys the Prophet interpreted the same to King Ammon having found it written in Hieroglyphick letters in the Temple of Sais in Egypt as he also there declared the name of that God who extends or diffuses himself through the whole World And this was Neith or Athenae that God thus described I am all that Was Is and Shall be and my Peplum or Veil no mortal could ever uncover Where we cannot but take notice also that whereas the Athena of the Greeks was derived from the Egyptian Neith that she also was famous for her Peplum too as well as the Egyptian Goddess Peplum saith Servius est Propriè Palla picta Faeminea Minervae consecrata Peplum is properly a womanish Pall or Veil embroidered all over and consecrated to Minerva Which Rite was performed at Athens in the Great Panathenaicks with much Solemnity when the Statue of this Goddess was also by those Noble Virgins of the City who embroidered this Veil cloathed all over therewith From whence we may probably conclude that the Statue of the Egyptian Neith also in the Temple of Sais had likewise agreeably to its Inscription such a Peplum or Veil cast over it as Minerva or Artemis at Athens had this Hieroglyphically to signifie that the Deity was invisible and incomprehensible to mortals but had Veiled it self in this Visible Corporeal World which is as it were the Peplum the exteriour variegated or embroidered Vestment of the Deity To all which Considerations may be added in the last place what Proclus hath recorded that there was something more belonging to this Egyptian Inscription than what is mentioned by Plutarch namely these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Sun was the fruit or off-spring which I produced from whence it is manifest that according to the Egyptians the Sun was not the Supreme Deity and that the God here described was as Proclus also observeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Demiurgical Deity the Creator of the whole World and of the Sun Which Supreme Incorporeal Deity was notwithstanding in their Theology said to be All Things because it diffused it self thorough All. Wherefore whereas Plutarch cites this Passage out of Hecataeus concerning the Egyptians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That they take the First God and the Vniverse for one and the Same thing the meaning of it cannot be as if the First or Supreme God of the Egyptians were the Sensless Corporeal World Plutarch himself in the very next words declaring him to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Invisible and Hidden whom therefore the Egyptians as inviting him to manifest himself to them called Hammon as he elsewhere affirmeth That the Egyptians First God or Supreme Deity did see all things himself being not seen But the forementioned Passage must needs be understood thus that according to the Egyptians the First God and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Vniverse were Synonymous expressions often used to signifie the very same thing because the First Supreme Deity is that which contains All Things and diffuseth it self through All Things And this Doctrine was from the Egyptians derived to the Greeks Orpheus declaring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that all things were One and after him Parmenides and other Philosophers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that One was the Vniverse or All and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Vniverse was Immovable they meaning nothing else hereby but that the First Supreme Deity was both One and All things and Immovable And thus much is plainly intimated by Aristotle in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There are some who pronounced concerning the whole Vniverse as being but One Nature that is who called the Supreme Deity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Vniverse because that vertually contained All things in it Nevertheless 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Vniverse was frequently taken by the Pagan Theologers also as we have already intimated in a more comprehensive sence for the Deity together with all the extent of its Fecundity God as displaying himself in the World or for God and the World both together the Latter being look'd upon as nothing but an Emanation or Efflux from the Former And thus was the word taken by Empedocles in Plutarch when he affirmed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the World was not the Vniverse but only a small part thereof And according to this sence was the God Pan understood both by the Arcadians and other Greeks not for the mere Corporeal World as Sensless and Inanimate nor as endued with a Plastick Nature only though this was partly included in the Notion of Pan also but as proceeding from a Rational and Intellectual Principle diffusing it self through All or for the whole System of Things God and the World together as one Deity For that the Arcadick Pan was not the Corporeal World alone but chiefly the Intellectual Ruler and Governour of the same appears from this Testimony of Macrobius Hunc Deum Arcades colunt appellantes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non sylvarum Dominum sed universae substantiae Materialis Dominatorem The Arcadians worship this God Pan as their most ancient and honourable God calling him the Lord of Hyle that is not the Lord of the Woods but the Lord or Dominator over all Material Substance And thus does Phornultus likewise describe the Pan of the other Greeks not as the mere Corporeal World Sensless and Inanimate but as having a Rational and Intellectual Principle for the Head of it and presiding over it that is for God and the World both together as one System the World being but the Efflux and Emanation of the Deity The lower parts of Pan saith he were Rough and Goatish because of the asperity of the Earth but his upper parts of a Humane Form because the Ether being Rational and Intellectual is the Hegemonick of the World Adding hereunto that Pan was feigned to be Lustful or Lascivious because of the Multitude of Spermatick Reasons contained in the World and
which conteins also a clear acknowledgment of One Self-existent Being that comprehends and governs the whole World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou Self-sprung Being that do'st All Enfold And in thine Arms Heav'ns Whirling Fabrick hold Who art Encircled with resplendent Light And yet ly'st Mantled o're in Shady Night About whom the Exultant Starry Fires Dance nimbly round in Everlasting Gyres For this sence of the Second and Third Verses which we think the Words will bear and which agrees with that Orphick Passage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That God being in himself a most bright and dazeling Light is respectively to us and by reason of the Weakness of our Understanding covered over with a Thick Cloud as also with that in the Scripture Clouds and Darkness are round about him I say this sence we chose rather to follow as more Rich and August than that other Vulgar one though Grammatically and Poetically good also That Successive Day and Night together with a Numberless Multitude of Stars perpetually dance round about the Deity Aristophanes in the very beginning of his Plutus distinguisheth betwixt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jupiter and the Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. And we have this clear Testimony of Terpander cited by Clemens Alexandrinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou Jupiter who art the Original of all things Thou Jupiter who art the Governour of all And these following Verses are attributed to Menander 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rerum universarum Imperatorem Patrem Solum perpetuo colere suppliciter decet Artificem tantae Largitorem copiae Where men are exhorted to Worship the Supreme God only as the sole Author of all Good or at least transcendently above all the other Gods There are also Two remarkable Testimonies one of Hermesianax an ancient Greek Poet and another of Aratus to the same purpose which shall both be reserved for other places Wherefore we pass from the Greek to the Latin Poets where Ennius first appears deriving the Gods in General who were all the Inferiour Deities from Erebus and Night as supposing them all to have been Made or Generated out of Chaos nevertheless acknowledging One who was Divûmque Hominumque Pater Rex both Father and King of Gods and Men that is the Maker or Creator of the whole World who therefore made those Gods together with the World out of Chaos himself being Unmade Plautus in like manner sometimes distinguisheth betwixt Jupiter and the Gods and plainly acknowledgeth One Omniscient Deity Est profecto Deus qui quae nos gerimus auditque videt Which Passage very much resembles that of Manlius Torquatus in Livy Est Coeleste Numen Es Magne Jupiter a strong Asseveration of One Supreme and Universal Deity And the same Plautus in his Rudens clearly asserts one Supreme Monarch and Emperor over All whom the Inferiour Gods are subservient to Qui Gentes omnes Mariaque Terras movet Ejus sum Civis civitate Coelitum Qui est Imperator Divûm atque Hominum Jupiter Is nos per gentes alium aliâ disparat Hominum qui facta mores pietatem fidem Noscamus Qui falsas lites falsis testimoniis Petunt quique in jure abjurant pecuniam Eorum referimus nomina exscripta ad Jovem Cotidie Ille scit quis hic quaerat malum Iterum Ille eam rem judicatam judicat Bonos in aliis tabulis exscriptos habet Atque hoc scelesti illi in animum inducunt suum Jovem se placare posse donis hostiis Sed operam sumptum perdunt quia Nihil Ei acceptum est à perjuris supplicii Where Jupiter the Supreme Monarch of Gods and Men is said to appoint other Inferiour Gods under him over all the parts of the Earth to observe the Actions Manners and Behaviours of men every where and to return the names both of bad and good to him Which Jupiter judges over again all unjust Judgments rendring a righteous retribution to all And though wicked men conceit that he may be bribed with sacrifices yet no worship is acceptable to him from the Perjurious Notwithstanding which this Poet afterwards jumbles the Supreme and Inferiour Gods all together after the usual manner under that one general name of Gods because they are all supposed to be Co-governours of the World Facilius siqui pius est à Diis supplicans Quam qui scelestus est inveniet veniam sibi Again the same Poet elsewhere brings in Hanno the Carthaginian with this form of Prayer addressing himself to Jupiter or the Supreme God Jupiter qui genus colis alisque Hominum per quem vivimus Vitale aevum quem penes spes vitaeque sunt Hominum Omnium Da diem hunc sospitem quaeso rebus meis agundis In the next place we have these Verses of Valerius Soranus an ancient and eminent Poet full to the purpose recorded by Varro Jupiter Omnipotens Regum Rex ipse Deûmque Progenitor Genitrixque Deûm Deus UNUS OMNIS To this sence Omnipotent Jupiter the King of Kings and Gods and the Progenitor and Genitrix the both Father and Mother of those Gods One God and all Gods Where the Supreme and Omnipotent Deity is stiled Progenitor Genitrix Deorum after the same manner as he was called in the Orphick Theology 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that expression denoting the Gods and all other Things to have been produced from him alone and without any prexistent matter Moreover according to the tenour of this Ethnick Theology that One God was All Gods and Every God the Pagans supposed that when ever any Inferiour Deity was worshipped by them the Supreme was therein also at once worshipped and honoured Though the sence of Ovid hath been sufficiently declared before yet we cannot well omit some other Passages of his as that grateful and sensible acknowledgment Quod loquor spiro Coelumque lumina Solis Aspicio possumne ingratus immemor esse Ipse dedit And this in the Third of his Metamorph. Ille Pater Rectorque Deûm cui Dextra trisulcis Ignibus armata est qui Nutu concutit Orbem Virgil's Theology also may sufficiently appear from his frequent acknowledgment of an Omnipotent Deity and from those Verses of his before cited out of Aen. 6. wherein he plainly asserts One God to be the Original of all things at least as a Soul of the World Servius Honoratus there paraphrazing thus Deus est quidam Divinus Spiritus qui per quatuor fusus elementa gignit universa God is a certain Spirit which infused through the Four Elements begetteth all things Nevertheless we shall add from him this also of Venus her Prayer to Jupiter Aen. 1. O qui res Hominumque Deûmque Aeternis regis imperiis fulmine
Verses of his together in this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the midst of these Elements is that God which governeth all things and whom Parmenides affirmeth to be the cause of Gods writing thus God first of all created Love before the other Gods Wherefore by this Love of Parmenides is understood nothing else but the Lower Soul of the World together with a Plastick Nature which though it be the Original of Motion and Activity in this Corporeal World yet is it but a Secondary or Created God Before whose Production Necessity is said by those Ethnick Theologers to have reigned the true meaning whereof seems to be this that before that Divine Spirit moved upon the Waters and brought things into an orderly System there was nothing but the Necessity of Material Motions unguided by any orderly Wisdom or Method for Good that is by Love in that confused and floating Chaos But Pythagoras it seemeth did not only call the Supreme Deity a Monad but also a Tetrad or Tetractys for it is generally affirmed that Pythagoras himself was wont to swear hereby though Porphyrius and Jamblichus and others write that the Disciples of Pythagoras swore by Pythagoras who had delivered to them the Doctrine or Cabala of this Tetractys Which Tetractys also in the Golden Verses is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Fountain of the Eternal Nature an expression that cannot properly belong to any thing but the Supreme Deity And thus Hierocles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is nothing in the whole World which doth not depend upon the Tetractys as its Root and Principle For the Tetrad is as we have already said the Maker of all things the Intelligible God the Cause of the Heavenly and Sensible God that is of the Animated World or Heaven Now the Latter Pythagoreans and Platonists endeavour to give Reasons why God should be called Tetras or Tetractys from certain Mysteries in that Number Four as for example First because the Tetrad is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Power of the Dâ—cad it virtually containing the whole Decade in it which is all Numbers or Beings but the bottom of this Mystery is no more than this that One Two Three and Four added all together make up Ten. Again because the Tetrad is an Arithmetical Mediety betwixt the Monad and the Hebdomad which Monad and Hebdomad are said to agree in this that as the Monad is Ingenit or Unmade it being the Original and Fountain of all Numbers so is the Hebdomad said to be not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Motherless as well as Virgin Number Wherefore the Tetrad lying in the middle betwixt the Ingenit Monad and the Motherless Virgin Hebdomad and it being both begotten and begetting say they must needs be a very Mysterious number and fitly represent the Deity Whereas indeed it was therefore unfit to represent the Deity because it is begotten by the Multiplication of another Number as the Hebdomade therefore doth not very fitly symbolize with it neither because it is barren or begets nothing at all within the Decad for which cause it is called a Virgin Again it is further added that the Tetrad fitly resembâ—es that which is Solid because as a Point answers to a Monad and a Line to a Dyad and a Supersicies to a Triad the first and most simple figure being a Triangle so the Tetrad properly represents the Solid the first Pyramid being found in it But upon this consideration the Tetrade could not be so fit a Symbol of the Incorporeal Deity neither as of the Corporeal World Wherefore these things being all so trifling slight and phantastical and it being really absurd for Pythagoras to call his Monade a Tetrade the late conjecture of some Learned men amongst us seems to be much more probable that Pythagoras his Tetractys was really nothing else but the Tetragrammaton or that proper name of the Supreme God amongst the Hebrews consisting of Four Letters or Consonants Neither ought it to be wondered at that Pythagoras who besides his travelling into Egypt Persia and Chaldea and his sojourning at Sidon is affirmed by Josephus Porphyrius and others to have conversed with the Hebrews also should be so well acquainted with the Hebrew Tetragrammaton since it was not unknown to the Hetrurians and Latins their Jove being certainly nothing else And indeed it is the opinion of some Philologers that even in the Golden Verses themselves notwithstanding the seeming repugnancy of the Syntax it is not Pythagoras that is sworn by but this Tetractys or Tetragrammaton that is Jova or Jehovah the Name of God being put for God himself according to that received Doctrine of the Hebrews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That God and his Name are all one as if the meaning of those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were this By the Tetragammaton or Jovah who hath communicated himself or The Fountain of the Eternal Nature to our Humane Souls for these according to the Pythagorick Doctrine were said to be ex Mente Divina carptae delibatae i. e. nothing but Derivative Streams from that first Fountain of the Divine Mind Wherefore we shall now sum up all concerning Pythagoras in this Conclusion of St. Cyril's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Behold we see clearly that Pythagoras held there was One God of the whole Vniverse the Principle and Cause of all things the Illuminator Animator and Quickener of the Whole and Original of Motion from whom all things were derived and brought out of Non-entity into Being Next to Pythagoras in order of time was Xenophanes the Colophonian the Head of the Eleatick Sect of Philosophers who that he was an Asserter both of Many Gods and One God sufficiently appears from that Verse of his before cited and attested both by Clemens Alexandrinus and Sextus the Philosopher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is One God the Greatest both amongst Gods and Men. Concerning which greatest God this other Verse of Xenophanes is also vouched 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That he moveth the whole world without any labour or toil merely by Mind Besides which Cicero and others tell us that this Xenophanes philosophizing concerning the Supreme Deity was wont to call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One and All as being One most Simple Being that virtually conteineth all things But Xenophanes his Theosophy or Divine Philosophy is most fully declared by Simplicius out of Theophrastus in this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Theophrastus affirmeth that Xenophanes the Colophonian Parmenides his Master made One Principle of all things he calling it One and All and determining it to be neither Finite nor Infinite in a certain sence and neither Moving nor Resting Which Theophrastus also declares that Xenophanes in this did not write as a Natural Philosopher or â—hysiologer but as a Metaphysician or
by the Fear of Divine Punishments and Vengeance after Death since this opinion of Torments after death is liable to much Exception and the contrary is not without Probabilities so that it seems to be but like to Womens frighting of Children from doing unhappy tricks with those Bugbears of Accho and Alphito But how fondly these Stoicks doted upon that Hypothesis That all was Body may appear from hence that they maintained even Accidents and Qualities themselves to be Bodies for Voice and Sound Night and Day Evening and Morning Summer and Winter nay Calends and Nones Months and Years were Bodies with them And not only so but also the Qualities of the Mind it self as Virtue and Vice together with the Motions and Affections of it as Anger and Envy Grief and Joy according to that passage in Seneca Corporis Bona sunt Corpora Corpora ergo sunt quae animi nam hic Corpus est The Goods of a Body are Bodies now the Mind is a Body and therefore the Goods of the Mind are Bodies too And with as good Logick as this did they further infer that all the Actions Passions and Qualities of the Mind were not only Bodies but also Animals likewise Animam constat Animal esse cum ipsa efficiat ut simus Animalia Virtus autem nihil aliud est quà m Animus taliter se habens ergo Animal est It is manifest that the Soul is an Animal because it is that by which we are made Animals now Vertue and Vice are nothing else but the Soul so and so affected or modified and therefore these are Animals too Thus we see what fine Conclusions these Doters upon Body though accounted great Masters of Logick made and how they were befooled in their Ratiocinations and Philosophy Nevertheless though these Stoicks were such Sottish Corporealists yet were they not for all that Atheists they resolving that Mind or Vnderstanding though always lodged in Corporeal Substance yet was not first of all begotten out of Sensless Matter so or so Modified but was an Eternal Vnmade thing and the Maker of the whole Mundane System And therefore as to that Controversie so much agitated amongst the Ancients Whether the World were made by Chance or by the Necessity of Material Motions or by Mind Reason and Vnderstanding they avowedly maintained that it was neither by Chance nor by Material Necessity but Divinâ Mente by a Divine and Eternal Mind every way perfect From which One Eternal Mind they also affirmed Humane Souls to have been derived and not from Sensless Matter Prudentiam Mentem â Diis ad Homines pervenisse that Mind and Wisdom descended down to Men from the Deity And that Ratio nihil aliud est quà m in Corpus humanum Pars Divini Spiritus mersa Reason is nothing else but Part of the Divine Spirit merg'd into a Humane Body so that these Humane Souls were to them no other than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 certain Parts of God or Decerptions and Avulsions from him Neither were the Reasons by which these Stoicks would prove the World to have had a Divine Original at all Contemptible or much inferiour to those which have been used in these Latter days they being such as these First That it is no more likely this Orderly System of the World should have been made by Chance than that Ennius his Annals or Homer's Iliads might have resulted from the Fortuitous Projection or Tumbling out of so many Forms of Letters confounded all together There being as much continued and coherent Sence and as many several Combinations in this Real Poem of the World as there is in any Phantastick Poem made by men And since we see no Houses or Cities no Books or Libraries any where made by the fortuitous Motions of Matter it is a madness to think that this Admirable Compages of the whole World should first have resulted from thence Again There could not possibly be such an Agreeing and Conspiring Cognation of things and such a Vniversal Harmony throughout the whole World as now there is nisi ea Vno Divino Continuato Spiritu continerentur were they not all conteined by One and the same Divine Spirit Which is the most obvious Argument for the Unity or Onelyness of the Deity They reasoned also from the Scale of Nature or the Gradual Perfection of things in the Universe one above another That therefore there must be something Absolutely Perfect and that either the World it self or something presiding over it was à Principio Sapiens Wise from the Beginning or rather without Beginning and from Eternity For as in the Growth of Plants and Animals Naturae suo quodam Itinere ad Vltimum pervenit Nature by a Continual Progress and Journeying forwards arrives at length to the greatest Perfection which those things are respectively capable of And as those Arts of Picture and Architecture aim at Perfection ita in omni Naturâ necesse est Absolvi aliquid Perfici so in the Nature of the whole Vniverse there must needs be something Absolutely Perfect reach'd unto Necesse est praestantem aliquam esse Naturam qua nihil est Melius Since there is such a Gradual Ascent and Scale of Perfections in Nature one above another there must needs be some most Excellent and Perfect Being than which nothing can be Better at the Top of all as the Head thereof Moreover they disputed Socratically after this manner Vnde arripuit Homo Vitam Mentem Rationem Whence did man snatch Life Reason or Vnderstanding Or from what was it Kindled in him For is it not plain that we derive the Moisture and Fluidity of our Bodies from the Water that is in the Vniverse their Consistency and Solidity from the Earth their Heat and Activity from the Fire and their Spirituosity from the Air Illud autem quod vincit haec omnia Rationem Mentem Consilium c. Vbi invenimus unde sustulimus An caetera Mundus habebit omnia Hoc unum quod plurimi est non habebit But that which far transcendeth all these things our Reason Mind and Vnderstanding where did we find it or from whence did we derive it Hath the Vniverse all those other things of ours in it and in a far greater proportion and hath it nothing at all of that which is the most excellent thing in us Nihil quod Animi quodque Rationis est expers id generare ex se potest Animantes compotesque Rationis Mundus autem generat Animantes compotes Rationis Nothing that is devoid of Mind and Reason can Generate things Animant and Rational but the World Generateth such and therefore it self or that which conteins it and presides over it must needs be Animant and Rational or Intellectual Which Argumentation is further set home by such Similitudes as these Si ex Oliva modulatè canentes Tibiae nascerentur non dubitares quin esset in Oliva Tibicinis quaedam Scientia Quid si
omne convenit Ex quo nata sunt omnia Cujus Spiritu vivimus Totum suis partibus inditum se sustinentem sua vi Cujus Consilio huic mundo providetur ut inconcussus eat actus suos explicet Cujus Decreto omnia fiunt Divinum Spiritum per omnia maxima minima aequali intentione diffusum Deum potentem omnium Deum illum maximum potentissimumque qui ipse vehit omnia Qui ubique omnibus praesto est Coeli Deorum omnium Deum a quo ista Numina quae singula adoramus colimus suspensa sunt and the like The Framer and Former of the Vniverse the Governour Disposer and keeper thereof Him upon whom all things depend The Mind and Spirit of the World The Artificer and Lord of this whole Mundane Fabrick To whom every name belongeth From whom all things spring By whose Spirit we live Who is in all his parts and susteineth himself by his own force By whose Counsel the World is provided for and carried on in its Course constantly and uninterruptedly By whose Decree all things are done The Divine Spirit that is diffused through all things both great and small with equal intention The God whose power extends to all things The Greatest and most Powerful God who doth himself support and uphold all things Who is present every where to all things The God of Heaven and of all the Gods upon whom are suspended all those other Divine Powers which we singly worship and adore Moreover we may here observe from St. Austin that this Seneca in a Book of his against Superstitions that is now lost did not only Highly extol the Natural Theology but also plainly censure and condemn the Civil Theology then received amongst the Romans and that with more Freedom and Vehemency than Varro had done the Fabulous or Theatrical and Poetical Theology Concerning a great part whereof he pronounced that a wise man would observe such things tanquam Legibus jussa non tanquam Diis grata only as commanded by the Laws he therein exercising Civil Obedience but not at all as Grateful to the Gods M. Fabius Quintilianus though no admirer of Seneca yet fully agreed with him in the same Natural Theology and sets down this as the generally received Notion or Definition of God Deum esse Spiritum omnibus partibus immistum That God is a Spirit mingled with and diffused through all the part◠of the World he from thence inferring Epicurus to be an Atheist notwithstanding that he verbally asserted Gods because he denyed a God according to this Generally received Notion he bestowing upon his Gods a circumscribed humane form and placing them between the Worlds And the Junior Pliny though he were a Persecutor of the Christians he concluding qualecunque esset quod faterentur pervicaciam certè inflexibilem obstinationem debere puniri that whatsoever their Religion were yet notwithstanding their Stubbornness and Inflexible Obstinacy ought to be punished and who compelled many of them to worship the Images of the Emperour and to sacrifice and pray to the Statues of the Pagan Gods and lastly to blaspheme Christ yet himself plainly acknowledged also One Supreme Universal Numen as may sufficiently appear from his Panegyrick Oration to Trajan where he is called Deus ille qui manifestus ac praesens Coelum ac Sydera insidet that God who is present with and inhabits the whole Heaven and Stars himself making a Solemn Prayer and Supplication to him both in the beginning and close thereof and sometimes speaking of him therein Singularly and in way of Eminency as in these words Occultat utrorumque Semina Deus plerumque Bonorum Malorumque Causae sub diversâ specie latent God hideth the Seeds of good and evil so that the causes of each often appear disguised to men L. Apuleius also whose pretended Miracles the Pagans endeavoured to confirm their Religion by as well as they did by those of Apollonius doth in sundry places of his writings plainly assert One Supreme and Vniversal Numen we shall only here set down one Cum Summus Deorum cuncta haec non solùm cogitationum ratione consideret sed Prima Media Vltima obeat compertaque intimae Providentiae ordinationis universitate Constantia regat Since the Highest of the Gods does not only consider all these things in his mind and Cogitation but also pass through and comprehend within himself the Beginning Middle and End of all things and constantly Govern all by his occult Providence Lastly Symmachus who was a zealous Stickler for the Restitution of Paganism declared the Pagans to worship One and the same God with the Christians but in several ways he conceiving that there was no necessity God should be worshipped by all after the same manner Aequum est quicquid omnes colunt VNVM putari Eadem spectamus Astra Commune Coelum est Idem nos Mundus involvit Quid interest qua quisque prudentia Verum requirat Vno Itinere non potest perveniri ad tam grande Secretum We ought in reason to think that it is One and the same Thing which all men worship As we all behold the same Stars have the same Common Heaven and are involved within the same World Why may not men pursue One and the same thing in different ways One Path is not enough to lead men to so Grand a Secret The Sence whereof is thus elegantly expressed by Prudentius Vno omnes sub sole siti vegetamur eodem Aere Communis cunctis viventibus Aura Sed quid sit qualisque Deus diversa secuti Quaerimus atque Viis longè distantibus Unum Imus ad Occultum suus est mos cuique genti Per quod iter properans eat ad tam Grande Profundum And again afterward Secretum sed grande nequit Rationis opertae Quaeri aliter quà m si sparsis via multiplicetur Tramitibus centenos terat orbita calles Quaesitura Deum variata indage latentem And the beginning of Prudentius his Confutation is this Longè aliud verum est Nam multa ambago viarum Anfractus dubios habet perplexius errat Sola errore caret simplex via nescia flecti In diverticulum biviis nec pluribus anceps c. We shall now instance also in some of the Latter Greek Writers Though the Author of the Book De Mundo were not Aristotle yet that he was a Pagan plainly appears from some passages thereof as where he approves of Sacrificing to the Gods and of Worshipping Heroes and Dead men as also because Apuleius would not otherwise have translated so much of that book and incorporated it into his De Mundo He therefore does not only commend this of Heraclitus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That there is one Harmonious System made out of all things and that All things are derived from One But doth himself also write excellently concerning the Supreme God whom he
look'd upon as Barbarians and yet did they not only acknowledge One Supreme Deity but also such as was distinct from the world and therefore Invisible he writing thus concerning them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They believe that there is One Immortal God and this the Cause of all things and another Mortal one anonymous but for the most part they account their Benefactors and Kings Gods also And though Caesar affirm of the ancient Germans Deorum numero eoâ— solos ducunt quos cernunt quorum opibus apertè juvantur Solâ—m Vulcanum Lunam yet is he contradicted by Tacitus who coming after him had better information and others have recorded that they acknowledged One Supreme God under the name of Thau first and then of Thautes and Theutates Lastly the Generality of the Pagans at this very day as the Indians Chineses Siamenses and Guineans the Inhabitants of Peru Mexico Virginia and New England some of which are sufficiently Barbarous acknowledge One Supreme or Greatest God they having their several Proper Names for him as Parmiscer Fetisso Wiracocha Pachacamac Vitziliputzti c. though worshipping withal other Gods and Idols And we shall conclude this with the Testimony of Josephus Acosta Hoc commune apud omnes penè Barbaros est ut Deum quidem Omnium rerum Supremum summè Bonum fateantur Spirituum vero quorundam perversorum non obscura opinio sit qui à nostris Barbaris Zupay vocari solent Igitur quis ille Summus idemque Sempiternus rerum omnium Opifex quem illi ignorantes colunt per omnia doceri debent mox quantum ab illo illiusque fidelibus Ministris Angelis absint gens pessima Cacodaemonum This is common almost to all the Barbarians to confess one Supreme God over all who is perfectly Good as also they have a Perswasion amongst them of certain Evil Spirits which are called by our Barbarians Zupay Wherefore they ought to be first well instructed what that Supreme and Eternal Maker of all things is whom they ignorantly worship and then how great a difference there is betwixt those wicked Daemons and his faithful Ministers the Angels XXVIII It hath been already declared that according to Themistius and Symmachus two zealous Pagans One and the same Supreme God was worshipped in all the several Pagan Religions throughout the world though after different manners Which Diversity of Religions as in their opinion it was no way inconvenient in it self so neither was it Ungrateful nor Unacceptable to Almighty God it being more for his Honour State and Grandeur to be worshipped with this Variety than after one only Manner Now that this was also the opinion of other ancienter Pagans before them may appear from this remarkable Testimony of Plutarch's in his Book De Iside where defending the Egyptian Worship which was indeed the main design of that whole Book but withal declaring that no Inanimate thing ought to be look'd upon or worshipped as a God he writeth thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No Inanimate thing ought to be esteemed for a God but they who bestow these things upon us and afford us a continual supply thereof for our use have been therefore accounted by us Gods Which Gods are not different to different Nations as if the Barbarians and the Greeks the Southern and the Northern Inhabitants of the Globe had not any the same but all other different Gods But as the Sun and the Moon and the Heaven and the Earth and the Sea are common to all though called by several names in several Countries so ONE REASON ordering these things and ONE PROVIDENCE dispensing all and the Inferiour subservient Ministers thereof having had several Names and Honours bestowed upon them by the Laws of several Countreys have been every where worshipped throughout the whole world And there have been also different Symbols consecrated to them the better to conduct and lead on mens undeâ—stâ—ndings to Divine things though this hath not been without some hazard or danger of casting men upon one or other of these Two Inconveniences either Superstition or Atheism Where Plutarch plainly affirms that the Several Religions of the Pagan Nations whether Greeks or Barbarians and among these the Egyptians also as well as others consisted in nothing else but the worshipping of One and the Same Supreme Mind Reason and Providence that orders all things in the world and of its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 its Subservient Powers or Ministers appointed by it over all the several parts of the World though under different Names Rites and Ceremonies and with different Symbols Moreover that Titus Livius was of the very same opinion that the Pagan Gods of several Countreys though called by several Names and worshipped with so great Diversity of Rites and Ceremonies yet were not for all that Different but the same common to all may be concluded from this passage of his where he writeth of Hannibal Nescio an Mirabilior fuerit in adversis quà m secundis rebus Quippe qui mistos ex colluvione omnium gentium quibus alius Ritus alia sacra alii PROPE Dii essent ita uno vinculo copulaverit ut nulla seditio extiterit I know not whether Hannibal were more admirable in his adversity or Prosperity who having a mixt colluvies of all Nations under him which had different Rites different Ceremonies and Almost different Gods from one another did notwithstanding so unite them all together in one common bond that there hapned no sedition at all amongst them Where Livy plainly intimates that though there was as great diversity of Religious Rites and Ceremonies among the Pagans as if they had worshipped several Gods yet the Godâ— of them all were really the same Namely One Supreme God and his Ministers under him And the same Livy elsewhere declares this to have been the General opinion of the Romans and Italians likewise at that time where he tells us how they quarrel'd with Q. Fulvius Flaccus for that when being Censor and building a new Temple in Spain he uncovered another Temple dedicated to Juno Lacinia amongst the Brutii and taking off the Marble-Tyles thereof sent them into Spain to adorn his new erected Temple withal and how they accused him thereupon publickly in the Senate-house in this manner Quod ruinis Templorum Templa aedificaret tanquam non Iidem ubique Dii immortales essent sed spoliis aliorum alii colendi exornandique That with the ruines of Temples he built up Temples as if there were not every where the Same Immortal Gods but that some of them might be worshipped and adorned with the spoils of others The Egyptians were doubtless the most singular of all the Pagans and the most odly discrepant from the rest in their manner of worship yet nevertheless that these also agreed with the rest in those Fundamentals of worshipping one Supreme and Vniversal Numen together with his Inferiour Ministers as Plutarch sets himself industriously to
maintain it in that forementioned Book De Iside so was it further cleared and made out as Damascius informs us by Two Famous Egyptian Philosophers Asclepiades and Heraiscus in certain writings of theirs that have been since lost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Though Eudemus hath given us no certain account of the Egyptians yet the Egyptian Philosophers of latter times have declared the hidden truth of their Theology having found in some Egyptian Monuments that according to them there is one Principle of all things celebrated under the name of the Vnknown Darkness and this thrice repeated c. Moreover this is to be observed concerning these Egyptians that they are wont to divide and multiply things that are One and the Same And accordingly have they divided and multiplied the First intelligible or the One Supreme Deity into the Properties of Many Gods as any one may find that pleases to consult their writings I mean that of Heraiscus entitled the Vniversal Doctrine of the Egyptians and inscribed to Proclus the Philosopher and that Symphony or Harmony of the Egyptians with other Theologers begun to be written by Asclepiades and left imperfect Of which Work of Asclepiades the Egyptian Suidas also maketh mention upon the Word Heraiscus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But Asclepiades having been more conversant with ancient Egyptian writings was more throughly instructed and exactly skilled in his Country Theology he having searched into the Principles thereof and all the consequences resulting from them as manifestly appeareth from those Hymns which he composed in praise of the Egyptian Gods and from that Tractate begun to be written by him but left unfinished which containeth The Symphony of all Theologies Now we say that Asclepiades his Symphony of all the Pagan Theologies and therefore of the Egyptian with the rest was their agreement in those Two Fundamentals expressed by Plutarch namely the worshipping of One Supreme and Vniversal Numen Reason and Providence governing all things and then of his Subservient Ministers the Instruments of Providence appointed by him over all the parts of the world Which being honoured under several Names and with different Rites and Ceremonies according to the Laws of the respective Countreys caused all that Diversity of Religions that was amongst them Both which Fundamental Points of the Pagan Theology were in like manner acknowledged by Symmachu's The First of them being thus expressed Aequum est quicquid omnes colunt Vnum putari That all Religions agreed in this the Worshipping of One and the same Supreme Numen and the Second thus Varios Custodes Vrbibus Mens Divina distribuit That the Divine Mind appointed divers Guardian and Tutelar Spirits under him unto Cities and Countries He there adding also that Suus cuique Mos est suum cuique Jus That every Nation had their peculiar Modes and Manners in worshipping of these and that these external differences in Religion ought not to be stood upon but every one to observe the Religion of his own Country Or else these Two Fundamental Points of the Pagan Theology may be thus expressed First that there is One Self-Originated Deity who was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Maker of the whole World Secondly That there are besides him Other Gods also to be Religiously worshipped that is Intellectual Beings superiour to men which were notwithstanding all Made or Created by that One Stobaeus thus declaring their sence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the multitude of Gods is the work of the Demiurgus made by him together with the world XXIX And that the Pagan Theologers did thus generally acknowledge One Supreme and Vniversal Numen appears plainly from hence because they supposed the whole World to be an Animal Thus the Writer de Placitis Philos. and out of him Stobaeus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All others assert the World to be an Animal and governed by Providence only Leucippus Democritus and Epicurus and those who make Atoms and Vacuum the Principles of all things dissenting who neither acknowledge the World to be Animated nor yet to be governed by Providence but by an Irrational Nature Where by the way we may observe the Fraud and Juggling of Gassendus who takes occasion from hence highly to extol and applaud Epicurus as one who approached nearer to Christianity than all the other Philosophers in that he denied the World to be an Animal whereas according to the Language and Notions of those times to deny the Worlds Animation and to be an Atheist or to deny a God was one and the same thing because all the Pagans who then asserted Providence held the World also to be Animated neither did Epicurus deny the World's Animation upon any other account than this because he denied Providence And the Ground upon which this opinion of the Worlds Animation was built was such as might be obvious even to vulgar undererstandings and it is thus expressed by Plotinus according to the sence of the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is absurd to affirm that the Heaven or World is Inanimate or devoid of Life and Soul when we our selves who have but a part of the Mundane Body in us are endued with Soul For how could a Part have Life and Soul in it the Whole being Dead and inanimate Now if the whole world be One Animal then must it needs be Governed by One Soul and not by Many Which One Soul of the World and the whole Mundane Animal was by some of the Pagan Theologers as namely the Stoicks taken to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The First and Highest God of all Nevertheless others of the Pagan Theologers though asserting the World's Animation likewise yet would by no means allow the Mundane Soul to be the Supreme Deity they conceiving the First and Highest God to be an Abstract and Immovable Mind and not a Soul Thus the Panegyrist cited also by Gyraldus invokes the Supreme Deity doubtfully and cautiously as not knowing well what to call him whether Soul or Mind Te Summe rerum Sator cujus tot nomina sunt quot gentium linguas esse voluisti quem enim te ipse dici velis scire non possumus sive in te quaedam vis Mensque Divina est quae toto infusa mundo omnibus miscearis elementis sine ullo extrinsecus accedente vigoris impulsu per te ipse movearis sive aliqua supra omne Coelum potestas es quae hoc opus totum ex altiore Naturae arce despicias Te inquam oramus c. Thou Supreme Original of all things who hast as many Names as thou hast pleased there should be languages whether thou beest a certain Divine Force and Soul that infused into the whole world art mingled with all the Elements and without any External impulse moved from thy self or whether thou beest a Power Elevated above the Heavens which lookest down upon the whole work of Nature as from a higher Tower Thee
oâ—herwise than as it is by Him appointed Likewise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because all things are by him Connected together and proceed from him unhinderably 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because all things in the world are determined and nothing left Infinite or Vndetermined 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he makes an apt Division and Distribution of all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because his Power is such as that none can possibly avoid or escape him Lastly that Ingenious Fable as he calls it of the Three Fatal Sisters Clotho Lachesis and Atropos according to him meant nothing but God neither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All this is nothing else but God as the noble and generous Plato also intimates when he affirmeth God to contain the Beginning and Middle and End of all things And both Cicero and Seneca tell us that amongst the Latins God was not only called Fatum but also Natura and Fortuna Quid aliud est Natura saith Seneca quam Deus Divina Ratio toti Mundo Partibus ejus inserta What is Nature else but God and the Divine Reason inserted into the Whole World and all its Several Parts He adding that God and Nature were no more Two Different Things than Annaeus and Seneca And Nonnunquam Deum saith Cicero Fortunam appellant quod efficiat multa improvisa nec opinata nobis propter obscuritatem ignorationemque Causarum They sometimes call God also by the name of Fortune because he surprizeth us in many Events and bringeth to pass things unexpected to us by reason of the Obscurity of Causes and our Ignorance Seneca thus concludes concerning these and the like Names of God Omnia ejusdem Dei Nomina sunt variè utentis sua Potestate These are all Names of one and the same God Variously Manifesting his Power But concerning most of these forementioned Names of God and such as are like to them it was rightly observed by St. Austin that they had no such Appearance or shew of Many Distinct Gods Haec omnia cognomina imposuerunt Vni Deo propter Causas Potestatesque Diversas non tamen propter tot res etiam tot Deos eum esse coegerunt c. Though the Pagans imposed all these Several Names upon One God in respect of his Several Powers yet did they not therefore seem to make so many Gods of them as if Victor were one God and Invictus another God and Centupeda another God and Tigillus another and Ruminus another c. Wherrefore there are other Names of God used amongst the Pagans which have a greater show and appearance of so many Distinct Deities not only because they are Proper Names but also because each of them had their peculiar Temples appropriated to them and their different Rites of Worship Now these are of Two sorts First such as signifie the Deity according to its Vniversal and All-comprehending Nature and Secondly such as denote the same only according to certain Particular Powers Manifestations and Effects of it in the world Of the First kind there are not a few For First of all PAN as the the very word plainly implies him to be a Vniversal Numen and as he was supposed to be the Harmostes of the whole World or to play upon the World as a Musical Instrument according to that of Orpheus or Onomacritus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So have we before showed that by him the Arcadians and Greeks meant not the Corporeal World Inanimate nor yet as endued with a Sensless Nature only but as proceeding from an Intellectual Principle or Divine Spirit which framed it Harmoniously and as being still kept in tune acted and governed by the same Which therefore is said to be the Vniversal Pastor and Shepherd of all Mankind and of the whole world according to that other Orphick passage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pascens Humanum Genus ac sine limite Terram And this Pan Socrates in Plato's Phaedrus plainly invokes as the Supreme Numen Pan therefore is the One only God for there cannot possibly be more than One Pan more than One All or Vniverse who conteined All within himself displayed All from himself framing the World Harmoniously and who is in a manner All Things Again JANVS whom the Romans First invoked in all their Sacrifices and Prayers and who was never omitted whatsoever God they sacrificed unto was unquestionably many times taken for a Vniversal Numen as in this of Martial Nitidique Sator pulcherrime mundi And again in this of Ovid. Quicquid ubique vides Coelum Mare Nubila Terras Omnia sunt nostra clausa patentque Manu Me penes est Vnum vasti Custodia Mundi From which passages it also appears that Janus was not the meer Sensless and Inanimate Matter of the World but a Principle Presiding over it And without doubt all the Beginnings of things were therefore referred to this Janus because he was accounted the most Ancient God and the Beginning of all things St. Austin concluding him to be the same with Jupiter therefore quarrels with the Pagans that is with their Civil Theology for thus making Two Gods of One. Cum ergo Janus Mundus sit Jupiter Mundus sit Vnusque sit Mundus quare Duo Dii sunt Janus Jupiter Quare seorsum habent Templa seorsum Aras diversa Sacra dissimilia Simulachra Si propterea quia alia vis est Primordiorum alia Causarum ex illa Jani ex ista Jovis nomen accepit nunquid si unus homo in diversis rebus duas habeat potestates aut duas artes quia singularum diversa Vis est ideo Duo dicuntur Artifices c. Since therefore Janus is the World and Jupiter is the World and there is but one World how can Janus and Jupiter be Two Gods Why have they their Temples apart their Altars apart distinct Sacred things and Statues of different forms If because the force of Beginnings is One and the force of Causes Another he is therefore called Janus from the former and Jupiter from the latter I ask whether or no if one Man have two Several arts about different things he therefore be to be called Two Artificers Or is there any more reason why one and the same God having Two Powers one over the Beginnings of things and another over the Causes should therefore be accounted Two Gods Where when Jupiter and Janus are both said to be the World this is to be understood properly not of the Matter but the Soul or Mind of the World as St. Austin himself elsewhere declares Sit Jupiter Corporei hujus Mundi Animus qui universam istam Molem ex quatuor Elementis constructam atque compactam implet movet Let Jupiter be the Mind of this corporeal World which both filleth and moveth that whole bulk compounded and made up of the four Elements Nevertheless as the Soul and Body both together are called the Man so was the whole Animated World by the Pagans
Powers all of them salutiferous and procuring the good of that which is made c. Moreover by these Powers and out of them is the Incorporeal and Intelligible World compacted which is the Archetype of this visible World that consisting of Invisible Ideas as this doth of visible Bodies Wherefore some admiring with a kind of astonishment the Nature of both these worlds have not only Deified the whole of them but also the most excellent parts in them as the Sun and the Moon and the whole Heaven which they scruple not at all to call Gods Where Philo seems to speak of a double Sun Moon and Heaven as Julian did the one Sensible the other Intelligible Moreover Plotinus himself sometimes complies with this Notion he calling the Ideas of the Divine Intellect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Intelligible Gods as in that place before cited where he exhorteth men ascending upward above the Soul of the World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To praise the Intelligible Gods that is the Divine Intellect which as he elsewhere written is both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One and Many We have now given a full account of Apuleius his sence in that Book De Deo Socratis concerning the Civil and Poetical Pagan Gods which was not to assert a Multitude of Substantial and Eternal Deities or Minds Independent in them but only to reduce the Vulgar Theology of the Pagans both their Civil and Poetical into some conformity with the Natural Real and Philosophick Theology and this according to Platonick Principles Wherein many other of the Pagan Platonists both before and after Christianity concurred with him they making the Many Pagan Invisible Gods to be really nothing but the Eternal Ideas of the Divine Intellect called by them the Parts of the Intelligible and Archetypal World which they supposed to have been the Paradigms and Patterns according to which this Sensible World and all Particular things therein were made and upon which they depended they being only Participations of them Wherefore though this may well be look'd upon as a Monstrous Extravagancy in these Platonick Philosophers thus to talk of the Divine Ideas or the Intelligible and Archetypal Paradigms of things not only as Substantial but also as so many several Animals Persons and Gods it being their humour thus upon all slight occasions to multiply Gods yet nevertheless must it be acknowledged that they did at the very same time declare all these to have been derived from One Supreme Deity and not only so but also to exist in it as they did likewise at other times when unconcerned in this business of their Pagan Polytheism freely acknowledge all these intelligible Ideas to be Really nothing else but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Conceptions in the Mind of God or the First Intellect though not such Slight Accidental and Evanid ones as those Conceptions and Modifications of our humane Souls are and consequently not to be so many Distinct Substances Persons and Gods much less Independent Ones but only so many Partial Considerations of the Deity What a Rabble of Invisible Gods and Goddesses the Pagans had besides those their Dii Nobiles and Dii Majorum Gentium their Noble and Greater Gods which were the Consentes and Selecti hath been already showed out of St. Austin from Varro and others as namely Dea Mena Deus Vagitanus Dea Levana Dea Cunina Diva Rumina Diva Potina Diva Educa Diva Paventina Dea Venilia Dea Agenoria Dea Stimula Dea Strenua Dea Numeria Deus Consus Dea Sentia Deus Jugatinus Dea Virginensis Deus Mutinus To which might be added more out of other places of the same St. Austin as Dea Deverra Deus Domiducus Deus Domitius Dea Manturna Deus Pater Subigus Dea Mater Prema Dea Pertunda Dea Rusina Dea Collatina Dea Vallonia Dea Seia Dea Segetia Dea Tutilina Deus Nodotus Dea Volutina Dea Patelena Dea Hostilina Dea Flora Dea Lacturtia Dea Matura Dea Runcina Besides which there are yet so many more of these Pagan Gods and Goddesses extant in other Writers as that they cannot be all mentioned or enumerated by us divers whereof have Very Small Mean and Contemptible Offices assigned to them as their names for the most part do imply some of which are such as that they were not fit to be here interpreted From whence it plainly appears that there was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing at all without a God to these Pagans they having so strong a Perswasion that Divine Providence extended it self to all things and expressing it after this manner by assigning to Every thing in Nature and Every part of the World and whatsoever was done by men some particular God or Goddess by name to preside over it Now that the Intelligent Pagans should believe in good earnest that all these Invisible Gods and Goddesses of theirs were so many Several Substantial Minds or Vnderstanding Beings Eternal and Vnmade really existing in the World is a thing in it self Vtterly Incredible For how could any possibly perswade themselves that there was One Eternal Unmade Mind or Spirit which for example Essentially presided over The Rockings of Infants Cradles and nothing else another over the Sweeping of Houses another over Ears of Corn another over the Husks of Grain and another over the Knots of Straw and Grass and the like And the Case is the very same for those other Noble Gods of theirs as they call them the Consentes and Selecti since there can be no reason given why those should all of them be so many Substantial and Eternal Spirits Self-existent or Vnmade if none of the other were such Wherefore if these be not all so many Several Substantial and Eternal Minds so many Selfexisting and Independent Deities then must they of necessity be either Several Partial Considerations of the Deity viz. the Several Manifestations of the Divine Power and Providence Personated or else Inferiour Ministers of the same And thus have we already shewed that the more High-flown and Platonick Pagans as Julian Apuleius and others understood these Consentes and Select Gods and all the other Invisible ones to be really nothing else but the Ideas of the Intelligible and Archetypal World which is the Divine Intellect that is indeed but Partial Considerations of the Deity as Vertually and Exemplarily conteining all things whilst others of them going in a more plain and easie way concluded these Gods of theirs to be all of them but several Names and Notions of the One Supreme Deity according to the Various Manifestations of its Power in the world as Seneca expresly affirmeth not only concerning Fate Nature and Fortune c. but also Liber Pater Hercules and Mercury before mentioned by him that they were Omnia ejusdem Dei Nomina variè utentis suâ potestate all Names of One and the same God as diversly using his power and as Zeno in Laertius concludes of all the rest or else which amounts to the same thing that they were the Several Powers and Vertues
of One God Fictitiously Personated and Deified as the Pagans in Eusebius apologize for themselves that they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deifie nothing but the Invisible Powers of that God which is over all Nevertheless because those Several Powers of the Supreme God were not supposed to be all executed immediately by himself but by certain other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Subservient Ministers under him appointed to preside over the Several Things of Nature Parts of the World and Affairs of Mankind commonly called Demons therefore were those Gods sometimes taken also for such Subservient Spirits or Demons collectively as perhaps in this of Epictetus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When will Zephyrus or the West-wind blow When it seemeth good to himself or to Aeolus for God hath not made thee Steward of the Winds but Aeolus But for the fuller clearing of the whole Pagan Theology and especially this one Point thereof that their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was in great part nothing else but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their Polytheism or Multiplicity of Gods nothing but the Polyonymy of One God or his being called by Many Personal Proper Names Two Things are here requisite to be further taken notice of First that according to the Pagan Theology God was conceived to be Diffused throughout the whole World to Permeate and Pervade all things to Exist in all things and Intimately to Act all things Thus we observed before out of Horus Apollo that the Egyptian Theologers conceived of God as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Spirit pervading the whole World as likewise they concluded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Nothing at all Consisted without God Which same Theology was Universally entertained also amongst the Greeks For Thus Diogenes the Cynick in Laertius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All things are full of him And Aristotle or the Writer De Plantis makes God not only to comprehend the whole world but also to be an Inward Principle of Life in Animals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What is the Principle in the Life or Soul of Animals certainly no other than that Noble Animal or Living Being that encompasses and surrounds the whole Heaven the Sun the Stars and the Planets Sextus Empiricus thus represents the sence of Pythagoras Empedocles and all the Italick Philosophers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That we men have not only a conjunction amongst our selves with one another but also with the Gods above us and with Brute Animals below us because there is One Spirit which like a Soul pervades the whole World and unites all the parts thereof together Clemens Alexandrinus writeth thus of the Stoicks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They affirm that God doth Pervade all the Matter of the Vniverse and even the most vile parts thereof which that Father seems to dislike as also did Tertullian when he represented their Doctrine thus Stotci volunt Deum sic per Materiam decucurrisse quomodo Mel per Favos the Stoicks will have God so to run through the Matter as the Honey doth the Combs Strabo testifies of the ancient Indian Brachmans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That in many things they Philosophized after the Greekish manner as when they affirm that the World had a beginning and that it would be Corrupted and that the Maker and Governour thereof Pervades the whole of it The Latins also fully agreed with the Greeks in this For though Seneca somewhere propounds this Question Vtrum Extrinsecus operi suo Circumfusus sit Deus an toti inditus Whether God be only extrinsically circumfused about his work the World or inwardly insinuating do Pervade it all yet himself elsewhere answers it when he calls God Divinum Spiritum per omnia maxima ac minima aequali intentione diffusum A Divine Spirit Diffused through all things whether Smallest or Greatest with equal intention God in Quintilians Theology is Spiritus omnibus partibus Immistus and Ille fusus per omnes rerum Naturae partes Spiritus a Spirit which insinuates it self into and is Mingled with all the parts of the world And that Spirit which is diffused through all the parts of Nature Apuleius likewise affirmeth Deum omnia permeare That God doth permeate all things and that Nulla res est tam praestantibus viribus quae viduata Dei auxilio sui natura contenta sit There is nothing so excellent or powerful as that it could be content with its own Nature alone void of the Divine Aid or Influence and again Dei Praesentiam non jam cogitatio sola sed Oculi aures sensibilis Substantia comprehendit That God is not only present to our Cogitation but also to our very eyes and ears in all these sensible things Servius agreeably with this doctrine of the Ancient Pagans determineth that Nulla Pars Elementi sine Deo est That there is no part of the Elements devoid of God And that the Poets fully closed with the same Theology is evident from those known passages of theirs Jovis omnia plena and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. i. e. All the things of Nature and Parts of the world are full of God as also from this of Virgil Deum namque ire per omnes Terrasque Tractusque Maris Coelumque profundum Lastly we shall observe that both Plato and Anaxagoras who neither of them Confounded God with the World but kept them both distinct and affirmed God to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vnmingled with any thing nevertheless concluded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he did order and govern all things passing through and pervading all things which is the very same with that Doctrine of Christian Theologers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That God permeates and passes through all things Vnmixedly Which Plato also there in his Cratylus plainly making 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be a Name for God etymologizeth it from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. passing thorough all things and thereupon gives us the best account of Heraclitus his Theosophy that is any where extant if not rather a Fragment of Heraclitus his own in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They who affirm the Vniverse to be in constant motion suppose a great part thereof to do nothing else but move and change but that there is something which Passes through and Pervades this whole Vniverse by which all those things that are made are made and that this is both the Most Swift and Most subtil thing for it could not otherwise pass through all things were it not so Subtil that nothing could keep it out or hinder it and it must be most swift that it may use all things as if they stood still that so nothing might scape it Since therefore this doth preside over and Order all things Permeating and Passing through them it is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Letter Cappa being only taken in for the more handsom pronunciation Here we have therefore Heraclitus
the Ruling or Governing Principle being put for the Effect or that which was Ruled and Governed by it And thus was War frequently styled Mars and that of Terence may be taken also in this Sence Sine Cerere Libero friget Venus And Plutarch who declares his great dislike of this kind of Language conceives that there was no more at first in it than thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As we when one buyes the Books of Plato commonly say that he buyes Plato and when one acts the Plays of Menander that he acts Menander so did the ancients not spare to call the Gifts and Effects of the Gods by the names of those Gods spectively thereby honouring them also for their Vtility But he grants that afterward this Language was by ignorant Persons abused and carried on further and that not without great Impiety 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Their followers mistaking them and thereupon ignorantly attributing the Passions of Fruits their Appearances and Occultations to the Gods themselves that preside over them and so not only calling them but also thinking them to be the Generations and Corruptions of the Gods have by this means filled themselves with absurd and wicked Opinions Where Plutarch well condemns the Vulgar both amongst the Egyptians and Greeks for that in their mournful Solemnities they sottishly attributed to the Gods the Passions belonging to the fruits of the earth thereby indeed making them to be Gods Nevertheless the Inanimate Parts of the World and Things of Nature were frequently Deified by the Pagans not only thus Metonymically but also in a further Sence as Cicero plainly declares Tum illud quod erat à Deo natum Nomine ipsius Dei nuncupabant ut cum Fruges Cererem appellamus Vinum autem Liberum Tum autem Res ipsa in qua Vis inest Major sic appellatur ut ea ipsa Res nominetur Deus Both that which proceeds from God is called by the name of a God as Corn is sometimes thus called Ceres and Wine Liber and also whatsoever hath any greater Force in it That thing it self is often called a God too Philo also thus represents the Religion of the Pagans as first Deifying Corporeal Inanimate Things and then bestowing those Proper Personal Names upon them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Some have Deified the Four Elements the Earth the Water the Air and the Fire Some the Sun and the Moon and the Planets and Fixed Stars Others the Heaven others the whole World But that Highest and most Ancient Being the Parent of all things the Chief Prince of this great City and the Emperour of this invincible Army who governeth all things salutiferously Him have they covered concealed and obscured by bestowing Counterfeit Personal Names of Gods upon each of these things For the Earth they called Proserpina Pluto and Ceres the Sea Neptune under whom they place many Demons and Nymphs also as his Inferiour Ministers the Air Juno the Fire Vulcan the Sun Apollo the Moon Diana c. and dissecting the Heaven into Two Hemispheres one above the Earth the other under it they call these the Dioscuri feigning them to live alternately one one day and the other another We deny not here but that the Four Elements as well as the Sun Moon and Stars were supposed by some of the Pagans to be Animated with Particular Souls of their own which Ammianus Marcellinus seems principally to call Spiritus Elementorum the Spirits of the Elements worshipped by Julian and upon that account to be so many Inferiour Gods themselves Notwithstanding which that the Inanimate Parts of these were also Deified by the Pagans may be concluded from hence because Plato who in his Cratylus etymologizeth Dionysus from Giving of Wine and elsewhere calls the fruits of the earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Gifts of Ceres doth himself nevertheless in compliance with this Vulgar Speech call Wine and Water as mingled together in a Glass or Cup to be drunk Gods where he affirmeth that a City ought to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so temper'd as in a Cup where the furious Wine poured out bubbles and sparkles but being Corrected by another Sober God that is by Water both together make a good and moderate Potion Cicero also tells us that before the Roman Admirals went to Sea they were wont to offer up a Sacrifice to the Waves But of this more afterward However it is certain that meer Accidents and Affections of Things in Nature were by these Pagans commonly Personated and Deified as Time in Sophocles his Electra is a God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For Time is an easie God and Love in Plato's Symposium where it is wondred at that no Poet had ever made a Hymn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To Love being such and so great a God Though the same Plato in his Philebus when Protarchus had called Pleasure a Goddess too was not willing to comply so far there with Vulgar Speech 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My fear O Protarchus concerning the Names of the Gods is extraordinary great Wherefore as to Venus I am willing to call her what she pleases to be called but Pleasure I know is a Various and Multiform thing Wherefore it cannot be denied but that the Pagans did in some sence or other Deifie or Theologize all the Parts of the World and Things of Nature Which we conceive to have been done at first upon no other Ground than this because God was supposed by them not only to Permeate and Pervade all things to be Diffused thorough All and to Act in and upon All but also to be Himself in a manner All things which they expressed after this way by Personating the Things of Nature Severally and bestowing the Names of Gods and Goddesses upon them Only we shall here observe that this was done especially besides the Greater Parts of the World to Two Sorts of things First such in which Humane Vtility was most concerned Thus Cicero Multae aliae Naturae Deorum ex Magnis Beneficiis eorum non sine causa à Graeciae Sapientibus à Majoribus nostris constitutae nominataeque sunt Many other Natures of Gods have been constituted and nominated both by the wise men of Greece and by our Ancestors meerly for the great Benefits received from them The Reason whereof is thus given by him Quia quicquid magnam Vtilitatem generi afferret humano id non sine Divina Bonitate erga homines fieri arbitrabantur Because they thought that whatsoever brought any great Vtility to mankind this was not without the Divine Goodness Secondly such as were most wonderful and Extraordinary or Surprizing to which that of Seneca seems pertinent Magnorum Fluminum Capita Veneramur Subita ex abdito vasti amnis eruptio Aras habet Coluntur Aquarum Calentium Fontes Stagna quaedam vel Opacitas vel immensa Altitudo
Hope Virtue Honour Victory Health Concord and the like we see them to have the Force of Things but not of Gods Because they either exist in us as Mind Hope Virtue Concord or else they are desired to happen to us as Honour Health Victory that is they are nothing but meer Accidents or Affections of Things and therefore how they can have the Force of Gods in them cannot possibly be understood And again afterwards he affirmeth Eos qui Dii appellantur Rerum Naturas esse non Figuras Deorum That those who in the Allegorical Mythology of the Pagans are called Gods are really but the Natures of Things and not the True Figures or Forms of Gods Wherefore since the Pagans themselves acknowledged that those Personated and Deified Things of Nature were not True and Proper Gods the meaning of them could certainly be no other than this that they were so many Several Names and Partial Considerations of One Supreme God as manifesting himself in all the Things of Nature For that Vis or Force which Cicero tells us was that in all these things which was called God or Deified is really no other than Something of God in Every Thing that is Good Neither do we otherwise understand those following words of Balbus in Cicero Quarum Rerum quia Vis erat tanta ut sine Deo regi non posset ipsa Res Deorum Nomen obtinuit Of which things because the Force is such as that it could not be Governed without God therefore have the Things themselves obteined the Names of Gods that is God was acknowledged and worshipped in them all which was Paganically thus signified by Calling of them Gods And Pliny though no very Divine Person yet being ingenious easily understood this to be the meaning of it Fragilis laboriosa Mortalitas in Partes ista digessit Infirmitatis suae memor ut Portionibus quisque coleret quo maximò indigeret Frail and toilsom Mortality has thus broken and crumbled the Deity into Parts mindful of its own Infirmity that so every one by Parcels and Pieces might worship that in God which himself most stands in need of Which Religion of the Pagans thus worshipping God not entirely all together at once as he is One most Simple Being Unmixed with any thing but as it were brokenly and by piece-meals as he is severally Manifested in all the Things of Nature and the Parts of the World Prudentius thus perstringeth in his Second Book against Symmachus Tu me praeterito meditaris Numina mille Quae simules parere meis Virtutibus ut me Per varias partes minuas cui nulla recidi Pars aut Forma potest quia sum Substantia Simplex Nec Pars esse queo From which words of his we may also conclude that Symmachus the Pagan who determined That it was One Thing that all worshipped and yet would have Victory and such like other things worshipped as Gods and Goddesses did by these and all those other Pagan Gods before mentioned understand nothing but so many Several Names and Partial Considerations of One Supreme Deity according to its several Vertues or Powers so that when he sacrificed to Victory he sacrificed to God Almighty under that Partial Notion as the Giver of Victory to Kingdoms and Commonwealths It was before observed out of Plutarch that the Egyptian Fable of Osiris being mangled and cut in pieces by Typhon did Allegorically signifie the same thing viz. the One Simple Deity 's being as it were divided in the Fabulous and Civil Theologies of the Pagans into many Partial Considerations of him as so many Nominal and Titular Gods which Isis notwithstanding that is True Knowledge and Wisdom according to the Natural or Philosophick Theology unites all together into One. And that not only such Gods as these Victory Vertue and the like but also those other Gods Neptune Mars Bellona c. were all really but one and the same Jupiter acting severally in the world Plautus himself seems sufficiently to intimate in the Prologue of his Amphitryo in these words Nam quid ego memorem ut alios in Tragaediis Vidi Neptunum Virtutem Victoriam Martem Bellonam commemorare quae bona Vobis fecissent Queis Benefactis meus Pater Deûm Regnator Architectus omnibus Whereas there was before cited a Passage out of G. I. Vossius his Book De Theolog. Gent. which we could not understand otherwise than thus that the generality of the Pagans by their Political or Civil Gods meant so many Eternal Minds Independent and Self-Existent we now think our selves concerned to do Vossius so much right as to acknowledge that we have since met with another place of his in that same Book wherein he either corrects the former Opinion or else declares himself better concerning it after this manner that the Pagans generally conceived their Political Gods to be so many Substantial Minds or Spirits not Independent and Self-existent nor indeed Eternal neither but Created by One Supreme Mind or God and appointed by him to preside over the Several Parts of the World and Things of Nature as his Ministers Which same thing he affirmeth also of those Deified Accidents and Affections that by them were to be understood so many Substantial Minds or Spirits Created presiding over those several Things or dispensing of them His words in the beginning of his Eighth Book where he speaks concerning these Affections and Accidents Deified by the Pagans are as followeth Hujusmodi Deorum propè immensa est copia Ac in Civili quidem Theologia considerari solent tanquam Mentes quaedam hoc honoris à Summo Deo sortitae ut Affectionibus istis praeessent Nempe crediderunt Deum quem Optimum Max. vocabant non per se omnia curare quo pacto ut dicebant plurimum beatitudini ejus decederet sed instar Regis plurimos habere Ministros Ministras quorum singulos huic illive curae prefecisset Sic Justitia quae Astraea ac Themis praefecta erat actibus cunctis in quibus Justitia attenderetur Comus curare creditus est Comessationes Et sic in caeteris id genus Diis nomen ab ea Affectione sortitis cujus cura cuique commissa crederetur Quo pacto si considerentur non aliter different à Spiritibus sive Angelis bonis malisque quam quòd hi reverà à Deo conditi sint illae verò Mentes de quibus nunc loquimur sint Figmentum Mentis humanae pro numero Assectionum in quibus Vis esse major videretur comminiscentis Mentes Affectionibus Singulis praefectas Facilè autem Sacerdotes suà Commenta persuadere simplicioribus potuerunt quia satis videretur verisimile summae illi Menti Deorum omnium Regi innumeras servire mentes ut eò perfectior sit Summi Dei beatitudo minusque curis implicetur inque tot Famulantium numero Summi Numinis Majestas magis eluceat Ac talis quidem Opinio erat Theologiae Civilis Of such Gods
neque Dii sunt neque Deos se vocari aut coli volunt c. Nec tamen illi sunt qui vulgo coluntur quorum exiguus certus est numerus But these Ministers of the Divine Kingdom or Subservient Created Spirits are neither Gods nor would they be called Gods or honoured as such c. Nor indeed are they those Gods that are now vulgarly worshipped by the Pagans of which there is but a Small and Certain number That is the Pagan Gods are reduced into certain Ranks and the Number of them is determin'd by the Utilities of Humane Life of which their Noble and Select Gods are but a few Whereas saith he the Ministers of the Supreme God are according to their own Opinion not Twelve nor Twenty nor Three Hundred and Sixty but Innumerable Stars and Demons Moreover Aristotle in his Book against Zeno supposing the Idea of God to be this the Most Powerful of all things or the Most Perfect Being objecteth thus that according to the Laws of Cities and Countries that is the Civil Theology there seems to be no One absolutely Powerful Being but One God is supposed to be most Powerful as to one thing and another as to another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whereas Zeno takes it for granted that men have an Idea ïn their minds of God as One the most Excellent and most Powerful Being of all this doth not seem to be according to Law that is the Civil Theology for there the Gods are mutually Better one than another respectively as to several things and therefore Zeno took not this Consent of mankind concerning God from that which vulgarly seemeth From which passage of Aristotle's we may well conclude that the Many Political Gods of the Pagans were not all of them vulgarly look'd upon as the Subservient Ministers of One Supreme God and yet they generally acknowledging as Aristotle himself confesseth a Monarchy and consequently not many Independent Deities it must needs follow as Zeno doubtless would reply that these their Political Gods were but One and the same Supreme Natural God as it were Parcell'd out and Multiplied that is receiving Several Denominations according to Several Notions of him and as he exerciseth Different Powers and produceth Various Effects And this we have sufficiently prov'd already to have been the general sence of the Chief Pagan Doctors that these Many Political and Popular Gods were but the Polyonymy of One Natural God that is either Partial Considerations of him or his Various Powers and Vertues Effects and Manifestations in the World severally Personated and Deified And thus does Vossius himself afterwards confess also That according to the Natural Theology the Many Pagan Gods were but so many Several Denominations of One God though this Learned Philologer doth plainly straiten and confine the Notion of this Natural Theology too much and improperly call the God thereof the Nature of Things however acknowledging it such a Nature as was endued with Sense and Vnderstanding His Words are these Dispar verò sententia Theologorum Naturalium qui non aliud Numen agnoscebant quà m Naturam Rerum eóque omnia Gentium Numina referebant c. Nempe mens eorum fuit sicut Natura esset occupata circa hanc vel illam Affectionem ita Numina Nominaque Deorum variare Cum igitur ubicunque Vim aliquam majorem viderent ita Divinum aliquid crederent eò etiam devenere ut immanem Deorum Dearumque fingerent Catervam Sagaciores interim haec cuncta Vnum esse Numen aiebant putà Rerum Naturam quae licet una foret pro variis tamen Effectis varia sortiretur nomina vario etiam afficeretur cultu But the Case is very different as to the Natural Theologers who acknowledged no other God but the Nature of Things and referred all the Pagan Gods to that For they conceived that as Nature was occupied about several things so were the Divine Powers and the Names of Gods multiplied and diversified And where-ever they saw any Greater Force there did they presently conceit something Divine and by that means came they at length to feign an innumerable company of Gods and Goddesses But the more sagacious in the mean time affirmed all these to be but One and the same God to wit the Nature of Things which though Really but One yet according to its various Effects both received divers Names and was Worshipped after different manners Where Vossius calls the Supreme God of these Natural Theologers the Nature of Things as if the Natural Theology had been denominated from Physicks or Natural Philosophy only whereas we have already shewed that the Natural Theology of Varro and Scaevola was of equal extent with the Philosophick whose only Numen that it was not a Blind and Vnintelligible Nature of Things doth sufficiently appear from that History thereof before given by us as also that it was called Natural in another sence as Real and as opposite to Opinion Phancy and Fabulosity or what hath no Reality of Existence any where in the World Thus does St. Austin distinguish betwixt Natura Deorum the True Nature of the Gods and Hominum Instituta the Institutes of Men concerning them As also he sets down the Difference betwixt the Civil and Natural Theology according to the Mind of Varro in this manner Fieri potest ut in Vrbe secundum Falsas opiniones ea colantur credantur quorum in Mundo vel extra Mundum Natura sit nusquam It may come to pass that those Things may be worshipped and believed in Cities according to False opinions which have no Nature or Real Existence any where either in the World or without it Wherefore if instead of this Nature of Things which was properly the God of none but only of such Atheistick Philosophers as Epicurus and Strato we substitute that Great Mind or Soul of the whole World which Pervadeth All Things and is Diffus'd thorough All which was the True God of the Pagan Theists this of Vossius will be unquestionably true concerning their Natural Theologers that according to them those Many Poetical and Political Gods before mentioned were but One and the same Natural or Real God who in respect of his Different Vertues Powers and Effects was called by several Names and worshipped after different manners Yet nevertheless so as that according to those Theologers there were Really also Many other Inferiour Ministers of this One Supreme God whether called Minds or Demons that were supposed to be the Subservient Executioners of all those several Powers of his And accordingly we had before this full and true account of the Pagans Natural Theology set down out of Prudentius In Vno Constituit jus omne Deo cui serviat ingens Virtutum ratio Variis instructa Ministris Viz. That it acknowledged One Supreme Omnipotent God ruling over all who displayeth and exerciseth his Manifold Vertues and Powers in the world all severally Personated and Deified
accordingly Manilius Quâ pateat Mundum Divino Numine verti Atque Ipsum esse Deum Whereby it may appear the World to be Governed by a Divine Mind and also it self to be God As likewise Seneca the Philosopher Totum hoc quo continemur Vnum est Deus est This whole World within which we are contained is both One thing and God Which is not to be understood of the Meer Matter of the World as it is nothing but a Heap of Atoms or as endued with a Plastick and Sensless Nature only but of it as Animated by such a Soul as besides Sense was originally endued with perfect Understanding and as deriving all its Godship from thence For thus Varro in St. Austin declares both his own and the Stoical Sence concerning this Point Dicit idem Varro adhuc de Naturali Theologia praeloquens Deum se arbitrari esse Animam Mundi quem Graeci vocant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hunc ipsum Mundum esse Deum Sed sicut Hominem Sapientem cum sit ex Corpore Animo tamen ab Animo dici Sapientem ita Mundum Deum dici ab Animo cum sit ex Animo Corpore The same Varro discoursing concerning Natural Theology declareth that according to his own sence God is the Soul of the World which the Greeks call Cosmos and that this World it self is also God But that this is so to be understood that as a Wise man though consisting of Soul and Body yet is denominated Wise only from his Mind or Soul so the World is denominated God from its Mind or Soul only it consisting both of Mind and Body Now if the Whole Animated World be the Supreme God it plainly follows from thence that the Several Parts and Members thereof must be the Parts and Members of God and this was readily acknowledged by Seneca Membra sumus Corporis magni We are all Members of One great Body and Totum hoc Deus est Socii ejus Membra sumus This whole World is God and we are not only his Members but also his Fellows or Companions as if our Humane Souls had a certain kind of Fellowship also with that Great Soul of the Vniverse And accordingly the Soul of the World and the whole Mundane Animal was frequently worshipped by the Pagans in these its several Members the chief Parts of the World and the most important Things of Nature as it were by Piece-meal Nevertheless it doth not at all follow from thence that these were therefore to them Really so many Several Gods for then not only every Man and every Contemptible Animal every Plant and Herb and Pile of Grass every River and Hill and all things else whatsoever must be so many several Gods And that the Pagans themselves did not take them for such Origen observes against that Assertion of Celsus That if the Whole were God then the Several Parts thereof must needs be Gods or Divine too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From hence it would follow that not only Men must be Divine and Gods but also all Brute Animals too they being Parts of the World and Plants to boot Nay Rivers and Mountains and Seas being Parts of the World likewise if the Whole World be God must according to Celsus needs be Gods also Whereas the Greeks themselves will not affirm this but they would only call those Spirits or Demons which preside over these Rivers and Seas Gods Wherefore this Vniversal Assertion of Celsus is false even according to the Greeks themselves That if the whole be God then all the Parts thereof must needs be Divine or Gods It following from thence that Flyes and Gnats and Worms and all kind of Serpents and Birds and Fishes are all Divine Animals or Gods Which they themselves who assert the World to be God will not affirm Wherefore though it be true that the Pagans did many times Personate and Deifie the Chief Parts of the World and Things of Nature as well as they did the Several Powers and Vertues of the Mundane Soul diffused through the whole World yet did not the intelligent amongst them therefore look upon these as so many True and Proper Gods but only worship them as Parts and Members of One Great Mundane Animal or rather Worship the Soul of the whole World their Supreme Deity in them all as its various Manifestations This St. Austin intimates when writing against Faustus the Manichean he prefers even the Pagan Gods before the Manichean Jam verò Coelum Terra Mare Aer Sol Luna caetera sydera omnia haec manifesta oculis apparent atque ipsis sensibus praesto sunt Quae cum Pagani tanquam Deos colunt vel tanquam PARTES VNIVS MAGNI DEI nam universum Mundum quidam eorum putant MAXIMVM DEVM ea colunt quae sunt Vos autem cum ea colatis quae omninò non sunt propinquiores essetis Verae Pietati si saltem Pagani essetis qui Corpora colunt etsi non colenda tamen vera Now the Heaven Earth Sea and Air Sun Moon and Stars are Things all manifest and really present to our senses which when the Pagans Worship as Gods or as PARTS OF ONE GREAT GOD for some of them think the Whole World to be the GREATEST GOD they Worship things that are so that you worshipping things that are not would be nearer to true Piety than you are were you Pagans and worshipped Bodies too which though they ought not to be worshipped yet are they True and Real Things But this is further insisted upon by the same St. Austin in his Book De C. D. where after that large Enumeration of the Pagan Gods before set down he thus convinces their Folly in worshipping the Several Divided Members Parts and Powers of the One Great God after that manner Personated Haec omnia quae dixi quaecunque non dixi non enim omnia dicenda arbitratus sum Hi omnes Dii Deaeque sit Vnus Jupiter sive sint ut quidam volunt omnia ista Partes ejus sive Virtutes ejus sicut eis videtur quibus eum placet esse Mundi Animum quae sententia velut magnorum multorumque Doctorum est Haec inquam si ita sint quod quale sit nondum interim quaero Quid perderent si Vnum Deum colerent prudentiori Compendio Quid enim ejus contemneretur cum ipse coleretur Si autem metuendum sit nè Praetermissae sive Neglectae Partes ejus irascerentur non ergo ut volunt velut Vnius Animantis haec tota vita est quae Omnes simul continet Deos quasi Suas VIRTVTES vel MEMBRA vel PARTES sed suam quaeque Pars habet vitam à caeteris separatam si praeter alteram irasci altera potest alia placari alia concitari Si autem dicitur Omnia simul id est Totum ipsum Jovem potuisse offendi si PARTES ejus non etiam
too in another sence that is Produced and Derived by way of Emanation from that One who is every way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vnderived and Independent upon any other Cause And thus Proclus Universally pronounces 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All the Gods owe their Being Gods to the First God He adding that he is therefore called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Fountain of the Godhead Wherefore the Many Gods of the Intelligent Pagans were derived from One God and but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plutarch somewhere calls them The Subservient Powers or Ministers of the One Supreme Vnmade Deity Which as hath been before observed was frequently called by these Pagans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or in way of Eminency as likewise were those other Inferiour or Generated Gods in way of distinction from him called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Gods And accordingly the sence of Celsus is thus represented in Origen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Gods were the Makers of the Bodies of all Animals the Souls of them only being the Work of God Moreover these Inferiour Gods are styled by Ammianus Marcellinus Substantiales Potestates Substantial Powers probably in way of distinction from those other Pagan Gods that were not Substantial but only so many Names and Notions of the One Supreme God or his Powers severally Personated and Deified Which Substantial Powers of Am. Marcellinus as Divination and Prophecy was by their means imparted to men were all said to be subject to that One Sovereign Deity called Themis whom saith he the ancient Theologers seated In Cubili Solio Jovis in the Bed-chamber and Throne of Jupiter as indeed some of the Poets have made her to be the wife of Jupiter and others his Sister And Anaxarchus in Plutarch styles her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jupiter's Assesor though that Philosopher abused the Fable and grosly depraved the meaning of it as if it signified 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That whatsoever is done by the Sovereign Power is therefore Just and Right whereas the True Moral tâ—ereof was this That Justice or Righteousness sits in Counsel with God and in his Mind and Will prescribes Laws to Nature and the whole World Themis therefore was another Name of God amongst the 〈◊〉 according to his Universal Confideration besides those befoâ—â— mentioned and when Plato in his Book of Laws would have men to swear by the Names of those Three Gods Jupiter Apollo and Themis these were but so many several Partial Notions of the One Supreme Deity the meaning thereof being no other than this as Pighius observeth Timore Divino Veritate ipsa ac Aequitate sanciri debere Juramenta In Jove enim Summi Numinis Potestatem Falsi ac Perjurii Vindicem in Apolline Veritatis Lumen in Themide Jus Fas atque Licitum esse intelligitur Est enim Themis ipsa Lex aeterna atque Vniversalis Mundo ac Naturae praescripta or according to Cicero Ratio recta Summi Jovis And Ficinus in his Commentary as to the main agreeth herewith So that when the Pagan Theologers affirmed the Numen of Themis to preside over the Spirits of the Elements and all those other Substantial Powers from whom Divination was participated to men their meaning therein was clearly no other that this That there was One Supreme Deity ruling over all the other Gods and that the Divine Mind which prescribeth Laws to Nature and the whole World and conteins all the Fatal Decrees in it according to the Evolution of which things come to pass in the World was the Fountain from whence all Divination proceeded as these Secrets were more or less imparted from thence to those Inferiour Created Spirits The Philosophy of the Pagan Theology amongst the Greeks was plainly no other than this That there is One Vnmade Self-existent Deity the Original of all and that there are many other Substantial Powers or Spirits created by it as the Ministers of its Providence in the World but there was much of Poetry or Poetick Phancy intermingled with this Philosophy as the Flourish to it to make up their Pagan Theology Thus as hath been before declared the Pagans held both One God and Many Gods in different sences One Vnmade Self-existent Deity and Many Generated or Created Gods Onatus the Pythagorean declaring that they who asserted one only God and not Many Vnderstood not what the Dignity and Majesty of the Divine Transcendency consisted in namely in ruling over Gods and Plotinus conceiving that the Supreme God was most of all Glorified not by being Contracted into One but by having Multitudes of Gods Derived from him and Dependent on him and that the Honour done to them redounded unto him Where there are Two Things to be distinguished First that according to the Pagan Theists God was no Solitary Being but that there were Multitudes of Gods or Substantial Powers and Living Understanding Natures Superiour to men which were neither Self-existent nor yet Generated out of Matter but all Generated or Created from One Supreme Secondly that forasmuch as these were all supposed to have some Influence more or less upon the Government of the World and the Affairs of Mankind they were therefore all of them conceived to be the due Objects of mens Religious Worship Adoration and Invocation and accordingly was the Pagan Devotion scattered amongst them all Nor were the Gods of the Oriental Pagans neither meer Dead Statues and Images as some would conclude from the Scripture but Living Vnderstanding Beings Superiour to men though worshipped in Images according to that Reply of the Chaldeans in Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar when he required them to tell his Dream There is none other that can shew this thing before the King Except Those Gods whose Dwelling is not with Flesh that is The Immortal Gods or who are exalted above the Condition of Humane Frailty Though some conceive that these words are to be understood of a Peculiar sort of Gods namely that this was such a thing as could not be done by those Demons and Lower Aerial Gods which frequently converse with men but was reserved to a Higher Rank of Gods who are above humane converse Now as to the Former of these Two Things that God is no Solitary Being but that there are Multitudes of Understanding Beings Superiour to Men the Creatures and Ministers of One Supreme God the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament fully agree with the Pagans herein Thousand Thousands ministred unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him and Ye are come to an innumerable Company of Angels But the Latter of them That Religious Worship and Invocation doth of right belong to these Created Spirits is constantly denied and condemned in these Writings that Being a thing peculiarly reserved to that one God who was the Creator of Heaven and Earth And thus is that Prophecy of Jeremy to be understood expressed in the Chalday Tongue
destroying the very being of the Son Where Vsia Essence or Substance in that Fictitious word Monoousios is taken for Singular or Existent Essence the whole Deity being thus said by Sabellius to have only One Singular Essence or Hypostasis in it whereas in the word Homoousios is understood a Common or Vniversal Generical or Specifical Essence the Son being thus said to agree with the Father in the Common Essence of the Godhead as not being a Creature Wherefore Athanasius here disclaimeth a Monoousian Trinity as Epiphanius did before a Tautoousian both of them a Trinity of meer Names and Notions or Inadequate Conceptions of One and the Same Singular Essence or Hypostasis they alike distinguishing them from the Homoousian Trinity as a Trinity of Real Hypostates or Persons that have severally their Own Singular Essence but agree in one Common and Vniversal Essence of the Godhead they being none of them Creatures but all Uncreated or Creators From whence it is plain that the ancient Orthodox Fathers asserted no such thing as One and the Same Singular or Numerical Essence of the several Persons of the Trinity this according to them being not a Real Trinity but a Trinity of meer Names Notions and Inadequate Conceptions only which is thus disclaimed and declared against by Athanasius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Trinity is not a Trinity of meer Names and Words only but of Hypostases truely and really Existing But the Homoousian Trinity of the Orthodox went exactly in the Middle betwixt that Monoousian Trinity of Sabellius which was a Trinity of different Notions or Conceptions only of One and the Self-Same Thing and that other Heteroousian Trinity of Arius which was a Trinity of Separate and Heterogeneous Substances one of which only was God and the other Creatures this being a Trinity of Hypostases or Persons Numerically differing from one another but all of them agreeing in one Common or General Essence of the Godhead or the Vncreated Nature which is Eternall and Infinite Which was also thus particularly declared by Athanasius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Catholick Church doth neither believe less than this Homoousian Trinity lest it should comply with Judaism or sink into Sabellianism nor yet more than this left on the other hand it should tumble down into Arianism which is the same with Pagan Polytheism and Idolatry it introducing in like manner the worshipping of Creatures together with the Creator And now upon all these Considerations our Platonick Christian would conclude that the Orthodox Trinity of the ancient Christian Church did herein agree with the Genuinely Platonick Trinity that it was not Monoousian One Sole Singular Essence under Three Notions Conceptions or Modes only but Three Hypostases or Persons As likewise the right Platonick Trinity does agree with the Trinity of the ancient Orthodox Christians in this that it is not Heteroousian but Homoousian Coessential or Consubstantial none of their Three Hypostases being Creatures or Particular Beings made in Time but all of them Vncreated Eternal and Infinite Notwithstanding all which it must be granted that though this Homoousiotes or Coessentiality of the Three Persons in the Trinity does imply them to be all God yet does it not follow from thence of necessity that they are therefore One God What then shall we conclude that Athanasius himself also entertained that opinion before mentioned and exploded Of the Three Persons in the Trinity being but Three Individuals under the same Species as Peter Paul and Timothy and having no other Natural Vnity or Identity than Specifical only Indeed some have confidently fastned this upon Athanasius because in those Dialogues Of the Trinity published amongst his works and there entitled to him the same is grosly owned and in defence thereof this Absurd Paradox maintained that Peter Paul and Timothy though they be Three Hypostases yet are not to be accounted Three men but only then when they dissent from one another or disagree in Will or Opinion But it is certain from several Passages in those Dialogues themselves that they could not be wriâ—ten by Athanasius and there hath been also another Father found for them to wit Maximus the Martyr Notwithstanding which thus much must not be denied by us that Athanasius in those others his reputedly Genuine Writings does sometime approach so near hereunto that he lays no small stress upon this Homoousiotes this Coessentiality and Common Nature of the Godhead to all the Three Persons in order to their being One God For thus in that Book entitled Concerning the Common Essence of the Three Persons and the Chapter inscribed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That there are not Three Gods doth Athanasius lay his Foundation here When to that question proposed How it can be said that the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God and yet that there are not Three Gods the First Reply which he makes is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where there is a Communion of Nature there is also one Common Name of Dignity bestowed And thus doth God himself call things divided into Multitudes from one Common Nature by One Singular Name For both when he is angry with men doth he call all those who are the objects of his anger by the name of One Man and when he is reconciled to the world is he reconciled thereto as to One Man The first Instances which he gives hereof are in Gen. the 6. the 3. and 7. Verses My Spirit shall not always strive with Man and I will destroy Man whom I have Created Upon which Athanasius makes this Reflexion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Though there was not then only one man but Infinite Myriads of men nevertheless by the name of One Nature doth the Scripture call all those men One Man by reason of their Community of Essence or Substance Again he commenteth in like manner upon that other Scripture-passage Exodus the 15.1 The Horse and his Rider hath he thrown into the Sea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When Pharaoh went out to the Red Sea and fell with Infinite Chariots in the same and there were many men that were drowned together with him and many Horses yet Moses knowing that there was but One Common Nature of all those that were drowned speaketh thus both of the Men and Horses The Lord hath thrown both the Horse and the Rider into the Sea he calling such a Multitude of Men but One Singular Man and such a Multitude of Horses but One Horse Whereupon Athanasius thus concludeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If therefore amongst men where the things of Nature are confounded and where there are differences of Form Power and Will all men not having the same disposition of Mind nor Form nor Strength as also different Languages from whence men are called by the Poets Meropes nevertheless by reason of the Community of Nature the whole world is called One Man might not that Trinity of Persons where there is an Vndivided Dignity One Kingdom One
Consider them again as if He had indeed such Faculties This is not well and thence is it that they fall into so many Difficulties We ought not to dispute of God's Nature He is no fit Subject of our Philosophy True Religion consisteth in Obedience to Christ's Lieutenants and in giving God such Honour both in Attributes and Actions as they in their several Lieutenancies shall ordain Where the plain and Vndisguised meaning of the Author seems to be this That God is no Subject of Philosophy as all Real things are accordingly as he declareth elsewhere that Religio non est Philosophia sed Lex Religion is not a Matter of Philosophy but only of Law and Arbitrary Constitution He having no Real Nature of his own nor being any True Inhabitant of the World or Heaven but as all other Ghosts and Spirits an Inhabitant of mens Brains only that is a Figment of their Fear and Phancy or a meer Political Scare-Crow And therefore such Attributes are to be given to him without any Scrupulosity as the Civil Law of every Country shall appoint and no other The Wise and Nasute very well understanding that all this Business of Religion is nothing but meer Pageantry and that the Attributes of the Deity indeed signifie neither True nor False nor any thing in Nature but only mens Reverence and Devotion towards the Object of their Fear the manner of expressing which is determined by Civil Law Wherefore to say that God sees all Things and yet hath no Eyes and that he hears all things and yet hath no Ears and that he Understands and is Wise and yet hath no Brains and whatsoever else you will please to say of him as Attributes of Honour and only as signifying Devotion is thus far well enough But when men not understanding the true Cabal will needs go further they mistaking Attributes of Honour for Attributes of Nature and of Philosophick Truth and making them Premises to infer Absolute Truth and convince Falshood from or Matters to Dispute and Reason upon that is when they will needs suppose such a thing as a God Really to Exist in the World then do they involve themselves in all manner of Contradiction Nonsence and Absurdity as for example to affirm seriously that this God Really sees all things in the world and yet hath no Eyes and that He indeed hears all things and yet hath no Ears and Lastly that he Understands and is Wise and yet hath no Brains which things are all Absolutely Contradictious Unconceivable and Impossible The summ of all is this that when Religion and Theology which is indeed nothing but Law and Phantastry is made Philosophy then is it all meer Jargon and Insignificant Non-sence And now we see what those Contradictions are which the Atheists charge upon Theology such as owe all their Being only to the Grossness Sottishness and Brutishness of these mens own apprehensions From whence proceedeth likewise this following Definition of Knowledge and Understanding That it is nothing but a Tumult of the Mind raised by External Things Pressing the Organical Parts of mans Body O Ye Brutish among the People when will ye Vnderstand and ye Fools when will ye be Wise He that Planted the Ear and gave mans Soul a power of hearing thereby shall not He though himself have no Ears hear He that formed the Eye and gave the Humane Soul a power of Seeing by it as an Instrument shall not he though himself have no Eyes see Lastly He that teacheth man Knowledge or gave him an Understanding Mind besides Brains shall not he though himself be without Brains Know and Vnderstand It is certain that no Simple Idea as that of a Triangle or a Square of a Cube or Sphere can possibly be Contradictious to it self and therefore much less can the Idea of a Perfect Being which is the Compendious Idea of God it being more Simple than any of the other Indeed this Simple Idea of a Perfect Being is Pregnant of many Attributes and therefore the Idea of God more fully declared by them all may seem to be in this respect a Compounded Idea or One Idea and Conception Consisting or made up of Many which if they were really Contradictious would render the whole a Non-Entity As for Example This A Plain Triangle whose Three Angles are Greater than Two Right ones it being Contradictious and Unconceivable is therefore no True Idea but a Non-Entitie But all the Genuine Attributes of the Deity of which its Entire Idea is made up are Things as Demonstrable of a Perfect Being as the Properties of a Triangle or a Square are of those Ideas respectively and therefore cannot they Possibly be Contradictious neither to it nor to one another because those things which agree in one Third must needs agree together amongst themselves Nay the Genuine Attributes of the Deity namely such as are Demonstrable of an Absolutely Perfect Being are not only not Contradictious but also necessarily Connected together and Inseparable from one another For there could not possibly be One Thing Infinite in Wisdom Only Another Thing Infinite Only in Power and Another thing Only Infinite in Duration or Eternal But the very same thing which is Infinite in Wisdom must needs be also Infinite in Power and Infinite in Duration and so vice versâ That which is Infinite in any one Perfection must of necessity have all Perfections in it Thus are all the Genuine Attributes of the Deity not only not Contradictious but also Inseparably Concatenate and the Idea of God no Congeries either of Disagreeing things or else of such as are unnecessarily Connected with one another In very truth all the several Attributes of the Deity are nothing else but so many Partial and Inadequate Conceptions of One and the Same Simple Perfect Being taken in as it were by piece-meal by reason of the Imperfection of our Humane Understandings which could not fully Conceive it all together at once And therefore are they Really all but One thing though they have the Appearance of Multiplicity to us As the One Simple Light of the Sun diversly Refracted and Reflected from a Rorid Cloud hath to us the Appearance of the variegated Colours of the Rainbow Wherefore the Attributes of God are no Bundle of Vnconceivables and Impossibles huddled up together nor Attributes of Honour and Complement only and nothing but the Religious Nonsence of Astonish'd Minds expressing their Devotion towards what they Fear but all of them Attributes of Nature and of most severe Philosophick Truth Neither is the Idea of God an Arbitrarious Compilement of things Vnnecessarily Connected and Separable from one another it is no Factitious nor Fictitious thing made up by any Feigning Power of the Soul but it is a Natural and most Simple Vncompounded Idea such as to which nothing can be Arbitrariously added nor nothing detracted from Notwithstanding which by reason of the Imperfection of humane Minds there may be and are different Apprehensions concerning it
Animals the True and Proper Cause of Motion or the Determination thereof at least is not the Matter it self Organized but the Soul either as Cogitative or Plastickly-Self Active Vitally united thereunto and Naturally Ruling over it But in the whole World it is either God himsel◠Originally impressing a certain Quantity of Motion upon the Matter of the Universe and constantly conserving the same according to that of the Sripture In him we Live Move which seems to have been the Sence also of that Noble Agrigentine Poet and Philosopher when he described God to be only A Pure or Holy Mind that with swift thoughts agitates the whole World or else it is Instrumentally an Inferiour Created Spirit Soul or Life of Nature that is a Subordinate Hylarchical Principle which hath a Power of Moving Matter Regularly according to the Direction of a Superiour Perfect Mind And thus do we see again that Ignorance of Causes is the Seed of Atheism and not of Theism no Atheists being able to assign a true Cause of Motion the Knowledge whereof plainly leadeth to a God Furthermore those Atheists who acknowledge no other Principle of things but Sensless Matter Fortuitously moved must needs be Ignorant also of the Cause of that Grand Phaenomenon called by Aristotle the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Well and Fit in Nature that is of the most Artificial Frame of the whole Mundane System in General and of the Bodies of Animals in Particular together with the Conspiring Harmony of all For they who boasted themselves able to give Natural Causes of all things whatsoever without a God can give no other Cause at all of this Phaenomenon but only that the World Happened by Chance to be thus made as it is Now they who make Fortune and Chance to be the only Cause of this so Admirable Phaenomenon the most Regular and Artificial Frame and Harmony of the Vniverse they either make the meer Absence and Want of a Cause to be a Cause Fortune and Chance being nothing else but the Absence or want of an Intending Cause Or else do they make their own Ignorance of a Cause and They know not How to be a Cause as the Author of the Leviathan interprets the meaning hereof Many times saith he men put for Cause of Natural Events their own Ignorance but disguised in other words as when they say that Fortune is the Cause of things Contingent that is of things whereof they know no Cause Or they affirm against all Reason one Contrary to be the Cause of another as Confusion to be the Cause of Order Pulchritude and Harmony Chance and Fortune to be the Cause of Art and Skill Folly and Nonsence the Cause of the most Wise and Regular Contrivance Or Lastly they deny it to have any Cause at all since they deny an Intending Cause and there cannot Possibly be any other Cause of Artificialness and Conspiring Harmony than Mind and Wisdom Councel and Contrivance But because the Atheists here make some Pretences for this their Ignorance we shall not conceal any of them but bring them all to light to the end that we may discover their Weakness and Foolery First therefore they Pretend that the World is not so Artificially and Well made but that it might have been made much Better and that there are many Faults and Flaws to be found therein from whence they would infer that it was not made by a God he being supposed by Theists to be no Bungler but a Perfect Mind or a Being Infinitely Good and Wise who therefore should have made all things for the Best But this being already set down by it self as a Twelfth Atheistick Objection against a Deity we must reserve the Confutation thereof for its proper place Only we shall observe thus much here by the way That those Theists of Later times who either because they Fancy a meer Arbitary Deity or because their Faith in the Divine Goodness is but weak or because they Judge of things according to their own Private Appetites and Selfish Passions and not with a Free Uncaptivated Vniversality of Mind and an Impartial Regard to the Good of the Whole or because they look only upon the Present Scene of things and take not in the Future into consideration nor have a Comprehensive View of the whole Plot of Divine Providence together or lastly because we Mortals do all stand upon too Low a Ground to take a commanding view and Prospect upon the whole Frame of things and our shallow Understandings are not able to fathom the Depths of the Divine Wisdom nor trace all the Methods and Designs of Providence grant That the World might have been made much Better than now it is which indeed is all one as to say that it is Not Well made these Neoterick Christians I say seem hereby to give a much greater advantage to the Atheists than the Pagan Theists themselves heretofore did who stood their Ground and generously maintained against them that Mind being the Maker of all things and not Fortune or Chance nor Arbitary Self-will and Irational Humour Omnipotent the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is Absolutely the Best in every case so far as the Necessity of things would admit and in compliance with the Good of the Whole was the Measure and Rule both of Nature and Providence Again the Atomick Atheists further alledge that though there be many things in the world which serve well for Vses yet it does not at all follow that therefore they were made Intentionally and Designedly for those Vses because though things Happen by Chance to be so or so Made yet may they serve for something or other afterward and have their several Vses Consequent Wherefore all the things of Nature Happened say they by Chance to be so made as they are and their several Uses notwithstanding were Consequent or Following thereupon Thus the Epicurean Poet Nil ideo natum est in Corpore ut Vti Possemus sed quod Natum est id procreat Vsum. Nothing in mans Body was made out of design for any Vse but all the several Parts thereof happening to be so made as they are their Vses were Consequent thereupon In like manner the Old Atheistick Philosophers in Aristotle concluded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Former Teeth were made by Material or Mechanical Necessity Thin and Sharp by means whereof they became fit for Cutting but the Jaw-Teeth Thick and Broad whereby they became Vseful for the Grinding of Food But neither of them were Intended to be such for the sake of these Vses but Happened by Chance only And the like concerning all the other Parts of the Body which seem to be made for Ends. Accordingly the same Aristotle represents the sence of those ancient Atheists concerning the other Parts of the Universe or Things of Nature that they were all likewise made such by the Necessity of Material or Mechanical Motions Vndirected and yet had nevertheless their several
Fact and History will needs impute these things either to Jugling Fraud and Knavery or else to mens own Fear and Phancy and their Ignorance how to distinguish Dreams and other strong Imaginations from Vision and Sense or Lastly to certain Religious Tales or Legends allowed by the Publick Authority of Civil Sovereigns for Political Ends we shall here Suggest something briefly to vindicate the Historick Truth of those Phaenomena against Atheists First therefore as for Apparitions Though there be much of Fabulosity in these Relations yet can it not reasonably be concluded that there is nothing at all of Truth in them since something of this kind hath been averred in all Ages and many times attested by persons of Unquestionable Prudence and Unsuspected Veracity And whereas the Atheists impute the Original of these things to mens Mistaking both their Dreams and their Waking Phancies for Real Visions and Sensations they do hereby plainly contradict one Main Fundamental Principle of their own Philosophy that Sense is the only Ground of Certainty and the Criterion of all Truth for if Prudent and Intelligent persons may be so frequently mistaken in confounding their own Dreams and Phancies with Sensations how can there be any Certainty of knowledge at all from Sense However they here derogate so much both from Sense and from Humane Testimonies as that if the like were done in other Cases it would plainly overthrow all Humane Life Wherefore other Atheists being apprehensive of this Inconvenience of denying so many Sensible Appearances and Testimonies or Relations of Fact have chose rather to acknowledge the Reality of Apparitions nevertheless concluding them to be things Caused and Created by the Power of Imagination only as if the strength of Imagination were such that it could not only Create Phancies but also Real Sensible Objects and that at a distance too from the Imaginers such as whereby the Sense of others shall be for the time affected though they quickly vanish away again From which Prodigious Paradox we may take notice of the Fanaticism of some Atheists and that there is nothing so monstrously Absurd which men infected with Atheistick Incredulity will not rather entertain into their Belief than admit of any thing that shall the least hazard or endanger the Existence of a God For if there be once any Invisible Ghosts or Spirits acknowledged as Things Permanent it will not be easie for any to give a reason why there might not be one Supreme Ghost also presiding over them all and the whole world In the last place therefore we shall observe that Democritus was yet further convinced by these Relations of Apparitions so as to grant that there was a certain kind of Permanent Beings and Independent upon Imagination Superiour to men which could Appear in different Forms and again disappear at pleasure called by him Idols or Images he supposing them to be of the same nature with those Exuvious Effluxes that stream continually from the surface of Bodies only he would not allow them to have any thing Immortal at all in them but their Concretions to be at length all Dissolvable and their Personalities then to vanish into nothing Thus Sextus the Philosopher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Democritus affirmeth that there are certoin Idols or Spectres that do often approach to men some of which are Beneficent and some Maleficent Vpon which account he wisheth that it might be his good hap to meet with fortunate Idols And he addeth that these are of a Vast bigness and very Longeve but not Incorruptible and that they sometimes do fore-signifie unto men future events both Visibly appearing to them and sending forth audible voyces Now though Democritus were much blamed for this Concession of his Fellow-Atheists as giving thereby too great an advantage to Theists yet in his own opinion did he sufficiently secure himself against the Danger of a God from hence by supposing all these Idols of his to be Corruptible they being indeed nothing but certain Finer Concretions of Atoms a kind of Aereal and Aethereal Animals that were all Body and without any Immortal Soul as he supposed men also to be so that a God could be no more proved from them than from the Existence of men For thus he adds in Sextus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men in ancient times having a sense of these Apparitions or Idols fell from thence into the opinion of a God although there be besides these Idols no other God that hath an Incorruptible Nature However though Democritus continued thus grossly Atheistical yet was he further convinced than our Modern Atheists will be that the Stories of Apparitions were not all Fabulcus and that there are not only Terrestrial but also Aerial and Aetherial Animalâ— nor this Earâ—â— of ours alone Peopled and Inhabited whilst all those other vast Regioâ—s above lie Desert Solitary and Wast Where it may be observed agâ—in that divers of the Ancient Fathers though they agreed not so far with Democritus as to make the Angelical Beings to be altogether 〈…〉 did they likewise suppose them to have their certain Subtiâ—◠〈…〉 Aâ—rial Bodies In which respect St. Austin in his 115. Epistle 〈◊〉 Angels Aethereos and Devils Aereos Animantes Thus Psellus in his Dialogue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But you are to know that Demons or Devils are not altogether Incorporeal but that they are Joyned to Bodies and so Converse with Bodies which may be learn'd also from the Fathers the Divine Basil contending that there are Bodies not only in Devils but also in the pure Angels themselves as certain Subtile Airy Defecate Spirits Where afterwards he shows how the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Body which is Connate with Angels differs from that which Devils are united to in respect of the Radiant Splendour of the one and the Dark Fuliginous Obscurity of the other Moreover that Devils are not without Bodies he endeavours further to confirm from the words of our Saviour that they shall be Punished with Fire which saith he were a thing impossible were they All of them Incorporeal And some perhaps will attempt to prove the same concerning Angels too from those other words of our Saviour where speaking of the Resurrection State he affirmeth that they who shall be accounted worthy thereof shall neither marry nor be given in marriage but be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Equal to the Angels which Comparative Expression of men as to their Bodies with Angels would be thought not so proper were the Angels absolutely devoid of all Body But of this we determine not To this Phaenomenon of Apparitions might be added those Two others of Magicians or Wizards Demoniacks or Energumeni both of these proving also the Real Existence of Spirits and that they are not meer Phancies and Imaginary Inhabitants of mens Brains only but Real Inhabitants of the World As also that among those Spirits there are some Foul Unclean and Wicked Ones though not made such by God but by their own Apostacy which
is some confirmation of the Truth of Christianity the Scripture insisting so much upon these Evil Demons or Devils and declaring it to be one design of our Saviour Christ's coming into the World to oppose these Confederate Powers of the Kingdom of Darkness and to rescue mankind from the Thraldom and Bondage thereof As for Wizards and Magicians Persons who associate and confederate themselves in a peculiar manner with these Evil Spirits for the gratification of their own Revenge Lust Ambition and other Passions besides the Scriptures there hath been so full an attestation given to them by persons unconcerned in all Ages that those our so confident Exploders of them in this present Age can hardly escape the suspicion of having some Hankring towards Atheism But as for the Demoniacks and Energumeni It hath been much wondred that there should be so many of them in our Saviour's time and hardly any or none in this present Age of ours Certain it is from the Writings of Josephus in sundry places that the Pharisaick Jews were then generally possessed with an Opinion of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Demoniacks men Possessed with Devils or Infested by them And that this was not a meer Phrase or Form of Speech only amongst them for persons very Ill-affected in their Bodies may appear from hence that Josephus declares it as his opinion concerning the Demons or Devils that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Spirits or Souls of wicked men deceased getting into the Bodies of the Living From hence it was that Jews in our Saviour's time were not at all Surprised with his casting out of Devils it being usual for them also then to Exorcise the same an Art which they pretended to have learn'd from Solomon Of whom thus Josephus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God also taught Solomon an Art against Demons and Devils for the benefit and Cure of men Who composed certain Incantations by which diseases are cured and left forms of exorcisms whereby Devils are expelled and driven away Which Method of curing prevails much amongst us at this very day Notwithstanding which we think it not at all probable what a late Atheistick Writer hath asserted that the heads of the Jews were then all of them so full of Demons and Devils that they generally took all manner of Bodily Diseases such as Feavers and Agues and Dumbness and Deafness for Devils Though we grant that this very thing was imputed by Plotinus afterward to the Gnosticks that they supposed all Diseases to be Devils and therefore not to be cured by Physick but expelled by Words or Charms Thus he En. 2. Lib. 9. c. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now when they affirm Diseases to be Demons or Devils and pretend that they can expel them by words undertaking to do the same they hereby indeed render themselves considerable to the vulgar who are wont not a little to admire the powers of Magicians But they will not be able to perswade wise men that Diseases have no natural Causes as from Repletion or Inanition or Putrefaction or the like Which is a thing manifest from their cure they being oftentimes removed by purgation and bleeding and abstinence Vnless perhaps these men will say that the Devil is by this means Starved and made to Pine away Nor can we think that the Jews in our Saviour's time either supposed all Mad-men to be Demoniacks or all Demoniacks Mad-men though this latter seems to be asserted by an Eminent Writer of our own we reading of Devils cast out from others besides Mad-men and of a woman which had a Spirit of Infirmity only and was bowed together and could not lift up her self which is said by our Saviour Christ to have been bound by Satan Wherefore the sense of the Jews formerly seems to have been this that when there was any unusual and extraordinary Symptoms in any bodily Distemper but especially that of Madness this being look'd upon something more than Natural was imputed by them to the Possession or Infestation of some Devil Neither was this proper to the Jews only at that time to suppose Evil Demons to be the Causes of such bodily diseases as had extraordinary Symptoms and especially Madness but the Greeks and other Gentiles also were embued with the same Perswasion as appeareth from Apollonius Tyanaeus his curing a Laughing Demoniack at Athens he ejecting that Evil Spirit by threats and menaces who is said at his departure to have tumbled down a Royal Porch in the City with great noise As also from his freeing the City of Ephesus from the Plague by stoning an old Ragged Beggar said by Apollonius to have been the Plague which appeared to be a Demon by his changing himself into the form of a Shagged Dog But that there is some Truth in this Opinion and that at this very day Evil Spirits or Demons do sometimes really Act upon the Bodies of men and either Inflict or Augment bodily Distempers and Diseases hath been the Judgment of two very experienced Physicians Sennertus and Fernelius The Former in his Book De Mania Lib. 1. cap. 15. writing thus Etsi sine ulla Corporis Morbosa Dispositione Deo permittente hominem Obsidere Occupare Daemon possi◠tamen quandoque Morbis praecipuè Melancholicis sese immiscet Daemon forsan frequentius hoc accidit quam saepè creditur Although the Devil may by Divine permission Possess men without any Morbid Disposition yet doth he usually intermingle himself with Bodily Diseases and especially those of Melancholy and perhaps this cometh to pass ostner than is commonly believed or suspected The other in his De Abditis rerum Causis where having attributed real Effects upon the bodies of men to Witchcraft and Enchantment he addeth Neque solum morbos verum etiam Daemonas scelerati homines in corpora immittunt Hi quidem visuntur Furoris quadam specie distorti hoc uno tamen à Simplici Furore distant quod summè ardua obloquantur praeterita occulta renuntient assidentiúmque arcana reserent Neither do these wicked Magicians only inflict Diseases upon mens Bodies but also send Devils into them By means whereof they appear distorted with a kind of fury and madness which yet differs from a Simple Madness or the Disease so called in this that they speak of very high and difficult matters declare things past unknown and discover the Secrets of those that sit by Of which he subjoyns two Notable Instances of Persons well known to himself that were plainly Demoniacal Possessed or Acted by an Evil Demon one whereof shall be afterwards mentioned But when Maniacal Persons do not only discover Secrets and declare things Past but Future also besides this speak in Languages which they had never learnt this puts it out of all doubt and question that they are not meer Mad men or Maniaci but Demoniacks or Energumeni And that since the time of our Saviour Christ there have been often
Repugnancy at all to Reason but that there may be as well Aerial and Etherial as there are Terrestrial Animals and that the Dull and Earthy Stupidity of mens Minds is the Only thing which makes them so prone to think that there is no Vnderstanding Nature Superior to Mankind but that in the world all is Dead about Us and to disbelieve the Existence of any thing which themselves Cannot either See or Feel Assuredly The Deity is no Phancy but the Greatest Reality in the world and that without which there could be Nothing at all Real it being the only Necessary Existent and Consequently Atheism is either meer Sottishness or else a strange kind of Irreligioas Fanaticism We now further add that the Belief of Ghosts and Spirits Incorporeal and consequently of an Incorporeal Deity sprung neither from any Ridiculous Mistake of the Abstract Names and Notions of meer Accidents for Substances nor from the Scholastick Essences said to be Eternal For as for the Latter none of those Scholasticks ever Dream'd that there was any Vniversal Man or Vniversal Horse Existing alone by it self and Separate from all Singulars nor that the Abstract Metaphysical Essences of men after they were Dead Subsisting by themselves did Walk up and down amongst Graves in Airy Bodies It being absolutely impossible that the Real Essence of any thing should be Separable from the thing it self or Eternal when that is not so And were the Essences of all things look'd upon by these Scholasticks as Substances Incorporeal then must they have made all things even Body it self to be Ghosts and Spirits and Incorporeal and Accidents also they having their Essences too to be Substantial But in very Truth these Scholastick Essences said to be Eternal are nothing but the Intelligible Essences of things or their Natures as Conceivable and Objects of the Mind And in this Sense is it an acknowledged Truth that the Essences of things as for example of a Sphere or Triangle are Eternal and such as were never Made because there could not otherwise be Eternal Verities concerning them So that the True meaning of these Eternal Essences is indeed no other than this That Knowledge is Eternal or that there is an Eternal Mind that comprehendeth the Intelligible Natures and Ideas of all things whether Actually existing or Possible only their Necessary relations to one another and all the Immutable Verities belonging to them Wherefore though these Eternal Essences themselves be no Ghosts nor Spirits nor Substances Incorporeal they being nothing but Objective Entities of the Mind or Noemata and Ideas yet does it plainly follow from the Necessâ—ry Supposition of them as was before declared That there is One Eternal Vnmade Mind and Perfect Incorporeal Deity a Real and Substantial Ghost or Spirit which comprehending It self and all the Extent of its own Power the Possibilities of things and their Intelligible Natures together with an Exemplar or Platform of the whole World Produced the same accordingly But our Atheistick Argumentator yet further urges That those Scholasticks and Metaphysicians who because Life or Cogitation can be considered alone Abstractly without the Consideration of Body therefore conclude it not to be the Accident or Action of a Body but a Substance by it self and which also after men are Dead can Walk amongst the Graves that these I say do so far Abuse those Abstract Names and Notions of meer Accidents as plainly to make Substances Incorporeal of them To which therefore we Reply also That were the Abstract Notions of Accidents in General made Incorporeal Substances by those Philosophers aimed at then must they have supposed all the Qualities or Affections of Bodies such as Whiteness and Blackness Heat and Cold and the like to have been Substances Incorporeal also a thing yet never heard or thought of But the Case is far otherwise as to Conscious Life or Cogitation though it be an Abstract also because this is no Accident of Body as the Atheist Serving his own Hypothesis securely takes it for granted nor indeed of any thing else but an Essential Attribute of another Substance distinct from Body or Incorporeal after the same manner as Extension or Magnitude is the Essential Attribute of Body and not a meer Accident And now having so copiously Confuted all the most Considerable Atheistick Grounds we are necessitated to dispatch those that follow being of lesser Moment with all possible Brevity and Compendiousness The Four next which are the Fifth Sixth Seventh and Eighth Atheistick Argumentations pretend to no more than only this to disprove a Corporeal Deity or from the Supposition That there is no other Substance in the World besides Body to infer the Impossibility of a God that is of an Eternal Vnmade Mind the Maker and Governour of the Whole World all Which therefore signifie nothing at all to the Asserters of a Deity Incorporeal who are the only Genuine Theists Nevertheless though none but Stoicks and such other Corporealists as are notwithstanding Theists be directly concerned in an Answer to them yet shall we first so far consider the Principles of the Atheistick Corporealism contained in those Two Heads the Fifth and Sixth as from the Absolute Impossibility of these Hypotheses to Demonstrate a Necessity of Incorporeal Substance from whence a Deity will also follow Here therefore are there Two Atheistick Hypotheses founded upon the Supposition That All is Body The First in the way of Qualities Generable and Corruptible which we call the Hylopathian The Second in the way of Vnqualified Atoms which is the Atomick Corporealism and Atheism The Former of these was the most Ancient and the First Sciography or Rude Delineation of Atheism For Aristotle tells us That the most Ancient Atheists were those who supposed Matter or Body that is Bulkie Extension to be the only Substance and Vnmade thing that out of which all things were Made and into which all things are again Resolved Whatsoever is else in the world being nothing but the Passions Qualities and Accidents thereof Generable and Corruptible or Producible out of Nothing and Reducible to Nothing again From whence the Necessary Consequence is That there is no Eternal Vnmade Life or Vnderstanding or that Mind is no God or Principle in the Universe but Essentially a Creature And thiâ— Hylopathian Atheism which supposeth whatsoever is in the Universe to be either the Substance of Matter and Bulk or else the Qualities and Accidents thereof Generable and Corruptible hath been called also by us Anaximandrian Though we deny not but that there might be formerly some Difference amongst the Atheists of this Kind nor are we ignorant that Simplicius and others conceive Anaximander to have asserted besides Matter Qualities also Eternal and Vnmade or an Homoeomery and Similar Atomology just in the same manner as Anaxagoras afterwards did save only that He would not acknowledge any Vnmade Mind or Life Anaximader supposing all Life and Vnderstanding whatsoever all Soul and Mind to have Risen up and been
Piece of State-craft or Cozenage nor yet have been able to possess the Minds of men every-where with such a constant Awe and Dread of an Invisible Nothing The World would long since have discovered this Cheat and suspected a Plot upon their Liberty in the Fiction of a God at least Governours themselves would have understood it many of which notwithstanding as much awed with the Fear of this Invisiblâ— Nothing as any Others Other Cheats and Juggles when once Detected no longer Practised But Religion now as much in Credit as ever though so long since Decried by Atheists for a Political Cheat. That Christianity a Religion Founded in no Humane Policy prevailed over the Craft and Power of all Civill Sovereigns and Conquered the Persecuting World by suffering Deaths and Martyrdoms This Presignified by the Prophetick Spirit Page 691 692 Had the Idea of God been an Arbitrarious Figment not conceivable hâ—w men should have universally agreed in the same and the Attributes belonging thereunto This Argument used by Sextus Nor that Civil Sovereigns themselves should so universally have Jumped in it Page 692 693 Furthermore Not Conceivable how this Thought or Idea of a God should have been Formed by any had it been the Idea of Nothing The Superficialness of Atheists in Pretending that Politicians by telling men of Such a thing put the Idea into their Minds No Notions or Idea's put into mens minds by Words but onely the Phantasms of the Sounds Though all Learning be not Remembrance yet is all Humane Teaching but Maieutical or Obstetricious not the Filling of the Soul as a Vessel by Pouring into it from without but the Kindling of it from within Words signifie nothing to him that cannot raise up within himself the Notions or Idea's correspondent to them However the Difficulty still remains How States-men themselves or the first Inventer of this Cheat could have framed any Notion at all of a Non-Entity Page 693 694 Here the Atheists Pretend That there is a Feigning Power in the Soul whereby it can make Idea's and Conceptions of Non-Entities as of a Golden Mountain or a Centaur and that by this an Idea of God might be framed though there be no such Thing Answer That all the Feigning Power of the Soul consisteth onely in Compounding Idea's of things that Really Exist Apart but not in that Conjunction The Mind cannot make any New Conceptive Cogitation which was not Before as the Painter or Limner cannot Feign Colours Moreover the whole of these Fictitious Idea's though it have no Actual yet hath it a Possible Entity The Deity it Self though it could Create a World out of Nothing yet can it not Create more Cogitation or Conception then Is or was always contained in its own Mind from Eternity nor frame a Positive Idea of that which hath no Possible Entity Page 694 695 The Idea of God no Compilement or Aggregation of things that Exist Severally apart in the World because then it would be a meer Arbitrarious thing and what Every one Pleased the contrary whereunto hath been before manifested Page 695 Again Some Attributes of the Deity nowhere else to be found in the whole World and therefore must be Absolute Non-Entities were there no God Here the Painter must Feign Colours and Create New Cogitation out of Nothing ibid. Lastly Vpon Supposition That there is no God it is Impossible not onely that there should be any for the Future but also that there should ever have been any whereas all Fictitious Idea's must have a Possible Entity since otherwise they would be Unconceivable and No Idea's ibid. Wherefore some Atheists will further Pretend That besides this Power of Compounding things together the Soul hath another Ampliating or Amplifying Power by both which together though there be no God Existing nor yet Possible the Idea of him might be Fictitiously Made those Attributes which are nowhere else to be found arising by way of Amplification or Augmentation of Something found in Men. Page 695 696 Answer First That according to the Principles of these Atheists that all our Conceptions are nothing but Passions from Objects without there cannot Possibly be any such Amplifying Power in the Soul whereby it could make More then Is. Thus Protagoras in Plato No man can Conceive any thing but what he suffers Here also as Sextus Intimateth the Atheists guilty of that Fallacy called a Circle or Diallelus For having First undiscernedly made the Idea of Imperfection from Perfection they then goe about again to make the Idea of Perfection out of Imperfection That men have a Notion of Perfection by which as a Rule they Judge things to be Imperfect Evident from that Direction given by all Theologers To Conceive of God in way of Remotion or Abstraction of all Imperfection Lastly Finite Things added together can never make up Infinite as more and more Time backward can never reach to Eternity without Beginning God differs from Imperfect things not in Degree but Kind As for Infinite Space said to consist of Parts Finite we certain of no more then this that the Finite World might have been made Bigger and Bigger Infinitely for which very Cause it could never be Actually Infinite Gassendus his Objection That the Idea of an Infinite God might as well be Feigned as that of Infinite Worlds But Infinite Worlds are but Words or Notions ill Put together or Combined Infinity being a Real Thing in Nature but Misapplied it being Proper onely to the Deity Page 696 697 The Conclusion That since the Soul can neither Make the Idea of Infinite by Amplification of Finite nor Feign or Create any New Cogitation which was not before nor make a Positive Idea of a Non-Entity certain that the Idea of God no Fictitious Thing Page 697 Further made Evident That Religion not the Figment of Civil Sovereigns Obligation in Conscience the Foundation of all Civil Right and Authority Covenants without this Nothing but Words and Breath Obligation not from Laws neither but before them or otherwise they could not Oblige Lastly This derived not from Utility neither Were Obligation to Civil Obedience Made by mens Private Utility then could it be Dissolved by the Same Wherefore if Religion a Fiction or Imposture Civil Sovereignty must needs be so too Page 697 698 Had Religion been a Fiction of Politicians they would then have made it every way Pliable and Flexible since otherwise it would not Serve their Turn nor consist with their Infinite Right Page 698 But Religion in its own Nature a Stiff Inflexible thing as also Justice it being not Factitious or Made by Will There may therefore be a Contradiction betwixt the Laws of God and of Men and in this case does Religion conclude That God ought to be Obeyed rather then Men. For this Cause Atheistick Politicians of Latter times declare against Religion as Inconsistent with Civil Sovereignty It destroying Infinite Right Introducing Private Judgment or Conscience and a Fear Greater then that of the Leviathan
to wit of him who can Inflict Eternal Punishments Sensless Matter the Atheists Natural God the Leviathan or Civil Sovereign his Artificial One. Religion thus disowned and disclaimed by Politicians as Inconsistent with Civil Power could not be the Creature of Political Art Thus all the Three Atheistick Pretences to Salve the Phaenomenon of Religion from Fear Ignorance of Causes and Fiction of Politicians fully Confuted Page 698 700 But because besides those Ordinary Phaenomena before mentioned there are certain other Extraordinary ones that cannot be Salved by Atheists which therefore they will impute Partly to Mens Fear and Ignorance and Partly to the Fiction and Imposture of Civil Governours viz. Apparitions Miracles and Prophecies the Reality of these here also to be briefly Vindicated Page 700 First as for Apparitions Though much of Fabulosity in these Relations yet unquestionably something of Truth Atheists imputing these things to mens mistaking their Dreams and Phancies for Sensations Contradict their own Fundamental Principle That Sense is the onely Criterion of Truth as also Derogate more from Humane Testimony then they ought ibid. That some Atheists Sensible hereof have acknowledged the Reality of Apparitions concluding them nevertheless to be the Meer Creatures of Imagination as if a Strong Phancy could produce Real Substances or Objects of Sense The Fanaticism of Atheists who will rather Believe the greatest Impossibilities then endanger the Being of a God Invisible Ghosts Permanent easily introduce One Supreme Ghost of the whole World Page 700 701 Democritus yet further Convinced That there were Invisible Beings Superiour to Men Independent upon Imagination and Permanent called by him Idols but having nothing Immortal in them and therefore that a God could be no more proved from the Existence of them then of Men. Granted by him that there were not onely Terrestrial but also Aerial and Aetherial Animals and that all those Vast Regions of the Universe above were not Desert and Uninhabited Here something of the Fathers asserting Angels to have Bodies but more afterwards Page 701 702 To this Phaenomenon of Apparitions may be added those Two others of Witches and Demoniacks both of these proving That Spirits are not Phancies nor Inhabitants of mens Brains onely but of the World as also That there are some Impure Spirits a Confirmation of the Truth of Christianity The Confident Exploders of Witchcraft suspicable for Atheism As for Demoniacks or Energumeni certain from Josephus That the Jews did not take these Demons or Devils for Bodily Diseases but Real Substances possessing the Bodies of Men. Nor probable that they supposed as the Gnosticks afterward all Diseases to be the Infestation of Evil Spirits nor yet as some think all Demoniacks to be Mad-men But when there were any Unusual and Extraordinary Symptoms in any Bodily Distemper but especially that of Madness they supposing this to be Supernatural imputed it to the Infestation of some Devil Thus also the Greeks Page 702 704 That Demoniacks and Energumeni are a Real Phaenomenon and that there are such also in these Times of ours Asserted by Fernelius and Sennertus Such Maniacal Persons as not onely discover Secrets but also speak Languages which they had never learnt Vnquestionably Demoniacks or Energumeni That there have been such in the Times since our Saviour proved out of Psellus as also from Fernelius This for the Vindication of Christianity against those who suspect the Scripture Demoniacks for Figments Page 704 706 The Second Extraordinary Phaenomenon Proposed That of Miracles and Effects Supernatural That there have been such things amongst the Pagans and since the Times of Christianity too Evident from their Records But more Instances of these in Scripture Page 706 Two Sorts of Miracles First Such as though they cannot be done by Ordinary Causes yet may be effected by the Natural Power of Invisible Spirits Angels or Demons As Illiterate Demoniacks speaking Greek Such amongst the Pagans that Miracle of the Whetstone cut in two with a Razour Secondly Such as transcend the Natural Power of all Second Causes and Created Beings Page 706 707 That late Politico-Theological Treatise denying both these Sorts of Miracles Inconsiderable and not deserving here a Confutation Page 707 Supposed in Deut. That Miracles of the Former sort might be done by False Prophets in Confirmation of Idolatry Wherefore Miracles alone not sufficient to confirm every Doctrine ibid. Accordingly in the New Testament do we read of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lying Miracles that is Miracles done in Confirmation of a Lie and by the Power of Satan c. God permitting it in way of Probation of some and Punishment of others Miracles done for the promoting of Creature-Worship or Idolatry in stead of Justifying the same themselves Condemned by it Page 708 Had the Miracles of our Saviour been all of the Former Kind onely yet ought the Jews according to Moses Law to have acknowledged him for a True Prophet he coming in the Name of the Lord and not Exhorting to Idolatry Supposed in Deut. That God would not Permit False Prophets to doe Miracles save onely in the Case of Idolatry or when the Doctrine is discoverable to be False by the Light of Nature because that would be an Invincible Temptation Our Saviour That Eximious Prophet foretold by whom God would again reveal his Will to the World and no more out of Flaming Fire Nevertheless some Miracles of our Saviour Christ 's such also as could be done onely by the Power of God Almighty Page 708 709 All Miracles evince Spirits to disbelieve which is to disbelieve Sense or Vnreasonably to Derogate from Humane Testimony Had the Gentiles entertained the Faith of Christ without Miracles This it self would have been a Great Miracle Page 709 The Last Extraordinary Phaenomenon Divination or Prophecy This also evinces Spirits called Gods by the Pagans and thus that of theirs True If Divination then Gods 710 Two Sorts of Predictions likewise as of Miracles First such as might proceed from the Natural Presageing Power of Created Spirits Such Predictions acknowledged by Democritus upon account of his Idols Not so much Contingency in Humane Actions by reason of Mens Liberty of Will as some suppose Page 710 711 Another Sort of Predictions of Future Events Imputable onely to the Supernatural Prescience of God Almighty Epicurus his Pretence That Divination took away Liberty of Will either as Supposing or Making a Necessity Some Theists also denying the Prescience of God Almighty upon the same Account Certain That no Created Being can foreknow Future Events otherwise then in their Causes Wherefore Predictions of such Events as had no Necessary Antecedent Causes Evince a God Page 711 712 That there is Foreknowledge of Future Events Unforeknowable to Men formerly the general Perswasion of Mankind Oracles and Predictions amongst the Pagans which Evince Spirits as that of Actius Navius Most of the Pagan Oracles from the Natural Presageing Power of Demons Nevertheless some Instancâ—s of Predictions of a higher kind amongst them as that