τὸ only a pura potentia, a mere poffibility. But Anaximander, fucceffor to Thales, is reprefented as having thought the fupreme Deity to be infinite matter. Nevertheless though Plutarch calleth it matter, yet it was fimply regov, which means no more than infinite or indefinite. And although the moderns teach that space is real and infinitely extended; yet if we confider that it is no intellectual notion, nor yet perceived by any of our fenfes, we fhall perhaps be inclined to think with Plato in his Timæus, that this alfo is the refult of dogioμos vol or fpurious reafoning, and a kind of waking dream. Plato obferves that we dream, as it were, when we think of place, and believe it neceffary, that whatever exifts fhould exift in fome place. Which place or space (f) he also obferves is μετ' ἀναπησίας ἁπλὸν, that is to be felt as darkness is seen, or filence heard, being a mere privation. 319. If any one fhould think to infer the reality. or actual being of matter from the modern tenet, that gravity is always proportionable to the quantity of matter, let him but narrowly fcan the modern demonftration of that tenet, and he will find it to be a vain circle, concluding in truth no more than this, that gravity is proportionable to weight, that is to it felf. Since matter is conceived only as defect and mere poffibility; and fince God is abfolute perfection and act; it follows there is the greatest distance and oppofition imaginable between God and matter. Infomuch that a material God would be altogether inconfiftent. 320. The force that produces, the intellect that orders, the goodness that perfects all things, is the fupreme being. Evil, defect, negation, is not the object of God's creative power. From (f) 250, 270. motion the Peripatetics trace out a firft immoveable mover. The Platonics make God author of all good, author of no evil, and unchangeable. According to Anaxagoras there was a confufed mass of all things in one chaos, but mind fupervening, av, diftinguished and divided them. Anaxagoras, it feems, afcribed the motive faculty to mind, which mind fome fubfequent philofophers have accurately difcriminated from foul and life,afcribing to it the fole faculty of intellection. ἐπελθὼν, 321. But ftill God was fuppofed the first agent, the fource and original of all things, which he produceth, not occafionally or inftrumentally -but with actual and real efficacy. Thus, the treatife, De fecretiore parte divinæ fapientiæ fecundum Ægyptios, in the tenth book, faith of God, that he is not only the firft agent, but also that he it is who truly acts or creates, qui verè efficit. 322. Varro, Tully, and St. Auguftin understand the foul to be vis, the power, or force that acts, moves, enlivens. Now although, in our conception, vis, or spirit might be distinguished from mind, it would not thence follow, that it acts blindly or without mind, or that it is not closely connected with intellect. If Plutarch is to be trufted in his account of the opinions of philofophers, Thales held the mind of the world to be God: Democritus held the foul of the world to be an igniform deity (g): Pythagoras taught that God was the monad and the good, or r'a'yaðir: Socrates alfo and Plato pronounced him to be the Tov (b), the fingle, felf originate one, τὸ ἓν effentially good. Each of which appellations and forms of speech directly tends to, and determines in mind, eis Tov vv réudes faith Plutarch. 323.Whence that author concludes, that in the sense (g) 166, 168, 277. (b) 287. of those philofophers God is a mind, xwessav d not an abstract idea compounded of inconfiftencies and prefcinded from all real things, as fome maderns understand abstraction; but a really existing fpirit, diftinct or feparate from all fenfible and corporeal beings. And although the Stoics are reprefented as holding a corporeal deity, or that the very fyftem of the world is God, yet it is certain they did not, at bottom, diffent from the forementioned doctrine; inafmuch as they fuppofed the world to be an animal, (a) confifting of foul or mind as well as body. 324. This notion was derived from the Pythagoreans, who held the world, as Timæus Locrus teacheth, to be one perfect animal, endued with foul and reafon but then they believed it to have been generated: whereas the Stoics looked on the world as the fupreme God, including therein mind or intellect. For the elementary fire, or, if one may fo speak, the animal fpirit of the world, feemeth, according to them, to have been the vehicle of the foul (b), the vehicle of intellect or võç; fince they ftyled the Divinity aug voegov (c), or intellectual fire. 325. The Egyptians, if we may credit the Hermaic writings, maintained God to be all things, not only actual but poffible. He is ftyled by them, that which is made and that which is unmade. And therein it is faid, fhall I praife thee for those things thou haft made manifeft, or for the things thou haft hidden? therefore, in their fenfe, to manifest, was to create; the things created having been before hidden in God. 326. Now whether the vs be abftracted from the fenfible world, and confidered by it felf, as diftinct from, and prefiding over the created fyf(6) 277. 284. (a) 276. 279. (c) 272. tem, tem, or whether the whole univerfe, including mind together with the mundane body, is conceived to be God (d), and the creatures to be partial manifeftations of the divine effence, there is no atheism in either cafe, whatever misconceptions there may be; fo long as mind or intellect is understood to prefide over, govern, and conduct the whole frame of things. And this was the general prevailing opinion among the philofophers. 327. Nor if any one, with Ariftotle in his Metaphyfics, fhould deny that God knows any thing without himself; feeing that God comprehends all things, could this be juftly pronounced an atheistical opinion. Nor even was the following notion of the fame author to be accounted atheism, to wit, that there are fome things beneath the knowledge of God, as too mean, bafe, and vile; however wrong this notion may be, and unworthy of the divine perfection. 328. Might we not conceive that God may be faid to be all in divers fenfes; as he is the cause and origine of all beings; as the vs is the vona, a doctrine both of Platonics and Peripatetics (e); as the võ, is the place of all forms, and as it is the fame which comprehends and orders (f) and fuftains the whole mundane fyftem. Ariftole declares, that the divine force or influence permeates the intire universe (g) and that what the pilot is in a fhip, the driver in a chariot, the præcentor in a choir, the law in a city, the general in an army, the fame God is in the world. This he amply fets forth in his book De mundo, a treatise which having been anciently afcribed to him, ought not to be fet afide from the difference of ftyle, which (as Patricius rightly obferves) being in a letter to (d) 300. (e) 309, 310. (f) 320. (g) 173. a king, might well be fuppofed to differ from the other dry and crabbed parts of his writings. 329. And although there are fome expreffions to be met with in the philofophers, even of the Platonic and Ariftotelic fects, which speak of God as mixing with, or pervading all nature and all the elements; yet this must be explained by force and not by extenfion, which was never attributed to the mind (b) either by Ariftotle or Plato. This they always affirmed to be incorporeal: and, as Plotinus remarks, incorporeal things are diftant each from other not by place, but (to ufe his expreffion) by alterity. 330. Thefe difquifitions will probably feem dry and useless, to fuch readers as are accustomed to confider only fenfible objects. The employment of the mind on things purely intellectual is to moft men irkfome: whereas the fenfitive powers, by conftant ufe acquire ftrength. Hence, the objects of fenfe more forcibly affect us (k), and are too often counted the chief good. For these things men fight, cheat and scramble. Therefore, in order to tame mankind and introduce a fenfe of virtue, the beft humane means is to exercise their understanding, to give them a glympfe of another world, fuperior to the fenfible, and while they take pains to cherish and maintain the animal life, to teach them not to neglect the intellectual. 331. Prevailing ftudies are of no fmall confequence to a ftate, the religion, manners and civil government of a country ever taking fome bias from it's philofophy, which affects not only the minds of its profeffors and ftudents, but also the opinions of all the better fort and the practife of the whole people, remotely and confequentially, indeed, though not inconfiderably. Have not the (b) 290, 293, 297, 319. (4) 264, 294. polemic |