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tual flux or fucceffion, ever differing and various. Nevertheless, all things together may be confidered as one universe (d), one by the connection, relation, and order of its parts, which is the work of mind, whofe unit is by Platonic fuppofed a participation of the first O EV.

TO

348. Socrates, in the Theætetus of Plato, speaketh of two parties of philofophers, the pores and of T ὅλου σασιῶται, the flowing philofophers, who held all things to be in a perpetual flux, always generating and never existing; and those others, who maintained the universe to be fixed and immoveable. The difference feems to have been this, that Heraclitus, Protagoras, Empedocles, and in general thofe of the former fect, confidered things fenfible and natural; whereas Parmenides and his party confidered ò avg not as the fenfible but as the intelligible world (e), abstracted from all fenfible things.

349. In effect, if we mean by things the fenfible objects, thefe, it is evident, are always flowing; but if we mean things purely intelligible, then we may fay on the other hand, with equal truth, that they are immoveable and unchangeable. So that thofe, who thought the whole or τὸ πᾶν to be ἓν ἑτως a fixed or permanent one, feem to have understood the whole of real beings, which, in their sense, was only the intellectual world, not allowing reality of being to things not permanent.

350. The difpleasure of fome readers may perhaps be incurred, by furprifing them into certain reflexions and inquiries for which they have no curiofity. But perhaps fome others may be pleafed, to find a dry fubject varied by digreffions, traced through remote inferences, and carried into ancient times, whofe hoary maxims (f) fcattered in this effay are not propofed as principles, but barely as hints to awaken and exercife the inquifitive reader, on points not beneath the at

(d) 287, 288. (e) 293, 294, 295. (f) 298, 301.

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tention of the ableft men. Thofe great men, Pythagoras, Plato, and Ariftotle, the most confummate in politics, who founded states, or inftructed princes, or wrote most accurately on publick government, were at the fame time moft acute at all abftracted and fublime fpeculations; the cleareft light being ever neceffary to guide the most important actions. And whatever the world thinks, he who hath not much meditated upon God, the human mind, and the Summum bonum, may poffibly make a thriving earth-worm, but will moft indubitably make a forry patriot and a forry statesman.

351. According to the nice metaphyfics of thofe ancient philofophers, ev, being confidered as what was firft and fimpleft in the Deity, was prefcinded even from entity to which it was thought prior and fuperior; and is therefore by the Platonics styled super-effential. And in the Parmenides it is faid, to v doth not exist; which might feem to imply a negation of the divine being. The truth is, Zeno and Parmenides argued, that a thing existing in time was older and younger than itself; therefore the conftant immutable To did not exist in time; and if not in time, then in none of the differences of time paft, prefent, or to come; therefore we cannot fay that it was, is, or will be. But nevertheless it is admitted in the fame Parmenides, that is every where prefent to ev: that is, instead of a temporary fucceffion of moments, there is one eternal now, or punctum ftans, as it is termed by the schoolmen.

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352. The fimplicity of (the Father in the Pythagoric and Platonic trinity) is conceived fuch as to exclude intellect or mind, to which it is fuppofed prior. And that hath created a fufpicion of atheism in this opinion. For, faith the learned doctor Cudworth, fhall we say that the firft hypoftafis or perfon is aves and anoyos, fenfeless and irrational, and altogether devoid of mind and understanding? or would (f) 298, 301.

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not this be to introduce a kind of myfterious atheism? To which it may be answered, that whoever acknowledgeth the universe to be made and governed by an eternal mind, cannot be justly deemed an atheist (g.) And this was the tenet of thofe ancient philofophers. In the Platonic doctrine, the generation of the vos or aóyos was not contingent but neceffary, not temporary but from everlasting. There never was a time fuppofed wherein Ev fubfifted without intellect, the priority having been understood only as a priority of order or conception, but not a priority of age. Therefore, the maintaining a diftinétion of priority between and vs doth not infer, that the one ever existed without the other. It follows, therefore, that the father or may, in a certain fenfe, be faid to be aves without atheism, or without deftroying the notion of a deity; any more than it would deftroy the notion of a human foul, if we fhould conceive a diftinction between felf and intellect, or intellect and life. To which we may farther add, that it is a doctrine of Platonics, and agrees with their master's tenets, to fay that ev, or the firft hypoftafis, contains all excellence and perfection, whereof it is the original fource, and is eminenter, as the fchools fpeak, intellect and life, as well as goodness; while the fecond hypoftafis is effentially intellect, and by participation, goodness and life; and the third, life effentially, and by participation, goodness and intellect,

353. Therefore, the whole being confidered, it will not feem juft, to fix the imputation of atheism upon those philofophers, who held the doctrine of

whether it be taken in an abstracted or collective, a metaphysical or merely vulgar meaning (b); that is, whether we prefcind unity from effence and intellect, fince metaphyfical diftinctions of the divine attributes do not in reality divide them: or whether we confider the univerfal fyftem of beings, as one, fince the union, connexion, and order of its mem(g) 154, 276, 279, 287. (b) 300.

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the cause thereof.

354. THE ONE Or To ev may be conceived either by compofition or divifion. For as, on the one hand, we may say the world or univerfe is one whole, or one animal, fo we may, on the other hand, confider THE ONE, To ev, by divifion or abstraction, as somewhat in the order of things prior to mind. In either sense there is no atheism, fo long as mind is admitted to preside and direct the animal; and fo long as the unum or tov is fuppofed not to exift without mind (a). So that neither Heraclitus, nor Parmenides, nor Pythagoras, nor Plato, neither the Ægyptians, nor Stoics, with their doctrine of a divine whole or animal, nor Xenophanes with his vπv, are justly to be accounted atheists. Therefore modern atheism, be it of Hobbes, Spinofa, Collins, or whom you will, is not to be countenanced by the learning and great names of antiquity.

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355. Plato teacheth, that the doctrine concerning the one or unite is a means to lead and raise the mind (b) to the knowledge of him who truly is. And it is a tenet both of Ariftotle and Plato, that identity is a certain unity. The Pythagoreans alfo, as well as the Platonic philofophers, held unum and ens to be the fame. Confiftently with which that only can be faid to exift, which is one and the fame. In things fenfible and imaginable, as such, there seems to be no unity, nothing that can be called one, prior to all act of the mind; fince they being in themselves aggregates, confifting of parts, or compounded of elements, are in effect many. Accordingly it is remarked by Themiftius, the learned interpreter of Ariftotle, that to collect many notions into one, and to confider them as one, is the work of intellect, and not of fenfe or fancy.

356. Ariftotle himself, in his third book of the (a) 287; 288.

(b) 294, 295.

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Soul,

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Soul, faith it is the mind that maketh each thing to be one, τὸ δὲ ἐν ποιόν τότε ὁ νῆς ἕκαςον. How this is done, Themiftius is more particular, obferving, that as being conferreth effence, the mind by virtue of her fimplicity conferreth fimplicity upon compounded beings. And, indeed, it feemeth that the mind, fo far forth as perfon, is individual (a),therein refembling the divine one by participation, and imparting to other things what itself participates from above. This is agreeable to the doctrine of the ancients, however the contrary opinion of fuppofing number to be an original primary quality in things, independent of the mind, may obtain among the moderns.

357. The Peripatetics taught, that in all divisible things there was fomewhat indivifible, and in all compounded things fomewhat fimple. This they derived from an act of the mind. And neither this fimple indivifible unite, nor any fum of repeated unites, confequently no number, can be separated from the things themfelves, and from the operation of the mind. Themiftius goeth fo far as to affirm, that it cannot be feparated from the words or figns; and, as it cannot be uttered without them, fo, faith he, neither can it be conceived without them. Thus much upon the whole may be concluded, that, diftinct from the mind and her operations, there is in created beings neither unite nor number.

358. Of inferior beings the human mind, felf, or perfon, is the moft fimple and undivided effence (b). And the fupreme father is the most perfect one. Therefore the flight of the mind towards God is called by the Platonics φυγὴ μόνο πρὸς μόνον. The fupreme bea ing, faith Plotinus, as he excludes all diverfity, is ever alike prefent. And we are then prefent to him, when, recollected and abstracted from the world and fenfible objects, we are most free and difengaged (c) from all variety. He adds, that in the intuition of (a) 345, 346, 347. (b) 347. (c) 268.

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