wessor Ed's fuppofedt om the Pyth credit the H is unmade. b for those thi the things the enfe, to mani having been b e abftracted fr red by it fell er the created (c) 272 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. 1 327. Nor if any one, with Ariftotle in his Metaphyfics, fhould deny that God knows any thing without himfelt; feeing that God comprehends all things, could this be justly 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 caufe and origine of all beings; as the vs is the vona, a doctrine both of Platonics and Peripatetics (e); as the vs 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 aside from the difference of style, which (as Patricius rightly obferves) being in a letter to (d) 300. (e) 309, 310. (f) 320. (g) 173: a king, a king, might well be fuppofed to d other dry and crabbed parts of his wr 329. And although there are fome be met with in the philofophers, even o and Ariftotelic fects, which fpeak of ing with, or pervading all nature an ments; yet this must be explained not by extenfion, which was never the mind (b) either by Ariftotle or they always affirmed to be incorpo Plotinus remarks, incorporeal thing each from other not by place, but (t preffion) by alterity. 330. Thefe difquifitions will proba and useless, to fuch readers as are a confider only fenfible objects. The of the mind on things purely intellect men irkfome: whereas the fenfitive conftant ufe acquire ftrength. Hence of fenfe more forcibly affect us (k), often counted the chief good. For the fight, cheat and fcramble. Therefore tame mankind and introduce a fenfe o best humane means is to exercife thei ing, to give them a glympfe of an fuperior to the fenfible, and while the to cherish and maintain the animal 1 them not to neglect the intellectual. 331. Prevailing ftudies are of no quence to a ftate, the religion, mann government of a country ever takin from it's philofophy, which affects r minds of its profeffors and ftudents, opinions of all the better fort and the the whole people, remotely and confeq deed, though not inconfiderably. H (b) 290, 293, 297, 319. (k) 264, 20 polemic and fcholaftic philofophy been obferved. to produce controverfies in law and religion? And have not Fatalifm and Sadducifm gained ground,, during the general paffion for the corpufcularian and mechanical philofophy, which hath prevailed for about a century? This indeed might ufefully enough have employed fome fhare of the leifure and curiofity of inquifitive perfons. But when it entered the feminaries of learning as a neceffary accomplishment, and most important part of education, by engroffing men's thoughts, and fixing their minds fo much on corporeal objects, and the laws of motion, it hath, however undefignedly, indirectly, and by accident, yet not a little indifpofed them for fpiritual, moral, and intellectual matters. Certainly had the philofophy of Socrates and Pythagoras prevailed in this age, among those who think themselves too wife to receive the dictates of the gospel, we should not have seen intereft take fo general and fast hold on the minds of men, nor public fpirit reputed to be γενναῖαν ἐνήθειαν, a generous folly, among thofe who are reckoned to be the most knowing as well as the most getting part of mankind. 332. It might very well be thought serious trifling to tell my readers that the greateft men had ever an high esteem for Plato; whofe writings are the touchftone of a hafty and fhallow mind; whofe philofophy has been the admiration of ages; which fupplied patriots, magiftrates, and lawgivers to the most flourifhing ftates, as well as fathers to the church, and doctors to the schools. Albeit in thefe days, the depths of that old learning are rarely fathomed, and yet it were happy for thefe lands, if our young nobility and gentry inftead of modern maxims would imbibe the notions of the great men of antiquity. But in these free thinking times many an empty head is fhook fhook at Ariftotle and Plato, as well a fcriptures. And the writings of those c cients are by most men treated on a fo dry and barbarous lucubrations of the f may be modeftly prefumed, there a among us, even of thofe who are call fort, who have more fense, virtue, and country than Cicero, who in a letter to not forbear exclaiming, O Socrates et S nunquam vobis gratiam referam. W many of our countrymen had the fam to thofe Socratic writers. Certainly whe are well educated, the art of piloting a learned from the writings of Plato. Bu men void of difcipline and education, goras and Ariftotle themselves, were could do but little good. Plato hath humorous and inftructive picture of which I fhall not transcribe for certain whoever has a mind, may fee it in pag fecond tome of Aldus's edition of Pla 333. Proclus, in the firft book of tary on the theology of Plato obferves myfteries, those who are initiated, at f manifold and multiform Gods, but bein thoroughly initiated they receive the di tion and participate the very deity; in if the foul look abroad fhe beholds the images of things; but returning into ravels and beholds her own effence feemeth only to behold her felf: But trated farther fhe difcovers the mind. ftill farther advancing into the innermo the foul fhe contemplates the 9ewu yévos he faith, is the moft excellent of all hu the filence and repofe of the faculties tend upwards to the very divinity; to: he holy ot many wn a very : At firft fhe 15. be be clofely joined with that which is ineffable and fupe perior to all beings. When come fo high as the first principle the ends her journey and refts. Such is the doctrine of Proclus. 334. BUT Socrates in the firft Alcibiades teacheth on the other hand, that the contemplation of God is the proper means to know or understand our own foul. As the eye, faith he, looking stedfastly at the vifive part or pupil of another eye beholds it's felf, even fo the foul beholds and understands her felf, while fhe contemplates the Deity which is wisdom and vertue or like thereunto. In the Phædon Socrates fpeaks of God as being τἀγαθὸν and τὸ δέον (α), the good and the decent: Plotinus reprefents God as order; Ariftotle as law. 1 335. It may feem perhaps to thofe, who have been taught to discourse about fubftratums, more reasonable and pious to attribute to the Deity a more subftantial being, than the notional entities of wifdom, order, law, vertue, or goodness, which being only complex ideas, framed and put together by the underftanding, are its own creatures, and have nothing fubftantial, real, or independent in them. But it mult be confidered, that in the Platonic fyftem, order, ver tue, law, goodness, and wisdom are not creatures of the foul of man, but innate and originally exiftent therein, not as an accident in a substance, but as light to enlighten, and as a guide to govern. In Plato's ftyle, the term idea doth not merely fignify an inert inactive object of the understanding, but is used as fynonymous with IT and dex, cause and principle. Ac cording to that philofopher, goodness, beauty, vertue and fuch like, are not figments of the mind, nor mere mixed modes, nor yet abstract ideas in the modern fense, but the most real beings, intellectual and unchangeable; and therefore more real than the fleeting tranfient objects of fenfe (b), which wanting (d) 260, 230. (b) 306. X stability |
