Secondly, his Power, " 



The Sire of Gods his awful silence broke. 

 The heav'ns attentive trembled as he spoke 

 " Celestial states, immortal Gods! give ear. 

 Hear our decree, and rev'rence w^hat ye hear. 

 The fix'd decree which not all heav'n can move. 

 Thou fate! fulfil it; and ye pow'rs approve! 

 Let him who doubts me, dread the dire abodes; 

 And know th' Almighty is the God of Gods. 

 League all your forces then, ye pow'rs above. 

 Join all, and try the omnipotence of Jove: 

 Let down a golden everlasting chain. 



Whose strong embrace holds heav'n, and earth, and main: 

 Strive all, of mortal and immortal birth, 

 To drag, by this, the Thund'rer down to earth: 

 Ye strive in vain ! If I but stretch this hand, 

 I heave the Gods, the Ocean, and the Land; 

 I fix the chain to great Olympus' height. 

 And the vast world hangs trembling in my sight! 

 For such I reign, unbounded and above; 

 And such are men, and Gods, compar'd to Jove." 



Th' Almighty spoke, nor durst the Pow'rs reply, 

 A rev'rend horror silenc'd all the sky; 

 Trembling they stood before the sovereign's look; 

 At length his best-belov'd, the pow'r of Wisdom spoke. 



" Oh first 2inA greatest ! God by Godls ador'd! 

 We OM^Ai thy might, our jTatAer and our Lord.'" 



II. Book vm. 1. 5. 



From the Greeks let us go to the Romans. 



" O muse," says Horace, " pursuant to the custom of our ancestors, let us celebrate first the great Jove, who rules over Gods and men 

 the earth, the seas, and the whole universe: there is nothing greater than him, nothing that is like, nothing that is equal to him!"* 



Let us pass from the poets to the philosophers, and begin with Thales the Milesian, chief of the Ionic school,f who lived above six 

 hundred years before the birth of Christ. We have none of his works now left: but we have some of his sayings, which have been trans- 

 mitted down to us by the most venerable writers of antiquity. ' God is the most ancient of all beings : he is the author of the universe 

 which is full of wonders: J he is the Mind which brought the chaos out of confusion into order ;§ he is without beginning and without endins' 

 and nothing is hid from him;]] nothing can resist the force of Fate; but this Fate is nothing but the immutable reason and eternal power of 

 Providence.^ 



Pythagoras is the second great philosopher, and chief of the Italic school. These are the notions of the Deity which he entertained 



' *■* God is not the object of any of our senses, but invisible, purely intelligible, and supremely intelligent. His spirit is truth his 

 raiment is light, ff He is the universal Spirit that pervades and difFuseth itself over all nature. All beings receive their life from him 

 ++ There is but one only God. He is the sole Principle, the Light of heaven, the Father of all; he produces every thing, he orders and 

 disposes every thing; he is the reason, the life, and the motion of all beings,§§ 



Socrates was condemned to death for disbelieving in the Gods. He was, however, na atheist, for Zenophoa^ has given us an excellent 

 abridgment of the Theology of that Philosopher. It is perhaps the most important piece we have of antiquity. It contains the conversation 

 of Socrates with Aristodemus, who doubted of the existence of a God. Socrates makes him at first take notice of all the characters of 

 design, of art, and of wisdom, that appear all over the universe, and particularly in the mechanism of the human body. " Do you believe "|||| 

 says he then to Aristodemus, " can you believe, that you are the only intelligent being? You know that you possess but a little particle of 

 that matter which composes the world, a small portion of that water which moistens it, a spark of that flame which animates it. Is under- 

 standing peculiar to you alone? Have you so engrossed and confined it to yourself, that it is to be found no where else? Does blind chance 

 work every thing, and is there no such thing as wisdom besides what you have?" Aristodemus having replied, ' that he did not see that wise 

 Architect of the Universe;' Socrates answers him: " Neither do you see the soul which governs your own body, and regulates all its motions. 

 You might as well conclude that you do nothing yourself with design and reason, as maintain that every thing is done bv blind chance in the 

 universe." Aristodemus at length acknowledged a supreme Being, is still in doubt as to Providence; ' not being able to comprehend how 

 the Deity can see every thing at once.' Socrates repUes, " If the spirit that resides in your body moves and disposes it at its pleasure, why 

 should not that sovereign Wisdom which presides over the universe be able likewise to regulate and order every thing as it pleases? If your 

 eye can see objects at the distance of several furlongs; why should not the eye of God be able to see every thing at once! If your soul can 

 think at the same time upon what is at Athens, in Egypt, and in Sicily, why should not the divine Mind be able to take care of every thing, 

 being every where present to his work?", Socrates perceiving at last that the infidelity of Aristodemus did not arise so much from his 

 reasoning as from his debility of intellect, concludes with these words: " O Aristodemus! apply yourself sincerely to cultivate knowledge 

 your mind will be enlarged, and then all your doubts will be removed!" 



Plato, a disciple of Socrates, follows the same principles. He lived about the hundredth Olympiad, at a time when the doctrine of 

 Democritus had made a great progress at Athens. The design of all his Theology is to give us noble sentiments of the Deity, to shew us 

 that souls were condemned to animate mortal bodies, in order to expiate faults they had committed in a pre-existent state; and, in fine to 

 teach that social love is the only way to restore us to our first glory and perfection. He despises all the tenets of the Athenian superstition and 

 endeavours to purge religion of them. The chief object of this Philosopher is man in his immortal capacity; he speaks of him in his politic 

 one, only to shew that the shorter way to immortality is to discharge all the duties of civil and social life from the pure love of virtue. 



Plato, in the beginning of his Timeeus, distinguishes between the Being which is eternal, and beings which have been made.^^ And in 

 another of his dialogues he defines ' God the efficient cause which makes men exist that had no being before:' a definition which shews that he 



* B. 1. Ode 12. t rior. Olymp. 1. % Diog. Laert. vita Thai. lib. 1. | Cicer. de Nat. Dcor. lib. 1. p. 1U3. Edit. Amst. l66l. 



II S. Clem. Alex. Strom, v. IF Stob. Eel. Pbys. cap. 8. ** Plut. Vita Num. and Diog. Laert. lib. 12. -ff Vit. Pyth. Porpliyr'. 



XX Lact. Inst. lib. 5. ^§ S. Just. Cohort. 1. ad. Grac. p. 18. |||| Xen. Mem. Soc. Ed. Basil. 1579. lib 1. p. 573. 



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