had an idea of creation. Nor is it at all surprising that he should have this idea, since it implies no contradiction. In reality, when God 

 creates, he does not draw a being out of nothing, nor out of matter upon which he works; but he makes something exist which did not exist 

 before.* The idea of infinite Power necessarily supposes that of being able to produce new substances as well as new forms. To make a 

 substance exist, which did not exist before, has nothing in it more inconceivable than the making a form exist which was not before; for in 

 both cases there is a new reality produced ; and whatever difficulties there are in conceiving the passage from nothing to being, they are as 

 puzzling in the one as the other. As therefore it cannot be denied but that there is a moving power, though we do not conceive how it acts; 

 so neither must we deny that there is a creating power, because we have not a clear idea of it. 



To return to Plato. He first considers the Deity in his eternal beatitude before the production of finite beings. He says frequently, like 

 the Egyptians, ' That this first source the Deity is surrounded with brightness, which no mortal eye can bear, and that this inaccessible 

 God is to be adored only by silence.' (Thus our poet Thomson. ' But I lose myself in him, in light ineffable: come then expres- 

 sive silence, muse His praise!') It is this first principle which he calls in several places the Being, the Unity, and the supreme Good; ^ 

 the same in the intelligent world, that the sun is in the visible w^orld. He afterwards represents to us this first Being as sallying out of his 

 Unity to consider all the various manners by which he might represent himself exteriorly; and thus the ideal world, comprehending the 

 ideas of all things, and the forms which result thence, was in the divine understanding. Plato also distinguishes between the supreme 

 Good and that Wisdom which is only an emanation from him. ' That which presents truth to the mind,' says he, ' and that which gives us 

 reason, is the supreme Good. He is the cause and source of wisdom. J He hath begotten it like himself. As the light is not the sun, but an 

 emanation from it; so truth is not the first Principle, but his emanation.' And this is what he calls the Wisdom or the Logos. And lastly, 

 he considers the first Mover displaying his power to form real beings, resembling those archetypal ideas. He stiles him ' § The Energy, or 

 sovereign Architect who created the universe and the Gods, and who does whatsoever he pleases in heaven, on the earth, and in the shades 

 below.' He calls him likewise, ' Psyche, or the soul which pervades over the world, rather than the soul of the world;' to denote that this 

 soul does not make a part of the universe, but animates it, and gives it all its forms and movements. Sometimes he considers the three divine 

 attributes as three causes, at other times as three beings, and often as three Gods: but he affirms that they are all but one sole Divinity; that 

 there is no essential difference between them; that the second is the resemblance of the first, and the third of the second; that they are not 

 three Gods, but one: and that they differ only as the sun, the rays, and the light. || 



In other places, and especially in the Timasus Locrus,^ Plato speaks of three other Principles, which he calls, iSsa,, '"TX?;, Aftr^t/ruV. By 

 the first he understands the archetypal ideas contained in the divine Intellect: by the second, a primary matter, uniform, sluggish, inert, 

 without figure or division, but capable of receiving all forms and motions: by the third, the visible universe, bounded, corruptible, consisting 

 of various parts; and this he stiles the son, the effect, and the work of the idea as the primitive father, and of the"TA^ as the universal mother 

 of whatever exists. We ought never to confound these three principles of nature with the three forms of the Divinity, which he calls 

 Agatiios, Logos, and Psyche; the sovereign Good, which is the principle of Deity, the Intellect which drew the plan of the world, and 

 the Energy which executed it. 



Aristotle, Plato's disciple, and chief of the Peripatetic Philosophers, calls God** ' The eternal and self-existing Being, the most noble 

 of all things, a spirit entirely distinct from matter, without extension, without division, without parts, and without succession; who under- 

 stands every thing by one single act, and continuing himself immoveable, gives motion to all things, and enjoys in himself a perfect happiness, 

 as knowing and contemplating himself with infinite satisfaction.' In his metaphysics he lays it down for a principle,f f '' That God is a 

 supreme Intelhgence which acts with order, proportion, and design; and is the source of all that is good, excellent, and just.' In his treatise 

 of the soul, he says, ' That the supreme Mind +;]; is by its nature prior to all beings, that he has a sovereign dominion over all.' And in other 

 places he says, §§ ' That the first Principle is neither the fire, nor the earth, nor the water, nor any thing that is the object of sense; but that 

 a spiritual substance is the cause of the universe, and the source of all the order and all the beauties, as well as of all the motions and all the 

 forms which wx so much admire in it.' 



CiCEKo, when in the height of argument, forget the popular creed, and gave loose to his own sentiment, and thus speaks of God. 

 nil " According to the opinion of the wisest and greatest men, says this Philosopher, the law is not an invention of human understanding, 

 or the arbitrary constitution of men, but flows from the eternal Reason that governs the universe. The rape which Tarquin committed upon 

 LucRETiA, continues he, was not less criminal in its nature, because there was not at that time any written law at Rome against such sort 

 of violences. The tyrant was guilty of a breach of the eternal law, the obligation whereof did not commence from the time it was written, 

 but from the time it was made. Now its origin is as ancient as the divine Intellect: for the true, the primitive, and the supreme law is 

 nothing but the sovereign reason of the great Jove. This law, says he in another place,^^ is universal, eternal, immutable. It does not 

 vary according to times and places. It is not different now from what it was formerly. The same immortal law is a rule to all nations, 

 because it has no author but the one only God who brought it forth and promulged it.' 



St. Paul, when at Athens, mentions that there was a statue, with an inscription, denoting it to be the unknown God. 



To come at last to Seneca the Stoic. He was Nero's tutor, and lived in an age when Christianity was not in credit enough to engage 

 the heathens to borrow any philosophical principles from thence. *f ' I^ is of very little consequence,' says he, ' by what name you call the 

 first Nature, and the divine Reason that presides over the universe, and fills all the parts of it. He is still the same God. He is called Jupiter 

 Stator, not as historians say, because he stopped the Roman armies as they were flying, but because he is the constant support of all beings. 

 They may call him Fate, because he is the first cause on w-hich all others depend. We Stoics call him sometimes Father Bacchus, because 

 he is the universal life that animates nature; Hercules, because his powder is invincible: Mercury, because he is the eternal Reason, Order, 

 and Wisdom. You may give him as many names as you please, provided you allow but one sole Principle every where present.' 



That the Greeks and Romans had a knowledge of God is certain. Jupiter is, according to their philosophers, the soul of the world, who 

 takes different names, according to the different effects which he produces. In the ethereal spaces he is called Jupiter, in the air Juno, in 

 the sea Neptune, in the earth Pluto, in hell Proserpine, in the element of fire Vulcan, in the sun Phcebus, in divination Apollo, in 

 war Mars, in the vintage Bacchus, in the harvest Ceres, in the forest Diana, and in the sciences Minerva. All that crowd of Gods and 

 Goddesses are only the same Jupiter, whose different powers and attributes are expressed by different names. It is therefore evident, by 

 the testimony of prophane poets. Heathen philosophers, and fathers of the church, that the Pagans acknowledge one sole supreme Deity. 

 The Orientals, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, all were agreed universally in allowing this sublime truth. 



But can we believe, that several gods were not the objects of popular worship, and that the common people had a knowledge of the one 

 only God? Did they see through the veil, w^hich concealed the omnipotent, and only Being? Did they not worship the creature for the 

 Creator, a multitude of allegoric, and ideal, unexisting, Beings, instead of the former of the Universe, the Lord of All !! Vide the Travels of 

 Cyrus, by Ramsay, and Abbe Pluche's origin of the Heathen Religion, in his Ilistoire du ciel considere selon les idees des Poetes, &c. 



* noc^rfy.r;/ tfaa-av g'^y./xEV e~ya.i o-Jyx<u-^rl rtj av diUx yr/vijrai rot; u.t] it'/dnoo-^ oviri-^ 'jctspn yr/veo-Sai. Plat. Sophist, p. 185. Ed. Franc . lfi02. 

 t De Repub. lib. 6. p'a^-e' (iSG. , ' t De Repub. lib. 6. p. 687. TiJrr/ «/v.v fd-rxi y.s Keyeiy rov tw dyaSov Uy»» ov rayoMv iyerr,^Bv d-dK-.y-.y ixvrx. 



% Plat de Repub lib° 10. p. 749. A^a.o^.ycV and not or,wiovpyo6 y.sy.y v.%-^^ -^sokWi-ao;, and not iyy.-J^i^io;. \\ See Cudworth Intellect. Syst. p. ,580. to ,590. 



^ Tim Loc p 1089 ** Arist. Ed. Paris 1629- Metaph. lib. xiv. cap. 7- p. 1000. ft Metaph. lib. xiv. cap. 10. p. 1003. U I^- de Anim. lib. 1. cap. 7. p. fcS. 



!5§ Metaph. lib. 1. cap. 2. Sc 3. p. 844, 843. 1!!| Cic. de Leg. lib. 2. p, 1 194. «I^ Frag, of the Repub. of Cicero preserved by Lactam, lib. vi. c. 8. 



*t Senec. Edit. Ant. a Lipsio l0"32. de Benef. lib. iv. p. 311. 



II Haste, 



