1^0 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. BooklL 



2iX\^fiihftance quite diftln6t from body ; and alfo, that it was the eldeft 

 of things in the univerfe, and every thing clfe produced from it. In 

 this way the controverfy is fairly ftatcd hetwixt the Atheifts and The- 

 ifts by Plato in his loth Book of Laws*. All thofe, therefore, iii 

 antient times, Avho admitted the exigence of immaterial fubftances, were 

 of confequence Theifts ; and the fame, I conceive, is the cafe of the 

 philofophers of our time. For, tho' there were among the antients fome 

 Materialifts who wereTheifls, particularly the Stoics, who, notwithftand- 

 ing they believed in an all-wife and all-powerful God, maintained never- 

 thelefs, that he was corporcah I have never heard of any philofopher, 

 antient or modern, who believed in the exiRence oF incorporeal fub- 

 ftances, and yet did not believe in God t- If) therefore, it can be made 

 out, that there is fuch athing cxifting in nature 2isfuhftance incorporealy 

 the confequence is admitted by all philofophers to be, that there is a 

 God ; and, accordingly, by the great Theifts of antiquity, and parti- 

 cularly Plato and Arillotle, there is nothing io much laboured as to 

 prove, that immaterial fuljlances do exift : For, fays Ariftotle, if fuch 

 fubftances do exift, the Divinity muft neceflarily be one of them %, 



As, 



* Plato, pag. 949. eilitio Picini, Avhere he fnys, that the opinion, that fire, air, 

 earth, and water, were the whole of things, and conflituted what we call Ndture, 

 was the fource of Atheifm. And, in the Sophifta, page 172. he fays, that the Athe- 

 ifts of his time maintained, that only what they could lay hold of, and refilled the 

 touch, was fubftance, and had a real exiftence : And, if any one told them, that 

 things exifted v/hich had no body, they defpifcd him, and did not think it worth their 

 while to converfe with him. 



t This is the opinion of Cudworth in his intelledual fyftem, page 135. where, 

 fpeaking of the feveral kinds of Atheifts, he fays, ' All Atheifts are mere corporeal' 



* z/?j, that is, acknowledge no other fubftance befides body or matter. For, as 



* there was never any yet known, who, afferting incorporeal fubftance, did deny a 

 ' Deity \ fo neither can there be any reafon why he, that admits the formei', fliould 

 « exclude the latter.* And, in another paflage, page 768. he fays, ' That, though 



■« all corporealifls be not therefore of neceftity Atheifts, yet Atheifts univerfally 



* have been corporealift: ; this being always their firft and grand poftulatum, that there 



* is no other fubftance befides body.* 



