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88 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IIL 



times, he fays, that God ivinkcd, by which, I underftand, he means, 

 that he allowed men to go on in tliis grofs idolatry, as they 

 were then capable of no better religion. But now be commandeth 

 all men every -where to repent^ that is, to renounce their idola- 

 trous religion, and to receive a better. And, accordingly, in this 

 fpeech, St Paul gives the Athenians a fyftem of genuine theifm, tel- 

 ling: them, that there was one God that made the world and all 

 things therein, feeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dweUcth 

 not in temples made with hands, neither is worf dipped with mens 

 hands, as though he fieeded any thing, feeing he givcth to all life, and 

 breath, and all things ; and hath made of one blood all nations of men, 

 for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the 

 times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation ; that they 

 fhouldfeek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find himy 

 though he be not far from every one of us : For in him we live, and 

 move, and have our being ; as certain alfo of your own poets have 

 [aid. For we are alfo his offspring. Forafnuch then as we are the 

 offspring of God, ive ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto 

 gold, or fiver, or flone graven by art and mans device. Of this 

 God it appears, that even the vulgar, and thofe of the popular reli- 

 gion in Athens, had fome idea; for St Paul informs us, that they had 

 ereded an altar, with this infcription, to the unknown cod, who, 

 St Paul fays, was the God that he declared unto thtm. 



Having laid down in this manner the general principles of The- 

 ifm, he favs nothing of the particular dodrines of Chriftianity except 

 in one verfe*, where he fays, that God hath appointed a day in the 

 which he will judge the world in rightcoufnefs , by that man whom 

 he hath ordained; whereof he hath given affurance unto all men, in 

 that he bath raifed him fro7n the dead. And here St Paul tells us, 

 that when they heard of the refurredlion of the ditzA,fome mocked, and 



others 



* Afts of the Apoftles, chap. 17. v, 31, 



