Chap. VI. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 47 



have been inconfiftcnt with that fyftem, if it had not been likewife 

 the one in the many^ and the many In the one. Why the many are 

 not of fuch number in the Trinity as in the other parts of the uni- 

 verfe, I think I have given a very good reafon *. As, therefore, 

 the relation of the One and the Many goes through the vs^hole fyf- 

 tem of beings in the univerfe, beings divine as well as others, it is 

 evident that the fyftem of the univerfe is the moft uniform, and 

 in that refped the moft compleat fyftem that can be imagined. How 

 compleat it is in other refpcds I fliall afterwards ftiow. 



I will only fay further, upon the fubjedl of the Trinity, that it is 

 fo neceflarily connected with the being of a God, that we cannot con- 

 ceive a God without the principles of Intelligence and Vitality being 

 eflential parts of his nature, and that it appears to have been believed 

 by every nation who had what can be called a fyftem of religion. It 

 was a part of the religion of the Jews in the time of Mofes, though 

 it was not revealed or explained to them as it was by our Saviour to 

 his Difciples : For it is obferved, by thofe learned in the Hebrew lan- 

 guage, that in the account of the creation given by Mofes, where he 

 fpeaks of God doing any thing, though the word exprefling God is in 

 the fmgular number, thereby denoting the unity of the Godhead, 

 the verb is in the plural number; and even in our Englifh tranflation, 

 God fays, " Let us make man after our own image,." It was alfo 

 the religion of Egypt, where Plato learned it : And it is at this day 

 the religion of the Bramins of India, as I have ftiown in volume 4th 

 of this work f ; where I mention a type which they have of the 

 Trinity, and which I do not think an improper one, viz. a triangle 

 infcribed in a circle, reprefenting the three in one and the'one in three. 

 It is alfo the doctrine of the religion of the Lama's, the moft uni- 

 verfal religion in the eaftern parts of Afia %. This dodrine appears 



alfo 

 • Vol. 5. p. 193. t P- 292. 



\ Parfon's Remains of Jiphet, p. 205. 



