time and if not in time, then in none of the differences of time past, present, or to come; therefore we cannot say that it was, is, or will be. But nevertheless it is admitted in the same Parmenides, that ro vov is every where present to rov; that is, instead of a temporary succession of moments, there is one eternal now, ór punctum stans, as it is termed by the schoolmen."

ΤΟ

352. The simplicity of rov (the father in the Pythagoric and Platonic trinity) is conceived such as to exclude intellect or mind, to which it is supposed prior; and that hath created a suspicion of atheism in this opinion for, saith the learned Doctor Cudworth, shall we say that the first hypostasis or person is avove and aλoyos, senseless and irrational, and altogether devoid of mind and understanding? or would not this be to introduce a kind of mysterious atheism? To which it may be answered, that whoever acknowledgeth the universe to be made and governed by an eternal mind, cannot be justly deemed an atheist.* And this was the tenet of those ancient philosophers. In the Platonic doctrine, the generation of the vous or λóyos was not contingent but necessary, not temporary but from everlasting. There never was a time supposed wherein ro v subsisted without intellect, the priority having been understood only as a priority of order or conception, but not a priority of age. Therefore, the maintaining a distinction of priority between To Ev and vous doth not infer that the one ever existed without the other. It follows, therefore, that the father or rò ev may, in a certain sense, be said to be avove without atheism, or without destroying the notion of a Deity any more than it would destroy the notion of a human soul, if we should conceive a distinction between self and intellect, or intellect and life. To which we may farther add, that it is a doctrine of Platonics, and agrees with their master's tenets, to say that ro ev, or the first hypothesis, contains all excellence and perfec

*Sect. 154. 276. 279. 287.

tion, whereof it is the original source, and is more eminent, as the schools speak, intellect and life, as well as goodness; while the second hypostasis is essentially intellect, and by participation goodness and life; and the third, life essentially, and by participation goodness and intellect.

353. Therefore, the whole being considered, it will not seem just, to fix the imputation of atheism upon those philosophers, who held the doctrine of ro Ev; whether it be taken in an abstracted or collective, a metaphysical or merely vulgar, meaning ;* that is, whether we prescind unity from essence and intellect, since metaphysical distinctions of the Divine attributes do not in reality divide them; or whether we consider the universal system of beings as one, since the union, connexion, and order, of its members, do manifestly infer a mind or intellect to be cause thereof.

354. The one or rov may be conceived either by composition or division. For as, on the one hand, we may say the world or universe is one whole or one animal; so we may, on the other hand, consider to ev by division or abstraction, as somewhat in the order of things prior to mind. In either sense there is no atheism, so long as mind is admitted to preside and direct the animal; and so long as the unum or ro v is supposed not to exist without mind.† So that neither Heraclitus, nor Parmenides, nor Pythagoras, nor Plato, neither the Egyptians nor Stoics, with their doctrine of a Divine whole or animal, nor Xenophanes with his Ev Kai Tav, are justly to be accounted atheists. Therefore modern atheism, be it of Hobbes, Spinosa, Collins, or whom you will, is not to be countenanced by the learning and great names of antiquity.

355. Plato teacheth, that the doctrine concerning the one or unit is a means, to lead and raise the mind to the knowledge of him who truly is. And it is a tenet both of Aristotle and Plato, that identity is a certain * Sect. 300. + Sect. 287, 288. Sect. 294, 295.

unity. The Pythagoreans also, as well as the Platonic philosophers, held unum and ens to be the same. Consistently with which, that only can be said to exist which is one and the same. In things sensible and imaginable, as such, there seems to be no unity, nothing that may be called one, prior to all act of the mind; since they being in themselves aggregates, consisting of parts or compounded of elements, are in effect many. Accordingly it is remarked by Themistius, the learned interpreter of Aristotle, that to collect many notions into one, and to consider them as one, is the work of intellect and not of sense or fancy.

1

356. Aristotle himself, in his third book of the Soul, saith it is the mind that maketh each thing to be one, τὸ δὲ ἕν ποιοῦν τούτο ὁ νοῦς ἕκαστον. How this is done, Themistius is more particular, observing, that as being conferreth essence, the mind by virtue of her simplicity conferreth simplicity upon compounded beings. And, indeed, it seemeth that the mind, so far forth as person, is individual, therein resembling the Divine one by participation, and imparting to other things what itself participates from above. This is agreeable to the doctrine of the ancients, however the contrary opinion of supposing number to be an original primary quality in things, independent of the mind, may obtain among the moderns.

357. The Peripatetics taught, that in all divisible things there was somewhat indivisible, and in all.compounded things somewhat simple. This they derived from an act of the mind. And neither this simple indivisible unit, nor any sum of repeated units, consequently no number can be separated from the things themselves and from the operation of the mind. Themistius goeth so far as to affirm, that it cannot be separated from the words or signs; and, as it cannot be uttered without them, so saith he, neither can it be con

*Sect. 345, 346, 347.

ceived without them. Thus much upon the whole may be concluded, that distinct from the mind and her operations, there is in created beings neither unit nor number.

358. Of inferior beings the human mind, self, or person, is the most simple and undivided essence.* And the supreme Father is the most perfect one. Therefore the flight of the mind towards God is called by the Platonics φυγὴ μόνον πρὸς μόνον. The supreme Being, saith Plotinus, as he excludes all diversity, is ever alike present. And we are then present to him, when, recollected and abstracted from the world and sensible objects, we are most free and disengaged from all variety. He adds, that in the institution of the supreme Deity the soul finds her wished-for end and repose; which that philosopher calls awaking out of his body into himself.

359. In the tenth book of the Arcane, or Divine Wisdom of the Egyptians, we are taught that the supreme Being is not the cause of any created thing; but that he produced or made the Word; and that all created beings were made by the Word, which is accordingly styled the Cause of all causes: and that this was also the doctrine of the Chaldeans. Plato, likewise, in his letter to Hermias, Erastus, and Coriscus, speaks of God, the ruler and cause of all things, as having a father: and, in his Epinomis, he expressly teacheth that the Word or Aoyos made the world. Accordingly Saint Augustine, in his commentary on the beginning of Saint John's Gospel, having declared that Christ is the wisdom of God by which all things were made, observes that this doctrine was also found in the writings of philosophers, who taught that God had an only begotten Son by whom are all things.

360. Now, though Plato had joined with an imagination the most splendid and magnificent, an intellect

not less deep and clear; yet it is not to be supposed, that either he or any other philosophers of Greece or the east, had by the light of nature obtained an adequate notion of the holy Trinity, nor even that their imperfect notion, so far as it went, was exactly just; nor perhaps that those sublime hints, which dart forth like flashes of light in the midst of a profound darkness, were originally struck from the hard rock of human reason; but rather derived, at least in part, by a Divine tradition from the author of all things.* It seems a remarkable confirmation of this, what Plotinus observed in his fifth Æneid, that this doctrine of a Trinity, father, mind, and soul, was no late invention, but an ancient tenet.

361. Certain it is, that the notion of a Trinity is to be found in the writings of many old heathen philosophers, that is to say, a notion of three Divine hypostases. Authority, light, and life, did, to the eye of reason, plainly appear to support, pervade, and animate, the mundane system or macrocosm. The same appeared in the microcosm, preserving soul and body, enlightening the mind, and moving the affections. And these were conceived to be necessary universal principles, coexisting and co-operating in such sort as never to exist asunder, but on the contrary to constitute one sovereign of all things. And, indeed, how could power or authority avail or subsist without knowledge? or either without life and action?

362. In the administration of all things there is authority to establish, law to direct, and justice to execute. There is first the source of all perfection, or fons Deitatis; secondly, the supreme reason, order, or Aoyós ; and lastly, the spirit which quickens and inspires. We are sprung from the Father, irradiated or enlightened by the Son, and moved by the Spirit. Certainly, that there is Father, Son, and Spirit; that these bear analogy to the

* Sect. 298. 301.