wherein all the reason and philosophy of atheism is confuted, and

Chap. IV* The Pagan Theogonia how tnijlahen. 239alfo all the other things of nature, fiditioufly perfonated and deified, orabufively called gods and goddeffes.Neither was this only the doftrine of the Greeks, that the world wa? thusmade or generated, and that the generation of the world was a Theogonia,or a generation of gods, (the world itfelf and its feveral parts being accountedfuch by them) but alfo in like manner of the other Barbarian pagans.For Diogenes Laertius hath recorded concerning the Perfian Magi, /« Trocem. p.dTTo(px'in^xi Trip! Ti iirlxi; S-£w!/ x^ yvAiria^, »V xj v\jp i'.vy.i y^ y-tiv t^ ii}cc^ '" T/m! they 2-did both ajjert the being and generaticn of gods, and alfo that thefe gods werefire, and earth and water ; that is, that the animated elements were gods,(as Proclus alfo before declared) and that thefc, together with the world,were generated, or had a beginning. And both Laertius and Diodorus re- J" the Ter/iajprefent it as the opinion of the ancient £g-^/)//(2»j, that the world was ge- ^^.^X' '^ojtnerated,or had a temporary produdtion -, as alfo, that the fun and moon, c;vk iya-tiinand other parts of the world, were gods. But whereas the fame DzWo;'?ij-„^7aVa^Vwrites of certain ^P'rw/aM gods, o» Vfvsajv alSm i'^r.y.oTs;, which had an eter- )*""'''"£ h /""Snal generation ; he feems to mean thereby only the celeflial gods, the fun, (-,. «. the c'ofmoonand ftars, as diftindl from thofe other heroes and men-sods, which mogoma.jHfoi.. . r -• \ \ tn C-IO. fit I'iZtare again thus defcribed by him: oi S-uviToi C-n-xf^xvli;, tJia Si c-j-jiaiv >t, xoimu j^Lib. i. p. 55.]m\6ouVwv eiji^yio-ixv, T£Tuj^»i)toT£c T)jj aS-aiyoKTiaj : who, though naturally mortal, yet, byreafon of their wifdom, virtue and beneficence toward mankind, had been advancedto immortality.And by this time we think it doth fufficiently appear, that the Theogoniaof the ancients is not to be underftood merely of their heroes and mengods,or of all their gods, as fuppofed to have been nothing elfe but mortalmen, (Dii mortalibus nati matribus, as Cctta \n Cicero'- fpcaks) who,according to the more vulgar fignification of the word, had been generated,(humane more) as fome, otherwife learned men, have feemed to fuppofebut that it extends to all the inferior Pagan gods, fome whereof were partsof the vifible world animated, as the fun, moon, ftars and earth : fo thattheir Theogonia was the very fame thing with the Cofmogonia, or at leafta part thereof. Notwithflanding which, we deny not, but that there wasalfo in the paganick fables of the gods a certain mixture of hiflory and herologyinterferted, and complicated all along together with phyfiology.We are, in the next place, to obferve, that both this Theogonia andCofmogonia of the ancient Pagans, their generation of the world and gods,is to be underftood of a temporary produflion of them, whereby they weremade e'jc f*>i ovrau, or from an antecedent non-exiftence brought into being.For this was the general tradition amongft the Pagans, that the world wasmade out of an antecedent chaos, as fhall be afterwards further declared.And Jrijlotle' affirmeth, that before his time, this genefis and temporaryproduftion ot the world had been univerfally entertained by all, and par-I i ticularly' Vide etiam Herodot. Hift. Lib. I. Cap. p. 3075. Tom. IX. Oper,CXXXI. p. 55.3 De Ccelo, Lib. L Cap. X. p. 632. Tom. L^ De Natur. Deor. Lib. Ilf. Cap. XVIII. Oper.