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

'24-6 Tagans both 7%eogo?ttJ}s BookLTo thofe he added fprings, ponds, lakes immenfe.,And rivers ishom their winding borders fence."Where though that learned paraphrafl: fuppofed (and not without fome probabilityneither) that Tieus l^ melior natura, God and the letter nature, wereone and the felf-fame thing, yet we rather conceived them to be diflin61, butone of them fubordinate to the other as its inftrument, God and the plafticknature ; accordingly as Arijlotle •writes in his Phyficks, N^u? >cai ^'o-i? c'l-tov rojj'eTou Trxvio;, That mind and nature were both together the caufe of this univcrfe.Neverthelefs, we cannot but ob'ferve in this place, that though that poet fpeaksmore than once of God fingularly, as alfo calls him mundifabricator, and ille opifexrerum, and mundi nielioris origo; yet notwithdanding, where he writes ofthe making of man. Pagan-like, he affirms him, though to have been made byGod, yet according to the imageor likenefsof the gods, which govern all things,San£lius his animal, mentifqite capacius alta,Deerat adhiu, (J quod dominari in cetera poffet \Natus homo eft : Jive hunc divino femine fecit,Ille opifex rerum, mundi melioris origo :Sive recens tellus, feduBatiue nuper ab altoyEthere, cognati retinebat fcmina emit. \i^am fatus -lapeto, mifiani fluvialibus undis,]Finxit in effigiem nwderantilm cun£ia deorum.The nobler being, with a mind poffefi,IVas wanting yet, that fljould command the reji.That maker, the befi world's original.Either him fram'd of feed celejiialOr earth., which late he did from heaven divide.Some facred feeds retain'd to heaven allied :IVhich with the living flream Prometheus mixt,And in that artificial Jtruiiure fixtThe form of all the all-ruling deities.And becaufe fome may probably be puzzled widithis fceming contradiftion,that one God fliould be faid to be the maker of the whole world and of man,and yet the government of all fliould be attributed to gods plurally, andman laid to be made in the image and likencfs of the gods ; we fliall thereforeadd here, that according to the tenor of the Pagan theology, the inferiorand minor gods were fuppofed alio to have all of them their fevcral fhare inthe government of things below them : for which caufe they are called not onlyby Maximus Tyrius ' tjix^-xovIh; Siu, co-rulers with Cod, but alfo by Plato himlelf,TM f/.fj/i'r-w (fai/y-ovi o-uva^;^ov7f?, the co-govemors and co-reigners with the fupremeCod. So that the government of this inferior world was by the Pagansoften attributed to them jointly, the fupremc and inferior gods both together,under that one general name of gods. But the chief of thofe inferiordeities, in whofc image man is alfo faid to have been made, as well as in thelikcnefs of the fupreme, v/cre either thofe celeftial gods and animated ll^ars beforemirntioned by the poet, or elle the ett.rnal gods of Plato, which were look'dupon likewife as co-makers of the world fubordinate.Befides'Djfferwt. I. p. 5, Edit, Lugd. 1631. 8vo.