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

Chap. IV. Old Egyptian Philofophy. 327pre-exiftence and tranfmigration of ibuis,) at once from the Eg}'ptians. ButIt is obfervable, that the Egyptians had alfo a pecuhar ground of their ownfor this Dogma fwhich we do not find infifted upon by the Greek philofophers)and it is thus exprelFed in the eighth of Ficiatis his Plermetick booksor chapters Jel SiiT(.^ ^'Zov d^xvxlo-j^ a.iJvxTOv li-i Td ix.^xvxrIe, that any part of this immortal animal JJjottld perijhor come to nothing ; but all things in the ivorld are parts of this great mundaneanimal, and chiefly man, ivho is a rational animal. Which fame notionwe find alfo infifted on in the Afclcpian dialogue ; Secundum deum hunccrede, 6 Afclepi, omnia guberr.antem, cmniaque mundava illuftrantt>n animalia.Si enim animal, mundus, vivens, femper £5? fuit i^ eft ^ erit, nihil /«mundo mortale eft : viventis enim uniufcujufque partis, qu^ in ipfo mundo, ficiitin uno eodemque animale femper vivcnte, nullus eft mortalitatis locus. Wherethough the Latin be a httle imperfedl, yet the fenfe is this ; Tou are to believethe ivorld, Afclepius, to be a fecondgod governing all things, and illuftratingall mundane animals. Noiv if the world be a living animal, and immortal ;then there is nothing mortal in it, there being no place for mortality as to ayyliving part or member of that mundane animal, that always liveth. Notwitiirtandingwhich, we deny not, but that though Pythagoras firf!: derived thisnotion from the Egyptians, yet he and his followers might probably improvethe fame farther (as Plato tells us, that the Greeks generally did what theyreceived from the Barbarians) namely to the taking away the qualities andforms of bodies, and reiblving all corporeal things into magnitude, figureand motion. But that there is indeed Ibme of the old Egyptian learning,contained in thefe Trifmcgiftick books now extant, fhall be clearly proved afterwards,when we come to fpeak of that grand myftery of the Egyptiantheology (derived by Orpheus from them) that God is all. To coi.clude,Jamblichus his judgment in this cafe ought without controverfy to be farpreferred before Cafaubofi's, both by reafon of his great antiquity, and his beingmuch better skilled, not only in the Greek, but alfo the Egyptian learning;that the books imputed to Hermes Trifmegft did 'Epaaixj;? znfiyjn 00 -xi;,really contain the Hermaick opinions, though they fpake fometimes the languageof the Greek philolbphers.Wherefore, upon all thefe confiderations, we conceive it reafonable to conclude,that though there have been fome Hermaick books counterfeited byChrifl:ian5, fince Jamblichus his time, as namely the P