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

262 Pindar a divine Theogonijl. Book I.Unum Homimm, unum Deorum genus^Et ex una fpiramusMatre ulrique.1'here is one kind both of gods and men, and we both breathe from the famemother^ or fpring from the fame original. Where by the common morberboth of gods and men, the fcholiall iinderflands the earth and chaos, takingthe gods here for the inferiour deities only, and principally the ftars. 'This o^ Pindar'% therefore is to be underftood of all the other gods, thatthey were made as well as men out of the earth or chaos, but not of thatfopreine Deity, whom the fame Pindar elfewhere calls bfj-j xpi.-jf-on, thernojl pcwerful of the Gods, and tov wdvTuv kjjiou, the lord of all things, andCT«i;1i a'irm^ the caufe of every thing, and aptroTsp/vnv Ssov, that God who is theheft artificer, or was the framer of the whole world, and as Clemens Alexandrinustells us, * to tsxv, or the univerfe. "Which God alfo, according to Pindar,Chiron inftrudled Achilles to worfhip principally, above all the othergods._ , „ , , ,u«Aif« Uiv 'KcQ'jiSx'j'^Pyth. Od. 6,,'^ » ^ ,[p. 260 1 Bscj-voTTav, rifOTTixv xipaiviov ts Jr^uraviv,The fenfe of which words is thus declared by the fcholiaft, e^ajptru? tdv 1/.1.ci^tBai. That he fhould honour and worflnp the loud-founding }\i^\itT, the lordcf thunder and lightning, tranfcendently above all the other gods. Which bythe way confutes the opinion of thofe, who contend, that the fupreme God, asfuch, was not at all worlhipped by the Pagans.However, this is certain concerning thefe three. Homer, Hefiod, and Pindar,that they mufl of neceffity either have been all abfolute Atheifts, inacknowledging no eternal Deity at all, but making fenfelefs Chaos, Night andthe Ocean, the original of all their gods without exception, and thereforeof Jupiter himfelf too, that king and father of them ; or elfe aflert one onlyeternal unmade felf-exifhent deity, fo as that all the other gods were generatedor created by that one. Which latter doubtlefs was their genuinefenfe ; and the only reafon, why Ariflotle and Plato might poflibly fometimehave a fufpicion of the contrary, feems to have been this, their not underftandingthat Mofaick Cabala, which both Hefiod and Homer followed, ofthe world's, that is, both heaven and earth's, being made at firft out of awatry chaos ; for thus is the tradition declared by St. Peter, ep. II. ch. 3.There might be feveral remarkable pafTages to the fame purpofe, producedout of thofe two tragick poets, JEfchylus and Sophocles ; which yet,« Vide Clement. Alexand. Stromat. Lib. V. p. 710, * Ibid. p. 725.btcaufe they have been already cited by Jujlin Martyr, Clemens Alexandrinusy