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

whichChap. IV. tthers^ tie Towngefl God. ^ygpounded of plenty and poverty, was in plain language no other than the loveof defire, which, as^^rijiotk affirmeth, is [j.it£ x'^tty,;^ accompanied with grief andpain. But that Orphick and Pythagorick love was notiiing elfe but trosa; andfuVopi'^r, infinite riches and plenty, a love of redundancy and overflowing fulnefs,delighting to communicate itfilf which was therefore laid to be the oideft ofall things and the mod perfecV, that is, the fupreme Deity ; according towhich notion alfo, in the Scripture it felf, God feems to be called love, thoughthe word be not there s/im?, but oiyx-nn. But to fay the truth, Parmenides hislove (however made a principle fomewhere by Arifiotle ') feems to be neithercxadly the fame with the Orphick, nor yet with the Platonick love, it beingnot the fupreme Deity, and yet the firft of the created gods -, appearsfrom Simplicitis'- his conneding thefe two verfes of his together in this manner:In the midfl of thefe elements is that God, which governcth all things, and whothParmenides affirmeth to be the caufe of gods, ns.riting thus ; God firft of all createdLove, before the other gods. Wherefore by this love of Parmenides isunderftood nothing elfe, but the lower foul of the world, together with aplaftick nature, which though it be the original of motion and activity in thiscorporeal world, yet is it but a fecondary or created god ; before whofe production,neceffityis faid by thofe Ethnick theologers to have reigned: thetrue meaning whereof feems to be this, thit before that divine fpirit movedupon the waters, and brought things into an orderly fyftem, there was nothingbut the necefllty of material motions, unguided by any orderly wifdom ormethod for good (that is, by love) in that confufed and floating chaos.But Pythagoras, it feemeth, did not only call the fupreme Deity a Monad,but alfo a Tetrad or Tetraftys-, for it is generally affirmed, that Pythagorashimfelf was wont to fwear hereby ; though Porphyrins and Jamhlichiis andothers write, that the difciples di Pythagoras fwore by Pythagoras, who haddelivered to them the docflnne or Cabala of this Tetradys. Which Tetradlysalfo in the golden verfes is called T:^yr\ asv-jan (puVfc-f, the fountain of the eternalnature, an expreffion, tJiat cannot properly belong to any thing but the fupremeDeity, And thus Hierocles ', xV. friu fiVtiv S jj-r, ri; TilfxyJ'j^^, u? pt^-i;, >^ ^^y/iiT? spanV, xx\ aitSjiT? ©£«• There is nothing in the 'vjhole vjorld, which doth notdepend upon the TetraSlys, as its root and principle. Fcr the Tetrad is, as wehave already faid, the maker of all things; the intelligible God, the caufe of theheavenly andfenfible God, that is., of the animated world or heaven. Now thelatter Pythagoreans and Platonifts endeavour to give reafons» why God fiiouldbe called Tetras or Tetraftys, from certain mylleries in that number four, asC c cfor• Phyficor. Lib. I. cap. II. III. p. 44^. * Commenrar. in Ariftot. Phyf. p. 15.?..Tom. I.'Opei-. Addc Mctaph. Lib. I. cap. V. Edit. Grsec. Aldin.^z(i). 5 Commeit, in Aurca Cu.mina PyJwg- p.i;0, 171.