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

whichChap. IV. to Material than to Mental Caufes, 0^^%in it;) but thinking to find out «/7 Atlas far more ftrong and immortal, andwhich can better held all things together \ to y-d^ a.y^'.'-oj ax't to Stoj, n'Jsu ^vjirjxxl ^vAx,(ij' Good and fit, being not able, in their opinionj, to hold., or bind anything.From which paffage of Plato's we may concKide, that though Aiiaxagoraswas fo far convinced of Theifm, as in profefTion to make one inliiilte Mindthe caufe of all things, matter only excepted ; yet he had notwithftanding toogreat a tang of that old material and atheiftical philofophy of his predeceifors,ftill hanging about him, who refolved all the phenomena of nature intophyfical, and nothing into mental or final caufes. And we have the rathertold this long ftory of him, becaufe it is fo exaft a parallel with the philofo-.phick humour of fome in this prefent age, who pretending to alTert a God,do notwithftanding difcard all mental and final caufality from having anything to do with the fabrick of,the world ; and rel'olve all into material neceflityand mcchanifm, into vortices, globuli and ftriate particles, and thelike. Of which Chriftian philofophers we muft needs pronounce, that theyare not near fo good Theifts as Anaxagoras himfelf was, though fo muchcondemned by Plato and Arifiotle ; forafmuch as he did not only aflfert Godto be the caufe of motion, but alfo the governour, regulator, and methodizerof the fame, for the produdion of this harmonious fyftem of theworld, and therefore T? {7 xKi KJiAwj «i'ti'2;v, the caufe of itell and fit. Whereasthefe utterly rejcft the latter, and only admitting the former, will needs fuppofeheaven and earth, plants and animals, and all things whatlbever in thisorderly compages of the world, to have refulted meerly from a certain quantityof motion, or agitation, at firft: impreffed upon the matter, and determin'dto vortex.XXXI. The chronology of the old philofophers havingfome uncertaintyin it, we fliall not fcrupuloudy concern ourfelves therein, but in the n-xtplace confider Parmenides, Xcnophanes his auditor, and a philofophick poetlikewife, but who converfing much with two Pythagoreans, Amenias andDiochcetes, was therefore look'ci upon as one, that was not a little addicted tothe Pythagorick fed. That this Parmenides acknowledged many Gods, isevident from what has been already cited out of him -, notwithftanding which,he plainly aflerted alfo one fupreme, making him, as Smplicius tells us,aiTiav S-fwu, the caufe of all thofe other gods, of which Love is laid to have beenfirft produced. 'Which fupreme Deity Parmenides, as well as Xcnophanes.,called, v) TO TTxv, one that zvas all, or the univerfe ; but adding thereunto of hisown, that it was alfo «)ci'i>;tov, immo%'able.Now though it be true, that Parmenides his writings being not withoutobfcurity, fome of the ancients, who were lefs acquainted with metaphyficalIpeculations, underftood him phyfically ; as if he had afierted the whole corporealuniverfe to be all but one thing, and that immoveable, thereby deftroying,together with the divcrfity of things, all motion, mutation andaction -,was plainly to make Parmenides not to have been a philofopher,but a mad man : yet Siniplkius, a man well acquainted with theD d dopinions