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

Chap. IV. Theology^ that God is all things. 507What is God? he is all that you fee,and all that youfuum li extra i^ intra tenet :do not fee. And he alone is all things,he containing his own work not only withoutbut alfo within. Neither was this the doflrine only of thofe Pagans, whoheld God to be the foul of the world, and confcquently the whole animated•world to be the fupreme Deity, but of thofe others alfo, who conceived ofGod as an abftract mind, fuperior to the mundane foul, or rather as a firnpleMonad, fuperior to mind alfo j as thofe philofophers, Xenophanes, Parmenidesyand Melijfus, who defcribed God to be one and all things, they fuppofing,that, becaufe all things were from him, they mull needs have beenfirft in a manner in him, and himfelf all things. With which agreeth theauthor of the Afclepian Dialogue, when he maketh Unus omnia, and Creatoromnium. One all things, and the Creator of all things, to be but equivalentexpreffions -, and when he affirmeth, that before things were made. In eojam tunc erant, wide nafci habuerunt ; They then exifled in him, from whomafterwards they proceeded. So likewifethe otherTrifmegiftic books, when theygive this account of God's being both all things that are, and all things thatare not, roii/.h yx^ Svlx i(pxvi^uai, rx ii fj.^ oJl(x f'p^fi h Ixjtu, becaufe thofe things,that are, he hath manifijled from himfelf, and thofe things, that are not, heftill containeth within himfelf; or, as it is elfewhere exprelTed, he dothKfuVlfiv, hide them and conceal them in himfelf. And the Orphick verfes gavethis fame account likewife of God's being all things, RxAx to, Si xfu\|/«f, &c.iecaufe hefirfi concealed and hid them all within himfelf before they were made,and thence afterwardfrom himfelf difplayed them, and brought them forth intolight : or becaufebefore they were producedtthey were all contain'd together in the womb of God.Now this was not only a further ground of that feeming polytheifm amongftthe Pagans, which was really nothing but the polyonymy of one God, andtheir perfonating his feveral powers ; but alfo of another more ftrange andpuzzling phenomenon in their theology, namely, their perfonating alfo theparts of the world inanimate, and things of nature, and bellowing the namesof gods and goddefles upon them. It was before obferved out o^ Mofchopulus,that the Pagans didtill o'uo/xali TOT£ tw Sivxy-iv ix°^} '*'''' '''''' E'riraTBu')*"• ^^Q't«'tu S-foi/ ov;f*a^£tv, ca/l the things in nature, and the gods, which prejided overthem, by one and the fame name. As for example, they did not only callthe god, which prefideth over thofe arts that operate by fire, Hephafius orVulcan, but alfo j?r^ itfelf : and Demeter or Ceres was not only taken by themfor that god, who was fuppofed to give corn and fruits, but alfo for cornitfeif. So Dionyfus or Bacchus did not only fignify the god that givethwine, but alfo wine itfelf. And he inftancing further in Venus, and Minerva,und the Mufes, concludes the fame univ.rfaliy of all the reft. Thus^-S-[/'23^JArnobius, in his book againft the Pagans, in ufu fermonis vejlri, Martempre fugna a^peilatls pro aqua N.ptjnum, L.iberum Patrem pro vino. Cererem/ro p^'/c', M'lL.Lrvam pro Jlamine, pro obf^nis libidiaisYenerem. Nowwe will not ueny, UwC tliat tnis was fomccimes done mccoiiymically, the efficient