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

5i6 Hds Pagan iJjeolog^rs appt-oving Book I.thing but God himfelf vifibly difplayed. And thus was God worfliippcdby the Pagans, in the v/ho!e corporeal world t.iken all at once together, orin the univcrf.-, under the name of Pan. As they alfo commonly conceivedof Zeus and Jupiter., after the fiime manner ; that is, not abftrailly only(as we now ufe to conceive of God) but concretely, together with all thatwhich proceedeth and emaneth from him, that is, the whole world. Andas God was thus defcribed in that olfl Egyptian monument, to be all thatwas, is, and pall be ; fo was it bef)re obferved out of Plutarch, that theEgyptians took the firft God, and the univerfe, for one and the lamething ; not only becaufe they fuppofed the fupreme God virtually to containall things within himfelf, but alfo bccaule they were wont to conceiveof him, together with his overflowing, and all the extent of his fecundity,the whole world difplayed from him, all at once, as one entire thing.DiLeg.l.y. "phijs likewife do the Pagans in Plato confound tom jj-iyt-uv ^tov, and oAopf' «2i. ^^ ii6Q[j.ov, the greaieji Cod, and the whole zvo-rtd together, as beingL 6 b 6i'-"^^ °"^ ^"'^ '•''^ fame thing. And this notion was fo familiar witlithefe Pagans, that Strabo himfelf, writing of Mofes, could not conceiveof his God, and of the God of the Jews, any otherwife than thus,TO •arfflijp^ou >)|««f aT3"£);v7«?, jtj ym., Xj ioiXocrlccv, o y.xXufjL^v xpxwv xxl xoo-juov,xai rriv tuv oAa-v cp'.Vii', namely, that which containcth us all, and the earthand the fea, which we call the heaven and world, and the nature of the whole.By which notwithftanding, Strabo did nor mean the heaven or world inanimate,and a fenfelefs nature, but an underftanding Being, framing thewhole world, and containing the fame, which was conceived togetherwit:h it : of which therefore he tells us, that, according to hlojes^ no wifeman would go about to make any image or picture, rcfembling any thinghere amongtl us. From whence we conclude, that when the fame5/raho', writing of the Perfians, affirmeth cf them, that they did tok i^y.:i.v,yi\^xi AiV-, take the heaven for Dp'itcr ;J and alfo Herodotus'- before him, thatthey did xuxAou -axvlx tk izx^i Ai« -KcXiTv, call the who'e circle of theheaven Jupiter, that is, the fupreme God ; the meaning of neither ofthem was, that the body of the heaven inanimate was to them the higheftGod, but that though he were an underftanding nature, yet framing thewhole heaven or world, and containing the fame, he was at once conceivedtogether with it. Moreover, God was woifhippcd alio by the Pagans, inthefeveral parts of the world, under feveral names ; as for example, in thehigher and lower sther, under thofe names of Minerva and Jupiter ; in theair, under the name of J""" ; in the fire, under the name o( Vulcan ; inthe fea, under the uAme of Neptune, l£c. Neither -can it be reafonablydoubted, but that v/hen the Roman fea-captains ficrificcd to the waves,they intended therein to worfhip that God, who afteth in the waves, andwhofe wonders are in the deep.But befides this, the Pagans feemed to apprehend a kind of necefllty ofworfhipping God thus, in his works, and in the vifible things of thisworld, becaufe the generality of the vulgar were then unable to frame anynotion or conception at all of an invifible Deity ; and therefore unlefstheywere detained in a way of religion, by fuch a worfhip of God as was accommodatef Lib. XV. p. 697. ? Lib. I. Cap. CXXXI. p. 55.