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

5-4^ '^he Platonifis Super-Mundane B o k I.they ought to be called, left they violate the true God, whofe vame is profaned,when it is given to many. From which pafTages of LaHantius it plainly appeareth,that the main controverfy between the Chriftians and the Pagans wasthen only this, Whether or no, the created minifters of the fupreme God might becalled gods, and religioujly iziorjhipped. But this Pagan objeft ion again il the iblitaryDeity of the Chriftians is by fome ancient Chiftian writers alfo otherwifeanfwered ; namely, from thofe three hypofbafes or perfons of the trinity ;tliey affirming upon that account, that though Chriftians did not acknowledgefuch a multitude of gods as the Pagans, yet did they not thereforemake God a fohtary and fteril being, before tlie creation neither, as theJews did ; but went in a middle way betwixt Jews and Pagans, they interpretingMofes alfo his faciamus horninem, to this izwi^.XXXVI. We fliallnow fhew particularly what thefe many gods of the Paganswere. It hath been often obferved, that the Pagans were divided intheirpliilofophicli or natural theology, as to their opinions concerning thefupreme God ; fome of them thinking, ro ©srov £g*)p-/i,u=i-ov nyai tJ?? oM^ (puVsaf,that the fupreme Deity was an ahftraSi being, elevated above nature and the•whole world ; but others, that he was nothing higher than an anima mundi,ov foul of the world. Now the former of thefe two were chiefly amongftthe Greeks, the Pythagoreans and the Platonifts, who had accordingly feveraldiftindlions amongft them concerning their gods, as between the ^TrspjioV/xioibi'-A and the t/JwV/^Ki, the fiper-mundane and the mundane gods ; the S-£oi iiSm andthe j/Evur.Toi, the eternal zxxdi. the generated gods -, that word latter being now takenin a narrower and more conlined fenfe, for fuch as were made in time, or had'a beginning of their exiifence : and iaftly, the vojitoI SeoI and the «i(&;irc), theintelligible and \ht fenfible gods. And the uVEfitoV/^ioi, uiSmand ^lorirol ^lo), fupcrmundane,eternal, and intelligible gods, of thtk Pythagoreans and Platonifts,were lirft of all, and principally, thofe T^;iV '^-px"'-"'''^'^T'^a-it;, (as Plotinus calbthem) thofe three divine hypcftafes, that have the nature of principles in theuniverfe, viz. Tagathon or Hen, Nous and Pfyche, or Monad, Mind and Soul..That this trinity was not firft of all a meer invention of Plato's,, but much ancienterthan him, is plainly affirmed by Plotinus in thefe words; Kxl sSai ts? ao-F.n •). I. I. ly^q TuaSi i^n ;c«»v!!f, f^ri il djv, txAXa, •sraAy-i fj.h eipriSiix.t [An c.vxTrnr1x[ji.ivic;, rig et in^v Aooo^Jic'That thefe. do^rines are not new, nor of yefterday, but have been very.anciently delivered, though obfcur.ely {the difcourfes now extant, being but explicationsof them] appears from Plato'j own writings j Parmenides before hint.having infifled o>i them..Now it is well known, tiiat Parmenides was addiifted to ths Pythagorickfe