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

Chap. IV. Trinity^ Creatures. eyjfuch a 'iiature, as is not inclinable to/ink^ or lapfe downward. A certain feparatefubjiance, which doth not at all partake of matter^ as the fable intimated,when it called it motherlefs ; and therefore may it well be flyled by us, not a demon,but a god. Whence it comes to pafs, that this foul can never fall, it beingmuch more clofely united and conneSed with that immoveable Mind or Intelleit,than that light, which is circumfufed about the fun, is conneSed with thefun. This Venus, therefore following Chronus, or rather thefather of Chronus,Uranus, ailing towards it, and being enamoured with it, begat love, XotiH-^ ottjtEPjJiU TW yup^'l'J 'kiym-nq. Tin Trpuru; lWx[jL7r>i(jXV ria vpsc-r^', yuet—o-j }^tov taorxtStov 5mojj.e()(ii. Moreover, as we call this foul it felf feparate, fo is thislove of it, or begotten by it, a feparate love. After which, he ipeaks ofanother foul of the worJd, which is not feparate from it, but clofely conjoinedtherewith, he calling it a lower Venus and Love ; namely, that otherVenus, which in the fable is faid to have been begotten from Jupiter himfelf(die fuperior foul of the world) and Dione, a watry nymph. We concludetherefore, that though this lower mundane foul, might, according toPlato, have a temporary produflion together with the world, or before it ;yecthat other fuperiour and moft divine Ibul, which Plotinus calis the heavenlyVenus and Love, the fon of Chronus without a mother, and which was trulythe third hypoftafis oi Plato's trinity, was eternal, and without beginning.And thus, according to the forementioned principle of Athanafius, none ofthefe three hypoftafes of Plato''s trinity were creatures, but all of them divineand uncreated.Which to make yet more evident, we fhall further obfcrve, firft, thatPlato himfelf, in that fccond epiftle of his to Dicnyfius, after he had mentionedhis firft, fecond and third; that is, his trinity of divine hypoftafes, immediatelyfubjoins thefe words : 'H i-j dv^^uviv^ -j iS\)i iitaii/w; ep^fi' t» Si fixTiXiu;TTiOi, it, 5\i elwov, ^Siv Tc»»To" 'The mind of man (as parturient,) has always agreat dcfire to know what thefe things are, and to that end does it look uponthings cognate to it, which are all infuffcimt, imperfect and heterogeneous.But in that King of all things, and in the other, fecond and third, which I[pake of, there is nothing of this kind ; tlaat is, nothing like to thefe createdthings.Secondly, the three hypoftafes of P/rt/(?'s trioity are.not only all eternal,but alfo neceflarily e'xiften:, and abfolutcly undeftroyable. for the .firft ofthem can no more exift without the fecond, nor the tirft- and iecor.d withoutthe third, tlian original light can exift without its fpkndour, coruication, orefifulgency. And Plotinus, writing againlb fome Gnofticks in his time, whowould make more of thefe divine hypoftafes, or principles, than three, concludes,that there can be neither more of theui, nor fewer, in this manner ;»' TOi'vuv Su i(p STffa? '^^XP'-^iiva«, a.XKx tsto t! p-3TV,/rji/AiUif-:, EiVsa isv ^ust' csUto >^ £n,i. / r^.c.i.£V Tu voriTiJ, l^riTl iK-lrlta' f'lTc ya.o iXxrliAi, n '\"^'X2''' 'S>"^^ rx;jxa Cf->iff«