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

•588 PlatoV three Thpofiafcs Book I.an immoveable, inflexible, and unafleclible Deity, than to a fenfelefs adamantinerock. But thefc difficulties (as the Plaronifts pretend) are all removedby that third hypoflalis in their trinity-, which is a kind of moveabledeity. And thus are ail the piixnomena of the deity, or the different commonnotions in the minds of men concerning it, though feemingly repugnantand clafhing with one another, yet:, in their opinion, fairly reconciledand folvcd by this trinity of divine hypoftafes fubordinate.Laftly, they pretend alfo, that according to this hypothefis of theirs, theremay be fome reafonable fatisfaftion given to the mind of man, both whythere are fo many divine hypollafes, and why there could be no more : whereasaccording to other v/ays, it would feem to have been a mcer arbitrarybufinefs -, and that there might have been either but one folitary divine hypoftafis,or but a duality of them ; or elfe they might have been beyond atrinity,numberlefs.The fecond thing, which we fliall obferve concerning the moft genuine Platonicaland Parmenidian trinity, is this ; that though thefe philofophers fometimescalled their three divine hypoftafes, not only TpjHr (f>Vfjf, three natures^and three principles^ and three caufes, and three opijicers, but alfothree Gods, and a firfl;, and fecond, and third God ;yet did they often, forall that, fuppofe all thefe three to be really one im, one Divinity, or Nilmen.It hath been already proved from Origen and others, that the Platoniftsmoll commonly called the animated world the fecond God, though fome ofthem, as for example Nttmenius, ftylcd it the third God. Now thofe of them,who called the world the fecond God, attributed indeed (not more, but)lefs divinity to it, than thofe, who would have it to be the third God. Becaufethefe latter fuppofed, that foul of the world to be the third hypoflafisof their trinity; but the othertaking all thefe three divine hypoftafes together,for one fupreme and firft God, called the world the fecond God-, they fuppofingthe foul thereof to be another foul inferiour to that firft Pfyche, which wasproperly their third hypoftafis. Wherefore this was really all one, as if theyfhould have called the animated world the fourth God ; only by that otherway of reckoning, when they called it a fecond God, they intimated, thatthough thofe three divine hypoftafes were frequently called three gods, yetwere they notwithftanding, really all but one 3tw.', Divinity or Numen ; or,as Plotinns fpeaks, to eu tm zra-^l ^i7o'j, the divinity ivhich is in the ivhole tvorld.Thus when God is fo often fpoken of in Plato fingularly, the word is notalways to be underftood of the firft hypoftafis only, or the Tagathon, butmany times plainly of the tsTfUToi-, and Sil-n^'.-:, and TpiW, thtfrft, and/econdand //^fW all together ; or that whole divinity, which confifteth oris madeup of thefe three hypoftafes. And this will further appear from hence, becaufewhen the whole world is faid in Pltito to be the image of the eternalgods, as alfo by Plotinus, of the firft, fecond and third, by whom it is alwaysproduced anew, as the image in a glafs is -, this is not to be underftood,as if the world being tripartite, each tliird part thereof was feverally pro-1 duced