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sensation we cali heat. And Plotinus, in the si xth book of his secondAEneid, observes that . heat and other qualities a re not qualities in thothings them lues, but acta: that heat is not a quali ty but a ct in the fi re :that fi re is not reatly what we perceive in the qualities light, heat and colour. From ait whicli it is plain, that whate ver real things they supposieto exist independent of the s ut, those Haere net ther sensii ble things, nor cloathed with sensibie qualities. si . Nei ther Plato nor Aristolle by matter, h, understood corporealsubstance, whate ver the moderns may Understand by that worii. Tothem certa in ly it signified no possitive actual being. Aristolle describes itas made up of negatives, having nei ther quantity nor quali ty nor essen ce. And not only the Platonisls and Pythagoreans, but also the Peripateticsthem selves declare it to he known, net ther by sense, nor by any directand just rea ning, but only by seme spurious or adulteri ne method, as liath been observed besere. Simon Portius, a famous Peripatetic of thesi xteenth century, dentes it to be any substance at ali, sor, se illi he, nequit
per se subrisere quia sequeretur, id quod non es in actu esse in actu. Is Jamblichus may be credited, the AEgyptians supposed matter so far fio m in cluding au lit os substance or essen ce, that according to them, God pro
ὐλία*rM. That matter is actualty nothing, but potentialty allthings, is the doctrine of Aristolle, Theophrastus, and ali the ancient Peripateticias 18. Accor ling to those philosophers, matter is Only a pura potentia, amere possibility. But Anaximander, successor to Thales, is represented ashaving thought the supreme deity to be infinite matter. Neverthclesithough Plutarch calleth it matter, yet it Was simply m. απυρον, Whicli meansno more than infinite or indefinite. An d although the moderns teachthat
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that space is real and infinitely extended : yet i we consider that it is no intellectual notion, nor yet perceived by any of Our senses, we mali per-haps he inclined to thin k with Plato in his Timaeus, that this also is the
belle vo it necessary, that whate ver exists mouid exist in seme place. Whicli place or space he also observes is that is, to bestit as darknesi is sten, or silence heard, being a mere privation. 319. Is any one mould thinli to inser the reali ty or actuat heing of matter Dom the modern tenet, that graVity is alWays proportionable tothe quantity of matter, let hirn but narro ly stan the modern demon stration of that tenet, and he will find it to be a va in circle, conclud ingin truth no more than this, that gravi ty is proportionabie to weight thatis to it self Since matter is conceived only as desect and mere possibili ty ι and since God is absolute perfection and act; it sollows there is the great- est distance and opposition imaginable bet ween God and matter. In much that a materiai God would be altogether inconsistent. seto. The so e that produces, the intellect that orders, the goodne si that persects ali things is the supreme being. Evit, defect, negation, is
not the object of God's creative power. Frona motion the Peripatetic strace out a first immoveable mover. The Platoni cs malae God author ofali good, author of no euil, and unchangeable. According to Ana Xagoras there Was a confused masi os ali things in orae chaos, but mind supervenuag, επελθῶν, distinguis hed and divided them Anaxagoras, it stem sascriben the motive faculty to mind, whicli minit so me subsequent philosophers have accurately discriminaled Dom Qui and lise, ascribing to itthe sole faculty of intellection.
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1 1. But stili God was supposed the fir st agent, the urce and original os ali things which he produceth, not occasionalty or instrumentally, but with actual and reat efficacy. Thus the treatise, De secretiore parte divinae sapientiae secundum AEnptios, in the tentii book, faith of God, that he is not only the first agent, but also that he it is who trulyacts or creates, qui vere efficit. 322. Varro, Tully, and St. Augustia understand the foui to be Cis, the power, or force that acis, moves, enlivens. NON although, in our conception, vis, or spirit might be distinguis hed from mind, it would not thenoe follow, that is acts blindly or without mind, or that it is notclosely connected with intellect. Is Plutarch is to be trusted in his ae count of the opinions of philosophers; Thales held the mind of the worid to be God : Democritus held the foui of the worid to be an igni form deity . Pythagoras taught that God was the monad and the good,
stand abstraction, but a reatly existing spirit, distinet or separate frona ausensibie and corporeal beings. And although the Stoics a re represente las holding a corporeat deity, or that the very system of the worid is God, yet it is certa in they did not, at bottom, dissent frona the fore mentioneddoctrine; inasmuch as they supposed the worid to be an animal l, consisting of Qui or mind as weli as body.
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set . I his notion was derived sto in the Pythagoreans, who held the worid, as Timaeus Locrus teacheth, to be orae persect animal, eradu edwith Qui and re ason: but then they belleved it to have been genera ted: Whereas the Stoics looked on the worid as the supreme God, includ ingtherein mind or intellect. For the elementary sire, or, is one may sospeali, the animal spirit of the worid, seemeth according to them, toliave been the vehicle of the foui ', intellest or μι since they styled the divini ty in b, ' or intellectual fire. 32s. The AEgyptians, is we may credit the Hermaic writings, maintained God to be ali things, not only actual but possibie. He is styled by them, that whicli is made and that whichiis unmade. And therein it issa id, shali l prat se thee for tho se things thou hast made manifest, or fortho things thou hast hidden t There re, in their sense, to manifest, Wasto create ; the things creat ed having been besore hidden in God. 326. NON, whether the he abstracted Dom the sensibie worid, and considered by it self, as distinet from, and presiding over the created system, Or Whether the whole universe, including mirad together With themundane body, is conceived to be God i , and the creatures to be Partiat manifestations of the divine essen ce, there is no a the ita in ei ther Case, Whate ver misconceptions there may be , so long as mind or intellect is Understood to preside over, go vern, and conduet the whole stameos things. Arad this was the generat prevalling opinion among the philo
Nor even was the following notion of the fame aut hor to he accounted
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Siras. 6 1iatheita, to wit, that there are some things beneath the knowledge of God, as too mean, base, and Vile; ho e ver Wrong this notion may be, and unworthy of the divine persection. 328. Might we not conceive that God may be se id to be ali in diverssenses; as he is the cause and origin os ali beings ; as the is the -- a doctrine both of Platonics and Peripatetics ' as the is the place of allsorms, and as it is the fame whicli comprehends and orders ' and sus atris the whole mundane system. Aristolle declares, that the divine force orinfluence permeates the intire universe : , and that what the pilot is in astip, the dri ver in a chariot, the precentor in a choir, the law in a city. the generat in an army, the same God is in the worid. This he amplyseis sortii in his book de mundo, a treatise Which having been anciently
ascribed to him, ought not to be set aside from the difference of style, which as Patricius rightly observes) being in a letter to a hing, might weli he supposed to differ stom the other dry and crabbed paris of his
sqq. And although there are seme expressions to be met with in thephilosophers, even of the Platonic and Aristotelic sects, whicli speah of God as mixing with, Or Pervading ali nature and ali the elements, yetthis must be explained by force and not by extension, Which was neverattributed to the mind 9 ei ther D Aristolle or Plato. This they alwaysamrmed to he incorporeat: and, as Plotinus remariis, incorporeat thingsare distaset each from other not by place, but to use his expression) byalterity.
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ment of the mirid on things purely intellectuat is to most men irk me: whereas the sensiitive po ers, by constant use acquire strength. Uence, the objects of sense more forci bly affect us ', and are too osten counted the chi es good. For these things men figlit, cheat, and stramble. There-sore, in order to tame manliind and introduce a sense of virtve, the besthuman means is to exercise their understanding, to give them a glimpseos another worid, superior to the sensibie, and while they take pa insto cherish and maintain the animal lise, to leach them not to neglect the intellectual. 331. Pre valling studies a re os no Mali consequence to a state, thereligion, manners and civit go vertament of a country e ver taking semebias Dom Do m iis philosophy, whicli assects not only the minds of iis professors and studenis, but also the opinions of ali the bet ter fori, and the practice of the whole propie, remotely and consequentialty in deed, though not inconsiderably. Have not the polemic and scholastic philosophy been observed to produce controversi es in law and religion t Andhave not Fatalita and Sadducita gained ground , during the generat passion sor the Corpusculari an and mechanical philosophy, Which hath pre- valled sor about a century t This in deed might usefully enough have employed seme mare of the leisure and curiosi ty of inquisitive persons.
But when it entered the seminaries of learning as a necessary accomplis liment, and most important part os education, by en grossing men's thoughis, and fixing their minds se much on corporeal objects, and thelaws of motion, it hath, ho ver undesignedly, indirectly, and by accident, yet not a litile indisposed them for spiritual, moral, and intellectualm atters. Certainly had the philosophy of Socrates and Pythagoras pre- valled in this age, among those Who think themselves too wi se to receive the dictates of the gospei, we should not have seen interest talie se gene
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been the admiration os ages ; whicli supplied patriois, magistrates, anulawgi vers to the most fourishing states, as weli as se thers to the chqrch, and doctors to the schools. Albeit in these days, the depilis of that oldiearning are rarely sat homed, and yet it were happy sor these lands, is our young nobili ty and gentry instead os modern maxims would imbibethe notions of the great men os antiqui ty. But in these De et hinhingtimes many an empty head is shook at Aristolle and Plato, as weli as atthe holy scriptures. And the writ ings of those celebrated ancients are by most men treated on a soot, with the dry and barbarous lucubrations of the schoolmen. It may he modestly presumed, there are not mauyamong us, even of those who are called the bet ter fori, who have more sense, Viriue, and love of their country than Cicero, Who in a letter toAtticus could not forbear exclaim ing, O Socrates et Socratici viri l nunquam Vobis gratiam referam. Would to God many of our countrymen had the fame obligations to those Socratio writerk Certa inly where thopeopte are Heli educated, the art of piloting. a state is best learned Domthe writings of Plato. But among bad men void os discipline and education, Plato, Pythagoras and Aristolle them selves, were they living, could do but litile good. Plato hath drawn a very humorous and instructive picture of such a state , whicli I mali not transcribe sor certain reasons. But Whoe ver has a mind, may see it in the se venty-eighth page of the second tome of Aldus's edition os Plato's Works. 333, Proclus,
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Siris. 333. Proctus, in the first book of his commentary on the theology of Plato observes that, as in the mysteries, those who are initialed, at firstmeet with manisold and multisorm Gods, but being en tered and thoroughly initia ted they receive the divine illumination and participate the very deity: in like manner, is the se ut looks abroad me bellolds the madowsand images of things: but returning into herseis me unraveis and be-holds her own essence : at first me seemeth only to belloid herseis: buthaving penetraled farther me discovers the mind. And again, stili sar-ther ad vancing in to the itinermost sanctuary of the so ut me contemptates the νέν. . And this, he salth, is the most excellent of ali human acts, in the silence and repose of the faculties of the so ut to ten d Upwards tothe very divini ty; to approach and be closely joined with that whicli is ineffabie and superior to ali beings. When come se high as the first principie me ends her journey and rests. Such is the doctrine of Proclus. 33 . But Socrates in the first Alcibiades te acheth on the other hand, that the contemplation os God is the proper means to know or under- stand our own Qul. As the eye, salth he, looking stediastly at the vi sive pari or pupil of another eye bellolds itself, even so the se ut heliolds and understands herself, while me contemptates the deity whicli is wisdomand virtve or like thereunto. In the Phaedon, Socrates spealis of God asheing P αυαM, and i. ', Plotinus represenis God as order: Aristolle as
about substratums, more rea nable and pious to attribute to the dei tya more substantiat heing, than the notionat entities of wisdom, order, laW, Viriue, or goodness, which being only complex ideas, framed and puttogether by the understanding, are iis own creatures, and have nothingsubstantiat, reat, or independent in them. But it must be considered,
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that in the Platonic system, order, virtve, laW, goodness, and wisdom arenot creatures of the Qui os man, but innate and originalty existent there-in, not as an accident in a substance, but as lightito enlighten, and as aguide to go vern. In Plato's style, the term idea doth not merely signi stan inert in active object of the unde manding, but is used as synonymous With umo and cause and principie. According to that philosopher, goodness, beau ty, viriue, and lach like are not figments of the mind, nor mere mi Xed modes, nor yet abstraci ideas in the modern sense, butthe most real beings, intellectual and unchangeable: and there re more real than the fleeting transient objects of sense ', which wanting stability cannot be subjects of science ', much lese os intellectual knowledge. 336. By Parmenides, Timaeus, and Plato, a dillinction was made, ashath been observed at ready , he tween genitum and ens. The former sortis always a generat ing or inseri ', but ne ver exists, because it ne ver continues the same, being in a constant change, e ver peris hing and producing. By entia they understand things remote Dom sense, invisibie and intellectual, whicli ne ver changing are stili the fame, and may theresere besaid truly to exis , -- whicli is generalty translated substance, but more Properly essen ce, Was not thought to belong to things sensibie and corporeat, Which have no stabili ty; but rather to intellectual ideas though dis cerned with more difficulty, and mahing lese impression on a mirad stu-pified and immersed in animal lise, than gross objects that continuallybeset and solicit our senses. 33 . The most refined human intellest exerted to iis ut most reacti canonly seiete so me impersect glimpses j of the divine ideas, abstracted stomati things corporeat, sensibie, and imaginable. There re Pythagoras and
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Siris. posing them to vulgar eyes; so far were they stom thinhing, that those abstract things, although the most reai, were the fit test to influence common mines, or hecome principies of knowledge, not to say duty and virtve to the generali ty of manliind. 338. Aristolle and his sollowers have made a monstrous representationos the Platonio ideas, and so me of Plato's own school have seid veryodd things concerning them. But is that philosopher himself was notread only, but studi ed also with care, and made his own interpreter, Ibeli eve the prejudice that .now lies against him would on wear osF ', orbe even converted into high esleem for those exalted notions and fine hinis, that spartile and shine throughout his writ ings; whicli stem tocontain not only the most valvable learning of Athens and Greece, butalso a trealare of the most remote traditions and early science of the East. 339. In the Timaeus of Plato mention is made of ancient persons, authors of traditions, and the offspring of the Gods. It is very rema rha-hle, that in the account of the creation contained in the fame piece, it isse id that God was plea sed with his work, and that the night is placed be- fore the day. The more we thin k, the more dissiculi mali we find it to Conceive, how mere man, grown up in the vulgar habits of li , and weighed down by sensuali ty, mouid e ver be able to arrive at science, Without seme tradition ' or te aching whicli might ei ther the seedsof knowledge, or cali fortii and excite those latent seeds that were originalty sown in the seu l. 3 o. Human Quis in this low sit uation, hordering on mere animal lis hear the weight and see through the dus k of a gross atmosphere, gatheredsrom wrong judgments datly passed, false opinions dat ly learn ed, and early