know that PYTHAGORAS and PLATO derived their theology. But, on the contrary, he says. that all of them had moral and useful causes, and historical and philosophical meanings. But the prieft made his, court, at the expence of truth, to the priestess, to whom he addreffed his treatife concerning ISIS and OSIRIS: and we shall do better to give credit, on this occafion, to DIONYSIUS HALICARNASSENSIS *, who confeffes, that altho' many of the Greek fables fhewed the operations of nature by allegories, and were compofed for confolation under the cala-mities of life, for taking away perturbations of mind, for removing falfe opinions, and for other very good and commendable purposes, yet they are to be condemned in general, many as impious, all as pernicious; and he praises ROMULUS for admitting none of them.

SECT. VII.

IT may be worth while to give two inftances of the extravagant hypotheses which philosophy and theology confpired to frame, as foon, perhaps, as men began to turn their thoughts to thefe fubjects; for we find ditheism and tritheifm established in the most early ages, concerning which we have any anecdotes.

THEY who believed a self-existent Being, the first intelligent caufe of all things, must have be

* Ant. Rom. Lib. ii.

lieved this Being to be all-perfect. But then, as they modelled his government on an human plan, fo they conceived his perfections, moral as well as phyfical, by human ideas; tho' they did not prefume to limit the former by the latter.. Thus, God was faid to be the first good; but then the general notion, or the abstract idea, as fome philofophers would call it, of this good, was not only taken from human goodness, but was confidered too with little or no other relation than to man, that excellent creature, the very image of his Maker, and one half of whom, at least, was divine. A question arose therefore on thefe hypothefes. How could evil come into a fyftem, of which God was the author, and man the final caufe? This question made a further hypothefis neceffary. It was "dignus vindice no"dus:" and another first God, another coeternal and co-equal principle was introduced to folve it, a first cause of all evil, as the other was of all good. The conteft between thefe independent and rival powers began by a struggle, fome have faid by a battle, when one of them endeavoured to reduce matter, which these philofophers held to be a third principle, tho' not a third God, into an orderly uniform frame and regular motion, and when the other endeavoured to maintain diforder, deformity, irregularity, and to fpoil, at least, the great defign. The fame conteft was fuppofed to continue in the government that commenced at the formation of the world, and phyfical or moral good and evil to

be

be produced, as one or other of thefe gods prevailed.

PLUTARCH, who was a zealous affertor of this doctrine himfelf, afferted it to have been likewife that of the Magians, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, and of every philofopher almoft of any note among the Greeks from PYTHAGORAS down to PLATO. He reprefents it as an opinion fettled in the minds of men by the authority of legislators and divines, of philofophers and poets, and not only as an opinion, but as an article of faith, on which facrifices and religious rites were established. But every man has fome favorite folly, and this was his. BAYLE himself is forced to confess that the representation is exaggerated. How indeed is it poffible to believe that fuch numbers of reasonable men could cpncur, from to age, in fo great an abfurdity? Some of them might, and it is probable that they did, hold an opinion very near akin to this, and derived from it, but not the fame that PLUTARCH held, and the Marcionites and Manicheans after him. This hypothefis was mitigated by another; and, instead of a god unproduced and felf-exiftent, an inferior being, produced and dependent, was affumed to be the author of evil. The preceptor of TRAJAN could not help admitting, most inconsistently with himself, that the two principles were not of equal force, and that the

L'b. de ISIDE et OSIRIDE,

age

good

good principle was prevalent: but even further, that ZOROASTER, and by confequence the magi, called the good principle alone God, and the evil principle a demon. This mitigated hypothefis was adopted by orthodox Christians, as the other was by heretics, and has therefore fupported itself longer than the other; tho' the other spread more among Chriftians from the third century, and before MANES down to the seventh and even to the ninth, than it had ever spread and prevailed in the Pagan world. But whatever fuccess these hypotheses have had, when we confider even that, which I have called mitigated, as a Pagan dogma, we muft fay that altho' it does not imply contradiction fo manifeftly as the other, yet it implies it as ftrongly, and is ftill more injurious to the Supreme Being. It implies it as ftrongly: for to affirm that there are two felf-existent gods independent and co-equal, who made and govern the world, is not a jot more abfurd, than it is to affirm that a God fovereignly good, and at the fame time almighty and allwife, fuffers an inferior dependent being to deface his work in any fort, and to make his other creatures both criminal and miferable. It is still more injurious to the Supreme Being: for if we had been to reafon with Pagan ditheists on their own notions, we might have infifted that it is no difgrace to a prince to reign according to the constitution of his country jointly with another, as the ephori reigned at Sparta, and the confuls governed at Rome, and that the ill go

vernment

vernment of his partner reflects no dishonor on him. But that to fay of a monarch in the true fense of the word, who is invefted with abfolute power, that he fuffers one of his fubjects to abuse the reft without control, and to draw them into crimes and revolts, for which he punishes them afterwards, is the most injurious accufation that can be brought. That heathen theifts of common sense reasoned in this manner we cannot doubt: and that they did so I find a remarkable proof, tho' a negative one, and brought for another purpose, in the Intellectual fyftem. CELsus objected to the Chriftians, that they believed a certain adversary to God, the devil, called in Hebrew Satan, and that they affirmed impiously that the greatest God was disabled from doing good, or withitood in doing it, by this adverfary. Now CELSUS, who made this objection to the Christians, would not have made it, I think, if he himself had held the mitigated ditheism we have mentioned, whether he held the other or no.

LET us fpeak of tritheifm, the other instance proposed to fhew how natural theology was rendered a confused heap of abfurd and inconfiftent hypothefes, by men who prefumed to dogmatife beyond the bounds of human knowledge.

DR. CUDWORTH could not well conceive, no more than LA MOTHE LE VAYER, how a trinity

of