scribed him by these attributes and properties, bonus, justus, sanctus, seipsum possidens, utilis, speciosus, optimus, severus, liber, semper commodus, tutus, gloriosus, charitas, &c. "Good, just, holy, possessing himself, profitable, beau"tiful, best, severe, free, always doing good, safe without "fear, glorious, and self-charity." Epicharmus affirmed, that God, who beheld all things, and pierced every nature, was only and every where powerful; agreeing with Democritus. Rex omnium ipse solus; "He is the only King of "all kings:" and with Pindarus the poet, Deus unus, Pater, Creator summus, atque optimus artifex, qui progressus singulis diversos secundum merita præbet; "One God, "the Father, the most high Creator, and best artificer, "who giveth to every thing divers proceedings according "to their deserts." This God, saith Antisthenes, cannot be resembled to any thing, and therefore not elsewhere known ; Nisi in patria illa perenni, cujus imaginem nullam habes ; "Save only in that everlasting country, whose image thou "hast none at all." Hereof also Xenophanes Colophonius, Unus Deus inter Deos et homines maximus, nec corpore nec mente mortalibus similis ; "There is one God among 66 gods and men most powerful, neither corporally nor men"tally like unto mortals:" and Xenophon, Deus qui omnia quatit, et omnia quiescere facit, magnus potensque, quod omnibus patet: qualis autem forma sit, nemini patet, nisi ipsi soli, qui luce sua omnia perlustrat; " God who "shaketh all things, and setteth all things at rest, is great "and mighty, as is manifest to all; but of what form he is, "it is manifest to none, save only to himself, who illuminat"eth all things with his own light." Finally, Plato saith, Totius rerum naturæ causa, et ratio, et origo Deus, summus animi genitor, æternus animantium sospitator, assiduus mundi sui opifex, sine propagatione genitor, neque loco neque tempore ullo comprehensus; eoque paucis cogitabilis, nemini effabilis; "God is the cause, ground, and original of the whole nature of things, the most high Fa❝ther of the soul, the eternal preserver of living creatures, "the continual framer of his world, a begetter without

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any propagation, comprehended neither in any place nor "time; therefore few can conceive him in thought, none can express what he is." Therefore was it said by St. Jerome, Si enim cunctos philosophorum revolvas libros, necesse est ut in eis reperias aliquam partem vasorum Dei, ut apud Platonem, Fabricatorem mundi, Deum: apud Zenonem Stoicorum principem, inferos et immortales animas, &c. "If thou consider all the books of the philosophers, "thou canst not but find in them some part of the vessels "of God; as in Plato, God the Creator of the world; in "Zeno prince of the Stoics, hell, and immortal souls.” And this is certain, that if we look into the wisdom of all ages, we shall find that there never was man of solid understanding or excellent judgment; never any man whose mind the art of education hath not bended; whose eyes a foolish superstition hath not afterwards blinded; whose apprehensions are sober, and by a pensive inspection advised; but that he hath found by an irresistible necessity one true God and everlasting Being, all for ever causing, and all for ever sustaining; which no man among the heathen hath with more reverence acknowledged, or more learnedly expressed, than that Egyptian Hermes, howsoever it failed afterwards in his posterity; all being at length, by devilish policy of the Egyptian priests, purposely obscured; who invented new gods, and those innumerable, best sorting (as the Devil persuaded them) with vulgar capacities, and fittest to keep in awe and order their common people.

SECT. VIII.

That heathenism and Judaism, after many wounds, were at length about the same time under Julian miraculously confounded.

BUT all these are again vanished; for the inventions of mortal men are no less mortal than themselves. The fire, which the Chaldeans worshipped for a God, is crept into every man's chimney, which the lack of fuel starveth, water quencheth, and want of air suffocatèth: Jupiter is no more

↳ Hieron. in Com. in Dan. in Princip.

vexed with Juno's jealousies; death hath persuaded him to chastity, and her to patience; and that time, which hath devoured itself, hath also eaten up both the bodies and images of him and his; yea, their stately temples of stone and dureful marble. The houses and sumptuous buildings erected to Baal can no where be found upon the earth, nor any monument of that glorious temple consecrated to Diana. There are none now in Phoenicia that lament the death of Adonis; nor any in Libya, Creta, Thessalia, or elsewhere, that can ask counsel or help from Jupiter. The great god Pan hath broken his pipes; Apollo's priests are become speechless; and the trade of riddles in oracles, with the Devil's telling men's fortunes therein, is taken up by counterfeit Egyptians and cozening astrologers.

But it was long ere the Devil gave way to these his overthrows and dishonours: for after the temple of Apollo at Delphos (one of his chief mansions) was many times robbed, burnt, and destroyed, yet by his diligence the same was often enriched, repaired, and reedified again, till by the hand of God himself it received the last and utter subversion. For it was first robbed of all the idols and ornaments therein by the Euboean pirates; secondly, by the Phlegians utterly sacked; thirdly, by Pyrrhus the son of Achilles; fourthly, by the army of Xerxes; fifthly, by the captains of the Phocenses; sixthly, by Nero, who carried thence five hundred brasen images; all which were new made, and therein again set up at the common charge. But whatsoever was gathered between the time of Nero and Constantine, the Christian army made spoil of, defacing as much as the time permitted them; notwithstanding all this, it was again gloriously rebuilt, and so remained till such time as Julian the Apostate sent thither to know the success of his Parthian enterprise, at which time it was utterly burnt and consumed with fire from heaven; and the image of Apollo himself and all the rest of the idols, therein molten down, and lost in the earth.

The like success had the Jews in the same Julian's time, when by his permission they assembled themselves to re

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build the temple of Jerusalem; for while they were busied to lay the foundations, their buildings were overthrown by an earthquake, and many thousands of the Jews were overwhelmed with the ruins, and others slain, and scattered by tempest and thunder: though Am. Marcellinus reports it more favourably for the Jews, ascribing this to the nature of that element. For, saith he, Allypius, and the ruler of the province of Judea, being by Julian busied in the reedifying of this temple, flaming balls of fire issuing near the foundation, and oft consuming the workmen, made the enterprise frustrate.

SECT. IX.

Of the last refuges of the Devil to maintain his kingdom. NOW the Devil, because he cannot play upon the open stage of this world, (as in those days,) and being still as industrious as ever, finds it more for his advantage to creep into the minds of men; and inhabiting in the temples of their hearts, works them to a more effectual adoration of himself than ever. For whereas he first taught them to sacrifice to monsters, to dead stones cut into faces of beasts, birds, and other mixed natures; he now sets before them the high and shining idol of glory, the all-commanding image of bright gold. He tells them that truth is the goddess of dangers and oppressions; that chastity is the enemy of nature; and lastly, that as all virtue, in general, is without taste, so pleasure satisfieth and delighteth every sense: for true wisdom, saith he, is exercised in nothing else than in the obtaining of power to oppress, and of riches to maintain plentifully our worldly delights. And if this arch-politician find in his pupils any remorse, any fear or feeling of God's future judgment, he persuades them that God hath so great need of men's souls, that he will accept them at any time and upon any conditions; interrupting by his vigilant endeavours all offer of timeful return towards God, by laying those great blocks of rugged poverty and despised con

i Am. Mar. 1. 23. cap. 1.

tempt in the narrow passage leading to his divine presence. But as the mind of man hath two ports, the one always frequented by the entrance of manifold vanities, the other desolate and overgrown with grass, by which enter our charitable thoughts and divine contemplations; so hath that of death a double and twofold opening; worldly misery passing by the one, worldly prosperity by the other at the entrance of the one we find our sufferings and patience to attend us; (all which have gone before us to prepare our joys;) at the other our cruelties, covetousness, licentiousness, injustice, and oppressions, (the harbingers of most fearful and terrible sorrow,) staying for us. And as the Devil, our most industrious enemy, was ever most diligent, so is he now more laborious than ever; the long day of mankind drawing fast towards an evening, and the world's tragedy and time near at an end.

CHAP. VII.

Of Noah's flood.

SECT. I.

Of God's forewarning; and some human testimonies; and some doubting touching the truth of Noah's flood.

the

OF this destruction it pleased God to give warning unto Noah; who, saith Josephus, fearing to perish among rest, secedens cum suis, in aliam regionem migravit; “he "departed with his children, and travelled into another re"gion." And of these giants, from whom Noah withdrew himself, Berosus writeth in this manner: "That they ex❝ceeded in all sorts of inhuman and unnatural wickedness," and that they were contemptores et religionis et deorum; "contemners of religion and of the gods:" among which mighty men, saith Berosus, unus erat qui deorum venerantior, et prudentior cunctis, &c. huic nomen erat Noah,

k Joseph. 1. 1. cap. 4.