Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 616

574

Defense of an Essay, &c.

Nor.

be imbued with the conviction that there is a God.'" From the use of the capital G in both instances in which the word God occurs, we might suppose that Calvin used the word here propriè, i. e. to desig- nate definitely the true God; but his quotations show that this can not be the case.

'These are,

Intelligi necesse est deos, quoniam insitas eorum vel potius inna- tas cognitiones habemus. Quæ nobis natura informationem deorum ipsorum dedit, eadem insculpsit in mentibus ut eos æternos et beatos haberemus." Cic. de Nat. Deor., lib i. c. 17. 'Itaque inter oinnes omnium gentium summa constat; omnibus enim inuatum est, et in animo quasi insculptum esse deos,” lib. ¡¡. c. 4.

(4

Here the word, in both quotations, which are cited to show that there is no quarter in which "God is unknown" is in the plural, "deos," "deorum,” “deos."

Witsius, when commenting on the first Article of the Creed, to prove that the heathen derive a knowledge of God from the contempla- tion of the heavens, quotes the following proofs; "I shall quote another passage from Cicero: 'Who is so stupid and infatuated,' says he, ‘as not to perceive, after having looked up to the heavens, that there are Gods, or to ascribe to the operation of chance works which discover so great intelligence that scarcely any one is able, by any art, to trace their order and their revolutions.' But why do I insist on the con- victions and declarations of individuals? Zaleucus, the lawgiver of the Locrians, by a law which he enacted, bound all his citizens to acknowledge a Divinity, from the contemplation of the heavens. Ac- cording to the testimony of Diodorus Siculus, Zaleucus having been chosen by the people to frame laws, and attempting to confirm them by new sanctions, began by directing their attention to the celestial Gods. At the beginning of the preamble to the whole code he says, that the inhabitants of the city are required, first of all to believe and to be firmly persuaded that there are Gods, and having attentively considered the heavens and their astonishing magnificence and order, to conclude that they are neither the production of chance, nor the workmanship of man.'"

Here we see that Witsius, to prove that the heathen derive a know- ledge of God from his works, and that they acknowledge " a Divinity," quotes sentences in which the existence of Gods is asserted. There is very great looseness of expression on this point in almost every book into which I have looked Barrow expresses himself much more accurately. His words are,

Ilis words are, "That in the world there are beings im- perceptible to our senses, much superior to us in knowledge and power,