And the ancient fathers generally, of the
three first centuries, held it to be matter, light and thin indeed, an
ethereal gas; but still matter. Origen says. '_Deus reapse corporalis
est; sed graviorum tantum ratione corporum incorporeus_.' Tertullian,'
_Quid enim Deus nisi corpus?_' And again, '_Quis negabit Deum esse
corpus? Etsi Deus spiritus, spiritus etiam corpus est, sui generis in
sua effigie_. St. Justin Martyr,
[Illustration: 332]
And St. Macarius, speaking of angels, says, '_Quamvis enim subtilia
sint, tamen in substantia, forma, et figura, secundum tenuitatem naturas
eorum, corpora sunt tenuia_.' And St. Austin, St. Basil, Lactantius,
Tatian, Athenagoras, and others, with whose writings I pretend not a
familiarity, are said by those who are better acquainted with them,
to deliver the same doctrine. (Enfield x. 3. 1.) Turn to your Ocellus
d'Argens, 97, 105. and to his Timseus 17. for these quotations. In
England, these Immaterialists might have been burnt until the 29 Car. 2.
when the writ _de haeretico comburendo_ was abolished; and here until the
Revolution, that statute not having extended to us. All heresies being
now done away with us, these schismatists are merely atheists, differing
from the material atheist only in their belief, that 'nothing made
something,' and from the material deist, who believes that matter alone
can operate on matter.
[* That of Athanasius and the Council of Nicasa, anno 324]
Rejecting all organs of information, therefore, but my senses, I rid
myself of the pyrrhonisms with which an indulgence in speculations
hyperphysical and antiphysical, so uselessly occupy and disquiet the
mind.
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