Here I could observe, H/ERMIPPUS\, that P/HILO\ was a little
embarrassed and confounded: But while he hesitated in delivering
an answer, luckily for him, D/EMEA\ broke in upon the discourse,
and saved his countenance.
Your instance, C/LEANTHES\, said he, drawn from books and
language, being familiar, has, I confess, so much more force on
that account: but is there not some danger too in this very
circumstance; and may it not render us presumptuous, by making us
imagine we comprehend the Deity, and have some adequate idea of
his nature and attributes? When I read a volume, I enter into the
mind and intention of the author: I become him, in a manner, for
the instant; and have an immediate feeling and conception of
those ideas which revolved in his imagination while employed in
that composition. But so near an approach we never surely can
make to the Deity. His ways are not our ways. His attributes are
perfect, but incomprehensible. And this volume of nature contains
a great and inexplicable riddle, more than any intelligible
discourse or reasoning.
The ancient P/LATONISTS\, you know, were the most religious
and devout of all the Pagan philosophers; yet many of them,
particularly P/LOTINUS\, expressly declare, that intellect or
understanding is not to be ascribed to the Deity; and that our
most perfect worship of him consists, not in acts of veneration,
reverence, gratitude, or love; but in a certain mysterious self-
annihilation, or total extinction of all our faculties.
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