embrace that motion, nor would the enemy of God be freed by such a Redemption. But coldly thriving in this design, as being repulsed by the principles of humanity, and the dictates of that production, which cannot deny its original, he fetcheth a wider circle; and when he cannot make men conceive there is no God at all, he endeavours to make them believe there is not one, but many: wherein he hath been so successful with common heads, that he hath led their belief thorow the Works of Nature. [Sidenote: _Areopagus the severe Court of Athens._] Now in this latter attempt, the subtilty of his circumvention, hath indirectly obtained the former. For although to opinion there be many gods, may seem an excess in Religion, and such as cannot at all consist with Atheism, yet doth it deductively and upon inference include the same, for Unity is the inseparable and essential attribute of Deity; and if there be more then one God, it is no Atheism to say there is no God at all. And herein though _Socrates_ only suffered, yet were _Plato_ and _Aristotle_ guilty of the same Truth; who demonstratively understanding the simplicity of perfection, and the indivisible condition of the first causator, it was not in the power of Earth, or Areopagy of Hell [SN: _Areopagus the severe Court of Athens._] to work them from it. For holding an [19]Apodictical knowledge, and assured science of its verity, to perswade their apprehensions unto a plurality of gods in the world, were to make _Euclide_ believe there were more than one Center in a Circle, or one right Angle in a Triangle; which were indeed a fruitless attempt, and inferreth absurdities beyond the evasion of Hell. For though Mechanick and vulgar heads ascend not unto such comprehensions, who live not commonly unto half the advantage of their principles; yet did they not escape the eye of wiser _Minerva's_, and such as made good the genealogie of _Jupiters_ brains; who although they had divers stiles for God, yet under many appellations acknowledged one divinity: rather conceiving thereby the evidence or acts of his power in several ways and places, then a multiplication of Essence, or real distraction of unity in any one. [19] _Demonstrative._