IV. He faid that the Creator (g) did not himself frame the Plan of the World, but only copied a Pattern he had before his Eyes, which Wisdom, like a Painter, had drawn for him; and that his Purpofe and Intention was, to promote the Glory of the Invifible God; but that as he was a finite Being, he might have missed his Pattern in fome Places, and been liable to feveral Miftakes. In this Manner Bafilides accounted for the Introduction of Evil into the World, which he scrupled to afcribe to the All-Wife and good God; and kept a Kind of Medium between the Orthodoxian, and the Perhan Hypotheses.

V. Man alfo was formed (b) on a Pattern drawn by Wisdom, and has two (i) Souls, a reasonable Soul, and a fenfi tive one; (or perhaps he only ascribed two diftinct Faculties to the fame Soul). As for the Paffions he thought them (k) Properties of what he called the Appendices to the Soul; and he gave that Name to certain Particles of Matter, Atoms, or Monades, which he conceived to be perfectly indiffoluble, being as (1) hard as Diamond, and having withal the Principle of their own Motion and Activity. They join

the

409.

(g) Lib. iv. p. 509. (k) P. 408.

(b) Ub. fup. (1) P. 409.

(2) Lib. i. p.

the Soul foon after its Formation, and ftick to it for ever after, if not driven away, or at leaft fubdued, by virtuous Endeavours, as fhall be seen hereafter. Of thefe Monades, and of nothing else, are the Souls of Animals compofed, and when a great number of the fame Kind meet in the fame Animal, they form its diftinctive Character; for Inftance, the rapacious Monades make the Soul of a Wolf, the malicious ones that of the Monkey, and fo on. If this be an Herefy, Clemens of Alexandria fhall have his Share of it (m); for he alfo believed that there are material Powers fticking to the Soul;' with this additional Oddity, C that they are rubbed off by Baptifm, the Spirit of God removing them juft in the fame Manner, as Chaff is blown off Wheat by the Wind.'

VI. Since Bafilides thought that the above mentioned mifchievous Monades ftuck to the Soul from the Beginning of its Existence, he must have believed fomething like what we call Original Sin; but he feems not at all acquainted with the comfortable Doctrine of Imputation, according to which a Man may be damned to all Eternity for one fingle Fault committed by another,

M 4

(m) In Eclog. Prophet. No. 7. & 25.

another, and feveral thoufand Years before his Birth. On the contrary he looked upon the Creation of his unwelcome Ap pendices and the Evil arifing from them, as a Misfortune, which the great God endeavours to Remedy, as may be collected even from Irenæus's (n) partial Account, and more fully proved by Clemens's (0).

VII. As troublefome as the Appendices may be, Bafilides did not judge their Influence irrefiftible; though this was objected to his Doctrine; but his Son Ifidorus denied it to be a Confequence of it (p): Wicked Men, fays he, have no reason to fay.- What I did was against my Will -I was forced to it.- They are to all Intents and Purposes the fole Authors of all the Evil they do, as they have it in their Power to refift the Impetuofity of the Appendices. This Solution, from which fome Orthodoxian Systems are debarred, is the fame which is given, by other more reasonable ones, to the Question,

why did God give fuch Power over us to our Paffions?' The Anfwer is, that withal he has endued us with Faculties able to govern and conquer thofe Paffions. And if it be faid that Baflides his Hypothefis about the Monades is fanciful and ill-grounded, Ifhall freely own it, but add at the fame

Time,

(*) Ub. fup. (0) Ub. fup. (#) Ibid. (9) P. 427.

1

Time, that it does not appear to me of so dangerous a Tendency, as the great and most unaccountable Sway over the Minds of Men, which feveral Divines, both Antient and Modern, have afcribed to the Devil and all his Dependents.

VIII. According to Bafilides, and Ifidorus his Son and Difciple, Man has not only the Power of mastering his Paffions, but may also be fure of receiving a beavenly Affiftance, provided he afks it with a fincere Difpofition of making a right use of it. To this Affiftance, or Grace, they gave the Name of Election (a); but it widely differs, both from the Election fo often mentioned in our Systems of Divinity, and from the irrefiftible Grace infifted upon in some of the oldeft. The Election of Bafilides was not given whimsically, but only as (b) a Reward to those who fought against their Paffions, and a help to get a complete Victory over them.

IX. Bafilides taught that (c) Jefus Chrift had been a mere Man before his Baptism; but that then the Intelligence, or the Son of God, his first-Born, came down from Heaven upon him, to enable him to lead Men to the Knowledge of the true God, and into the Way of Salvation. That he

stayed.

(b) Vid, Mercur. Trifmeg. c. 4.

(a) Lib. v. p. 540.
(c) Ubi fup. et p. 304. & 506.

ftayed with him till the Time of his Death, when he left him and afcended into Heaven, but that Jefus really fuffered Death. This diftinctly appears by (d) Clemens's Account; fo that the fcandalous Tale of Simon the Cyrenian (e) being put in the Place of the Lord, and of his laughing at the Mistake of the Jews, must be an Invention of Irenaus, and fhews him in fuch a Light as to deferve no manner of Credit for what he says against Heretics.

X. But what must raise the highest Indignation, in the Breaft of every honeft Man, against that Father and the others who copied after him, is the falfe and scandalous Accufation they laid against Bafilides, as if he had preached; that a most shock, ing Lewdness is lawful or at least indif ferent. I have already fhewn (f) (in the Article of the Gnoftics), that Clemens of Alexandria clears him thoroughly in that Refpect; but his Innocence is also distinctly evinced, from two or three Paffages extracted out of his Works by the fame Clemens. Bafilides was fo great an Enemy to Vice

(d) Ibid. (e) The fame Story is repeated over and over, by all the modern Hiftorians. See among others, Cave ub. fup. Tho. Ittigii Differtat. de Hærefiarchis Sæculi Secundi &c. Sect. ii. c. 2. §. 6. p. 105. Fo. Fr. Buddei, Ecclef. Apoftol. de Controv. Apoftol. cum Hæret. § vii. P. 560. (ƒ) Vol. ii. P. 2. p. 98.