there are gods, and again that there are no gods, he so concludes, cum tot inter se pugnent, &c.  Una tantum potest esse vera, as Tully likewise disputes:  Christians say, they alone worship the true God, pity all other sects, lament their case; and yet those old Greeks and Romans that worshipped the devil, as the Chinese now do, aut deos topicos, their own gods; as Julian the apostate, [6640]Cecilius in Minutius, Celsus and Porphyrius the philosopher object:  and as Machiavel contends, were much more noble, generous, victorious, had a more flourishing commonwealth, better cities, better soldiers, better scholars, better wits.  Their gods overcame our gods, did as many miracles, &c.  Saint Cyril, Arnobius, Minutius, with many other ancients of late, Lessius, Morneus, Grotius de Verit.  Relig.  Christianae, Savanarola de Verit.  Fidei Christianae, well defend; but Zanchius, [6641]Campanella, Marinus Marcennus, Bozius, and Gentillettus answer all these atheistical arguments at large.  But this again troubles many as of old, wicked men generally thrive, professed atheists thrive,

[6642] “Nullos esse Deos, inane coelum,
        Affirmat Selius:  probatque, quod se
        Factum, dum negat haec, videt beatum.”

       “There are no gods, heavens are toys,
        Selius in public justifies;
        Because that whilst he thus denies
        Their deities, he better thrives.”

This is a prime argument:  and most part your most sincere, upright, honest, and [6643]good men are depressed, “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong” (Eccles. ix. 11.), “nor yet bread to the wise, favour nor riches to men of understanding, but time and chance comes to all.”  There was a great plague in Athens (as Thucydides, lib. 2. relates), in which at last every man, with great licentiousness, did what he list, not caring at all for God’s or men’s laws.  “Neither the fear of God nor laws of men” (saith he) “awed any man, because the plague swept all away alike, good and bad; they thence concluded it was alike to worship or not worship the gods, since they perished all alike.”  Some cavil and make doubts of scripture itself:  it cannot stand with God’s mercy, that so many should be damned, so many bad, so few good, such have and hold about religions, all stiff on their side, factious alike, thrive alike, and yet bitterly persecuting and damning each other; “It cannot stand with God’s goodness, protection, and providence” (as [6644]Saint Chrysostom in the Dialect of such discontented persons) “to see and suffer one man to be lame, another mad, a third poor and miserable all the days of his life, a fourth grievously tormented with sickness and aches, to his last hour.  Are these signs and works of God’s providence, to let one man be deaf, another dumb?  A poor honest fellow lives in disgrace, woe and want, wretched he is; when as a wicked caitiff abounds in superfluity of wealth, keeps whores, parasites, and what he will himself:”  Audis Jupiter haec?  Talia multa connectentes, longum reprehensionis sermonem erga Dei providentiam contexunt. [6645]Thus they mutter and object (see the rest of their arguments in Marcennus in Genesin, and in Campanella, amply confuted), with many such vain cavils, well known, not worthy the recapitulation or answering:  whatsoever they pretend, they are interim of little or no religion.