felicitous honour; that which is human being vile, of no account, and ludicrous, when compared with that which is divine. Hence I laugh, when I hear it said, that divinity is spontaneously present with certain persons or things,
For progressions are conformable to the characteristics of the natures from which they proceed. Hence the cooperating energy of his first progeny is necessary to the evolution of things into effable, essential, and distinct subsistence. The supreme God, therefore, is, as Iamblichus justly observes, alone worthy of sedulous attention, esteem, the energy of reason, and felicitous honour; but this is not to the exclusion of paying appropriate attention and honour to other powers that are subordinate to him, who largely participate of his divinity, and are more or less allied to him. For in reverencing and paying attention to these appropriately, we also attend to and reverence him. For that which we sedulously attend to, honour, and esteem in them, is that alone which is of a deified nature, and is therefore a portion, as it were, of the ineffable principle of all things. Gale, from not understanding this, exclaims, "if these things are true, (viz. that God is alone worthy of sedulous attention, &c.) as they are, indeed, most true, to what purpose, O Iamblichus, is that mighty study and labour about dæmons and other spirits?" But the answer to this, by regarding what has been above said, is easy. For mighty study and labour about these intermediate powers is necessary, in order to our union with their ineffable cause. For as we are but the dregs of the rational nature, and the first principle of things is something so transcendent as to be even beyond essence, it is impossible that we should be united to him without media; viz. without the Gods, and their perpetual attendants, who are on this account the true saviours of souls. For in a union with the supreme deity our true salvation consists.
