The harmony of the divine attributes in the contrivance and accomplishment of man's redemption…

But still he was exceedingly distant from the Purity of a true Saint, who partakes of the Divine Nature, ⟨p. 375⟩and is inclined in all his motions to God. All the Precepts of Morality, to use the Similitude of Plutarch, are like strong Perfumes that sometimes revive those that are in a Swoon by the Falling-Sickness, but never heal them: So they may recover those that are debauched from the outward practice of those ignoble Vices which violate Natural Conscience, but they cannot rectify and cure the corrupt Nature. The highest Philosophical Change was only from those Vices which were scandalous in the view of men; but consisted with those which were, though more subtle, yet not less sinful, and discernible by the pure Eye of God. 'Twas from one kind of Sin to another,¹ from sensual to spiritual; Satan cast out Satan; or from higher to lower degrees of Sin, but not from Sin to Holiness. And although the same good Works, as to the external substance, were performed by the Heathens, as by Christians, yet they vastly differ in their Principle and End. A Brute performs all the acts of Sense that a Man doth, but 'tis merely from the sensitive Soul, that is of a lower order than that which animates a Man. So in the Heathen 'twas only the humane Spirit excited by Secular Interests, Self-love, servile Fear, that performed Moral Actions. But the Holy Spirit (who infuses Grace, that is as it were a second Soul, to elevate that which before quickened the Body) is the true Principle of Christian Virtues. This sanctifying Spirit, who transforms us into the Divine Nature, and makes an entire and through Change in the Heart and Conversation, they did not receive in the way of Nature. Of this we have a convincing proof in the Example of the best Masters of Morality, ⟨p. 376⟩who by their Discourses or Writings raised it to the point of its perfection.² Socrates the Father of Philosophy, to whom this honour is ascribed among the Grecians, that he first made Wisdom descend from Heaven to earth, because he left the study of Astronomy, in which the Philosophers before him were most conversant, and applied himself to that which was useful for the Government of Life, and Reformation of Manners: He that is propounded by Celsus as an unparalleled Pattern, as one that discovered to what degree of excellency Virtue might raise the humane Spirit, yet was guilty of great immorality and impiety.