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

^*Those who pretend to have known the retirements of his Life, accused him of impure commerce with Alcibiades. He betrayed the Chastity of his Wife, by giving her to his Friend. Plato and Xenophon his admirers, declare his compliance with the common Idolatry, which is justly aggravated by St. Austin, being against the Convictions of his Conscience. For although in private Discourse with his Friends he acknowledged but one God, and considered the Sun and Moon only as the works and instruments of the Divine Power, and in the rank of other Creatures; yet in his Apology before his Judges to prevent the fatal Sentence, he charged his enemies to be guilty of impudent falsehood, who accused him that he did not believe the Gods, since he believed, as all other men, that the Sun and Moon were Gods. And during the time of his imprisonment, he never adderest one Prayer to God for the pardon of his Sins; ^†for he had so high an opinion of his own Virtues, that he was insensible of his Vices. And dying, he commanded a Cock to be offered to Aesculapius, that is, to the Devil, ⟨p. 377⟩under the disguise of that famous Physician. To Socrates I shall add Seneca: Never any, excepting the Sacred Writers, and those who are instructed by them, hath writ more excellently. He describes Virtue as if the living Original were in his Breast; but how dull a Copy was drawn in his Life. There is as great a difference between the expression of it by his Pen and by his Actions, as between the lively Picture of a Face by a rare Pencil,³ and the rude Draught of it with a Coal. What a villainous part did he act in exciting Nero to murder his Mother; and after in writing an Apology for it, employing the colours of his Rhetoric to cover one of the foulest blots which hath appeared in the succession of all Ages? His Philosophy was not a powerful Antidote against the Contagion of the Court. What just excuse can there be of his Cruelty to his Wife, in cutting her Veins,⁴ that she might die with him; from a vain-glorious desire to eternize their Reputation? And whereas among the whole Chorus of Virtues,⁵