plufauo fait!). greatnefs of foul is reckoned among Aril/or/es virtues. Well then might Erafinus his San(ie Socrates have been fpared. Notable is that of St. Bernard, fame (faith he) whileJt they go a- 442.190. 2.1 bout to make Plato a Cbri(fian, prove themfelves heathens. Again, becaufe pof ably the light of reafon may be weakeft in the concerns of Reli- gion , I fhall inflance in other things. Doth not nature and reafon plead for all things of common honefty and humanity, and yet in the Laws of Lycurgus, which were of high renown, and commended even by the Oracle of Apollo, and which (as Plutarch relates) Lycurgus took fingular pleafure to fee put in ure, even as God rejoyced to fee the world move and turn about: I fay in thefe there are fuch obfcenities and in- humanities as would put any one to the blufh to fee them in Flory ; what elfè are the dancing of maids naked, and throwing weak children into a pit of water, fpoken of by Plutarch ? well might the Lacedemonian.r have fpared the Temple and Sacrifices to their Law - giver, un- lefs he had been truer to the Law of Nature. Again, is not felf- prefervation an intimate and natural imprefs in the heart of man > it is not fcripta fed nata Lex, faid the Orator ; and yet thisingraven Law was not ftrong enough, no not in a grave and noble Cato, to keep him from murdering himfelf, and tearing out his own bowels ; and over this unnatural aCt Seneca founds a triumph, as being a noble and heroi- cal contempt of death it fell, -brat, that (word of his, which was yet pure from the blood of others, j'S
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