Philosophy cannot boast of many great Examples of Patience; the Grandees of the Stoical Family, Cato and Brutus, falling into Troubles fell into transports of Rage and Impatience. So Hierocles, according to Saidas, being whipp’d at Byzantium ’till the Blood came, took the Blood in the Hollow of his Hand, and threw it upon the Judge, saying, “Cyclops, there is Wine for you, seeing you have eaten Man’s Flesh.” Some, indeed, of the Philosophick Pagans have express’d an admirable Constancy of Mind in shaking Circumstances. As Cleanthes, who stood unmov’d without changing Countenance, when he was publickly reproach’d in the Theatre by the Poet Sositheus.48 And Polemo did not so much as wax Pale, when his Leg was torn by mad Dogs. Yet, because this Philosophick Firmness was but of the same Kind with Epicurus’s in his Strangury, or the Sceptick Pyrrho’s, who endur’d cuttings and burnings with great constancy of Mind; or that of well disciplin’d Gladiators, and the Spartan Boys, who were whipp’d at the Altar, ’till the Blood gush’d out of their Bowels, without whimpering; therefore some have rightly pronounc’d concerning that Patience which Philosophy professeth, that it is Spurious, only a proud Sullenness; so much the more Spurious, as it is the more Proud. Lipsius therefore, otherwise an extravagant Admirer of Stoicism, lying upon his Sick-Bed, and strugling with grievous Pain, discarded the Stoical Patience, and having our Saviour’s Picture hanging near his Bed, he pointed to it, and gave his Patience its due Character, “That is the true Patience.”49
Several of the Philosophers have discours’d against Revenge, or retaliating Injuries, for the bearing them with Meekness, and for universal Benevolence;50 and there are several Instances of these Virtues amongst the Greek Philosophers.51 But their Practice of them looks more like unpopular Humour, than serious Goodness; in laying the Foundation of them, they intermix much of Pride, and Paradoxical Stoical Conceit, That the Wise-Man can suffer no Injury: And the most considerable Instances of these mighty Virtues are Aristides and Phocion, who may justly be reckon’d among the Popular Pagans. Aristides, after great Services, being banish’d by his Citizens unjustly, at his Departure pray’d the Gods, that the Athenians might never, by any Trouble, or Distress, be forc’d to recal him. And Phocion, being unjustly condemn’d, charg’d his Son Phocas, that he should never revenge his Death. But these Resemblances of Christian Virtue in Heathen good Men, did not issue from a divine Kind of Charity, but were Branches of their Human-Social Virtue, and issued from a mighty Love to their Country, which is most eminent in Heathens. The Virtue of these Popular Pagans pretendeth not to be Divine, nor do they, therefore, deserve to be celebrated as divine Men upon account of it: But the Philosophick Pagans, by far lesser Matters than these, got the Reputation of divine Men. One of their principal Virtues was their abandoning the Superfluities of Life. Whence Diogenes, seeing one take Water out of a River with his Hand, and drinking it out of his Hand, threw away his Dish, which he us’d to carry about him to drink Water in, resolving thence forth to drink it out of the hollow of his Hand; and for this Freak, with others of like Nature, this unpopular Humourist is celebrated by his Fellow-Philosophers as a “Divine Man.”
The Philosophick Pagans were like the Popular, in not discerning what is truly Divine and Holy, from what is Atheous and Unholy. Altho’ they liv’d in gross Crimes, beside their Pagan Religion, yet they did not discern between Sin and Holiness. They were Self-justifiers at the Rate of the Pharisees, and, therefore, perfectly indispos’d for such a Religion, that is a Religion for Sinners; and they were too high for Repentance, which the Popular Pagans were not, who had a Sense of Sin, and of their need of Pardon, which they often express’d at Death: But Apuleius52 pretends, “That he always accounted all Sin a Thing detestable”; Xenophon saith, “No one ever saw Socrates do, or heard him speak, any Thing that was Impious and Irreligious”: Socrates himself had no Sense of Sin at his Death, nor express’d any Repentance; nor is there any Appearance of either in Epictetus’s Preparatives for Death.53 Such mistaken Teachers of Virtue were these Sages of this World, that they thought themselves made Gods by such a Virtue, that could not make them the People of God, which was a very gross Mistake, and speaketh their Philosophy to be no better, than a worldly Kind of Wisdom, and their Virtue could be of no better a Character than their Philosophy. By their introducing their Philosophy, true Religion was much more prejudic’d, than it was before by their Pagan Religion, they made an additional Prejudice to it, they rais’d up a new Enemy, they introduc’d a Mountebank, who pretendeth to do all Cures, that a divine Physician might be thought needless.
3. The Spuriousness of the divine Virtues of the Platonists.
3. The Super-Ethical, as they are called, or the Divine Virtues of the Platonists are of the spurious and illegitimate kind, and so blended with what is fanciful, or bad, that, in the whole, they signify little or nothing to the constituting a Divinely-good Man. This is the Character, not only of the Stoicks, but of the Platonists Divine Virtue, in all these Parts of it.
Such is their Divine Virtue, as it is their intellectual Form of Life, contemplative of the Platonick Intelligibles, and visionary of their T’Agathon,54 which cannot be discern’d but by a boniform Light, which is beyond all that is intellectual.
Such is their Divine Virtue, as it is Theurgick;55 for they pretend by a converse with the Gods in Theurgy, to be freed from Passion, to partake of Divine Perfections, and to have, what in their Dialect they call, a Deifick Union; which one Party of them pretendeth to in the Mystick-Metaphysical Way. And these say, “The End and Scope is, not to be without Sin, but to be a God.”56
Such is their Divine Virtue, as it is the Platonick Faith and Love; for this Love is only an Amatorious Madness. “When the Mind becometh Unmental” (or Mad) “being drunk with Nectar, this is the Mind, that is in Love.”57 Much of this sort of Divine Virtue there is in Platonism; an Ignorance, that is better than Knowledge; a Madness, that is better than Sobriety of Mind, a Divine Madness.
Such is their Divine Virtue, as it is the Virtue of the Mysticks and Quietists, “Who being seated in the Bay of super-essential Goodness, enjoy a super-natural Quietism”;58 to which Isidore the Platonist pretended. He said, “That his Soul itself, in sacred Prayers, became wholly a Divine Sea, having in the first Place collected her-self from the Body into her-self, having in the next place” (extatically) “parted with her own Morals, and be taken herself from rational Notions to those that are Congenial to Intellect; and in the third place being possess’d with Divine Afflation, and chang’d into an extraordinary Serenity, deiform, not human.
Such is their Divine Virtue, as it is an Aversation from Terrestrial, Material, and Mortal, Nature, and an Affectation of being wholly incorporeal and immaterial; for this Affectation of Immaterial Intellectual Nature, and to be mere intellectual Souls, is an irreligious Philosophick Vanity and Extravagance, not intirely free from Magick. For, in order to the Purity of the Soul, Pythagoras prescrib’d strict Abstinence from several sorts of Meats.
The Platonists agree, that, according to Plato in his Theaetetus, Virtue is a Similitude to God, or the Gods; “which Assimilation” (saith Plato) “consisteth in becoming Holy and Just with Prudence.” But to what God, or Gods, this divine Similitude relateth, in this they do not agree, nor wherein this Similitude consisteth. For some say, That this divine Similitude relateth to the Pagan Deities in general; others say, That it relateth to the Platonists divine Intellect; and others are of Opinion, That it relateth to their T’Agathon. Some place this divine Similitude in the speculative Virtue, and intellectual Form of Life; others place it in the practick Virtue, (Ethical and Political,)