in [189]Pliny’s time, fuerunt et alii, similis dementiae, &c.  And called not long after, [190]_Vesaniae sectatores, eversores hominum, polluti novatores, fanatici, canes, malefici, venefici, Galilaei homunciones_, &c.  ’Tis an ordinary thing with us, to account honest, devout, orthodox, divine, religious, plain-dealing men, idiots, asses, that cannot, or will not lie and dissemble, shift, flatter, accommodare se ad eum locum ubi nati sunt, make good bargains, supplant, thrive, patronis inservire; solennes ascendendi modos apprehendere, leges, mores, consuetudines recte observare, candide laudare, fortiter defendere, sententias amplecti, dubitare de nullus, credere omnia, accipere omnia, nihil reprehendere, caeteraque quae promotionem ferunt et securitatem, quae sine ambage felicem, reddunt hominem, et vere sapientem apud nos; that cannot temporise as other men do, [191]hand and take bribes, &c. but fear God, and make a conscience of their doings.  But the Holy Ghost that knows better how to judge, he calls them fools.  “The fool hath said in his heart,” Psal. liii. 1.  “And their ways utter their folly,” Psal. xlix. 14. [192]"For what can be more mad, than for a little worldly pleasure to procure unto themselves eternal punishment?” As Gregory and others inculcate unto us.

Yea even all those great philosophers the world hath ever had in admiration, whose works we do so much esteem, that gave precepts of wisdom to others, inventors of Arts and Sciences, Socrates the wisest man of his time by the Oracle of Apollo, whom his two scholars, [193]Plato and [194] Xenophon, so much extol and magnify with those honourable titles, “best and wisest of all mortal men, the happiest, and most just;” and as [195] Alcibiades incomparably commends him; Achilles was a worthy man, but Bracides and others were as worthy as himself; Antenor and Nestor were as good as Pericles, and so of the rest; but none present, before, or after Socrates, nemo veterum neque eorum qui nunc sunt, were ever such, will match, or come near him.  Those seven wise men of Greece, those Britain Druids, Indian Brachmanni, Ethiopian Gymnosophist, Magi of the Persians, Apollonius, of whom Philostratus, Non doctus, sed natus sapiens, wise from his cradle, Epicurus so much admired by his scholar Lucretius: 

       “Qui genus humanum ingenio superavit, et omnes
        Perstrinxit stellas exortus ut aetherius sol.”

       “Whose wit excell’d the wits of men as far,
        As the sun rising doth obscure a star,”

Or that so much renowned Empedocles,

[196] “Ut vix humana videatur stirpe creatus.”

All those of whom we read such [197]hyperbolical eulogiums, as of Aristotle, that he was wisdom itself in the abstract, [198]a miracle of nature, breathing libraries, as Eunapius of Longinus, lights of nature, giants for wit, quintessence of wit, divine spirits, eagles in the clouds, fallen from heaven, gods, spirits, lamps of the world, dictators, Nulla ferant talem saecla futura virum:  monarchs, miracles, superintendents of wit and learning, oceanus, phoenix, atlas, monstrum, portentum hominis, orbis universi musaeum, ultimus humana naturae donatus, naturae maritus,