VIII. Of this many among the very Heathens of old had so clear a prospect that they detested all such vanity, looking upon curiosity in apparel, and that variety of recreations, now in vogue and esteem with false Christians, to be destructive of good manners, in that it more easily stole away the minds of people from sobriety to wantonness, idleness, effeminacy, and made them only companions for the beast that perishes: witness those famous men, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristides, Cato, Seneca, Epictetus, &c., who placed true honour and satisfaction in nothing below virtue and immortality. Nay, such are the remains of innocence among some Moors and Indians in our times, that if a Christian (though he must be an odd one) fling out a filthy word, it is customary with them, by way of moral, to bring him water to purge his mouth. How much do the like virtues and reasonable instances accuse people, professing Christianity, of gross folly and intemperance! O that men and women had the fear of God before their eyes; and that they were so charitable to themselves, as to remember whence they came, what they are doing, and to what they must return: that so more noble, more virtuous, more rational and heavenly things might be the matters of their pleasure and entertainment; that they would be once persuaded to believe how inconsistent the folly, vanity, and conversation they are mostly exercised in, really are with the true nobility of a reasonable soul; and let that just principle, which taught the Heathens, teach them; lest it be found more tolerable for Heathens than such Christians, in the day of account. For if their shorter notions, and more imperfect sense of things could yet discover so much vanity; if their degree of light condemned it, and they, in obedience thereunto, disused it, doth it not behove Christians much more?