But if we take a nearer view, we shall see that no doctrine ought to fare the worse, because some wicked men are professors of it. It was not counted a discredit to philosophy, that some of the professors of it, who hated the gospel, were vicious in their lives. I would ask the deist now, is there any ground to disbelieve natural religion, because there are some that make profession of it are fallen into great sins? The gospel itself _teaches us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts_, and does not indulge one of them. And they are said to be enemies to the cross of Christ, when their conversation is all earthly, when their God is their belly, and their glory is their shame. This is no fault of the gospel, for they felt not the power of it. Nor is there any religion or profession in the world that would have had any followers at all by this time, if men must have entirely cashiered that religion, because there have been some persons vicious that have been professors of it. There is no sect, no religion in the world, though the institution and the rules of it have been ever so pious, but what has produced some persons that have been vicious in their lives. But this cavil is still carried on, and urged with much vehemence. “If the gospel of Christ were a religion so heavenly, and so divine in its original, as you pretend, surely the nations that profess it would eminently exceed all other nations in piety, in justice and goodness: whereas the nations that now a-days embrace christianity, are not at all superior to the Mahometans, nor to some of the heathens, either in duty that relates to God or man: And if we may give credit to ancient history, the virtues of the old Romans, long before the days of Julius Cæsar, shone much brighter than any of the virtues of the baptized nations: There was more truth and honesty, more devotion to the heavenly powers, more of a public spirit and zeal for their country’s good, than we can find in any christian kingdoms or states now-a-days.” To this I would give these three answers: 1. The account which we have of the shining virtues of these best ages of heathenism, is given us only by their own posterity, who lived in succeeding ages. Now it is the well-known temper and custom of mankind to magnify the virtue of their ancestors, and to say, that the former times are better than these; But you have scarce any heathen writers, who do not describe their own ages as vicious enough, if they have occasion to talk upon that subject. And therefore there is just reason to suspect the strict truth of these encomiums of their fore-fathers.