ave not the least Reason to support their Religious Principles
and Practice; for if they were sure of this, they would treat such
unhappy Persons as Men rob'd of their Senses, with Tenderness and
Compassion; for none will allow such distemper'd Minds to be proper
Subjects of Ridicule and Derision: But those, who attentively observe
the Manner and Air of these jesting Libertines, when they laugh at
Vertue, will see plainly their licentious Mirth springs from other
Principles; either from this, That the Example of many Persons, who
in earnest embrace and profess the Articles of Religion, continually
disturbs their Opinion of themselves, and creates severe Misgivings
and Distrust in their Minds, lest their Notions about Religion should
not be true, when they observe, that many Persons of eminent Parts,
superior Reason and Erudition, maintain with Zeal quite contrary
Sentiments; or else it proceeds from their Hatred of Men of Vertue,
founded in the Dissimilitude of Dispositions and Manners, and
Disagreement in Interest, Employments and Designs; or from an Envy of
their great Merit, innocent Life, and worthy Actions, which from the
prevailing Power of their own vicious Inclinations, they are unable
to imitate; for after all their Raillery and Expressions of Contempt,
Vertue has that native Lustre and amiable Appearance, that will compel
Men secretly to esteem it, even while they deride the Possessors of
it. Such is the Pride and Vanity of degenerate Nature, that loose Men
will always endeavour to level the eminent Characters of religious and
sober Persons, and reduce them to the inferior Degree of their own:
And for that end, they will labour to sink the Opinion and Esteem of
any Excellence or Merit, to which themselves can make no Pretence.
While they cannot equal the bright Example of Vertue in others, they
strive to sully or efface it, and by turning it into Ridicule, make
it seem rather the Dishonour and Deformity, than the Beauty and
Perfection of the Mind: And if they can disgrace Religion, and subvert
all moral Distinction, Men will be valu'd only for their intellectual
Endowments, and then they imagine they have gain'd their Point, since
the Superiority of Wit, as they suppose, is on their Side. These
seem to me the genuine and natural Causes, why Men of great Parts
and extraordinary Wit, but of loose Principles and immoral Lives, who
above all others affect Popularity and gasp after Applause, take so
much Pleasure, w