excuse for doing so:  Men, not seldom, going astray from Reason, when the love of present pleasure is so far from misguiding their variously frail Natures, that its allurements will not retain them in the paths of Vertue; and tho’ Reason only has Authority to set Bounds to their desires, they subject both Them, and Her to an Unjust and Arbitrary Dominion, equally Foreign to both:  A thing manifest, not only in instances here and there, but in the examples of whole Nations; who either by positive institution, or allow’d of Custom, have transgressed against the plainest prescriptions of Reason, in things so far from gratifying their Appetites, as that they are contrary, and even sometimes grievous to Mens natural desires.  To account for which, will not here be impertinent; nor (in order to the doing so) to consider first what the Terms Vertue and Religion have, in their vulgar acceptation, every where generally stood for.

Religion has, I think, been rightly defin’d to be the knowledge how to please God, and thus taken, does necessarily include vertue, that is to say, Moral Rectitude; but as Men have usually apply’d these Terms Vertue and Religion, they stand for things very different and distinct, one from another.  For by a Vertuous Man, in all Countries of the World, or less Societies of Men, is commonly meant, by those who so call any one, such a Man as steadily adheres to that Rule of his Actions which is establish’d for a Rule in his Country Tribe, or Society, be that what it will.  Hence it has been that Vertue has in different Times and Places chang’d Face; and sometimes so far, as that what has been esteem’d Vertuous in one Age, and in one Country, has been look’d upon as quite the contrary in others:  tho’ in all Times and Places, wherein Men have not degenerated into a downright Brutish, or altogether Animal Life (as some whole Nations have done) but have set any Rules, or Measures to their Actions, the dictates of right Reason have more, or less, taken Place with them, so far as the manifest advantages, or rather necessity thereof to the subsistence or convenience of Society, has directed Men.  And so much as Custom, or the Injunctions of some Lawgiver inforc’d these dictates of Reason, or Nature, so far and no further, did obedience thereunto denominate Men Vertuous; without any distinction made in reference to these prescriptions, as being Precepts of the Eternal Law of Right, or as obligatory any other ways than as being part of the Law, or Fashion of that Country, or Society, wherein these Rules had prevail’d or were establish’d.  A firm and steady adherence to which, whether conformable, or not, to the Law of Reason, being alike that which ever intitled Men to be esteem’d Vertuous among those who profess’d to live by the same Rule.