Nor can they gain any advantage against us by their argument from custom; for, if we were compelled to submit to custom, we should have to complain of the greatest injustice.  Indeed, if the judgments of men were correct, custom should be sought among the good.  But the fact is often very different.  What appears to be practiced by many soon obtains the force of a custom.  And human affairs have scarcely ever been in so good a state as for the majority to be pleased with things of real excellence.  From the private vices of multitudes, therefore, has arisen public error, or rather a common agreement of vices, which these good men would now have to be received as law.  It is evident to all who can see, that the world is inundated with more than an ocean of evils, that it is overrun with numerous destructive pests, that every thing is fast verging to ruin, so that we must altogether despair of human affairs, or vigorously and even violently oppose such immense evils.  And the remedy is rejected for no other reason, but because we have been accustomed to the evils so long.  But let public error be tolerated in human society; in the kingdom of God nothing but his eternal truth should he heard and regarded, which no succession of years, no custom, no confederacy, can circumscribe.  Thus Isaiah once taught the chosen people of God:  “Say ye not, A confederacy, to all to whom this people shall say, A confederacy:”  that is, that they should not unite in the wicked consent of the people; “nor fear their fear, nor be afraid,” but rather “sanctify the Lord of hosts,” that he might “be their fear and their dread."[35] Now, therefore, let them, if they please, object against us past ages and present examples; if we “sanctify the Lord of hosts,” we shall not be much afraid.  For, whether many ages agree in similar impiety, he is mighty to take vengeance on the third and fourth generation; or whether the whole world combine in the same iniquity, he has given an example of the fatal end of those who sin with a multitude, by destroying all men with a deluge, and preserving Noah and his small family, in order that his individual faith might condemn the whole world.  Lastly, a corrupt custom is nothing but an epidemical pestilence, which is equally fatal to its objects, though they fall with a multitude.  Besides, they ought to consider a remark, somewhere made by Cyprian,[36] that persons who sin through ignorance, though they cannot be wholly exculpated, may yet be considered in some degree excusable; but those who obstinately reject the truth offered by the Divine goodness, are without any excuse at all.