of God, and our obedience to him, are manifest in many ways, and are
the true ground of morality, seeing that only God can call to account
every offender; yet, from the union of virtue and public happiness, all
men have recommended the practice of what is for their own obvious
advantage. There is quite enough in this self-interest to cause moral
rules to be enforced by men that care neither for the supreme Lawgiver,
nor for the Hell ordained by him to punish transgressors.

After all, these great principles of morality are more commended than
practised. As to Conscience checking us in these breaches, making them
fewer than they would otherwise be, men may arrive at such a
conscience, or self-restraining sentiment, in other ways than by an
innate endowment. Some men may come to assent to moral rules from a
knowledge of their value as means to ends. Others may take up the same
view as a part of their education. However the persuasion is come by,
it will serve as a conscience; which conscience is nothing else than
our own opinion of the rectitude or pravity of our actions.

How could men with serenity and confidence transgress rules stamped
upon their inmost soul? Look at the practices of nations civilized and
uncivilized; at the robberies, murders, rapes of an army sacking a
town; at the legalized usages of nations, the destruction of infants
and of aged parents for personal convenience; cannibalism; the most
monstrous forms of unchastity; the fashionable murder named Duelling.
Where are the innate principles of Justice, Piety, Gratitude, Equity,
Chastity?

If we read History, and cast our glance over the world, we shall
scarcely find any rule of Morality (excepting such as are necessary to
hold society together, and these too with great limitations) but what
is somewhere or other set aside, and an opposite established, by whole
societies of men. Men may break a law without disowning it; but it is
inconceivable that a whole nation should publicly reject and renounce
what every one of them, certainly and infallibly, knows to be a law.
Whatever practical principle is innate, must be known to every one to
be just and good. The generally allowed breach of any rule anywhere
must be held to prove that it is not innate. If there be any rule
having a fair claim to be imprinted by nature, it is the rule that
Parents should preserve and cherish their children. If such a principle
be innate, it must be found regulating practice